May Christmas Cards

These are my efforts for the May challenge at Christmas Cards All Year Round. I love the idea of getting all my cards made early and ready (hopefully) to send well before the Christmas rush hits!

The gorgeous Christmas baubles on my first card are Nestabilities that I cut and embossed from cold cardstock. The stamped sentiment in the large bauble and the holly leaves and berries are stamps by Heartfelt Creations.

Great Ideas

Thanks for the great ideas everyone. There were a few suggestions that I thought were probably more techniques for embellishing or decorating cards rather than a card foundation, so I've left those off this list but hope to get to them another time. Also, I've noticed that some cards have more than one name, so I'll list them under both as I come across them (eg: wobble cards are also known as rocker cards, flip flop cards are also swing card, etc.).

These are the ideas I'm going to add, along with the people who first suggested them:

CardArTart - never ending card

mforquer - double side step card

Jacee - centre step card

CraftyGirl - funky fold card, tilt card, exploding card, pyramid fold card, s-fold card, diamond fold card, triangle tri-fold card, double slider card, slider window card, trellis card, magic window card, flip flop card, pop-up twirl card, free standing pop-up card, double diamond card, double tri-shutter card

Jessica - hidden message card

Theresa F - secret message card, venetian blind card

Dragon Design

My very talented 12 year old daughter wanted to share her dragon design with you all. She has a gift for drawing and particularly loves to draw pictures of dragons and other fantasy creatures. We both hope that you are able to use her design in your papercraft projects and would love to see photos of what you create.

Copyright M. Muir 2011

Technique Class - Lynn's Flowers

Last year I had the pleasure of going along to a stamping workshop at the house of a lovely lady named Lynn... Hi Lynn! While we were there she kindly showed us a technique that she had been taught that involved breaking down the fibres in Bazzil cardstock so that it split into layers. Although she learned it from someone else, who probably learned it from someone else and so on, I'm going to call them Lynn's flowers since she is the lady who taught me the basic idea.

Now, you may remember the basket tutorial I posted back in April which featured several handmade flowers placed at the base of the basket handle for decoration. These are the flowers I am going to show you today using Lynn's technique.

Requirements:
3 different sized flowers cut from Bazzil cardstock (Other brands of cardstock may also work
Large stylus (The rounded end of a pen would also work fine)
Piece of foam, such as an old mouse pad
Piercing Tool
Matching brad

1. Cut out three nesting (increasing in size) flowers from Bazzil cardstock. They can be any shape and have any kind of petals.

2. Place one of the flowers on the foam mat and rub each petal vigorously with a large stylus. You will notice the petals become softer and more flexible and eventually the cardboard will start to fray and split.

3. Gently pull each petal apart, leaving the flower intact in the centre. Repeat for all three flowers.

4. Lay the flowers one on top of the other with the smallest flower at the top and the largest flower at the bottom. Poke a hole through the centre of all three flowers using your piercing tool.

5. Push the brad through the hole and open the split pin at the back to hold all three flowers together.

6. I generally spend a little more time at this point distressing the edges of the petals a little more. Try rolling the edges between your fingers, adding little tears here and there or drag out your inks and stains to add some colour. Have fun!

A Quote from Gail...

Gail left this great little poem in the comments section of the last post I made to go along with the tissue / pocket cards. Thank you Gail, I'm going to add the quote on the inside of my cards!!

Got the sniffles?
Want to sneeze?
Use this handkerchief
If you please

A Few Cards

I made each of these cards with inspiration from my online card group, Cardcamp. These two tissue cards are based on a great card by one of the lovely card artists over there, Deloris. I just loved the idea of a placing a tissue on a Get Well card... why haven't I ever thought of that before??

This card was made for our weekly Case Card challenge. I painted the ferns with distress inks, scanned and printed a couple of them, then layered little squares on top of a complete image.

Textured Card

I'm very excited about an upcoming Shoe Box swap taking place at my cardmaking group. For those who have never been involved in one, a Shoe Box swap is basically where participants come up with a card design, put together kits, place everything in a box and then the boxes are handed around the table for each participant to make one of what's inside. Anyway, I'm doing this white on white card using lots of different textures and a stamped sentiment (I think it's a Stamping Up one). The pearls and the ribbon appear a little yellow in the pictures, but I think it's my lack of photography skills that caused it!

Pirate Girl

Free Printable #148
As you can see, I have posted two images of the pirate girl. The first one is my original hand-drawing that is scanned and uploaded, which is what I normally post. The second image has been retraced in a drawing program before being uploaded. I'm really interested to know what you all think about the difference between the two... which is easier to use, etc.

Copyright Beccy Muir 2011

First Mate

Free Printable #147
Copyright Beccy Muir 2011

Treasure Chest

Free Printable #146
Copyright Beccy Muir 2011

Pirate Captain

Free Printable #145
Copyright Beccy Muir 2011

Card Headers

Free Printable #144

Copyright Beccy Muir 2011

Jolly Roger

Free Printable #143

I've been feeling a wee touch piratey lately so decided to design some new images for you to use. I hope you'll find this latest series of designs useful for kid's cards, invitations and other swashbuckling projects.

Copyright Beccy Muir 2011

Christmas Lantern

Free Printable #142

This is the image I used for the cards in my previous post, which I coloured with distress inks and a water brush. I added a nice glow around the outside of the lantern glass with some yellow ink that fades out softly giving the appearance of a slow burning flame.

Copyright Beccy Muir 2011