Special Christmas Card, and how to make card blanks

Amongst my post-Christmas craft trove was the piece of card on the left, with the exquisite design featuring gold and black lettering and diamanté decorations. Ideally I'd have a friend called Noel to whom to send it, but I am not so blessed, so it got made into a Christmas card.
I began by sticking it to another piece of same-sized card (from packaging - it was going to be completely covered so the printing on it didn't matter) to form the basic card. Then I collected together all my scraps of gold paper, card and ribbon, even the tiniest, and frowned thoughtfully at them for a while with my mouth open.
The next step was to cover the back of the card with gold scrap card bits, to be covered with gold snowflake and flower and heart shapes in a sort of collage/montage/mosaic-y thing. (Soundtrack: South Park 'We Need a Montage'). At this stage it looked terrible. I started sticking stuff to it randomly more in faith than in certainty, and was rewarded as it started to look kinda cool. I think. I spilled the scraps over on to the front of the card too.
Then there was the matter of the inside, which had various things about BT technology printed on it. So I covered that all over too, with wrapping paper and ribbon and torn pieces of paper edged with gold eyeshadow.
I was moderately pleased with the result, though I'm never happy with cards when I've finished them - making them is the fun part. It's all a bit flawed and obviously handmade and amateurish, with bits that don't quite fit and uneven bits and, like Neil's snowball card from last year, it actually sheds over time.... however, I can't help being quite pleased with it. At some point, when I find the right card or paper, I shall make a large envelope for it.

And so to the next project, which happens to be a gold one too. I received some packaging recently that included pieces of gold rectangular card, white on the reverse. Perfect! well nearly. There were small printed areas on the card, but these could be covered up easily enough.
If you need to cut your card down to size, scissors should be your third choice after Madame Guillotine and a craft knife, though they will do. The other choices give better, straighter, neater edges though. The next part is folding the card, which may sound simple, but if you fold it without scoring it first then it will probably buckle and craze. Most cardmakers will tell you to use a bone folder, which is neither vegan nor necessary. There are many alternatives: the blunt side of a butter knife, an embossing tool (the sort used with stencils, not the heat type) or, best of all in my experience, a biro that has no ink left in it. Score very firmly down the centre of your card (or a third and two-thirds along if you're making a trifold card) against a ruler or other hard straight edge, and then fold. It should be perfect. Even I can do that bit.
After that it was a simple matter of covering up the printing with co-ordinating card and ribbon - or I could have used an embellishment, or cut them out to make an aperture. With an envelope made of an old calendar, these will be completely re-used cards - except for the glue. I tried using flour-and-water paste, but that led to collapsible cards with a best-before date. Everything else, though, is re-used.
Have a golden year, all!
Jehanine x

Calendars to envelopes, and the Magic of Vince

Hello all and Happy New Year! Time for ethical crafters to use all those beautiful calendars up in one way or another - for instance turning them into envelopes, as in the photos. I use kreate-a-lope stencils because they're brilliant. One doesn't even need a pair of scissors (though I tend to edge mine with crinkly scissors because I'm like that).
I also put a request out on Realcycle (similar to Freecycle - both are pretty good) for used Christmas crackers, bits of ribbon and so on, with this December in mind - organised huh? - and was sent a beautiful little parcel of ribbon by one woman, given a pile of shiny gift bags and bows by another, and then there's Vince. After asking a few questions about what would be useful, this complete stranger turned up with a whole Honda-full of wondrous craft treasure of exactly the right kinds! Hurrah for Vince! So I've been like a little kid on Christmas morning, sorting through all the glittery detritus making wonderfully adult and erudite comments such as, 'Ooh! Ooh! Shiny!' and such-like. I've also made a start on this year's Christmas cards, and I have to say that with all the free goodies they are going to be miles better than last year.
The only problem is that I can't tell you the source of all the elements. The card in the middle, for instance - the silver padded card came from where, I wonder? And the central image, in wire with diamantés - was it a decoration? The ribbon on the right-hand card is utterly beautiful - this card is going to someone special.
Isn't it sad that so much of this stuff gets thrown away, while cardmakers pay through the nose for card, glitter, ribbon and so on?
The more conventional elements - peel-offs for instance, came from a crafter who is losing her sight and giving away her stuff for small prices and charity donations. What a star. Good luck to her in her difficulties. It's worth joining a craft group of some sort - virtual if you're not that mobile or sociable - to help and/or benefit in these sorts of circumstances.
I'm happily crafting away, anyway - and I'm very glad that the world has brilliant people like Vince in it. Happy, happy, crafty, ethical New Year!
Jehanine x

