In keeping with the theme of the blog...

I'm not doing very well as an up-to date regular blogger, am I. As my blog is called 'Crafting Super Cute Cards' I'm just going to share with you a selection of some of the cards I've made in the past, minus my annoying waffling.



Playing card birthday card

A cute thank you card

Sparkly boys card



Boys birthday card

Best wishes

Get well soon!



Leafy thank you

'A New Chapter' - An Old Cliche?

So... it's over. 

Finally, after three years of studying my university degree comes to an end. So many of the friends I made at school have also finished this huge part of their life and my facebook news feed is just filled with sentimental statements such as 'it's time to start a new chapter in my story'. Bleugh!

I'm not a fan of this metaphor, as you can tell. I mean.... yes I have finished uni, yes I'm moving on from the town and house I've called home for the last 3 years, and yes I will be leaving behind a few friends I met during this experience.

 

But it's not a storybook - it's my life.

These things will always be with me, I intend to keep in touch with my uni mates, I have some pretty photos of the places I've visited and of the home I've had and they'll be with me where ever I go next. I don't  feel as though I'm closing any particular aspect of my life, if anything I'm just learning and growing from it.

Although, if I'm honest, seeing all my possessions packed away into carboard boxes does make me feel a little emotional.

 
In the midst of all this emotional turmoil and stress of packing/cleaning I have found a little time to craft (my craft stuff will be the last things I pack.) In fact, I discovered from the swapbot blog that the UK has a charity dedicated to making ill children happy. (How cute!) It's called Post Pals and the other night me and a friend stayed in and ate cake as we wrote to some children. Here are a couple of pictures of what we made:


Sophie loves princesses and the colour purple

For a fan of Liverpool FC. I made stickers using a stamp and some double sided tape

 
Hopefully finding these in the mail will make some kids smile. I know it makes me smile to get anything other than bills in the post! The joys of growing up.
 
I also tried my hand at making some friendship books or 'fbs'. Here are a couple of photos of the ones I've made. Traditionally they have paper stapled into them for people to sign and leave their address, but I don't have a stapler and chose to be different and sew it in. :)
 

 
I also made another ATC for somebody on swapbot, we arranged to trade Pokemon themed ATCs and out of the suggestions she gave I picked Marill. So here's what I created:
 

 

 

Here is a good opportunity to show my sewing skills - I previously made a Spheal (no doubt named so because he is a spherical seal) out of felt. Here's how he turned out:


 

 I have also tried needle felting, and I can tell you it is the most theraputic thing, second only to colouring in! Maybe next time I'll show you what I've made out of wool :) But for now, I think I'll leave it here. Thanks for reading!

Overdue ATC Update

Some ATCs I have collected:

It's half way through April already!! Eeeek. I haven't updated my blog in what feels like forever. Not only that, but I really shouldn't be doing it at all at the moment because my university dissertation is due in next month.(Naughty me!) But I am taking this opportunity to post about some of the ATCs I've added to my collection recently.
 
Remember the bird ATCs I was making last time? Well, I traded them on www.swapbot.com and the ones I got in return were beautiful! Take a look; the lady I traded with chose to create them with my favourite animals in mind, cats and a fox;

 
I love them so so much and they will stay in my collection forever. :D Hehe.
 

Some I've made myself:

 
I don't want to type too much out today (mainly because I should be concentrating on uni work, but also because I'm aware that I can waffle quite a lot. So I will leave several photos of some ATCs I've made for various Swapbot Swaps... Here goes!



Theme: A country of your choice
 

Theme: Glitter ATC

This was SO fiddley to make! I stamped the flowers, bird and bow then coloured them in using Pro Markers and had to cut them all out. I'll admit that took a lot of brain power and effort. The background was simply yellow covered with a beautiful font so I inked it up, using a dusky pink, leaving the middle a little lighter and going back around the edge with a black ink. Then I remembered I had to put glitter on this one! I thought the strongest method of sticking down some glue would be using double sided sticky tape (then it wouldn't come off in the post.) But of course, it doesn't stick properly on inky oily surfaces! I'm so glad I left some un-inked yellow paper in the centre. The sticky tape worked!

Theme: Any Animal ATC

This is for a swap I am currently hosting. The idea is that you create an ATC using any old image of any animal you like/can find. I had a sneaky look at my swap partners profile and saw she likes cats almost as much as I do! So I've cut this cute kitty image from a card I had, found a fitting sentiment in the fortune cookie messages I have saved and tried to add some glitter in the shape of a heart (bottom right). Once again, I hope it doesn't fall off in the post, although this time I've used a glue pen instead of sticky tape.

