It was recently a male relatives Birthday, and pretty much like most ‘made by hand’ card makers, I don’t like making cards for men. They all seem so twee or predictable – so … ‘forgive me Crafter for I have sinned’ … I will normally buy the men in my life a card for their birthday. And … this is the story of how this card came to be.
I knew I’d bought a card for this particular relatives Birthday.
Mr. Cobs knew I’d bought a card for this particular relatives Birthday.
Could I find said card?
Not on your nelly! (I have no idea where that saying came from – but it’s most definitely a saying here in the UK, and has been since dirt was invented. It means: ‘Not on your life’!).
So, with very little time left before a card had to be delivered by hand, I got my thinking cap on and came up with a card which, I have to admit, looks better in real life than in the photo. But … and this is the important bit … it practically made itself.
It began with a cut and scored white card. I chose the cafe latte coloured, striped with cream stripes card for the top part of the card, and the rich chocolate-brown Happy Birthday card, in different font styles for the bottom. (You can buy both these cards in a huge variety of different colours – so check out the options if you visit the website). Both of these cards are from the Anna Marie Designs range.
I cut these different cards to size, then layered them onto some black card stock, then fixed them to the white card.
Then cut the tag from some white card stock, using a Tattered Lace Peach Sorbet Torn Edge Tags die. I don’t think Tattered Lace make these anymore, but I’ve had a look round and found some on Amazonhere.
The ‘Birthday Wishes’ was stamped using a stamp from the Wishes and Vines by Silhouette Stamps. I’ve had these stamps for a while, but you can still buy them in one or two places, both in the US an in the UK – so ask Google to be your friend and I’m sure he’ll help.
I stamped and then layered the tag onto some black card, which I then carefully cut around, attempting to match the wiggly outside of the tag itself.
Then I added a ribbon made from some wide silk ribbon in my stash and …. That’s all there was to it!
I would have posted this a couple of days ago … but I couldn’t find the place I’d saved it to on my computer! {sigh} … It would seem that Birthdays are going to be a nightmare when card giving this year. First Birthday of the new year and I’m already ‘fudging it up’!
I know I don’t normally do Jokes on any day but Friday … but I heard this one and I need to share it with you ….
Why did the cow cross the road? – It wanted to go to the mooovies.
Yup … still finding it funny and still laughing out loud. lol
Have a really great rest of your day, and thank you so much for coming and having a coffee with me!
Sending you lots of squidges in a huuuuge bucket ~
Go on, admit it. You’re singing it now, aren’t you? <actually Laughing Out Loud to self here because I am too! fnar fnar.>
You’d think that since I’d been so poorly for the last … oh, I dunno – gazillion months?, (certainly seems that long), that I would have thought about making a ‘get well’ card sooner than this! But no. My brain just didn’t seem to switch on to this idea until a couple of days ago.
Inside my head I’d been singing the Mary Poppins song: ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’ and thought this would be an excellent idea for a different sort of ‘get well’ card.
In my excitement I ploughed straight in and forgot to take photos of the ‘building stages’ – so the earliest one in the building process which I have, is this one:
. . . yes, I know, it’s a rubbish photo. Sorry about that.
The card was made using Tattered Lace Panorama Concertina Sides and Inners, which build up a card and give it a depth and ‘distance’ feeling by the use of zig zag folds on the sides of the card (are all die cut), which stay concertina’d, and which have little slits through those zig zag bits, and help you to build up the layers on the card. It sounds terribly complicated but once you’ve built your first one you suddenly see how easy it actually is.
As you can see in the photo, I used two shades of blue card to line two of the inner parts of the card, and gave the last ‘inner’ a bit of white on white treatment with the addition of a circle of ‘twirly bits’ using a Tonic die.
I then added the ‘front’ to the card – which I’d already covered in some Pion paper, and then got to work on the idea which I had in my head.
I thought the play on the words of the song A Spoonful of Sugar was a brilliant idea to use, so I went in search of my collection of little bottles and chose one which looked the right fit for the card, and once part filled, I corked it and added a teeny little label which I’d made on the ‘puter. I paid a visit to my metal embellishments storage chest to get a teeny-weeny spoon, and then added them to the centre of the card.
At the same time I’d made the ‘sugar’ label on the computer, I’d also made some ‘plasters’ (or ‘band aids’ for USA folks), and a miniature ‘prescription’ which looked as close as I could get it to look like a prescription you’d see here in the UK, given to you by a doctor. You can see just about half of it close up in the photograph above. I added the plasters and prescription to the card front and then went on to choose a flower. (Everyone who’s poorly should get flowers!)
