First Wobbly Tooth

STORY OF A PSYCHOTIC MOTHER

Sorry if this is messy - posting from my mobile because my camera is flat again.

What an eventful evening! My son declared he had a sore tooth whilst eating afternoon tea so off to the dentist we raced - I'm an anxious mum and he doesn't brush properly!

 

 

 

 

All good though - he liked the dentist, his teeth are wonderful ... And he's get his first wobbly tooth! I'm ridiculously excited!

So what do I do? Why, I spend my evening agonising over the possibility of him losing his tooth at school, so I create a cute/fun incentive for him NOT to.

A Tooth Cosy!

I showed it to my husband - he gave me an "are you mental??" stare.

See the below pics - its a simple envelope with the sides sealed with double sided tape (I'd sew but I suck at it), the flap held down with restickable glue, a folded up tissue (cut down to a suitable size) stashed inside and whatever decorating you want on it. I even stamped the tissue decoratively :)

The restickable glue will need to be reapplied, I think, and is not entirely ideal but my best option for making sure he can open and reseal the envelope. My original idea involved punching a little hole in the flap and another in the front wall of the envelope and feeding a piece of ribbon through each hole with a knot at the end so that the package could be tied shut ... But he doesn't know how to tie knots and bows yet! Even if the glue doesn't hold, it should be secure enough anyway :)

It doesn't have to be fancy - just needs to be cute and hold together long enough for the tooth to make it safely under their pillow.  Hey - even if you're not psychotic like me, it's also a cute way to "present" the tooth to the tooth fairy!  Easy enough for the kids to make / help make / decorate, too.

 

 

Happy Wobbling!

 

Dani :)

 

 

 

 

Wedding Fever: The Conclusion, I Think

 

THIS MIGHT BE IT - WEDDING CARD

I think I've done it!  I've put it into an envelope and am putting the fact it's mounted slightly crooked out of my mind because other than that, I love this card!  I think this will be the one I give to my friend for her wedding (unless my OCD and self-criticism rages out of control in the next month or so).

 

What do you think?  I am adoring its simplicity, yet dainty prettiness :)

The pretty cut out is a Shapeability die cutter and embosser that I ran through my Cuttlebug.  The background design was painstakingly hand-stamped and bejewelled :)  The "love" is heat embossed.

Yeah, I'm loving it!

Happy Weddings!

 

Dani :)

Wedding Fever

I have a friend who is getting married in October and I want to make her the perfect card. Don't know if I am there yet but happily throwing a variety of styles of cards together as practice to help me decide what I will finally make for her :)

One is in silver and white with a big lovely fabric flower and a skeleton leaf for a delicate splash of colour.

Another is going with more chocolatey tones, using my own stamps to create patterned paper and making it pop with a scattering of jewels and pearls.

And finally, I made a couple of simple ones, utilising heat embossing (which I love!). Minimalist and cute!

Hope you enjoy!

Dani :)

Christmas is-a-comin'! - Ongoing Update

BE PREPARED!

Stay Tuned - This Will Be Updated Each Time I Make More

Scoff if you will, but I like to be prepared!

The first couple of years that I made my own cards, I slaved away doing mass production for the month of November. And frankly - it was a bloody miserable experience!

So now I like to make one here and there in the last several months of the year and tuck them away in a cute Christmas box to keep them fresh and clean.

Below are the cards that I have made - each one very different!

 

As you can see, even though my blog has been quiet, i have still been productive - Hope you enjoy!  I'll update with more card pictures as I make them.

 

 

 

Christmas Obsessing

Dani :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet n Lacy

 

SWEET N LACY WITH LOVE

A friend of mine did a lovely card using a layered lace technique with the same border punch and I couldn't resist making something of my own!  It's a simple and effective card to throw together in a hurry!

• Fold your base card in half and set aside
• Select your four pastel coloured papers and cut them to be about 4 centimetres high and 3 centimetres wider than your card
• Using a lace design border/edge punch (Mine is a Fiskars one), punch out the lace design along a long edge of each colour piece (quick technique at the bottom of this page for getting an accurate continuous pattern)
• Layer the four colour lace pieces as you see above - this is why you made them too long for the card, so that you can have enough "give room" to line the alternate the lining up of the design
• Cover the top edge of the paper lace with ribbon, using double sided tape
• Embellish with a big pretty flower and skeleton leaves
• Stamp your greeting
• Done!

