Monday 21 January 2013

Happy New Year everyone....!

....now of course, I realize we're well into January, three-quarters though it, truth be told, but I've done nothing worth blogging about for some time - well nothing crafty anyway!

But it's a brand new year and a lot of my life arrangements have dramatically changed now so in effect, a new life too!

One of the big things to change, is I have lost the care of my darling, gorgeous, beautiful grandbabbies (...sniff sniff...) as Ada has started school and Toby, nursery.  I spent eleven hours a day bringing up these lickle angels so hopefully, I might get some time to craft and blog this year!   I just have Toby one day a week now and, to be perfectly honest, at my age, that's quite sufficient thank you very much...! LOL!

I have one more small delay - I'm in hospital for a couple of days soon and I may be out of action for a couple of weeks, but after that, I'll be raring to go and get back to my crafting/blogging/DT's !

You know I don't boast about my grandbabbies (...much...!) but a couple of piccies for the new year and then back to crafting as I finally found a use for those Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen papers I acquired about two years ago and can never find a way to use them!  

I'm afraid I'm not a crafty fashion-follower - I use what I have that suits the project - I don't really care what year it's from - same with stamps & digis.
I'm an artisan not a saleswoman! LOL!











Okay, bragging done - back to crafting! LOL!


This is a card for my neighbour's daughter who was being 18. She wanted something more grown up, Art Deco flavour, with cats and in red!  
Well, I managed all but the red - I'm afraid I have real difficulty making red look classy!  

So I took a chance and remembered my LLB papers! Peacock feathers! And I knew I had a couple of real peacock feathers somewhere too.

It's a large format card, being a tri-folded A3 base-card so I also had to make an envebox for it too. That too took an entire A3 card.



 The Front
I used the LLB peacock feather paper from his 'Viennaissance' Collection and centred it up so the crown was fairly central. (I used gold peel-offs for the number and name purely because a) it was VERY short notice and b) I didn't want to chance messing up with embossing inks and powders for the same reason!

The gold borders are very thin metal adhesive embellishments by Avec called, simply, Adhesive Borders! The only identifying thing on the packet is on the barcode 4.009.220. I'd like to find these again myself as they've been very useful.  That's all that's on the front and why I'm not keen on LLB - it's already all done - not much extra you can do with them.



 The Inner
This is a royalty-free image from a Dover Books cd and the cats I drew myself and both are on printable acetate, for which you mirror your image, print on the 'rough'side and then apply with the 'rough' printed side against the page, giving you a smooth image which won't smudge or get damaged.
I cut out a crown from the LLB paper cut-off and adhered to the top of the mat and four little black gems cover the adhesive dots.




 The Verse
This lovely verse is by a chap called Kyle J Underwood who wrote it for his daughter (lucky girl to have such a loving Daddy) 



She's a soft cool rain on a hot summer’s day.
She makes us laugh with the funny things she has to say.

She's our heart’s delight, and the air that we breathe.
She's the sun and the wind, and autumn’s golden leaves.

She's the pride that we feel when  we know she's done right.
She's that warm feeling we get, when we kiss goodnight.
She is homework and sports, and a busy social life.
She has this beautiful smile that  lights the darkest night.

She is the scared feeling we have when she stays out late.
Or the fear that we are losing her, when she goes on a date.

She's the mixed emotions  as we watch her mature  & grow.
We tell ourselves she will never leave, but know in our hearts  that someday , she will go.

We pray the man that steals her , will treat her like a queen.
Because she deserves so much more, than a man who is mean.

We will always cherish the wonderful times we have had.
The best part of our life was being her Mum & Dad.

So now you know who she is, she's our little girl.
We love her with all our hearts and we always will.

                                                      
Kyle J. Underwood



I did change a couple of words to make it from both Mum & Dad for Rachael so apologies to Mr. Underwood - I hope he wouldn't mind.





The Envebox
I had to make a special 'flip top' envebox for this card and it took another A3 sheet of card to make it! When I get time, I'll do a tut on the making of it as it was really easy but looked very impressive.  Once again, the metal borders plus a real peacock feather, an organza bow, with a large amber gem stuck on it and a tassell from the LLB collection and - voila! Done!

I also adhered another mat to the back of the card to make a pocket to take a bookmark, which I made with leftover off-cuts. 

This meant that Rachael's parents could write on the bookmark and not the card and also that Rachael could use the bookmark and remember both her 18th and her parents when she was reading.






Materials (to recap)

1 x sheet of LLB 'Viennaisance' collection Peacock Feather paper.
1 x sheet of teal patterned paper from the same collection
2 x A3 sheets of Centura Pearl card
2 sheets of metallic Adhesive Borders by Avec
1 x A4 sheet of printable acetate
2 x Centura Pearl mats
1 x 'Real' Peacock feather
1 x gold organza bow
1 x large amber gem 
8 x black rhinestone gems
1 x gold tassel from LLB collection

I am pleased to report that my neighbour was delighted with the card and even teared up a little!  Aaaaahh...! Success! I love it when they cry - it means I've done my job properly! LOL!

Hope you enjoy my return to blogworld and hope I can keep it up this time - I'll certainly try!

Hugs
Ei
x







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