Catriona's 1st birthday card

A card for Joseph's friend Catriona whose 1st birthday party we went to yesterday. The card is made using an assortment of yellow papers and ribbon from my stash and a stamped image from an LOTV stamp. A similar card can be made in any colour and personalised with any name to order for £2 (plus postage if not local).

That's better!

My lovely husband does have his uses after all! His suggestion of taking the plastic cover off my iPad (only left on to protect the screen from Joseph's sticky fingers!) has made a huge improvement to the quality of my photos! I'll get all this technical stuff worked out one of these days!!!

Still testing!

Another test, this time using my daylight lamp as well!

Christening card

Just testing how well my iPad camera photos work (or not) with the blogger app! If this works it will save me SO much time!

Well, it worked! Photo is not the best quality but then it was only taken on a piece of card on the bed! Next job will be to get out Christmas present number 2 which my wonderful husband bought me... A display box for photographing my cards in, hmmmm....wonder if Joseph will stay asleep long enough for me to get it out before we go to his friend's birthday party this afternoon???

Selling stash!

Just in case any of my visitors are interested, I am selling some stamps and ink pads on eBay, seller name LauraNat. Most finish tomorrow (Saturday) night, some finish on Sunday. At the moment someone is getting a bargain TILDA stamp! SORRY I WROTE THIS ON FRIDAY NIGHT BUT IT DIDN'T UPLOAD! AUCTIONS ENDING TONIGHT AND TOMORROW NIGHT!!

Hooray!

Ok, so I can now blog from my iPad so I have no excuse for not keeping this up to date, especially as I am hoping to be expanding Cards by Laura into a small business this year, and hopefully branching out into a few thing other than cards and invitations! All still in the planning stage at the moment but I have been busy creating over the last few days so just need to take some photos tomorrow (using my new photography box thing Anders got me for Christmas, which requires Anders taking Joseph out for an hour or 2 so I can have a bit of a play! One of my other Christmas presents (from my parents) was an Ottlite daylight lamp...it's amazing! I can craft at any time of day or night and still get my colours to match without annoying yellow tinge the usual light has making me think things match when they don't! I have saved my new years resolutions on a forum I am on so am going to find that and copy and paste them onto my blog so all my followers can check up on how I'm doing! But first I am off to do some more creating (having suddenly had a flash of inspiration that I don't always have to listen to music while I'm up there - I can have a DVD on in the background as we have a TV and DVD player up there, just no TV signal, not sure why this didn't occur to me months ago!?!) and watch the end of the Coronation Street Romanian Holiday DVD my MIL lent me sometime last year(!) while my little monkey (who celebrated his first birthday on December 23rd!) is asleep! Back later with some resolutions and hopefully a photo or 2 ready for the weekend bloghop (a resolution I forgot to include on my first list, I think I may have made too many now!)

Testing, testing!

I'm really hoping this is going to work so am keeping it short and sweet as it is just a test post!

A few crafty bits for sale...

I have a few items for sale, and have a feeling more will be added as I continue to sort out my stash and uncover more duplicates or things I am never going to use! If you see something you like but aren't so keen on the price make me an offer!!!


1. BRAND NEW Helz Cuppleditch Pepper's Christmas party mini stamps. I have the full sized versions and didn't realise these were exactly the same stamps! £3.50 including p&p 2nd class.






2. Sizzix die (green) - Doll shoes #1... someone bought this for me thinking it was for the bitty bodies but it's not so it's no use to me as I only have bitty body people, not dolls!
Would like £5 for it, including p&p 2nd class









3. Tatty Teddy / Me to You wood mounted stamp - Cupcake Treats - Tatty Teddy with tray of cupcakes. BRAND NEW. Somehow (I can only blame it on post-pregnancy lack of brain cells!!!) in my desperate need to have this stamp I have ended up with 2!!! They both have the price label of £4.50 still on them, so ideally I would like £4.50 for the stamp but that would include p&p 2nd class.