BORDER PUNCHING TECHNIQUE:

First of all, punch in the centre of the edge, as per standard instructions.  Now we do things a little bit differently - flip the punch over!

Maybe I don't have that special touch but everytime I try to follow the guides on the punches, it comes out looking all hacked up and horrible, things just don't line up as they should.

If you flip it over, you can still effectively punch and this way you can line up your previous punch with the actual punching mechanism!

See in the punch how there is a gaping blackness?  That's because that's where I've lined up my last punch!

Happy Punching!

Dani :)



Happy As A ...

 

PIG IN MUD!

My friend and I were at the shops last night buying gifts for 6 year old girls (panic!) and in the card section my friend happen to exclaim at the cuteness of a pig card.  So, since I wanted to avoid cleaning today anyway, I made one for her!

...probably she just awww'd at it because she thought it would be cute for a 6 year old girl.

First of all, I cut out a bunch of pink circles with some punches I have.  Large one for the body, smaller one for the head, even smaller for the snout and teeny ones for the ears!  I edged them all with a similar pink ink.

Piece together as above picture.  To add some dimension, use foam tape between the head and body and the snout and head.  Attach the little ear circles to the BACK of the head.  Find some silly goggle eyes and glue them on.  And finally, use a regular hole punch to create nostrils with black card.

I wanted to have nice rounded feet but because the legs are really no more than a centimetre wide, it was a little tricky to achieve ...so I went for pointy, still using my corner punch to make it as neat as possible.  Of course, me being me, I changed my mind later on and quickly rounded off the ends :)

Anyway, I inked the edges of the legs just as I did the circles.

Since he is a pig in mud, I used a brown ink pad and some cotton buds to gently apply some "mud" to the feet.  I started with a rolling action, to carefully apply the ink, then started to smudge it around a bit.

Stick the legs to the back of the body so that they're the desired length.  Smudge some more "mud" over the rest of the pig, wherever you like really!  No sense in having a happy pig in mud if it's clean!

I also used a cotton bud with pink ink to accentuate the ears a little, as well as shadows at the tops of the legs and under the chin.  I drew a mouth directly onto the pig's face because, you know, it's happy!  Plus without a mouth it was starting to give me the creeps..

I created the pig pen mud with brown card that I cut a gentle wavy design into the top of.  I then used the off-cut wavy design as the front layer of mud that the fence posts sit behind.  The fence is made, obviously, from ice cream sticks.  For the standing posts, I trimmed them down to about 3/4 length.  I roughly, but generously, rubbed a brown inkpad across each stick before sticking the mud and fence onto the card.

The order is:  Mud, fence, mud top layer, pig.  I used foam tape between the mud top layer and the fence; and the pig and the fence.  The pig's feet are stuck directly onto the top layer of mud.

I drew a curly tail directly onto the card (it's short in this picutre but you'll see I later extended it).  I had big plans for using string or wire or something curly but at the end of the day, this seemed easier  and less busy on an already busy card.

Next I decided (yes, I was working without a plan!) to add some colour so it would pop a bit more.  I created some tufts of grass by cutting out thin green triangles and then fussy cutting the spikes at the top.  Then I put a little tape behind them, slotted the bottom tips of them under the mud, so they were positioned against the fence, and stuck them down.

See?

I also decided to shorten the top layer of mud a bit.

The finishing touches:

• Lengthened the tail
• Using the same technique as with the grass, I punched a circle and fussy cut spikes to create a little sun to fill the top right corner  I trimmed it to fit the card after I stuck it down so that it would fit the corner perfectly.
• Fussy cut a little apple and leaf for the bottom right corner, again just to add a little colour
• Used my computer to create the "Happy as a ..." and " ... in mud!", cut them out and stuck em down!
• Used colour markers to draw tiny highlights onto the apple, leaf, grass and sun.
• Done!

Happy as a ...

Dani :)