Hexie Birthday Wishes

I am sooo behind in card making it's honestly embarrassing.  However, I did whip up a quick little birthday card for a friend last month and just haven't gotten around to posting it.

Hexie Birthday Wishes

Since I've been in a bit of a crafty funk lately, I pulled out a free kit from Papercraft Inspirations.  I really like the look of hexagons but don't have a punch so I fussy cut them from some hexagonal paper.  Then I layered up some chipboard flowers, bird and sentiment and added a few sequins for some sparkle.  Finally, a little black pen outline around the edges to keep everything grounded.

Nice and easy...  Just like getting back into blogging.  ;)  FYI, I spent today working on a little surprise that I'll be able to share next week so stay tuned!

A Lovely Day for a Wedding

So here's a quirky fact: until today I've not attended a wedding in my adult life.  Weird, right?  I mean, I'm nearly late 30s and have plenty of friends and yet not been at a wedding since living with my parents.  Apparently all of my married friends got married before I entered their lives or have done so after I moved overseas and attending became a bit complicated and especially expensive.

However, today I enjoyed a very close friend's wedding - very simple, done at the city hall and extremely informal but absolutely lovely.  They also loved our wedding gift (which took four of us to finally land on an idea and it was perfect) - hurrah!  And of course, it gave me the opportunity to finally craft a wedding card.

Wedding Wishes Card

Originally I had the idea to use some pink and red coloured tissue paper to make an overlapping cluster of hearts and layer on some heart stickers and punched hearts, etc.  Only that I discovered my tissue paper stash is pretty picked over and uninspiring so had to ditch that idea.  Also, I think a wedding deserves some extra special glamour so I decided to pull out the free gift from my recent issue (#125) of Papercraft Inspirations magazine.  Now, often free papers like this aren't high quality, either in paper weight or saturation of colour.  However, I was pleasantly impressed with this particular set - it was very nice, perhaps due to the silver foiling.

I settled on this subtle fleur de lis patterned paper with a heart-shaped doily and dove topper.  I wanted to add something that had a luxurious quality about it and added dimension; enter the white organza and satin ribbon in a big puffy bow and softly curling tails.  I had originally intended on including a 'best wishes' sentiment but there just wasn't room so opted to stamp that on the inside.  Then sprinkled some rhinestones and pearls around.

I had been feeling like the edges needed some grounding but once I got the bow wrapped around and done so nicely, I didn't want to take it off to do any sewing or anything else and risk not getting it put back nicely.  It just so happened that I set the card on top of the pink envelope and realised that little border worked perfectly - except that I'd already made the entire card at normal size and again, didn't want to remove the bow to cut it down any.  What to do?  In the end, I cut a new card base that just barely fit inside the envelope, cut the card I'd originally made down the spine fold, layered the front on top of the new and slightly larger pink card and glued the back with the sentiment and writing into the inside of the new card.  Problem solved!  Where there's a will, there's a way.

Back on the Horse

Well, you've probably assumed I've fallen off the face of the planet or something, eh?  Rightly so - I realised last weekend just before going on holiday for the Easter break that I'd forgotten to post my WIP Wednesday - or anything else, for that matter.

Enjoying some tall, dark and handsome...

So where did I go, you ask?  Why, Ireland!  Dublin mostly but I also did a day trip up to Belfast; a great holiday and very relaxing.  Among the highlights included:

• official certification for whiskey tasting at the Jameson distillery (yum!)
• a pint of Guinness atop the Gravity Bar
• a private canal boat tour along the Liffey
• Irish music/dancing dinner & show
• Irish fairies and folklore dinner & storytelling
• touring the Titanic museum

Okay, I won't bore you with further holiday gushing (that's for subjecting to Facebook friends - mwhahahahaa!).

Now since having set up my adorable little sewing corner, I've been totally infatuated with getting back in touch with sewing and quilting - which is good and no complaints there.  However, it has meant that I've not done any scrapbooking or papercrafting for a whole two months!  Can you believe it?

Two months!

To say that I'm a wee bit behind in card-making is something of an understatement.  (I'm never behind in scrapbooking; I refuse to look at it that way.  Or you could argue that I'm always behind in scrapbooking and that's okay with me.)  So since I need to wait until the shops are open to buy more Aurifil thread to continue sewing, I decided today would be a card-making catch-up day.  I made a list and realised I have at least six cards that need making - mostly birthdays (some now much belated - eek!), some thank yous and a wedding (!) card.

Thank You (So So Much)

First off the press was this thank you card for my friend who came around while I was on holiday to take care of Oskar for me (even though she's allergic to cats - now that's a true friend!).  I'm still crushing on using Pebbles' From Me to You for card-making; it's just so versatile and has beautiful colours.  I paired it with some Dear Lizzy anchor paper and layered up different elements until it felt balanced.  I really liked the little pops of yellow that worked their way in, too.

Celebrate No. 4

Next I worked on a belated birthday card for a friend's daughter who turned 4 end of March (yes, I know, don't judge me).  I decided to go with super girlie and thus the copious amounts of pink, the Dear Lizzy horses paper, the puffy hearts and silver glitter, etc.  Incidentally, I liked how this card still conveys the 'happy birthday' idea without using that exact phrase.  I even finally boxed up the card and gift and packaged them all up for posting tomorrow - go me!

Thank You

And finally for today, a super quick and dirty thank you card made with some free gifts from Papercraft Inspirations - the card base was pre-printed and came with these pretty coloured and 3D acetate butterfly embellishments.  A quick stamped sentiment and some rhinestones finishes it off.  This is going to the gal who runs the Stash Busters challenges over on 2Peas, along with a ziplock bag of goodies for all her hard work, time and money she spends on making the challenges and providing prizes and postage costs, etc.  Another item I've been meaning to post for ages and that will finally be going out tomorrow - whew!

Quick Cards - Tatty Teddy

I've been in between inspiration the last few days but I have a friend coming over for a crop tomorrow so I'm working on getting myself back into a scrapping mood by working on some quick cards today.

Thank You Teddy & Happy Birthday Teddy

I decided to use up a few more of the Tatty Teddy chipboards I received as a free gift from an issue of Papercraft Inspirations and to make them go more quickly, I simply scraplifted my previous design concept and made a few tweaks here and there for each card.  I also used up scraps from my scrap basket and two 6x6 papers someone sent me in a swap a few years ago so it feels good to clear out some of that paper.

Now, look carefully at the bottom right corner of the birthday card - see that typed 'Happy Birthday' sentiment?  I did that on my "new" (new-to-me) typewriter, an old Olivetti!

Isn't she gorgeous?!  I'm still working out the model number in the hopes that it will help with purchasing the right replacement ribbon - if you happen to recognise it or have a good website to help with this, I'm all ears!  I'm estimating it to be from the 1960s, based on some preliminary photo comparisons I've done so far.

It's in very good condition - only one key that doesn't work (where the number 1 would be) but I'm not fussed over that and can substitute an 'l' for a 1 if needed.  Types in both black and red.  Case was included.  It took three weeks to finally pick it up from the previous owners but I'm so looking forward to using it for some journaling here and there on my future projects.

Do you have an old typewriter that you use for your papercrafting?  I'd love to hear how you use yours, if you do.  I'm going to test out typing on vellum and then directly onto photos (that doesn't bother me).  I'm also planning on buying some clear washi tape to type onto for journaling.