40th Anniversary Card

Hi Fellow Crafters. It was my Ruby Wedding Anniversary a few weeks ago so I thought I would make a card for my wife. It took me a few days to complete it but I think the finished result was worth it. My wife was really pleased with it and said that it is one of the best cards I have made.

Card Materials:
     C5 Scalloped Edge Ivory 270gsm card - Range (Craft UK Limited).
     Background Paper - Harrogate Show.
     Mat & Layered frames, 250gsm Card - Ross Papercraft Show.
     Lace trim - Range.
     Rose - Boyes store.
     Love Brad - Art Accentz, bought cheap set at local store
     Pearls - Bling Bling C301IV, Boyes
Die Cuts:
     Wife Tag - Lea'bilities Art. nr. 45.0362 Daisy Frame die set.
     Heart - Marianne Creatables, LR0159 die set.
     Happy - Cherry Lynn Designs B243
     Anniversary - Cherry Lynn Designs B226
     Lattice - Spellbinders Shapeabilities Fancy Lattice S5-152
     Small Flowers (outer) Nellie Snellen Floral Punch FLP 014, also embosses.
     Small Flowers (centre) Nellie Snellen Floral Punch FLP 035, also embosses.
     Butterfly - Marianne Creatables, LR0261 die set.
     Medallion (behind rose) - Spellbinders D-lites Die Medalion 4 S2-013

The 'for my Wife' and '40 Years' text were printed before die cutting.

Thank You for taking the time to look.

Happy Crafting

Get The Most From Your Punches

One of the most useful tools you have for crafting is your own imagination. How often do you buy something to do a particular job, use it and then put it away without seeing its true potential. 

Butterfly Punch

To show you what I mean I will use a cheap Butterfly Corner Punch that was bought for £3.75 from Hobbycraft. The basic design is shown below.

Basic Design

Using a scalpel or scissors to cut various sections away, a number of different designs can be achieved to give the corner a totally new look as shown below.

Trimmed Corners

Further corner designs can be achieved by adding a contrasting card/paper as can be seen in the pictures below.

Trimmed Corners + Contrasting Card/Paper

You can also extend the versatility of the punch by using it to make Toppers for your cards. A small selection is shown in the pictures below. With a little imagination I could have made lots more different toppers with the addition of ribbon, gems, glitter etc.

Toppers

I have shown you just a little of what can be done with one corner punch. In the example below I have used two different corner punches to make a topper. You may also be able to use your dies in a similar way to get more use out of them.

Topper using two punches

Punch Maintenance:
  - To sharpen the Punch cutting mechanism, punch onto cut out thin aluminium foil.
  - To lubricate the Punch cutting mechanism, punch onto cut out wax paper.

I hope I have encouraged you to take another look at the tools you have. You may be surprised at how versatile they can be.

                                                                 Thanks for taking the time to look.

                                                                                Happy Crafting.

                                                        

Woven Birthday Card

Hi Crafters, I haven't had much time lately for making cards due to other commitments and illness. Anyway, the urge to make a Birthday Card for my sister got the better of me and the finished result is shown here.

       Card Materials:
        6" x 6" 300gsm White Card Blank - Papermania (The Range)
        Frames and Weaving - 250gsm Card (Ross Paper & Card)
        Flower Flourish - Shape Dies SD002 (Harrogate Show)
        Flowers - Xcut (Range)
        Happy Birthday - Free Die from Magazine.
        Pearl Gems: large - Crystal Stickers (Harrogate Show)
                           small - Bling Bling (Boyes)

                                                                                        Happy Crafting