Thinking Of You Cards – Cards for Friends – Simon Says Stamp Card Kit March 2015 – Authentique Classic Beauty Card Idea

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I work night shift and my shifts are twelve hours sometimes thirteen (like tonight) and because of not just the amount of time I work, but because it’s night shift so I tend to be sleeping when everyone else is awake doing normal things, I quite often end up neglecting my social life and thus my friends and family.

So yesterday morning, before going to bed, I spent about 15 minutes as my relax time to put together a nice little card for my dear friend Yvette, who I wouldn’t be where I am today without her.

Yvette is quite often on my mind, but being on opposite schedules means I can’t always tell her and we rarely find time to catch up with our conflicting schedules. I can’t just call or text her at 2AM in the morning when I’m wide awake having lunch at work, thinking ‘I wonder how Yvette is going’, because she’ll be in bed sleeping – and there’s nothing worse than having one’s sleep interrupted…

The card is constructed simply using the Authentique Classic Beauty pattern papers and journaling cards. I chose out the pretty picture of the lady holding the rose from the collection. I chose it for a few reasons: the image is simple and beautiful, the lady looks both sad and happy, and she seems to be looking at the flower wistfully but also fondly with amusement. So I was kinda feeling like my friend is the rose and I am the woman.

I love Yvette, I’m happy she’s my friend but at the same time I’m sad because we don’t spend much time together and I neglect her terribly.

I really tried to capture in the photo the shiny glitter I added on the rose using the Wink of Stella Clear Glitter Pen. And I added a triplet of gold rhinestones as a little design flair to finish the card off.

Do you have a friend or family member you’ve been neglecting? Is there someone you’ve been thinking of recently and would like to reconnect with? Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear from you.

Birthday Card Making – Simon Says Stamp Card Kit March 2015 – Authentique Classic Beauty – Birthday Card Idea – Mum’s Belated Birthday

  

This card I made for my mother’s birthday (belated) using the Simon Says Stamp Card Kit March 2015 release containing the Authentique Classic Beauty paper and coordinating journaling cards. I absolutely loved the look of this card kit and Authentique’s papers as they are all so beautiful and it really is a classy, chic combination of the greys, blacks and then that bright pop of yellow.

I started this card by flipping through the journaling cards and I found this one with the quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald ‘you are the finest, loveliest, tenderest, and most beautiful person I have ever known – and even that is an understatement.’ And I thought that was suitable to describe my mother and would be a positive note for her to receive as a birthday message.

As I had this quote and the journaling card took up the majority of the card face, I didn’t bother with any other sentiment stamps on the face of the card.

One of the papers has a newspaper style text but could also be an old style dictionary as it had words and then descriptions. At first I wanted to make sure I had the tree displayed as my mother has always loved trees and then when I looked closer I saw that there were the words mother and the description of mother and I thought, how perfect!

I had the black striped lines left over from a previous card and I really loved the gold shiny scrapbook card that was also in the card kit and I wanted this card to be shiny and bright and positive. I arranged the pattern papers to my liking and then adhered them down. I adhered the journaling card to some scrap black card stock and cut the black card stock down to size to allow a small black border. I found this helped break apart the quote from the bright, shiny gold of the main background. I adhered that using foam squares.

On the yellow rose flowers on the journaling card I used a wink of stella clear glitter pen to give a bit more shine to that part of the card, bring everything together and give the card that little something extra special. I tried to show the glitter shine on the roses, but the photos never truly capture the sparkle.

I really love how this card turned out and I enjoyed the process of making it. Let me know what you think in the comments section below.

Painting Pet Portraits – Jakob’s Birthday Present 2015 – Dog Paintings & Birthday Card

Although I wasn’t able to finish the portraits of Jakob’s pets, I was able to complete Jakob’s birthday card on time!

Growing up, us kids (and even my mother to an extent) were all Halo buffs. The Halo I’m talking about is the video-game series that has spawned an entire universe including 20 novels, live-action movies, tv-series and anime-series and multiple fan made series using the game engine. It’s won awards for its story-line/script and music. The main character of the Halo series of games is the Master Chief who is a Spartan, taking from the legend of the original Sparta Spartans, you know the 300 etc, warriors bred for war.

The Spartans in the game were taken as children, genetically enhanced and trained for combat. It’s a really epic story line, so if you haven’t read the books or played the games or seen any of the shows I really recommend them. If you’re no good at games, chances are someone you know plays and loves the series so just watch them play to get the story-line (that’s what my mum did – she watched us play. She’d get grumpy if we continued the story without her haha!)

Anyway, a big part of the Master Chief’s story is the fact that he does not surrender, he does not give up, he will defy the odds and he will win to save humanity. I think my older brother really admires that tenacity and pugnaciousness. So that’s the inspiration behind this card.

I used papers from the Basic Grey Kelly Purkey’s Second City 6 x 6 paper pad and I believe the dark navy is from the Basic Grey pb&j 6 x 6 paper pad. The card is a very simple design and construction. The papers from the Second City Collection look very futuristic and very much like a lot of the Halo HUD & menu designs.

I don’t think I need to bore you with how the card was constructed as I think any crafter would be able to figure it out by looking at it.

The quote, ‘Never Surrender’ I hand wrote with my versa mark clear embossing ink pen and I used white embossing powder and heat set it. On the inside I wrote another quote to further inspire my brother: Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength – Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Unfortunately my older brother has been cursed with bad luck and a Murphy’s law kind of life so I think it’s important to remind people, especially our loved ones, to keep on keeping on.

Jakob’s birthday present, a series of paintings of each of his dogs, was unfortunately not completed on time. If you’re interested and you missed out on the previous posts, you can check out the individual posts for each pet portrait by clicking on the name of the dog.

Toby – (center)

Ralph – (top left)

Jazz – (bottom left)

Fred – (bottom right)

Jaeger – (top right)

Above is after I decided I would have Toby as a larger canvas when I had completed Jazz and Fred and had begun work on Jaeger. I had also drawn the sketch of Ralph. I really liked the alignment of having Toby’s big rectangle canvas in the center surrounded by Jakob’s other dogs.

Another photo showing the progress – these I was taking to try and motivate me to continue. Like saying, ‘look at how awesome this is going to be when it’s finished!’ For this photo and the rest of the photos, I had changed the arrangement of Fred and Jaeger.

This one shows all four surrounding dogs complete with only Toby waiting to be finished.

And finally! All five pet portraits painted and complete. Toby really does look fantastic. I originally wasn’t going to do a background for any of them. Now with Toby looking really majestic, I’m having thoughts about putting backgrounds on the rest of the portraits.

Let me know what you think in comments below.