And finally:



A little piece of mail art I posted all the way to Australia. I know I know, moose(s)? don't live in Australia! The lady to whom it was sent loves Alaska, so I sent her painted picture that hopefully relates to an Alaskan scene. Just love the moose :D Hehe.



Right, that's all for now. Gotta go do some work non stop for the next four weeks!
Wish me luck!

Birdies

A growing collection

 

My Artist Trading Card collection so far consists of.... two cards. Well it's a start! I have a lot of card protectors in a folder, ready to be filled up, and I'm entering a few ATC swaps, so I'm hoping I will have some new ones to show you very soon.

 

So I have been making some ready to trade, and I have become hooked on the theme of birds.

 

 

 

I'm not really a bird fan to be honest. I like looking at them, and feeding them from a distance but my neighbour had a parrot that used to attack me so I tend to avoid bigger birds! But I found a book in a charity shop that I thought I could take home and use in my crafting. I have been cutting out the photos of different wildlife and the inspiration hasn't stopped! :)

 

I'm currently participating in a private ATC swap with a lady from Wales, she mentioned that she likes animals, but I checked her Swapbot profile and it turns out she's very interested in the local flora and fawna of the areas people live. So I've made her two ATCs of some birds I have seen in the countryside around Leicestershire, my birthplace.

Here they are!

 

 

Items used to make these:

300sm card background
Poster paints
Cut out bird photograph from magazine
Backing paper for photo
Embellishments (Brad, Gems, flower)
Copper coloured embossing powder
Heat embossing gun

 

 

To make these:

•  I cut out pages from another charity shop book I bought, painted them and glued to cardstock.
• Then, I stuck the bird photos onto the painting (although the owl has a spotty background because I thought it would look too dark if I stuck it straight on.)
•  Then for my favourite bit! I heat embossed a stamped pattern around the edges. I used a copper coloured embossing powder and I think it really compliments the regal posture of the owl and the bright flashes of colour you get from watching kingfishers speed past.
• Finally, I added a few gem embellishments and dah dah! Prettiful :) 

Returning home after a week away

I went back to my parents house for a week last week. It was lovely to be home, in a warm house (us students can't afford to have the central heating to be on all the time) with the cat sat on my lap clawing away at my leg 

/\  /\

meow  =0.o= ouch!

 

When I had to leave I was pretty down... even though I'll only be away at uni for about 4 weeks before the Easter Holidays. But it's still horrible having to leave for the 3 hour drive in the opposite direction from family. 

 

I was practically falling asleep in the car (no I wasn't driving, don't worry!) My lovely boyfriend Luke was driving. He lives with me, making travelling in his car a hell of a lot more comfortable than having to catch 3 trains and the London Underground.

 

So I was moody and tired and we finally arrived at our house at about 10pm, I opened the door and WOAH!!

 

So much mail waiting for me from my swapbot trades. All of a sudden I was very hyperactive, it took a lot of concentration not to tear all the pretty decorations as I opened each envelope. It actually felt like it was my birthday.  :)

 

I do wonder though, if I put half as much effort into my dissertation as I do for my penpalling... I probably would have finished it by now!

Mail Art Challenge!

This is my next Swapbot challenge!

 

 

The themes I've been given to choose from are: clouds, sky, galaxy, rainbows and whales. I had a good old think about how to decorate an envelope in each of these themes and I think I'm going for a mixture of sky/clouds/rainbows and galaxy (well a few stars dotted around.) At the moment I am waiting for the paint to dry but I will post a photo of the finished envelope soon.

My mail art :) A sky-scape

The materials used were as follows:

• Night sky coloured in in permanent marker pen.
• Stars are small silver stickers.
• Clouds painted in white poster paint.
• Blue sky coloured in with gel pen (used up all of it's ink!)
• Rainbow also with gel pens.
• Sun and moon are glued on glittery paper/card

We were also directed to pop a little something inside the envelope that our partner would like. I hope my partner likes what I sent her.  :)

Swap Bot

Swap Bot.

 

"What Bot?"

 

I was looking for more places to trade ATCs when I came across this website http://www.swap-bot.com. It's a little confusing when you start exploring it, but the concept becomes clear straight away. Here people from all over the world can come together in this little corner of the internet to trade not only their ATCs and crafts, but all types of goodies!

