Wood Effect Anniversary Card

Today is our 32nd wedding anniversary. Where did the years go?

Having been so ill recently, I only managed to give my hubby a bought card for his birthday, and that was bought for me by a friend! I thought I’d better push the boat out a bit and make an effort and make a nice card for him for our anniversary.

At the County Show last Friday I was fascinated by a little wooden tag attached to the most expensive chopping board (if it hadn’t been for the price I’d have bought it because I fell in love with it!) – the little tag was made of laser cut veneer, and as soon as I saw it, I knew I could make something similar in card, and this would be the basis for my hubby’s card.

I began in Inkscape, working on my Apple Mac which is connected to the Cougar cutting machine (called Sheba). I found a free svg file online of nesting hearts, and I cut a dozen heart-shaped frames using two of the nesting sizes – unfortunately I forgot to photograph these till it was too late, but this is the paper left after they had been cut out. I ended up with a dozen smaller hearts (the bits that fell out of the frames) and most of these will go in my stash for other projects. In this photo you can also see the A4 piece with a window cut out for the front of the card.

I seem to end up using American Cardstock card for most of my cutting projects because it cuts like a dream. However, it’s not quite robust enough for a card base with lots of embellishments so this would have to be reinforced later on.

Again, I kept forgetting to photograph my progress. For the front and back of the tag I cut two hearts the same size as the outside of the frame, and these pieces also had our initials cut in them, as well as some little geometric flower petals like on the tag at the show. Propped up against the paint pot, you can see the completed frame, and the thickness I was able to achieve by laminating several layers of card together. When the edges were painted they looked like a bit of plywood! See below for the painting technique to replicate woodgrain.

The initials on the right were the pieces that fell out when I cut them from the hearts, and would be used to embellish the inside of the card.

I had intended to leave the initials in the hearts hollow as well as the petals, but you could see through and the one on the reverse was confusing, so to overcome this problem I stuck a small square of gold card on the back of each piece, so that the initials were gold, and opaque.

I glued the frame pieces stacked together to give a laminated and more rigid frame for the embellishment. In this picture you can see the linen carpet thread I used to suspend the embellishment, and the two heart pieces (front and back) ready to be attached to the frame.

Here is the first piece attached to the frame, with it’s little square of gold card glued on, to make the initial solid, and the hanging thread.

Here is the finished tag, with the side with my hubby’s initial on the left, and mine on the right.

I am so pleased with this little heart embellishment – it reminds me of some olive wood Christmas tree decorations I’ve got. I think one could take this idea further and make them in different shapes. They have a Scandinavian or Eastern European feel to them. I’ve wanted to make something like this for ages and thought of using mounting board but this is too thick to cut with Sheba, and you couldn’t cut them by hand. The laminated frame idea works well, or one could just laminate solid shapes. You could still have a design pierced through. They might make nice little Christmas gifts, or perhaps wedding favours.

Moving on to the card base, I painted the whole of the front with beige fluid acrylic, and then with Desert Sands Infusions, taking care to paint broad vertical strips to represent the wood grain, as I did on the heart pieces.

Turning to the inside, I created another type of woodgrain background, this time with Distress Stains, to make a lighter background as a contrast. Normally I don’t much like the unevenness you get with these (the dauber bottle isn’t my favourite form of delivery) but for woodgrain the effect is ideal. I used a combination of Antique Linen and Old Paper. This is the technique I used for one of the pages in my Floral Mini Album.

Here is the main card base, and the piece I cut and coloured with Distress Stains to be stuck on the back of the card front. The hanging string would be sandwiched between these two layers. You can also see the two thin circles I cut from gold card, to frame the hole, both front and back, to give a nice finish to the card.

Here are all the materials I used to create the embellishments inside the card. I used a couple of the hearts cut from the middles of the frame pieces, and coloured them to look like wood, as for the front of the card, but this time, to add a bit of bling, I also added a light touch of Treasure Gold (gilding wax). For the sentiments I simply used some peel-offs that I’ve had in my stash for years. They were very small, but I like the effect of the gold on the woodgrain, and I didn’t want anything competing with the rest of the design.

The edges of the hearts were distressed, and they were glued together and stuck down, and some shading added. The initials were what was cut out of the front and back of the embellishment. I daubed them with Antique Linen and Old Paper Distress stains, and they also had a light dusting of Treasure Gold.

