Off to Peru…..

Not me, but someone we know is off to Peru to do some voluntary work, which means of course…another excuse to make a card…. I thought I would combine a good luck card with the LESS IS MORE CHALLENGE “Cut it out”

I hadn’t considered framing the map until I saw the challenge and I must say I think that the great benefit of challenges, is it makes you consider different possibilities.

Once again the challenge lent itself to proper cardmaking equipment to create an aperture (badly wanted my cricut for this one….or my punches at least)but for my self imposed blog rules…… that left me with my trusty scalpel or scissors …..trouble is…. I am truly scissorly (not a proper word!!) challenged….and a bit lethal with a knife to!!

After printing a map  the appropriate size, I placed a piece of copier paper  over the image and with a pencil, lightly traced where I wanted to cut (needed to make sure Peru was visible).

To create the base card I used a 13 x 29.5 off cut of white card

I put the paper template over the base card and cut over the lines with the knife.

After positioning the card pieces over the map I attached them in place with 3d foam pads, then scored the top fold and trimmed the excess from the back panel…..it all finished off with a greeting printed from the pc.

…….and you know what I said about me and knives…..well when I was putting the lid back on….. I managed to take a slice out of my finger!!

…at least I did less damage than poor Paul Daniels…..

When is CAS not CAS?

Well its one layer week at Less is More again, and I applaud Chrissie and Mandi for keeping us on the straight and narrow with the core rule of CAS which is as minimal as possible……and I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do….but as I often find, I went completely off track….oops.

One layer is always difficult for me as it definitely lends itself to stamping (against my blog philosophy!). The theme lent itself perfectly to a card I wanted to make featuring one of my favourite quotes, which is the best way I know of conveying hope to someone when things seem at their darkest (sadly I have cause to make another one of these cards and I make it with a sad heart, but also with much love and care).

The quote is :- Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.   - Rabindranath Tagore
For once I decided I didn't want to use white, but the only scrap that I thought suitable was a strip of A4 flecked card…didn’t want to do another A6 so I decided to off set the spine to create a dl size. I had made my mind up to have just the words on the front and perhaps a little image inside but as the inside was to be visible I thought “this kills two birds with one stone!!”…perfect?!?…

….and that’s where it went a bit wrong… I really think there is not enough “white/negative/empty” space for this to be truly CAS, plus it’s overly fussy for CAS

I made my own stencil for  the bird and used felt pen ink smudged on with my handmade daubers…as the bird appeared to be floating I “grounded” him by lightly stencilling over a torn paper edge

inside I just twisted a dauber to give a faint hint of a sun and without reinking smudged some sky with the blue dauber…..then I got carried away and distressed around the edges with a little more ink….the final nail in the coffin I think, as far as CAS is concerned.

So… not happy with the final result for the challenge I decided to use one of the other text boxes I created when I was playing with  the quote. BY the way I downloaded a fantastic free font from kevinandamanda.com called RAGE which I thought perfect for the word FAITH. I also used a dingbat font for the little scrolly details at the top (called Florals 2 from 1001 free fonts I think) .

I printed the text panel onto my normal square white card. I centralised it as it seemed a very formal arrangement.

 

This is more the sort of CAS I am comfortable with….and I sat on my hands a resisted any urges to add any embellishments ….not even one itty bitty tiny one! (although I think a tiny bow at the top would have been quite nice!!)

I was going to add a little bird inside but when I created a smaller bird stencil  it ended up looking like a miniature Tyrannosaurus Rex!!!! so I gave up!!

Now… more importantly … off to look at the lovely creations I can see at Less is more.!!

Purple and Poorly

No I am not purple (that’s for “Less is more”) but I am a bit blue because I well and truly have a “cold/flu/bug/virus??”… but still the cardmaking must go on and I have a card to make for a sixteen year old niece, plus I desperately wanted to join in with not only Less is More’s Predominately Purple challenge but also a challenge I have never joined in with before. St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge is a super idea where we can join in the fun and also if desired donate cards for them to sell for their worthwhile cause. As this months challenge is to reuse something on your card I had to join in as all my cards for my blog are made entirely with reused items, I only allow myself cardstock and glue to be bought specifically for the purpose.

…………………DREADFUL!!!!!!!

I am completely happy with the idea that a card made for someone can be completely simple ……don’t get me wrong I LOVE playing with papers and techniques but honestly sometimes this doesn’t suit the recipient and I don’t think spending hours on a card (and boy have I spent hours on some cards!!!) means the card is more justified, I think people truly appreciate the gesture and it is a case of tailoring the card to the recipient ….BUT if it is going to be simple…it needs to be as perfect as possible and that manky row of bows clearly shows I have had one to many sips of cough mixture.

The ribbon was an “upcycled” piece (I think it was the hangy bit from inside some pyjamas…by the way who hangs up pyjamas???!!!) but it was single sided satin (which didn’t tie well) and I sniffed and snuffled throughout the procedure and quite honestly the bows look dreadful….so with that in mind …I give in…a lemsip and my sofa is calling and I will have to start again when I don’t need to keep permanently reaching for a tissue. Vicky the card might be a bit late!!

oh and …. I don't know why… I have a hang up with numbers on cards….often only comfortable with the written form…..am I batty?

Hope you all have a lovely …and germ free day!!

Toe in the water!

……from me!!!

I’m well and truly dipping my toe back in the water and gradually finding my way out of the blog hole I fell in.
Less is More has a One Word challenge and DYSU is looking for A Rainbow of Colours, so with last years resolution, to keep my cards simple I made a quick card with the word generated on the PC and then finished the word with a button.
Now for this years resolution….to become friends with blogging again….so far so good (Mass of hair…hope you are impressed …I finally got round to downloading Windows Live Writer and it really is much simpler to use…….my test post didn’t quite look like what I had created, it spaced out rather and altered sizes of font but hopefully blogging wont be quite so frustrating now…So big thank you for advice…and Suze if you use blogger this is a much friendlier way of creating posts…I just googled Windows Live writer and followed the instructions, there were several things to download i.e photo/video suites etc. but I just selected the “writer” bit…..I have to say I just blundered my way through the procedure and so far so good!!!! oh no famous last words ….ha ha …watch this space!!!!)

Well Happy New Year to you all! Time to post and go for a hop!!