More Christmas cards

Another few cards here - one made of fabric, including the holly! A great substance out of which to cut stars and other shapes is the humble polystyrene tray - as mentioned before in this blog they can be made into stamps, too. Not that it's a good idea to buy products packaged in them, as they're so environmentally unfriendly, but if you know anyone who does, nab their trays.
The white and silver card is made from a Christmas cracker, a favourite craft material of mine. Don't let anyone you know throw them away! This one yielded two co-ordinating types of card for a nicely icy card, with some ribbon from a present as edging and a polystyrene star. Stars can also be cut from beercans, washed, cut up and flattened - see instructions in a previous post.
The centre card is supposed to look like a present but smacks rather of a cross instead, so may go to a Christian. It's so hard to get everyone's beliefs sorted out....anyway, it's fabric and ribbon again - always remember that ribbon isn't just for bows, it's for everything!
Have a merry time whatever you're up to this winter,
Jehanine x

Necklace card and looming Xmas

Technical difficulties have prevented me from uploading photos for a while, so many thanks to Neil for sorting things out. The first card gives me a slightly weird feeling - I could have sworn that I've already uploaded this and written about it at length....anyway, it's a nice card. I used a 'necklace' theme and used up loads of bits. Living in a university town means that on any Saturday or Sunday morning one is guaranteed to find pieces of broken costume jewellery lying on the streets; cleaned, they can make good card elements, like the purple necklace in the first photo, which became the focus of the card. After that I just fiddled with layouts until I had one that I was happy with, and stuck everything down. The result is a pretty card that used up all kinds of scraps. Sadly the scan of the final card is a bit dark and rubbish, but you get the idea.

Ah, Xmas. Sigh. I've made quite a few cards, largely because I was supposed to be having a wrist operation in September. However the hospital had cleverly booked me in for an operation I'd already had, instead. Woo! Go NHS! Anyway, here are some cards - one using scraps of fabric and yarn, which always look nice; one pink girly angel one for a friend who likes that style; and one with 'snowballs' all over it for that touch of silly fun. No sophisticated techniques here, just assemblage really, but one of the things that I think is really undervalued in the culture of cardmaking is the mighty skill of sticking stuff to other stuff.
Merry whatever,
Jehanine x

New Hovel, Graduation, Ribbons, New Home

Hidely-ho, carddiddlyardmakers. This month I've made a couple of 'Welcome to Your New Home' cards; the first is for my best mate Neil, who's moving in just down the road. Hurrah! His new hovel is about eight minutes hobble from mine, which is excellent. As we were both big fans of the Simpsons back when it was good, he got this Flanders-themed card. It's just an image of Ned cut from my tv guide, stuck to a load of Flanders quotes (which continue inside and on the back), with some illusion yarn scraps stuck down with brads round the edge. Very simple, but the idea is to make Neil chuckle, as he's very stressed at the moment.

My niece Laura graduated from Hull with a 2:2 in Psychology - very impressive considering she's had her father's leukaemia to deal with in her final year. I made her a scroll card. Use any suitable paper scrap for the scroll - I had a bit with latin words on it, so it looked suitably scholarly. Then I nicked a bit of red and gold ribbon from my Xmas stash to tie it with. As the backing paper had gold swirls on it, I cut similar gold swirls down the edge, and added Laura's name in gold lettering. A very textural card which doesn't show up well in 2D, but there you are. Pleasantly posh in the flesh, I promise.
A word about ribbons. Hopefully you'll get plenty from birthday and Christmas presents; but if you're recycling clothes, there may well be good ribbon to save there too, along with buttons, zips etc. Also when buying new underwear, it often seems to come these days with long ribbons, as if you're going to hang it up. I can't imagine ever being the sort of person who hangs up underwear, so I cut it off, wash it and stick it in the ribbon bag before I ever wear the items. You may wish to erase this thought from your minds if ever I send you a card with ribbon on, but I promise it hasn't touched me anywhere it shouldn't.

