Simple generic cards

These two cards are so easy to make, but in my opinion look great and can be used in so many scenarios! Think Birthdays, Get well cards, Congratulations, Thank you etc. I used both of these for birthday cards for two female friends.

To make the 'petal' shapes, I cut a square out of some Kaisercraft patterned paper and then rounded the opposite two corners using a Fiskars corner rounder. The only thing to be careful of here is to make sure that you round the right two corners so that you can position the petal with the right rotation.

For the first card, I used four different types of patterned paper from the 'Blushed' range to create four different petals. I then attached them to some shiny blue cardstock that I had run through my Sizzex Bigshot in the Quickutz Vines embossing folder.  Along the bottom, I attached some sheer white ribbon and then three small pre-cut pale pink flowers from Kaisercraft.

For the second card, I used four different types of patterned paper from the 'Empire' range of Kaisercraft paper to create six different petals. I positioned these on the card and attached a brad between four of these to help give the impression that the top four petals were part of a flower. These were positioned on some textured straw yellow cardstock that I had run through on the Quickutz Vines embossing folder in the Bigshot. For something different, I put the paper upside down so that the pattern was depressed rather than raised.

Wedding card

Here is a wedding card I made for a friend's wedding. I've made this design many times before as it always comes up nicely. This time, I used a pale pink and a maroon piece of paper to border the wedding dress, and then embellished with a piece of brown floral ribbon and a white wire and tuile flower. I placed foam pop-dots under the wedding dress to give a more three-dimensional design.

Happy birthday card

Here is a birthday card I made using some lovely patterned paper from Kaisercraft. I cut two 5 by 5 cms of contrasting patterned paper and then cut each square into three pieces by cutting from the middle on an angle to the 1cm and 4cm marks. I then swapped the middle triangles to create the pattern.

I attached the patterned pieces to some red card stock and attached the whole panel to a straw coloured card with some ribbon underneath.

To finish, I fixed a yellow flower with an orange gem in the middle.

I think this card could also be used as a get well card or a thank you card as it is nice and bright and cheerful. :)

Baby boy card for my new nephew

This is a card I made for my sister on the birth of her son (and my first nephew!) I used plain white cardstock in landscape mode and attached some baby boy themed patterned paper to the right side of the card. I then covered the join with some blue ribbon.

As the focal point, I cut out two sailboats and a duck from some patterned paper, and adhered them to some navy blue card before attaching this to the card.

I continued the theme of ducks by stamping a blue duck in the bottom left corner with some blue ink, and then finished by rounding the bottom corners of the card.

Owl Birthday Card

This card was easy to make but visually looks quite impressive. To begin, I took a standard white square trifold card and cut off a triangle on the diagonal on the front square. I then stuck a square of lovely striped paper on the front of the second square, leaving a 5 mm border, so that a triangle of this could be seen once the card was folded.  On the front square, I then attached a triangle of contrasting green paper, again leaving a 5 mm border, and some ribbon along the bottom of the paper.

As a feature, I stamped three owls which I then coloured in copics before framing with some contrasting gold card and attaching to the front card. To finish, I attached a brad in the bottom left corner of the front square and in the top right corner of the middle square to bring the whole card together.

The recipient was very happy with the result!

Birthday card

I needed to make a small birthday card to go with a gift for my sister. I decided to use a stamp of a little bird that I got in New York by Laura Campbell from Rubber Soul, and also another stamp from inkainkado by Dawn Houser "A little bird told me it was your birthday."

I stamped both of these in black ink on white card stock and then used my copic markers to colour the bird. I mounted both stamped images onto shiny blue card and then placed these on a small white card. Before attaching, I placed some blue ribbon around the whole card under the bird image and tied this in a bow.

Embossed birthday cards

 Two friends recently had birthdays and so this gave me the opportunity to use my new "Happy Birthday" stamp from "Stamp-it" (2420D 2004) as well as my new clear mini stamps 99011 "Special bird."

I stamped Happy Birthday twice on white card stock using some Royal Blue versa colour ink, then quickly sprinkled some clear embossing powder on top. I also stamped the Bird and a little cat from a Kaisercraft stamp in the same blue ink and embossed these also. Since I don't have a heat gun, I carefully held the paper above the toaster until the image was suitable embossed. This seemed to work very well (and is much cheaper than buying a heat gun!)

I mounted the stamped images and text on some shiny blue card stock. I also mounted some lovely Japanese paper that I purchased from Bellbird Paperarts in Blackburn on the same shiny blue card stock.

Finally, I adhered the pieces to some wheat card.