Made Marian: Oozing Crafty Goodness

Catherine is organising a blogger charity book for the Christmas market.  The book will be called Homepages and will consist of submissions from Irish Bloggers.  The proceeds are going to Focus Ireland.  I submitted a craft project to the book. I wanted to do something that would be easy and would fit into the theme of the book so I chose a handmade Christmas card as they come in the letterboxes of every-one’s home at Christmas.   Here’s the finished product.

If you want to know how to make it, you’ll have to get your hands on the book when it comes out.  Keep an eye on the book blog for updates.  Huge thanks to Catherine for getting this together, it’s an amazing idea and I can’t wait to see it.

It’s common knowledge at this stage that I think this is the most beautiful blog in the world.  Since the first version that Sabrina showed me I’ve been grinning like a kid every time I open up the page.  I made this card ages ago as an homage to the banner, it was sent to Sabrina with the scarf.  It also sparked off the flower pin idea.  I had forgotten about it til I spotted the photo of it in my flickr photostream and I just had to share it with you.

Way back in May I mentioned on my old blog that I bought a customized t-shirt from Ruth at Nice Day Designs but at that stage she only had a myspace account.  I’m glad to say that she now has a fully fledged website as well as an etsy shop.   She sells her hand customized clothes and handmade cards in the Sunday Market here in Limerick but now her stuff is available to buy on-line also.  It’s great to see Ruth in the Sunday Market, sewing away at her stall and her stuff has really inspired me to keep going with the sewing machine.  I’m thinking of trying bunting as my first project, having been inspired by some beautiful handmade bunting at the wedding in Finland?

I just want to wish Ruth the Best of Luck with the website and new Etsy shop.

When I was making the violin card I made this one as well.  Brown paper cut to size and glued onto the blank card.  Card topper from the magic box of tricks attached with a glue dot.  I added some raffia to the fold, just tied in a bow.   See, ridiculously simple.

My very musical cousin turned nineteen last week, and in honour of the event I made a musical themed card.

My cousin is training to be a primary school teacher and art and craft is a pretty big part of it, but unfortunately she’s not that into it at all, so I’m hoping this card will encourage her in that area. I used coordinating paper to cut out the shapes.  The pegs aren’t great but you get the idea.  The strings are done with some embroidery thread. I drew in the “f” holes with a gold pen, you can’t see them very clearly in the photo. I didn’t get around to making a bow for it….maybe next year.

Here are some thank-you cards I made over the weekend.

Very simple one, I started with a blank white card.  Cut some blue paper to size, this paper came from Daintree, it was part of a sample set that I got for Margaret and JD’s wedding invitations.   I used glue dots on the back of the roses and stuck them on.  I also used a glue dot on the little pot and attached it over the bottom of the roses.  I stamped a plain piece of white paper with the “thank you” stamp and then glued that on.

This one was even easier again,  the topper came in this box of tricks, I stuck that onto some purple polka dot paper and then attached that to a plain card.  I stamped directly onto the card this time.  These were so easy that I made two of them!

Have any of my homemade cards tempted you to make your own?  It’s so easy, you should.  If you do, please let me know, in fact send me some pictures and I’ll post your efforts up here!!

I’m just about half way through my holliers at this stage so it’s time for a quick post. 

There’s no point going to all that effort making a beautiful card for someone if you’re just going to put their gift in one of those gift bags from the local €2 shop.  I love wrapping presents, so it’s no surprise that I love Christmas then.   I’ve often considered taking a part time job in a department store in the gift wrap section, but time has always been an issue, maybe this year .

I had already made the card featured in the photo so I wanted to tie in the gift wrap with the red ribbon.  This paper was left over from another project but fitted the bill perfectly.  It was a little bit see-through so I put some white copier paper on top of the box to cover the brand name etc.  I had hoped to get a gift box that would fit the bottle and the contents of the box (champagne flutes) but I couldn’t find one big enough so I had to keep the bottle separate.  I decided to keep it simple but keep the theme going with the red ribbon.  I made the gift tag for the bottle in case they got separated at least the recipients would know where they came from.

The gift tag was made from some pearl white cardboard and I punched a butterfly shaped hole and put the ribbon through that.  I drew in the To: and From: lines and then stuck on the red shiney hearts, I have no idea where I got these from, they appeared out of my stash, as these things do.

I hope this will give you some good gift wrapping ideas for any special occasions you have coming up.

Myself and my better half spent a fantastic weekend in Dublin recently with my friend from college and her boyfriend.  They wined and dined us for two whole days so any ole’ thank you card just wouldn’t do.

I still had some paper flowers left over from a sample set I got from Cara Crafts so I decided to make use of them.  I wanted something simple and elegant and since the flowers were white I decided to go with a dark pink background.

For this card, I simply cut the pink paper to size (just smaller than the front of the blank card) and glued it on with some gluestick.  For the flowers I trimmed the stems but left one a bit longer, I used this to twist around the other two to keep the flowers together.  I then added some raffia to hide the twisting stem.  I used two glue dots/squares, one in the place where I was going to stick the raffia bow and one above it.  Stick the bow onto the bottom glue dot and then use the top one to keep some of the flowers in place.

I used the “Thank You” stamp on the inside of the card to keep the front as simple as possible.

This time last year, we were packing to go to Glasgow for a wedding.  The couple in question had a gift registry and I think I clicked the “add card” button.  Oh how things have changed, I’d send a page of copier paper folded in two with a personal greeting scrawled on it before I’d use a department store gift card now!  So I said I’d repent for my sins by making an anniversary card.

For this one, I used fabric roses (I got these as a gift but I’ve seen them in fabric stores many times).  I measured the card to find the middle and then measured that line to find the best way to space out the roses.

I hand wrote (and it’s a bit obvious) “Happy Anniversary” and used a gold bead and a glue dot to dot the I.  Calligraphy lessons are on my list for September, the handwriting on this card looks a bit childish!