4. BRAND NEW STILL IN CELLOPHANE WRAPPER DCWV 12x12 SPRING GLITTER STACK - 48 sheets of double sided printed paper, 1/2 with glitter. £15 including p&p 2nd class

It's been a while!

As the title says, it's been a while since I was last here!

I have spent most of the year making thank you cards - firstly for Joseph's presents when he was born (and Christmas presents) and then for my birthday presents and Joseph's christening gifts! Now the thank yous have all been sent I have been able to get back to creating rather than mass-producing!!!

We recently held a fundraising bring and buy sale to raise money for our Brownies and Rainbows, at which I sold about £20 worth of my cards... this weekend a friend of mine has had a fundraising funday with her work, raising money for Hope House Children's Hospice on the Wirral. I gave her 87 cards to sell with a percentage of the sales being donated to the fundraising (as other people selling items were also doing) and they sold £40 worth of cards yesterday!

So I now need to collect back the cards she's got left and see what occasions I'm short of so I can get making again! I have got some cards to add on here but since buying my IPad (30th birthday present!) I haven't been on the laptop much but can't figure out how to blog from the IPad (or even if I can!!) so I now have to make myself find time to switch the laptop on, upload my photos and then add my cards to my blog! Fingers crossed I will manage to upload at least one this week (between working, babysitting and entertaining Joseph!)

I don't know why I can post titles but not posts?!?!?

Can you help Alice?

http://www.blogger.com/profile/13027223823260960348

Birthday card (2)

Birthday card for one of my best friends who turned 30 last week (we're all getting old, uni - where we met - seems so long ago now!)...

Image - Papermania Retail Therapy stamp set coloured with Promarker Carmine and Copics Ciaos 100 (Black), C3, 5 and 7 (Cool Greys), E37 (Sepia) and E47 (Dark Brown).

Caption - DoCrafts Born2Shop Bubbles phrase (free on the cover of DC magazine last year) written over with Promarker Carmine.

White oval and DC Born2Shop Nostalgia pink paper cut with Nesties - Petite Ovals Large

PaperMania Classical Handmade flocked paper

30 -EK Success

Happy Birthday - Anita's Glitterations

Pink flower from DC Born2Shop Creative Papercraft Kit

Gem from stash

Another birthday card

This birthday card is for my friend who is a Brown Owl at Brownies (although she doesn't use the title as she didn't want to feel that people were comparing her to the old Brown Owl who ran the Brownies for 30 odd years!). It was made using lots of stash from my black&white and blue bags of papers, flowers, etc. The stamped image is a Honey and Hugs image from Papermania coloured with Pro-markers Gold and Blue Pearl, the small flowers are punched from scraps of the backing paper and the middles are brads from my stash as well. Ovals are petite ovals large and petite scalloped ovals large Nesties and sentiment is a peel-off from Create and Craft (bought at Wilkinsons!)

Birthday Card

This is the birthday card I made for my cousin a few weeks ago. The backing paper is from a very old pack of papermania papers (one of the first cardmaking paper packs I bought, I've learnt my lesson since!) as I had decided

I had to use up my old stash before I am allowed to buy any more (that was the theory anyway!!)

Recipe:

* DL Card covered with Papermania spotty paper from stash

* White leaves cut from white card using Sizzix die 38-0227 Leaf, Stem

* Greeting Farm stamped image coloured using various shades of blue Pro-markers and brown Copics pens (I didn't think to write them down as this was only a month after I had Joseph and it took all my efforts just to get the card made!), edged with Azure Pro-marker and mounted using foam pads.

* Blue marbled card from a stack bought at www.thecraftbug.com also edged with Azure Pro-marker

* Peel off sentiment from stash

* Prima flowers from stash

* Brads from stash

30th Birthday card (1)

I had a few birthday cards to make this week (as well as the christening invitations!) and was bloghopping (or leapblogging) for some inspiration when I came across last week's LOTV Challenge which was using a layout. I wanted to use this Greetings Farm image as it reminds me of the friend the card is for so there was no rush to get it finished and on here by Wednesday night because it wasn't for the challenge!

