Rachael's birthday Tilda

I've taken a real shine to that cute little gal from Magnolia Stamps.. Tilda.  She's such a cutie pie and I hope to feature her, along with my Floral Paper Sculpture, on this coming years cards.
Here is the first of them which I made for my granddaughter, Rachael, for her 11th Birthday.
I have done my colouring with Prismacolor Pencils and Gamsol..  I am going to have a go at using Copic markers in the New Year but I must say I do love my pencils.

EZ Cut for making boxes

In recent days I've purchased an EZ Cut machine..  I've been waiting and waiting for an A4 size machine to come on to the market and it finally has.
I've wanted one this size because most of my cards are A5 in size and wont go through the most of the current die cut machines.  I've also wanted to be able to make pretty window in my display boxes..  NOW I CAN.
Here is a card I made recently for a good friends birthday... The window in the box was done with the Curved Rectangles Nestabilities.
Happy Thursday everyone!

Easel Card

This is an Easel Card..  A few of my friends have made one of these cards so I just had to have a go.
The flower on this is one that Joanne (Mainly Flowers) designed and another friend,  Patti Jo,  gave her touch to it.  I then in turn added more petals giving it my own touch..  Joanne calls it a "Scallop Punch Flower"... I think I've 'nick named' it a "Frilly Flower".  The link for Joanne's flower is here...
http://joanne-mainlyflowers.blogspot.com/2008/10/scallop-punch-flower-tutorial.html
It certainly puts a smile on my face when I see how one idea can evolve into another and so on.
There should be more on the inside of this card but I haven't decided yet what the card will be used for.

PEARY Flowers

This Peary flower is one of my flower designs featured in my eBook - PENNY FLOWERS. I had quite a few birthday cards to make this month and here they are... all featuring this pretty little flower.

The punches used to make this flower are.. 6 Small Pears; 1 Small Snowflakes; 3 Small Suns.. the leaves I've used for these layouts is a die from Stampin' Up called.. Little Leaves.

INCHIES..

I came across the technique of "Inchies" and wondered what on earth they were. Well.. it's a wonderful way of using up scrap paper and one of the things you can achieve is 'patchwork'. Well I am always looking for a new idea to use as a background for my flowers but of late with the high cost of postage I am also looking for ideas to make flat cards so they don't cost the earth to post.
I set out to make some 'inchies' and combined new and used bits'n'pieces. I've used up little scraps of ribbon and braid.. even the little bits of peel offs we have left on the sheet once we've removed the sticker.
Here are some of the 'inchies' I've made as well as a card I put together for a friend's birthday.

Furniture

When my hubby called home from work and asked how I was I told him I was making a wardrobe.. his response was "I'd like to see that!" I think what he had conjured up in his mind and what I was making were nothing really alike .
Here is another idea as a backdrop for my flowers. I intend on making more and doing more elaborate designs with my flowers but this is my first attempt..

For the twins

Little did I know when I first thought of this idea of making guitars for the musical swap I had organised that my little grandson had developed a real love for them.. How could I not make one for him? I then had to come up with an idea of what to make for my granddaughter.. What else but a CAT! The perfect choice. So Grandma set out to make a special card for her grandtwins..

Guitars

Music is a wonderful way to express our emotions.. so the idea of incorporating it on a card, either a score of music, the words of a song or even a musical instrument.. makes another great backdrop for my flowers.
Here are two cards I did for a 'musical swap' on my group, PENNY FLOWERS & Paper Crafts. They are "almost" the same but not quite :)

CLOCKS

I'm always on the lookout for something to put my flowers with.. The idea of a clock came to mind but what sort? Grandfather clock? Mantel clock? ahhh! what about a Cuckoo clock? After trying to find a pattern without much success I took on the idea of using a bird house.. Here are the results..

Exactly Two years ago

Yes.. here is a card I completed exactly two years ago. It's dated 13th September 2007 and would you believe.. it was sent to a friend whose name is Penny :)
I hadn't even given my PENNY FLOWERS eBook a thought then.. but no.. I didn't name PENNY FLOWERS after her.. it's just a nice co-incidence about the name. Hi Penny!

I did however base my Floral Display entry that I entered into the Royal Melbourne Show last year on this card... but a much bigger version and with many more flowers.

