Cards 26.10.10

It seems i’ve taken a break from my other crafts and well i have. Knitting takes too long and i just haven’t been able to work up enthusiasm to do anything with my nails or henna. I do have something on my knitting needles that needs to be finished up for its intended recipient who’s already arrived (somehow i can’t seem to get the baby gifts ready before the baby actually arrives!)

Anyways…here’s a custom order i’ve shipped off. A birthday card ordered by a wife for her elephant obsessed husband!

I’m not happy with the lettering i did for this card but i didnt have time to colour in 2 elephants hence i had to ship it off as is. Fortunately though they are perfectly happy with it as is. Phew!

The next 2 are personal….here’s a card i did for my baby sister for her birthday that just passed.

My sisters a bit of a retro soul so i’m immensely happy with the top portion of the card. I did get carried away with my new embossing tools and i think i could have done better with the bottom section. The envelopes came out just nice though.

Here’s a card for my in-laws on their anniversary.

This was from one of the pictures of them at our wedding reception. I printed out 2 copies of the picture and cut their silhoutte out and raised it with foam tape. I love this card and have nothing i would change on it…well except for the colour of the tag!

Anniversary Card

My grandparents-in-law have been married for 60+ years and their anniversary is just around the corner on October 10th. My husband contributed the present and the card making fell to me (obviously).

As coincidence would have it my favourite card maker, Kristina Werner, did an anniversary card for her Finally Friday videos which i really liked. Here’s her card:

I really liked the idea of the stamped man & woman and i liked the patterned paper in the background too so i decided to use this card as my inspiration. Here’s my take on it:

I first tried to replicate the stamped man & woman but do it “Indian” which didn’t look very good. My drawing skills just aren’t that up to scratch! So i settled on 2 faces. I then compiled 4 patterned papers but didn’t sort out my measurements before i cut and well…lets just say that we’ll save that background idea for another card.

Since the card was Indian themed i finished off with some simple henna designs on the background circle and along the borders. Can anyone suggest a good photo-taking option for cards? I always seem to have either too much light or too little which prevents the details of the card coming through the way they should.

I have another anniversary card but i cant show that yet as it hasn’t made its way to its intended recipients. We’ll save that for another post

Enjoy the weekend…

Diwali Cards

The Festical of light is just weeks away and i’ve started work on cards to commemorate the occassion. This is a sampling of the ones i’ve finished and i’ve got a few more waiting to be finished.

Anyone interested in getting a hold of these cards for themselves can check out my Facebook page “Ethnic Tradeswoman” and message me for more details. Readers of this blog get a special offer of 4 cards for the promotional price if you message me with “Preet-O coupon”.

Here’s the first sampling…more to come in the next few days!

Rangoli Series

 

Peacock Series

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I managed to get my first commission order of cards a looong while back (early August) but was simply too busy to get much of a start on them. Lucky for me they don’t need to be delivered to their recipient till the end of the year. Nonetheless i buckled down and got 3 of the 4 commissioned cards sorted out this weekend and here they are

The digi art on the first 2 cards is from Meljen’s design studio. They have the loveliest digi’s … perfect for the sentiment i wanted expressed and for the intended recipient – 2 little girls whose mummy wants them to know they are most loved. So sweet!

The last card is 2 of my clear stamps (i forget the name of this set) that i combined and stamped. I didn’t like how ‘thin’ the stamped image looked so i went over the design with my pen and glittered up some spots for a lovely design finish. I used my craft knife to cut out the design and reinforced it on a lavender cardstock which i again trimmed before mounting it on the final purple shimmer cardstock.

Enjoy your week ahead while i go crash from what’s been a tiring but very satisfying crafting weekend

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There have been a spate of birthdays recently and of course the occasions demanded personalized birthday greetings which i was only too happy to devote some time to.

I give you the 3 cards i pushed out this month:

• Spare birthday card

For this card i used a cream cardstock (i forget the brand name) which i got from Spotlight. I’m a big fan of the rounded corners and my corner chomper sees a lot of action. I also pulled out one of my Fiskars border punches to add some decorative elements. For the bottom and circle background i used some lovely Japanese flower motif paper to help the border design pop.

I had a free digi of presents which i printed in 3 different sizes and layered for more effect. The smallest one in front has been popped out to give it some dimension. I did the same for the circle against the ribbon background to avoid having the card look too flat. To tie in the ‘blank’ spaces i used a stitching detail which i replicated on the circle too. Last but not least having the sentiment stamped on and i used an ink pen in a coordinating colour to outline the sentiment.

• Card for my 18-yr old cousin

I always find it a challenge to do a boys/guys card. From colour selection to decor its not all that easy. For my cousin though the fact that he is a die-hard soccer fan (especially Manchester United) did help me out to theme the card. For his card i used a metallic grey card-stock and accented with grey and grey-blue papers. I wanted to try out using a ribbon but i suspect my ribbon is a) too thin and b) my centre-piece too big so the ribbon does get a little lost except for the bow at the side (which looks a little off because i took the picture while the fan was going so the bow fluttered madly!)