The other Welcome to Your New Home card is for my brother, who has moved to a different part of New Zealand and bought a beach house, so he has a beach hut sort of card. Remember the Capital One vellum-type envelopes? They are here as the sea! Then some yellowy, glittery stuff that was part of packaging makes a good sandy beach. A friend had given me an old craft magazine that had a page of 'the ten best beach papers' on it, so I cut shapes from those to make the hut roofs and doors, the sun and message. If you have shaped scissors then you can make fake lace/edging easily - cut plain white paper up both sides and punch little holes in the middle (I use a Victorian awl - good for putting holes in belt buckles and so forth - but you can use any poky tool, eg a used biro, small hole punch).
That's all for now folks, much love,
Jehanine

Unwanted Catalogues

Irritating when unwanted catalogues arrive, isn't it? All that dead tree turned into a thick book of tat that you didn't ask for. Sigh.
Well, I have fun dismembering them for paper of useful colours and textures. A friend of mine turned 60 recently, and as he's a fellow member of the Vegan Organic Network I decided to make a card with a Growing theme.
I wanted to make some carrots and some peas in pods, so I needed orange and various shades of green, as in the picture. I cut strips of the orange paper and rolled them up to make nice textural carrots, cut bright green carrot tops, and used a hole punch to make little green peas. If you work in an office which has a hole punch then it's worth making lots of little circles with paper scraps - they come in useful for all sorts of cardmaking projects, from peas to Pacman to polka dots. And it has the agreeable effect of making your colleagues think you are mad.
I had a bit of a play with the layout - I found a nice third-of-a-page in the catalogue that was a nice soft green to use as a background. The photos don't really show how nice and textural the card is which is a shame, but it still looks nice. I just added the words 'to Peter' and it made a nice card that went down very well.
The rolling orange paper to make the carrots is the closest I get to 'quilling' - rolling little strips of paper with a quilling tool, to make little curled shapes of paper. It's a beautiful art and quite satisfying for the patient. Quilling makes a very textural card, which always adds class. I was quite proud of my little carrots!
Enjoy your vitamin A,
Jehanine x

'Collectable' cards, a handkerchief box, and a folded arch card

Strewth! It's been a while, hasn't it? Well shortly after my last post I was bereaved - my venerable cat Wittgenstein (Vicky) died in February, which stopped me in my tracks for a while. Then my next card was a High School Musical themed card, which was mainly composed of exhortations to the recipient to get his get his get his get his get his get his head in the game, and stickers. Recently there's been a huge spate of birthdays, though, so I'm back in business. I forgot to scan a couple of them (and they were reeeeely good!) but here are a few of the others.
The one on the left is an image lifted directly from another card. An oriental image handpainted onto transparent fabric, it was too good to cut up or throw away, and for once I broke my own rules and used it in its entirety. The other has some old butterfly cards that came with tea many years ago. People often hang on to these things in the hope that they'll be worth something in time, which may be true if you have a complete set in good condition. I decided to just use these though, as I only have a few, on a scrap of fabric. Pretty cards, both, I think.

Here's a bit of recent scavenging: I bought a few handkerchiefs (I've always preferred them to tissues - much softer on the nose, more environmentally-friendly and agreeably old-fashioned) and saved a silver frame and a few bits of silver card from the packaging.

Last Christmas I gave you my heart, and the very next day you...no hang on....last Christmas, my best mate Neil gave me some recycled dark gold arch cards from eco-crafts, and I've finally got round to making some glorious cards with them. Two of them I forgot to scan - one was floaty images of Victorian women, and on another I used up all my pink and flowery scraps, and it looked surprisingly good. The final one, however, I remembered to scan. I used an oriental-type paper and a cat motif. On the left is the front with the 'doors' folded and tied with blue ribbon. The inside almost refused to scan, for reasons best known to itself. I had several goes, and hopefully the odd image on the right is sufficient to give you an idea of the inside of the card. I did little more than cut shapes and paste them in, but the end result is very striking and much prettier than the photos suggest.
Happy creating, all!
Much love,
Jehanine x