Chrissie's Place

Hi everyone, I thought I'd post some family cards today.
I usually make lots of christmas cards for myself, my Mum and my two sons, but this year I've told them they will have to buy theirs as I'm only making my own.
I know this may sound mean, but I honestly got so sick of making cards last christmas, that it took all the fun out of it. Also they can be bought so cheaply, that I sometimes think it's a wasted effort unless the recipient appreciates handmade cards.
Anyway, I've made one from my Mum for her beloved brother and his wife, another from me for them and my Mum's card from me.
The one for Mum's brother uses a wonderful image and backing paper which was kindly offered freely by Jak. She often does this sort of thing, which just proves how wonderfully generous crafters can be. If you haven't been to her blog before, why ever not? Pop over and spend some time looking at all her wonderful creations.
My card for my lovely Uncle and Aunt uses a stunning image taken from a calender and mounted onto some luxurious gold embossed paper. I've just highlighted with a couple of gems.
The final card is my card for Mum and uses another image from the same calender, this time mounted onto some gorgeous black 'tapestry' card and white glitter card (both from Joanna Sheen) and again finished off with a couple of gems.
I hope you like them, it made a nice change making these as I've been having fun with the cute cards up until now, and 'variety is the spice of life' or so they say.

Hi everyone, I hope you are all keeping well.
I don't know where the last week went to but I suddenly realised it had been a week since I last posted on either of the blogs, so here I am!

My youngest son is 30 on the 30th of this month and if you haven't had this milestone happen to you yet, trust me...it definitely makes you feel old! What happened to the last 30 years??
He is always quite difficult to make a card for as he isn't really into cars, sport or computers, however he does love music and has a really good voice. He sings with a local band and loves karaoke etc. so that was the theme for his card.
The image was from the Cuddly Buddly download kit "Local Lads" and I've done a head transplant to make it feel a bit more personal.
I hope he likes it, I think he will as he has a great sense of humour.

I'm actually in the process of making some cards so watch this space! (well not actually THIS space, as they'll be posted on my other blog so it'll be THIS space)

I'm beginning to get a feeling that my sons may have been in collaboration recently and decided that their "poor old mum" needs to be kept busy.
My eldest son needed a wedding card last weekend, then my youngest son needed a birthday and anniversary card last week, and last night my eldest rang up to say they needed a 13th birthday card this weekend for their nephew. He was quite proud of himself as he knew what the theme would be this time, Manchester United.
So this is the end result, the image and backing paper are part of a download from Cuddly Buddly and the image has been coloured with pro-markers, printed out twice and decoupaged. The sentiment and Man Utd logo were done on the PC.
Let's hope everyone's happy with this, as teenage boy's cards are not really my strong point.

My youngest son rang yesterday to say he will pop over on Thursday to see us and have some dinner. Then he advised me that it is one of his best friends' birthday next week and she has just accepted a proposal of marriage, so could I make a card for each of these occasions and he'll pick them up tomorrow, no rush then!
The only clue I got as far as subject matter for the cards was concerned was that she liked horses, and for the engagement card he thought a silhouette.
As his wish is always my command, this is the result.

I got the image and sentiment for the birthday card from the internet, mounted them onto some cardstock and finished off with a little yellow flower, a cuttlebug oval and some alphabet peel offs from K & Co.
The engagement card image and backing paper is from Joanna Sheen's Dancing with Shadows CD, mounted onto pearlescent paper, with cuttlebug corners and a Craftybitz sentiment tag.

I haven't had time to do any challenge cards today, but hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get one done.
Thanks for visiting, I hope you (and Gemma) like the cards.

I thought maybe I should give a second choice for this card as I have never met the recipients and have no idea what they'd like! So this is the wedding card version 2.
The beautiful images and sentiment were a gift from Jak. If you've never seen this clever lady's fabulous work before...where have you been? Please check out her blog, she makes the most stunning cards with all of her flowers being made from punches, absolutely unbelievable!
The images have been mounted onto silver miri card and the card itself was made from some beautiful white hammered cardstock from The Papermill.

