Sunday 27th March 2011

Thought I'd caught up with everything, then someone said 'have you got any Mother's Day Cards?' So I got to work.

What I usually do is take a few relevant magazines and a couple of resource book and let the customer choose. We talk about colour, special features and anything else they want included. Then it's up to me to interpret their ideas. Up until now I've never seen disappointment on their faces, surprise, maybe, but no negative comments. I make the front of the card and then ask them what they want inside for words, etc.

You'll find very similar cards in Simply Cards and Papercraft - issue 68. I'm a great fan of the designer Judith Hannington. Each month she has the most wonderful ideas, I wish I had some of her talent. The papers are My Mind's Eye, bloom & grow. The card template is in the magazine. The cutting out of the separate panels is a bit fiddly, but well worth it. I think I shall use this again. I think I need to add more little daisies to the inside panels.

I used the Serif Digital Scrapbook Artist 2 software to make the turquoise background and the text. All the edges are inked with Tim Holtz rusty hinge. The flowers and leaves are torn, crumpled and inked, with a bit of free-hand line drawing.

The second card is for the chaps wife. The camera has not captured the colours, making it look a bit drab, as the flowers a bright yellow. The butterflies and tags with text are from the Serif software. It's expensive to start but well worth it in the long run. I stitched around the edge of the copper paper and added beads to the trailing thread ends. Scrunched the paper and sanded the surface with a sanding block to make it more weathered. Can't tell you where the text paper came from, sorry.

Next time - Easter Cards!