I cut a piece of plain white card and stuck it to the back of the card base for extra rigidity. Even though it was just the back, I distressed the edges with Gathered Twigs Distress Ink to take away the starkness of the white card.

Here is the finished card lying flat.

Here it is standing, so that you can see how the embellishment turns and moves as it hangs freely in the aperture of the card.

The completed inside of the card. You can see the embellishment through the aperture of the card.

I think this faux wood effect has come out very well. When I  have used Infusions in this way before (see this post for an example), I used Desert Sands Infusions straight onto white card, and it came out very orange – not a problem if you want it that way, but I wanted a more subtle approach here, so I used the Infusions on a painted substrate. You could make faux woodgrain in this way with any colour you wanted really.

Another reason I like this effect is that it is very suitable for a card for a man. It is strong and more sombre but it also has a natural effect. I used a similar theme on my hubby’s anniversary card in 2016, but this time with a woodgrain effect created with an embossing folder.

I seem to be in a bit of a brown phase again at the moment, after the bright colours of the Floral Mini-Album! I can’t wait to try replicating the effect of the absolutely fabulous wooden moths I saw at the County Show…

Diamond Wedding Anniversary Card

My hubby reminded me we were invited to a diamond wedding tea party today. When we were invited some time ago I wasn’t sure I’d be well enough to go, because it would be less than a week after a chemo treatment, but because I am doing so much better on the reduced dose, I felt just about able to go.

I had forgotten about it in the meantime, and suddenly realised I needed to make a card! This is one of the reasons for wanting to start my card factory – to avoid having to make cards at such short notice as this.

Even though I am feeling better than usual at this stage in a cycle, I am far from 100 percent, and this morning I was suffering badly from chemo brain and made soooo many mistakes, it was driving me nuts! I did succeed in making a card, but managed to leave out one bit which I found after I’d finished! Also, recently I bought some circle dies which I simply cannot find, and I thought I had a music embossing folder, which I didn’t, so I had to rethink the thing on the fly! It was rather a frustrating morning all round, but I got there in the end.

It was rather difficult to photograph because it is white and sparkly. The glitter and silver don’t show up as much as in real life.

This card is not my usual style, but I wanted to do something silvery and sparkly for a diamond wedding. The couple are retired musicians, so I decided to add something to give a musical theme. The wife later said, when she opened the card, “Oh! It’s a record!” I hadn’t thought of it like that, but it does look a bit like a CD!

I began by creating some mat layers, using silver mirror card and some white card which I inked around the edges with Hickory Smoke distress ink, using a home-made ink blending tool. I got this distress ink quite recently (one of the new ones for this year) and am surprised how much I am using it already – it’s a lovely soft grey, and a very useful colour.

Not being able to find my circle dies, I had to resort to my Martha Stewart circle cutter, a tool I really don’t much like. The die would have produced a nice embossed edge, which of course this does not.

I cut a 4-inch circle and stamped and heat-embossed it using the “Music Background” stamp from the Artistic Stamper, using Cosmic Shimmer glitter embossing powder, which came out slightly pink from one direction, and a shimmery green the other way – very pretty! I haven’t used this for ages and had forgotten how nice it was.

Here is the circle mount. Rather difficult to see but you can just see the pinkness of it!

I made a circle with “60” in it to go in the centre. I used stamps from the Stampin’ Up set “Memorable Moments” – a very useful set because it has separate words for the sentiments, and numbers, and “rd,” “nd” etc. so that you can mix and match, and a nice little scalloped oval shape to stamp them in as well. I chose the number 60 for the front of the card, stamped it on white card and heat embossed it with silver embossing powder. I then went over it with a glue pen and added some Hunkydory Diamond Sparkles Angel Whispers fine glitter. I cut out the circle using a plain 2-inch circle punch.

I find the best way to make sure that glitter is well stuck down is to put a piece of paper over the top, and then run a brayer over it several times. I find very little loose glitter falls off that way.

Here is the completed “60” layered onto a slightly larger piece of silver mirror card punched out with a scalloped circle punch.

Turning back to the background again, I found some ice sparkly silver and organza ribbon in my stash and stuck this down vertically across the mat with double sided tape.

Using two sizes of butterfly stamps from the Stamping’ Up “Papillon Potpourri” set, I heat-embossed two of each, using the same glitter embossing powder as before, and silver embossing powder respectively, and then fussy-cut them out with fine scissors.

I added the Diamond Sparkles glitter with the glue pen as before, to the silver-embossed butterflies.