Ingredients:

* Black&white papers from stash

* prima flowers from stash with silver brads in the centres

* Cardinal Red promarker (and I can't remember which shades for the hair and skin, forgot to write them down!!)

* Black Copic Ciao

* Paper Mill Shop peel off sentiment

* Petite Oval Large nesties

Handbag card

Over on www.madaboutcards.com/forum a group of us take part in a birthday card exchange. This was the first card I made since Joseph was born, which amazingly got to Linda (Tag) on time!

The card is one that was in a pack my brother gave me for Christmas (from Hobbycraft I think?!), the paper is from a stack which was free with Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine a couple of months ago.

Tilda arrived in a stamped image swap (I love this one so may have to purchase her at some point!) and was coloured with Copics - I didn't think to make a note of the colours at the time, was rather pre-occupied with a tiny baby!

The purple flowers are from my stash and the smaller ones were punched from the scraps of the paper used to cover the handbag shape, with gems added from my stash and a peel-off sentiment. I also made a matching ATC as we had been discussing them on the forum, but forgot to photograph it!

60th Birthday / Retirement card

A couple of weeks ago we were invited to a 60th birthday and retirement party. If you look in the shops you probably won't find one card that combines both sentiments, but when you make your own you can! So that's what I did...





Ingredients:



* Ivory pearlescent card base from www.crafterscove.co.uk
* Green marbled card from a stack I bought in a sale at www.thecraftbug.co.uk
* Black paper from my stash
* Die-cut glass from stash
* Silver 'congratulations' tab from stash (originally bought from www.madaboutcards.com) a few years ago
* Peel-off sentiments from stash

Lots of matting and layering and 3D foam pads to add interest as I didn't have a lot of time to make this with an 8 week old baby!

Christening Invitations

Well, as promised, here is one of Joseph's christening invitations:

Recipe:

* Ivory pearlescent card blank

* Blue paper cut with petite scalloped ovals large nesties

* White card cut with petite ovals large nesties

* LOTV Christening baby stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, coloured with a layer of Ivory and a layer of Blush Pro-markers; edge of baby's pillow coloured with Pastel Blue Pro-marker; edge of christening gown - Baby Blue Stickles.

* 'Invitation' gold peel-off sticker

I have had to make a slightly different version as well, using a more turquoise-blue paper and Waterfall Stickles because I didn't have enough of either shade of blue paper to make all 50 invitations (thanks to the Paper Mill shops closing - I used to buy all my plain paper and card there as they had so many different shades of every colour!)

*

Christening Invitations

With a bit of help from my mum I made a start on the christening invitations yesterday! She cut out white ovals using my nesties and I stamped the LOTV baby in a christening gown onto them all. While I then used my nesties to cut out scalloped ovals from blue paper, Mum folded the card blanks (which I had already stuck the inserts into) and when she had gone home I stuck all the white ovals onto the blue scalloped ovals and started adding Stickles to the baby's gown - I need to keep working on that tonight!

Mum is coming back on Wednesday so we can hopefully finish them - colouring in the baby with Copics or Promarkers (any recommendations as to which colours are best would be gratefully received!!), sticking 'invitation' peel-offs on each card and then just writing names, addressing envelopes and typing & printing out directions!

Hopefully by the end of the week I will be able to put a photo of them on here, then it's back to the thank you cards for all the presents he received when he was born!

New year, new design

Thanks to the very kind RedRottie from the Docrafts forum I have found out how to make my blog look much more interesting than just the plain pink background I had before! I am still experimenting to find which one I like best but as everyone who knows me 'in the real world' could tell you I am well known for being a chocoholic so when I saw the quote on this layout I decided this would be the one... for now at least!!