Hark I Hear the Angels Calling …. or is it my My Hermes delivery lady at the door?

I’m still racing to catch up after being poorly – and although I made this one last week, I couldn’t post it until I’d given it to my My Hermes delivery lady, and since it’s now in her possession, I can now share photo’s of it!

As were all my Christmas cards this year, I made this on a 6×6″ base card with a high gsm, so that it would take the weight of the embellishments and papers I wanted to use.

I began by searching for an Angel image that I loved, and then, once found,  (image above – isn’t she just beautiful?), it was simply a case of seeking out some vintage sheet music which partnered her, and I couldn’t have found anything more perfect than “Hark I Hear the Angels Calling” – which I resized and printed out. (It’s a royalty free image – as is the Angel).

I used some vintage type paper on the outside of the card, in sort of muted shades  which I knew would sit nicely in the background, and attached some cotton  lace to the top and bottom of the card.

After printing out the Angel, I matted and layered the image onto two shades of blue linen effect card and attached it to the background using some dimensional tape.  The sheet music, I rolled and then curved it so that it sat ‘naturally’ and adhered it in place.

I added a fancy, bright silver metal corner, some faux miniature holly and berries, a white Christmas rose and a deep burgundy smaller rose, a previously gilded miniature frame, and a length of pearls – which trailed around the card, in and out of the music, around the roses and under and over the holly.  I added a little glitter here and there and the front was complete.

I’m not going to bore you to tears with how I did the inside of the card … instead, I’ll just show you what I did – because you’re all super intelligent beings, with brains far bigger than mine and you’ll be able to see what I did – so here goes:

The Bauble  ↑  is a stamped image.  – adorned with gems to make it look pretty.

“Oh!”  I hear you say . . .   “.. what is that on the inside front of the card?”  ….

Ha!  Who’da guessed!   It’s a Christmas Stocking!  (in the same shades of blue as the Angels Wings!  ….  see, … I do [sometimes]  plan these things!  lol)

I had to make it a little box as it was too chubby for an envelope!

Some close up details:

A ‘gem’  in the same colour as the deeper shades in the Angels Wings – I ‘glittered’ the gem to add opulence to it.   A wooden lock – which I gilded.  A miniature silver metal key which I did a little twinkling job on and made it shine like it was gold.

The frame around the ‘Merry Christmas’ sentiment – I only partially gilded, as I wanted it to look distressed.

I believe …  do you?  A metal charm which I kind of beat up a little to make it look aged, and then added a little verdigris twinkle around the edge to just take it up a notch.

And that’s this card done, delivered to my wonderful My Hermes delivery lady, and shared with you!

I’m back in my craft room tomorrow because I’m STILL trying to catch up!  But …  I won’t bore the pants off you with anything I produce after mid-day! LOL.

Have a wonderful Christmas Eve all.  May peace rest upon your homes today and stay with you all throughout Christmas.

Thank you for visiting.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your time.  It seriously means the world to me.  Thank you.

Heaps of love

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Roses, Lace and ‘Shabby Chic’ . . . a handmade, uplifting card.

A ‘Shabby Chic’ look to a warm, uplifting, loved filled card with a nod to spirituality.

Shabby Chic – anywhere –  can sometimes go too far or in the wrong direction and end up looking a miserable mess of things which don’t have any relation to each other – but this card, I feel, found the right place and it almost made itself.

I started purely with that bit of rambling rose backing paper which I had left over from a scrapbooking project.  I decided that I’d make a card with what was left over.  This pretty, uplifting, warm hug feeling card was the result.  I love this card and actually wish that someone else had made it and sent it to me.

 

For those who wish to read the details of how to make something like this, here’s the ‘recipe’:-

Ingredients  (I used):- 

• Craft Card, cut to the right size, scored and corners rounded off.
• Red/brown ink pad – but any colour you want would be fine
• A little square of creamy white card
• Sheena Douglass  “Your Wings Exist – Fly” unmounted stamp (from the ‘Divine Inspiration’ set)
• A scrap of creamy coloured lace
• A length of rayon seam binding – but any ribbon you choose to tone with your own card
• Creamy white paper rose and paper rose leaves
• One large(ish) pearl for the centre of the rose (and some glitter, to drawn attention to the pearl.)
• A die cut frame (behind the rose, but you don’t necessarily need if you don’t have one)
• Two flat back pearls for either side of the die cut frame

Method

In a large mixing bowl ...  oops,  wrong type of recipe.  Let’s start again  . . . .

1.  The first thing I did was to distress the edges of the paper by scraping down the edges with a scalpel to rough them up and make that lovely ‘furry’ edge which I love. 

2.  I then used a rosy pink ink pad and a cheap make up sponge to further distress the paper but this time by blending in some ink around the outside edges, as I wanted to ‘antique’ them a little, but not using the usual browny shades.  I wanted to really warm the card up and make it blush.

3.  Choose your cardstock:  Although I have tons of white cardstock, I felt that I wanted a more vintage feel so used Craft Card to make the card itself;  Cut it to size; scored it; rounded the corners and then gathered together some Rayon seam binding, a bit of left over lace, a rose and some leaves.

4.  I attached a bit of the lace to the bottom of the card.

5.  Rayon Seam Binding.  It was the right colour but I felt it lacked something – so decided upon using the word stamp saying  ‘Strength’ from the same Divine Inspiration.  Using a reddy brown ink pad, I stamped the word onto the rayon seam binding, and then fixed the ribbon to the backing paper.

6.  I then stitched the background paper (with the attached lace and ribbon)  to the card, using my cheap little £12.99 sewing machine which I think is meant as a childs introduction to sewing machines – which I bought a few years ago specifically for sewing paper and card stock (didn’t want to use my big sewing machine as I a) didn’t want to have to drag it out every five minutes to sew a card, and b) didn’t want to mess up the mechanism of my big machine with paper and card ‘fluff’).  It’s the same as –> this one <– from Hobbycraft – but I bought mine from Aldi (one of their Thursday special offers) about three or four years ago so was cheaper.  Works brilliantly for sewing on cards.

7.  I stamped the Sheena Douglass words stamp saying  “Your Wings Exist, FLY” onto a square of creamy white card and then ‘aged’ the card by using the same reddy brown ink pad that I’d used on the roses backing paper.  using the sewing machine again, I fixed the sentiment to the card front.

8.  Distressed and then, using foam dimensional tape, I mounted the die cut frame to the centre of the card, and added the flat back pearls to each side.

9.  Using the hot glue gun, I fixed the rose into the centre of the frame, and once dry, I added the rose leaves, which I tucked under the lowest petals of the rose.

10.  The PVA came into use next, and I used it to add a large brown pearl to the centre of the rose, then sprinkled a tiny pinch of brown glitter into the glue where it had risen up the sides of the pearl – so that it helped to drawn attention to the pearl.

11.  Finally, I used a glue pen and added a few curves of glue here and there and added a tiny pinch of glitter to the glue, just to make the card catch the light and sparkle.  Added an insert, cord tassel and ‘signed’ the back.

It was a really easy, quick card to make.  Tapping out the steps to making it to share with anyone else who wants to make one the same as or similar to it, makes it look complicated.  But take another look at the photo, and you’ll see that it really wasn’t difficult at all.

I really like this card.

Thanks for coming to visit.  Have a look around the other categories while you’re here – you might like some of my other stuff.

(Menu for the categories can be found over to the right —>, towards the top of the page.)

Have a truly lovely rest of your day!