Fan card

I haven't been doing much over the past few weeks although it seems like I have.
I've sent off birthday cards I've made but these were done some time ago, so it was good to have some work done in readiness :)
One thing I have been working on is a Fan Card... I got the idea from a magazine but just didn't like the way they had done their fans so I did mine 'back to front' (that is with the folds of the fan being in the front and not going into the card. Does that sound like 'Double Dutch'? It does to me :) The little flowers are Autumn Roses.

Penny's Pride

I'm always looking for new flowers to make. I try to base them on real ones but it's not easy competing with God :) He is our Creator and He looks over his creations and says "It is good" while we try to imitate and we don't look at ours being 'good' but instead.. wonderful, fantastic, amazing! If only my work was GOOD.
Whilst looking googling flower images I can across a flower called London's Pride... I didn't think it was a real flower at first but it is... so I did my humble version of it and it's called... Penny's Pride.
Here is a photo of London's Pride and my card with Penny's Pride.

The PENNY FLOWER

These two cards were made using the actual PENNY FLOWER.. This was the first flower I did for my eBook PENNY FLOWERS.

More cards for friends...

Here are some more cards made for friends.. It always brings me so much pleasure when I know that a card I've sent has put a smile on a friends face.

Auctioned for Cancer

Here are two cards I made to be auctioned in the USA to aid Colon Cancer. The flowers on these cards are my own designs and are in my eBook, PENNY FLOWERS. I made a presentation box for each one as I usually do for my 3D cards.

Hungry Jacks (Burger King)

When I first started to help some of my Internet friends enter the world of Floral Paper Sculpture one thing that was asked many times and that was.. "what sort of paper do you use?" At that time I was mainly using text weight paper but since then I've found that papers a little heavier, but not card stock, can produce some wonderful effects. However.. back then when asked I said that so long as the paper was the colour you wanted and that you could punch and mould it.. it didn't really matter.. I said "you know.. I heard once that someone had made these flowers from a placemat from a fast food restuarant". The person I said this to thought I was joking. Sometime later while my hubby and I were having dinner at Hungry Jacks (known to some as Burger King) I was looking at the placemats and decided I would give it a go myself so I asked one of the staff if I could have a couple of placemats. Without going further into this story which could become a novel.. I was given two different placemats which I made a card from each. Apart from the actual card.. the flowers and the leaves were made from the placemats. I only used the one type of placemat for each card, however, I did use two of each one.

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Roses, Roses, Roses

Nearly everyone loves a Rose.. I must say it's been one of my most favourite flowers to make. These cards were made over the last four years and sent to some of my internet friends. It's a nice feeling to know that I've been able to share a little part of me with friends all over the world.
Here are some of my ROSE cards.

Melaleuca - Paperbark Tree

I've been looking back on some of the work I've done over the past five years or so and some of it that I thought was good at the time, I wouldn't consider showing you now, however one piece I did back then was a Melaleuca - Flowering Paperbark Tree.. I'd really like to do this again now because my techniques have changed so much since then.
The flowers were made by finely fringing lengths of paper and then 'rolling' them up to make a "pom pom" type flower.

Not PINK..

I was just looking over the cards I've put on my blog and it's rather obvious that my most favourite colour for making cards is pink! I think I should show you some of my work that is away from the pastel colours that I favour!
The Green card with the Cream flower was made for one of my internet friends a couple of years ago and the one with the Red flowers was made for my good friend Loraine.

Another Baby card

Here is another Baby card that I made earlier this year. The roses on this card were made using my Ultimate Rose way of making them.

Butterfly Bookatrix

Here's another bookatrix card. This one features on of the flowers from my PENNY FLOWERS Ebook.. The Dahlia Rose (left hand side).

Wedding Bookatrix

When my daughter in law asked me to a wedding card for friends of theirs.. she said "Mum.. can you make something special" Well I did my best and I'm told the newlyweds were pleased.. and if the big hug I got from my daughter in law was any indication I would say it was ok.

The Bookatrix certainly makes a lovely card. Some people don't mount them on a card but I like to so that I can put a liner in the card and an appropriate verse.

Baby Cards

I don't make Baby cards too often, in fact, I've only made three over the last three years. The little shoes on each of them were made from a pattern that was (not sure if it still is) a free download on the net... I downsized the pattern and changed it a little to suit myself.