But … what sort of flower?Just an ordinary type of flower? Noooo… it had to have something odd … so … I chose a spotty Gardenia. Measles perhaps? lol (flower by Anna Marie)
The little ‘twirly bits’ you see coming from beneath the flower are very fine cuts of the same Pion paper which is on the front of the card. I twirled these paper cuts so that they spiralled, then just carefully pulled the spirals out so that they were just the right length. They look so effective when seen with the naked eye.
These Tattered Lace die cut Panorama cards are cut in such a way that, once put together, they naturally stand up straight all by themselves. However, because they’re panorama, if they’re up straight then I figured that unless your eye line is on a level with it then you won’t get a proper look at what’s inside, so I built a stand for the card and fixed it to the back, just in case the recipient wanted to have the card displayed at an angle.
In order for a ‘greeting’ to be added to the card I thought I’d add a tag (and because I love tags). I cut some white card into a tag shape then covered both sides with some more of the Pion paper so that it matched the card perfectly.
To one side of the card I fixed the words of the chorus from A Spoonful of Sugar, and added a little ‘apothecary’ type bottle (which I’d changed to blue on the ‘puter).
I left the other side of the tag just plain Pion paper so that a greeting could be added.
…. and then added two more apothecary type bottles to the back of the card, just to bring some fun onto what would normally be the ‘boring side’ of a card.
I found all of the apothecary jars on The Graphics Fairy – and I thoroughly recommend the site for royalty free images for use on cards and other crafting projects. (All of the apothecary jars I changed to shades of blue so that they matched the card – but you could easily change them to whatever colour you choose for yourself).
And that, as they say in Television Land, is all there was to it!
Oh! Apart from…. The Tattered Lace Panorama Dies do leave the sides of the card ‘open’ – so that you can see the clever mechanism which helped you make the card. Now I don’t mind anyone knowing how I made it … but I just think that it kind of looks ugly. To me it looks unfinished. So, if you look carefully, you can just see how I’ve chosen to ‘cover’ the sides. I use a toning blue shade of Organza ribbon, which I cut to the right length and then seal the ends (so that they don’t fray), and attached the ribbon to the sides of the card in order to give a more polished or ‘finished’ look to the card. You could, I suppose, just use card, cut, scored and folded then glued into place. So if you don’t have the organza then cardstock would probably work just as well.
Thank you for coming and sharing some time with me. I really love your company, so thank you so much for coming to take a peep at this card. I hope you like it as much as I do. It was a really fun make and didn’t take long to get it all to come together.
Have a truly blessed rest of your day. Sending you a crafty squidge ~
This post is dedicated to Stacey, a fellow blogger on WordPress, who came up with a brilliant idea of promoting other crafting blogs in posts. Stacey very kindly mentioned my blog (with a link) and other crafters blogs that I hadn’t seen before – which was enough to tell me that I too should take up her idea and promote crafters blogs on my own blog here.
So, since Stacey came up with the idea, I am firstly promoting her blog (link below) and dedicating this post – and this card – to Stacey.
To Stacey, a dedicated blog post and card, for an amazing idea! ~ from Cobs.
. . . join me on a journey through this card . . .
Every few days/weeks … now and again … I’ll make what I call a ‘labour intensive’ card. One of those cards which takes more time than the regular cards you’ve so far seen me post here. This card – ‘Life is a Journey, not a Destination’, is one of those cards.
It’s not that these types of cards are difficult, they just take a little more thinking and working out so that you end up with the ‘feel’ that you started out knowing you wanted. This particular card was inspired by a piece of wall art which I have hung in my bedroom, facing my bed. It’s an iron framed rectangle with a piece of calico strung in the centre and printed on the calico are the words Life is a Journey, not a Destination, and that’s what gave me the theme for the card.
I wanted the card to have a vintage style, with a slightly ‘steampunkery’ feel to it – but at the same time I knew I wanted it to carry a message, and wanted the message to be read as either literal or spiritual, depending on who the card ended up with, and the circumstances they were in within their life, at that time. And ... I think I’ve managed it.
This card could be for someone who’s:- moving house; going on a cruise or going abroad; it could be a simple regular birthday card (for either a man or a woman); it could be for someone who’s starting a new job; or perhaps for a person who needs some encouragement; maybe some tests soon?; or … it could be given to someone who is going through some sort of personal challenge or challenging time, and this card would be a gentle, loving way of saying that they’re going to get through this time and move on to a better place or time.
