This blog post is a little bit different from my usual card write-ups. Towards the end of last year Create A Smile put out a call for card tutorials for a winter mini-magazine they were planning. I made a card, wrote it up and sent it in and then, I guess, life happened and the magazine didn’t. But, rather than just do my usual quick blog post for the card, I thought I might as well publish the tutorial in full. So here we go: winter penguins in June.
The bonus lessons for the wrap-up day of the Clear and Sheer card class were on shaker cards. I’ve made a few shaker cards in the past, but I’ve always used acetate for them; it had never occurred to me to use vellum, so I had to give it a go.
I had intended to make more cards with this set, but I ended up not needing to. It will definitely get used for some birthday cards though (and there’s always next Christmas)…
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A friend of ours really doesn’t do Christmas, but I hate to leave him off the Christmas card list. This year I was inspired to make him a solstice card instead, as celebrating the passing of the shortest day of the year is far more appropriate.
This card was created on 4th November; day 4 of The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge.
I don’t have a lot of full-size background stamps, but I just had to pick up these balloons from Create A Smile. For some reason my brain came up with the bright idea of colouring it and then cutting out all the blank spaces…
After winning Create A Smile’s “blue” challenge in with my very blue light-up ocean card, I was asked to be a Guest Designer for October’s challenge. The theme for this month is “embellish”.
Now, embellishments are normally the last thing I think about when making a card, usually in a “what else does this card need” sort of way, so it was a novelty to have to consider them from the start. The only advice was “put on some sequins, enamels, ready”, but I couldn’t possibly bring myself to just do that — given a challenge, I like to do my utmost to really fulfil the brief.
So this card has sequins, ribbon, a chipboard and a charm, and a touch of Wink of Stella for that bit of extra sparkle. (Though I did forget the enamels!)
I had a load of ideas for different ways to interpret the “circle” theme for this month’s Create A Smile challenge, but in the end I decided to do something a bit different and make a card with no stamping at all. A bit of an odd choice when coming up with a design for a challenge run by a company known for their stamp sets, but luckily they also have some really nice chipboards as well, some of which have been sitting unused in a drawer for far too long. And of course, they also sell Pretty Pink Posh sequins. And yes, this is stretching the challenge guidelines to breaking point, but the challenge is what inspired this card and I just had to make it once I’d had the idea…
So, armed with chipboards, sequins, embossing powder, lots of glossy accents and even more patience, I set about making some Christmas baubles.