I was going to try to do the man utd jersey but decided that was way too complex for an early saturday morning so i free-handed this jersey, used a template for the numbers (18 for his 18th birthday) and again free-handed his name under the name (which technically should be above it but we’ll just ignore that for now) as well as the sentiment. I boo-booed on the bottom corners though as i ended up using 2 different corner punches!

• Birthday card for my mummy

This card took me forever! The colour on my pictures is bad (all photos taken with an iPhone3G) so the champagne pink of the cardstock doesn’t really show. I had more of that lovely Japanese floral paper which i cut into strips to border off the Fiskars borders i punched on a deeper peach cardstock.

I had no idea what to do with my centre-piece or even how to orient the card. In the end i tried out the new scallop circle punch i had and decided to play around and try to make a free-form flower out of it. Both flowers have 2 layers of petals that overlap with the base layer being the deeper peach of the lace border. For the top layer i used a plain pale yellow and the floral paper and i must say the plain flower looks much better than the floral paper one. lastly i added some leaves, punched out a small flower for the center and glittered it up. I added a label tag with “happy birthday” and popped that up on the card with foam dots.

I’m enjoying the card making and reading the many blogs i do for inspiration. I already have my first commissioned set planned and now to just execute!

On a side note i owe a series of posts on the great entertainment of my bollywood wedding as well as chronicles of a new wife…certainly need to give this blog a more relevant and post-worthy direction or seriously think of shutting it down given the long periods of inactivity. Till my next post – au revoir!

Je’taime

It’s a week to my wedding and I wanted to make my soon-to-be hubs a personalized gift. Given the shortage of time the narrow choices led me straight toward this card.

It’s inspired by one of the Kristina Werner designs which I’ll link here when I get a chance to sit at a proper computer and not be blogging on my iPhone.

Enjoy the weekend!

Cards galore

I am woefully behind on my blogging and i have several posts which are due but are getting delayed because i am just swamped! This time i have a great reason – the impending end to my singlehood in 14 days.

In the meantime though i’ve added another craft to my addiction list – card making. Here are 2 cards i did yesterday for 2 upcoming birthdays.

I’ve received a wonderful response to the cards on my facebook and even have an order placed for more custom cards. If you’re interested do drop me a comment or email (idiosyncraticpreeto@gmail.com).

Enjoy the week!

Babies and blankets

My littlest cousin, the grand-dame Madame Gulabo, finally got her baby blanket which was supposed to have been finished before she came along. Our madame was in a little hurry to establish herself as the center of attraction in our large family and so arrived earlier than expected. Nevertheless i persevered to finish her blanket before her first birthday and it got lost in my huge house move.

I didn’t have time to block it or take nice pictures but here it is the finished product.

The name of the yarn escapes me but its easily found in spotlight and especially for babies…it was so yummy and soft. The colour combination worked out fab too

I found the pattern for the teddy bears here and it took me a few sample runs before i decided how i wanted this blanket done. I modified the pattern by doubling the numbers of cast on stitches and working each row twice as well. The edging i added on by picking up stitches from each side and doing it one side at a time. It took some major effort to finish each square and then join them all up but i’m glad the finished result looks great and has been much appreciated by the madame’s parents.

More pictures to come with Gulabo and her blanket. Enjoy your week…i’m off to India in a day and will post on my adventures once i’m back.

A long overdue hello

A deep, sincere apology to all my readers. I’ve been remiss from my writing. My usual excuse applies – life intruded and this time in a very big and good way. More details on that to come …

Did a clearing house of my pictures and found these. Just a little something to whet the appetites until i can put together a much better post. Enjoy!

This one was a little something i had put together after looking at the nail art stickers i sometimes pick up from cart vendors in malls etc. Its not always possible to have the time to do up your own designs and in a pinch these work to pretty up your pinkies. I know – overdose on the pink!

From pinks i take you to a rehash of the french tips that I’ve liked doing. If you don’t have much time to give your nails my advice truly is to just do the tips and not the whole nail as the tips are much easier to repair should the unimaginable happen and you smudge it while waiting for it to dry. Another point in favour for the french-tipped nail for me is the experimentation it allows me in terms of colours. The yellow in this case is highly pigmented and really pops so it was good to limit it to the tips.

Another yellow heavy design was this one which was inspired by my Bali vacation. I had done a blue one as well but i didn’t get to photograph it in time. Even with this yellow one you can see its started to chip! To me Bali was breath-taking for its wonderful waters and mesmerising sunsets. I personally love watching the water and if you combine sunset with that its sheer bliss for me

And this last one was done to match my outfit for a very special occasion. The outfit was blue with lots of bronze/

gold embroidery and i decided to reverse the colours for my nails as a blue outfit with blue nails might have been just a tad overkill.

Enjoy the weekend ahead and hope you guys spend it surrounded by your loved ones as I will be with my mad, loud and highly eccentric extended family – you just gotta love em.

All things bright & sparkly?

So it seems I’m a little taken with glitter and sparkles. I like to think it’s symptomatic of this time of the year rather than some deep-seated issues.

The first design is my take on “Starry, starry night” with my twist. The second is my ode to the twilight series – slightly goth but prettied up to make me feel all uber glamorous

A long weekend looms and i’m contemplating getting an actual canvas and doing an original piece for my new bedroom. A baby blanket is also on the needles waiting to be finished and a couple of books have been queued. Bliss!