 

Tea and postcards seem to be a favourite amongst this community. Some of the swaps can be quite pricey, with members spending around $20 on gifts to send to random partners they've been paired with. And that's one of the downsides, you can never be sure somebody won't 'flake' on your trade. This means they don't fulfill their end of the swap. But the reliablity of users is visable for all to check up on on each persons profile. After each trade your partner can rate you - which allows others to see if you took part properly or not.

 

I'm their newest member!

 

I joined up! I couldn't resist. So far I've sent one ATC to the USA. I'm waiting impatiently for it to arrive but it's only been about a week so far and I expect it's going to take a lot longer than that! My partner has taken part in over 270 swaps and has a completely clear record so I bet she's a bit nervous at seeing my brand new profile and lack of ratings!! I wish I'd taken a photo of my ATC, it was a St. Patricks theme and I was actually quite proud of it. I'm just hoping it doesn't fall to pieces in the mail. I'm thinking I should have been extra cautious and bubble wrapped it but there's no going back now.

 

An ATC I may trade in the near future. ..

 

 

 



Pencil drawings of a fox and owl, and an ATC created from a recycled magazine featuring a photo of where I currently live.

Artist Trading Cards (ATC)

Did somebody mention ATCs?

 

Whilst looking online for card making inspiration I came across some blogs which mentioned  ATCs. So, naturally, I had to research the heck out of this new term. It turns out ATC stands for 'Artist Trading Cards'; which are basically miniature pieces of art created by an individual intended for trading for others' cards.

As I understand it, they have only two rules to them:

1. Firstly; they should measure 2 and a half inches by 3 and a half inches.
2. Secondly; trade them - don't try to make a financial gain from them!

 You can find more information here: http://www.artist-trading-cards.ch/

 

I'm intrigued!

I absolutely love this idea, mainly because the cards themselves can be decorated with any kind of media; paint, drawing, paper, collage, stamping, absolutely anything you can dream up! They are supposed to convey your own personal artistic style, however often online trades are set up with a specific theme in mind so you can explore the artistic methods as you create.

Where can I swap mine?

I checked Facebook on the off chance it would provide any pages with more information about trading these cards in the United Kingdom. Just my luck I came across a page which was asking it's members to vote on for a theme of ATC  they should swap in February! I instantly knew I had to join and give it a go - I would love to start a collection of these fabulous little pieces of art.

Just yesterday it was announced that the theme 'stitching' would be what we are focusing on as we make our ATCs. This choice won by 3 votes, in second place was my vote of 'song titles'. Oh well, I'm still excited to give it a go, even though my profile does mention I am not very good at sewing at all!

A cute find

Forget-me-not

When I started this blog I promised myself I would update it at least once a fortnight... I completely forgot about it for half a year! So I'm going to start up again and try to keep the momentum going because I have just found some inspiration that will get me crafting again!
 
I was poking around in a charity shop lately, having a nosey at all the nic-nacs they had (as well as the hand-made cards that people had donated, sometimes it's tempting to buy a really pretty one and pass it off as my own haha) but anyway I found something that I was really excited about...

 
It came in the box with instructions and everything! For only £2! The most astounding thing about this find though was the age of the flower press. It was made in 1979, making it over 30 years old. All the pieces of paper and cardboard are there, the screws work just fine and I'm currently waiting to see how the flowers I picked will turn out. (I picked and placed them in the press 3 weeks ago, apparently you have to wait 4 weeks and keep turning the screws to squish them even more.) 
 
 
 

My favourite part about buying this press must have been opening it up to find several delicate, paper-thin flowers that somebody had left in there. If you think about it, somebody might have been nice enough to place them in there when they donated the flower press, or in fact, somebody may have used it once about thirty years ago and forgotten all about the flowers! Who knows. But I have lots of plans for the flowers that I can now turn into embellishments, here's a card I made out of the forget-me-nots....

To make this sympathy card

•  I started by painting the white card to give it a water-colour effect. I didn't use water-colours paints, instead I used some cheap children's ready mixed paints from Wilkos and just made sure to mix and apply them using lots of water.
•  Next, I chose the faded purple forget-me-nots because they looked quite sad, thus they suited the context of my card. I stuck those on with pva glue.
• I stamped 'with sympathy' (using a stamp I bought from Hobbycraft, of course, it was only £1!) onto a pastel green coloured piece of paper which matched the background slighty, and backed this onto a piece of lilac card that I'd cut out using pinking sheers.
• I stuck the tiny piece of ribbon on with double sided tape because it was too heavy for the glue. On top of this I added my stamped sentiment.

 

 

I'm so pleased that now I have this flower press I can make my own free embellishments, it's just a pity I have to wait so long for them to squish completely!