I’ll give you a list of everything I used to make this card at the end of the post, because I don’t want anyone to look at the list and think that they couldn’t make a card like this. I might have different stash to you, and I might have different cardstock; dies; ink pads; glues etc etc … but I’m pretty sure you will have things in your stash that you could use to pull a card like this or similar together. Just because the list of stuff I’ve used might look long – please don’t be put off. If you want to make something like this, go and look at your stash. You’d be surprised what you can use in order to make your own style of card.
For now .. I’ll just give you different photos of the card so that you can see things closer up….
Up up and away! . . .
A (working)compass to help you keep you going in the right direction . . .
Time passes quickly, – so some gentle encouragement to enjoy the beauty of every moment.
As followers and readers of my blog know … I LOVE to put surprises inside all the cards I make. I feel that the inside of a card is just so wasted and such a let down when you open a birthday/Christmas or any other time card, and find a big white space with a little bit of writing.
I like cards to be beautiful inside and out and surprise the receiver when they open their card! . . .
Oooo… I wonder what the magnifying glass is for?! ;D
OOhh .. another surprise! .. now we have a lucky wish star and a ticket which gives me ‘entitlement’ to one wish! But .. what the devil is that magnifying glass for???
Ah haaaa! . . . It’s so you can read the page from the dictionary/thesaurus! Ok .. one mystery solved, . . . but … what’s that pink ticket by the end of the handle?
Ah haaaa! . . . mystery number two solved! (Just call me Sherlock. lol)
Oh, and by the way … the postcard inside . . . is for you to write your message on, for the person you’re sending the card to! See? It all makes sense!
And that . . . (photo above) . . . is the just finished card, stood on a glass cutting mat, on my desk … and that’s all my mess important, essential, fabulous, well organised {cough} equipment and tools behind the card. (I’ll clean it up properly at some point, so that I can take a photograph of my craft room and share it.)
The Recipe for this card: I used:
Sheena Douglass – Little Bit Sketchy – Magnifying glass stamp.
Papermania Acetate (for the ‘window’ of the magnifying glass)
Papermania Black Embossing Powder
Stazon ‘Saddle Brown’ ink pad
” ‘Jet Black’ ink pad
Memento Dye Ink Pad in ‘Desert Sand’
” ” ” in ‘Rich Cocoa”
Xcut Build-a-Scene Dies – Vintage Hot Air Balloon
Heartfelt Creations 12×12 pad – which I used some of the images from.
Spellbinders ‘Once upon a Time’ Die
Tattered Lace ‘Postcards’ Die set
Heartfelt Creations ‘Time Sentiments’ stamp
” ” ‘Journey Sentiments’ stamp
Pinflair Gentle Blends – in Denim colour
” ” ” – in Dark Khaki colour
Graph It Glitter Ink Pen
Compass – was in a pack of 4 I bought a while ago, from the children’s section of either Asda or Tesco.
Dictionary page was cut from an old Dictionary/Thesaurus which was no longer used.
Cardstock used:
Warm Chocolate Brown 300gsm
Plain Black 270gsm
Orange – was scrap from my scrap draw
White – 270gsm
Kraft Card – 300gsm
Extras:
2 x short lengths of silver-grey Rayon Seam Binding.
Grey and white Bakers Twine
3 x fuzzy, funky fibre, Eyelash Knitting Yarn/Wool – 1 x length of warm brown. 1 x length of jet black. 1 x length of a blues and purples mix.
One tiny metal vintage looking Postcard embellishment.
And that’s all there is to it! 😀
Aw,please don’t be daunted by the apparently long list of ingredients for this recipe. I’ve named almost everything I used here just to be helpful to anyone who wants to know where I got a particular thing, or the make of the papers or dies etc, (named everything apart from glue .. but if you need to know: I used Collall All Purpose, Anita’s Tacky Glue, hot glue, and Double Sided Tape) – but I bet you use tons of stuff when you craft a card and you don’t even notice what you’re using anymore. It’s just all … ‘stuff’ … which is treasured and loved, and there because you use it!
Thank you so much for coming to read. I hope you like the card! Oh … and don’t forget to visit Stacey’s blog!
Please have a look around my blog here and check out the different categories. There’s a list of them all in the column over to the right, – you’ll find the list of categories towards the top of that column.
The Art of Cobwebs 