To stamp the inside of the card, I used stamps from the Stampin’ Up “Memorable Moments” set, using Wendy Vecchi Archival Ink in Watering Can, which tones very well with Hickory Smoke distress ink.

I stuck down the two glitter-embossed butterflies using Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive in the centres so that the wings were loose, and attached the antennae using the glue pen.

The finished card, showing the glittered silver-embossed butterflies, attached in the same way.

We got to the party OK and it was great. I was so glad I went – the couple were surprised and delighted to see me as they didn’t think I’d be able to come. It was lovely seeing lots of other old friends too, and catching up. A very happy time. The card went down well, too!

I felt a lot better when we got home, and spent the evening relaxing on the recliner. We’d had plenty of gorgeous canapes at the party so we just had some stewed apple and cream later in the evening. I’m hoping to feel better again tomorrow, but I am not pushing it. I intend to rest and get over the busy day I had today.

WOYWW 319

I’m feeling quite a bit better now, as the second week advances after chemo treatment #3, so I’ve been a bit more active on the creative front.

My desk today.

Annotated for your delectation and delight! You will be glad to hear that true to her cheapskate character, Shoshi has rescued some little twists of wool from the back of the settee – these obviously got down through the recliner mechanism to the floor since I completed my knitting project! Not one to throw anything away, however manky if it can still be used, these now sit in all their glory on my desk waiting to be cleaned up! You can see also that my paint water remains suspiciously clean.

Moving on, I have two lavender sachets remaining from that project, and as tomorrow I am seeing the two ladies I became friends with in hospital, I thought I would make up two more boxes to put these in. One of them will have the little chemo card inserted – she and I are neck-and-neck in our treatments, mine being every 3 weeks on Fridays and hers every three weeks the following Mondays (sad that the hospital is so badly organised that they couldn’t do us both together lol!!). The other one’s cancer was so well confined to her bowel that she didn’t need chemo (don’t I envy her!!).

You can see one of the box pieces waiting to be embellished. I am in the middle of sorting out which rubber stamps I want to use for this, and have got a selection out. The set on the right is a new Chocolate Baroque set that I haven’t used yet.

As always, there is stuff lurking around (usually carefully hidden out of shot!) waiting to be put away, and underneath the desk are a couple of Really Useful Boxes (RUBs) waiting for a home to be found for them, and the top one now contains various bits and pieces for art doll making.

Last week someone asked what I was using a screwdriver for! I was a bit mystified about this till I realised she must mean my Bosch hot glue gun which is a bit of a monster, I admit… It lives at the back of the desk on its charger.

Moving downstairs to Desk #2 (!! – my table in front of the recliner) I have got my doll making stuff out.

I downloaded a Tilda doll template from Pinterest last week, and sized it to what I thought would be suitable. It’s coming out quite small so I’ll probably redo it a bit larger, but I think it will be OK. You can see I’ve started stitching the pieces together. I know this would be a lot quicker on the machine but I am not able to sit in my studio for extended lengths of time yet and quite enjoy being in the zone with tiny back-stitching on the comfort of the recliner. On the left is a collection of cut out pieces of card comprising another angel template, this one a multi-layered felt one, inspired by an image I found on Pinterest. I’ve got a big bag of felt scraps and will cut it from these, and add some embroidery to embellish it. At the back of the table is the fabric I’m making the current Tilda doll from (the body is made from a beautiful old Egyptian cotton sheet which is so fine that I am having to use longer pins than my usual ones because they are slightly thinner, but they are still leaving marks which have to be smoothed out. I am using a fine Betweens needle to sew the pieces.

My tools and other bits and pieces are in a tray taken from one of my RUBs. Useful little compartments.

And now for those of you who haven’t visited me since the last WOYWW, I’ll put you out of your misery. Here is the “sneak peek”:

You can see the “funny stuff” as part of the embellishment. Here it is in all its glory.

It was part of some pot-pourri we had years ago and I saved it for art stuff. You can read all about it here. Nothing to do with angels!!

Finally, I thought you might like to see how the brainless knitting is coming along.

Progress is slow, but at least I’ve made some! It’s good to work on while having the chemo (till I start to feel too poorly to do it) and also if I feel up to doing something, but nothing too involved. In addition to this, this week I have revived Inkscape (free, open-source, very powerful vector drawing software) and have been designing some things to cut once I eventually get my Cougar cutting machine up and running again. (Long overdue…) I can do this on the computer with very little effort and it’s highly creative.

I am hoping to have the rest of this week, and all next week, feeling a lot better and managing to work on projects again. My angel project is moving ahead extremely slowly but I am still not putting pressure on myself to complete it by any given date. I’ll keep you posted.

Happy WOYWW everybody. I’m joining pretty late in the day so I hope you are all still there!

Edit – I have just signed up for WOYWW, only to read of the devastating news of the sudden death of Eliza, one of our regular members. It makes my last sentence take on a whole new meaning. I shall miss her posts, and the regular news of her beautiful cat Yoda who always made me smile week by week.

Anniversary Card for Marlene

Today is my friend Marlene’s wedding anniversary so I have made her and her hubby a card. I wrote this post on Wednesday but had to hold it in reserve until I knew she’d received it so I didn’t spoil it for her! This is the sneak peek on my previous post, and I can also reveal what the “funny stuff” is too!

This card is made from part of the masterboard I made recently with the gold embossed seahorses on it.

The layout of the card and its basic design were inspired by a gorgeous birthday card I received from my friend Shaz a couple of months ago – she had made a fabulous background using the new dragonfly stamps we both recently got, with a fresh green colour scheme, also using the water droplets stamp from Designs by Ryn which I have used in my masterboard. (I love this stamp!) She stuck the stamped strip onto the base card and ran a scored line down either side of it which really set it off, and placed her stamped sentiment on the bottom right of the card. I thought this was a really cool layout.

I cut my base card from two-thirds of a sheet of A4 white cardstock folded in half vertically. Before sticking down the strip of masterboard, I scored my lines from behind and then inked the base card with Peacock Feathers distress ink which exactly matched the colour of the masterboard. I like the way the scored lines pick up the colour more boldly.

These are my two sets of shell stamps that I used for the masterboard and for this card.

I stamped the seahorse to the right of the design using sepia archival ink.

Here is a detail of the embellishments on the card.

I lightly coloured a scrap of white cardstock with Tea Dye distress ink, using an Inkylicious Ink Duster, and stamped several shells on it, using sepia archival ink. Using my glue pen I picked out the highlights on these shells and heat embossed them with gold. After fussy-cutting them out, I hand-embossed them from behind into a piece of fun foam, using a ball embossing tool, to give them a bit of dimension.

Now for the “funny stuff.” Despite what one or two people may have thought, this has nothing to do with angels! Years ago we were given some pot-pourri which used to be in a large bowl on our sitting room table. It consisted of quite large lumps of stuff (shell fragments, bark, pumice, wooden fish etc.) and once the smell had gone, I recycled some of it for other purposes, and included in it was this tangle of red dyed twiggy stuff which I thought was too good to throw away and could be used for embellishments.

I teased out a small quantity of this to represent either coral or red seaweed on my card.

Last Christmas my hubby bought me several small panettone loaves from Lidl. Each one came in a box with a little ribbon handle and I saved all these ribbons! (I do love recycling stuff to use in my projects.)

They are not very long, but ideal for embellishing once the plastic tags are cut off. I stuck this down around the masterboard strip with double sided tape, using it to anchor the funny stuff, and was delighted that the two colours in the ribbon co-ordinated so well with my card design. The sentiment was from the Memorable Moments set by Stampin’ Up, stamped onto a small oval die-cut from my stash that somebody had sent to me. I embellished the edge of this by rubbing it with my Versamark pad and gold heat-embossing it.

To cover the lump in the ribbon over the funny stuff, I stuck down the embossed shells using Pinflair gel glue.

Here is a digital montage of the card resting on the masterboard.

Happy Anniversary Marlene! I am glad you like your card!!

Wedding Anniversary Card for my Parents

Today is my parents’ 65th wedding anniversary – not bad going, is it!! I have spent this afternoon making a card for them.

I took some bright turquoise-blue card and trimmed it to size to mat onto an A5 card, and stamped it all over with Versamark, using a U-Mount texture stamp in a cracked, or crazy paving pattern, overlapping the stamped areas to give a good coverage. I then sprinkled on clear embossing powder and heat embossed it.

Using Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink and an Inkylicious Ink Duster, I inked in from the edges so that the stamped pattern showed through as the original blue against a darker background, fading into the centre where there was no inking. I sprinkled a little water over the background and then blotted it off for a splatter effect but it is very subtle and not at all obvious!

I then took two swirl stamps, the first a Crafty Individuals one and the other from the Stamp Barn, and stamped these onto the top two-thirds of the background, using Versamark, and then heat-embossed them using silver embossing powder.

I stamped the sentiment with Versamark, using my new alphabet stamp set, onto a scrap of the same blue card, and then heat embossed the letters with silver embossing powder. I cut each letter out and glued them down onto strips of silver mirror card, using Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive (the best wet glue I have ever used!). These strips were then stuck down onto the card using the same glue.

The card base was made from a sheet of plain white A4 card, folded to A5 and trimmed slightly, and then inked with Weathered Wood Distress Ink, and the embossed card was then matted and layered onto this.

The final touch was to add a purchased white feather butterfly with silver glitter and gems, adhering it with hot glue over the silver swirls.

Another project done in the nick of time – it is now 4 p.m. and my parents are arriving for fish and chips at 6 p.m.!! Phew…

Wedding Anniversary Card

Today is our 26th wedding anniversary. I can’t believe it’s a whole year ago that we celebrated our Silver Wedding and spent a few days away with my parents in Woolacombe in a wonderful posh hotel! I also made my hubby a very special present, and an equally special card made from scraps of fabric from my wedding dress.

One can’t celebrate in style like that every year, of course, but this year my hubby is taking me to the newly revamped Exeter Museum which he says is brilliant. If all goes according to plan, I’ll do a blog post about that when we’ve been.

This year I’ve done a considerably scaled-down anniversary card, but nonetheless, I am very pleased with it.

To make the background mat layer, I took some pale green card and embossed it with clear embossing powder using a Creative Expressions U-Mount Script Texture stamp. I then distressed the edges using Pine Needles Distress Ink, which made the script appear pale green against a darker green background, fading to less visible in the centre, although of course the texture can still be felt. I added a small amount of Faded Jeans Distress Ink around the edge but not so far in, and then splattered water onto the surface. After blotting with a paper towel, the splatter marks could clearly be seen where the ink had been removed.

This mat layer was adhered onto the base layer, an A4 sheet of plain white cardstock, trimmed down slightly, the edges having been coloured with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

I designed the banner scroll and heart in Inkscape, and these svg files can be downloaded free from my SkyDrive. See the link in my sidebar for all my free files. All of these embellishments were cut using Sheba, my Black Cat Cougar cutting machine, from white card, and then coloured afterwards, apart from the mat layer for the banner scroll, which was cut from dark brown cardstock.

The mat layer of the heart was coloured with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. The smaller, top layer of the heart was coloured with Pine Needles Distress Ink, and dried with the heat gun. After this, I spread some Zig Two-Way Glue (large chisel tip) all over the surface, and when this had dried, applied variegated green gilding flakes, rubbing them well with the texture sponge to give a shiny metallic finish. I distressed the edges slightly with some more Pine Needles Distress Ink. After sticking the top layer onto the mat layer with Pinflair Photo glue, the whole embellishment was added to the background using dimensional self-adhesive foam pads.

The banner scroll mat layer was cut from dark brown cardstock, and the top layer from white, which was coloured first with Antique Linen Distress Ink, and then the edges coloured with Walnut Stain Distress Ink. Using my Inkylicious Ink Dusters, I was able to create some shading and dimension on the scroll.

The sentiment was stamped using Ranger Archival Ink in sepia, using my new alphabet stamp set. I was thrilled to get this at a very reasonable price from Ebay. It came in a nice little wooden box and reminds me of an old-fashioned printing set! It’s a great addition to my creative arsenal and I am sure I shall use it a lot.

I deliberately placed the letters in an irregular pattern to complement the torn and distressed look of the banner scroll.

The top layer of the banner scroll was adhered to the mat layer with Crafter’s Companion Stick & Stay permanent adhesive spray, and while this glue was still wet, I eased the banner scroll over my fingers to create curves in it – unfortunately this doesn’t show up too well in the photos. I adhered it over the heart embellishment using Pinflair Glue Gel, with a good dollop in the centre to retain the bowed shape, and underneath the ends, so that they curve upwards.

Altogether, I am very pleased with the colour scheme, and how this card turned out. I think the more emerald shade of green goes very well with the grungey brown of the Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain Distress Inks, and the two are nicely brought together with the variegated green gilding flakes. I haven’t used gilding flakes very much, but really like the effect, but unfortunately the photos don’t do this justice. It’s always the same when trying to photograph reflective or glittery surfaces.

Happy Anniversary to my dear hubby!