My eldest son rang me last night and said he had a favour to ask. Well, to be honest, neither of my sons ring me out of the blue midweek unless they want something, so it was no big surprise! He and my DIL are attending a wedding reception on Saturday and he wondered if I'd like to make a wedding card for them. Well of course I would, I had only been waiting to be given the opportunity! Irony is lost on my sons.
Anyway, here is the card. I've used the first sheet of my beautiful Papermill cardstock in ivory linen, the image is actually from the Greetings Card Factory CD, mounted onto silver miri card and the sentiment is part of a download kit. The corners are again silver miri card using the "vintage" cuttlebug dies and finished off with a little pearl on each corner. Another really simple card, but I thought this image looked quite effective, and as the wedding couple are only acquaintances and not close friends I think it will be OK. I apologise for the scan, I obviously didn't line the card up very well as it looks a little skiffy, it is straight IRL!

Good evening, I'm a little earlier with my posting today as I've just finished making a card for a 65th birthday.
When my youngest son visited for his dinner on Wednesday evening, his flatmate had asked him to request a card for a work colleague called Ted, who was going to be 65. As usual there were no real ideas of what was wanted but she thought that a '50's pinup would be good (she had seen a couple of my other cards with these on) and could I make it A4 so that everyone could sign it?
Well the answer was "yes", the image wasn't a problem, but what sentiment to put on? Well after racking my brains for a while I've come up with this one, now I just hope he has a sense of humour!

I've never made a Christening card, but last week I received an order for not one, but two. They were for 2 different baby boys but were ordered from the same person, who has her grandson and her (soon to be) godson being christened at the end of this month. Because the same families would be at both events I wanted to make the cards very different from each other and these are the 2 cards I've come up with. I hope you like them, they are both A4 in size and made from Joanna Sheen's beautiful tapestry cardstock (which doesn't scan well) and both sentiments were done on the PC.
If you have never paid a visit to Joanna Sheen's lovely shop before you are in for a real treat. I can honestly say that everything I have ever ordered is of the best quality, add to that the order usually arrives the following day and it has free p&p and who could ask for anything more



The first card is an image from a PC Crafter kit called 'Bunny Rhymes' which has been simply mounted onto an oval nestability, the ribbon effect border along the top of the card is from the same kit. I have added a baby pram charm and hung it from some K & Co blue gingham ribbon.



The second one uses an image from Joanna Sheen's Victorian Companion CD mounted onto co-ordinated backing paper from the same CD. I have coloured some K & Co lace paper with chalks to match the paper and used it to trim the top of the card and hung a rocking horse charm from some ivory chiffon ribbon.

Well, I've finished making the third card for my mum's birthday and I think this one probably took the longest time of all of them. Most of the time was spent in trying to decide what to do, as I didn't want them all to look the same.
Most of the items used on this card were from my stash, the image was a gift card that I cut down slightly, the beautiful sparkly lilac paper was from Joanna Sheen and the little lilac corners were from K & Co.
Now that I've finished these birthday cards I can move onto the next project on my ever growing list!

This is another card for my Mum's birthday. Whenever there is a family occasion I end up making my card plus one from each of the kids and usually one from my mum too, at least I haven't got to make one from mum on this occasion LOL
The colours on the card are not as bright as my scanner has made them look, the ribbon is a very pretty pink and the cuttlebug card is a pale banana colour in real life and was part of a wad sent to me by my crafting friend Jenny to tide me over until I get my own cuttlebug.
The little flowers are a free download from a site called Fred, She Said which I came across yesterday and are designed by Tracey Lynn Miller. She has designed some more lovely flowers as digital download kits and I think I may be very tempted to buy some after seeing how pretty the little freebies look. The other bits and bobs on the card came from my stash.
I don't know who will choose to send this card, I'll let my lovely DIL choose which one she likes and my younger son will have the one that's left....once I've made the other card that is!

It feels like simply ages since I made a card, but with Mum's 83rd birthday coming up on the 5th of August I knew I needed to make a start on things, as I expect I'll be making cards for her from my eldest DS and DIL and my youngest DS too!
As she's been through so much recently I wanted to make this a special card and so decided to use a Harrison Fisher image as they are her favourites. This one is from Joanna Sheen's fabulous Fashion Boutique CD and is just so feminine.
I have used some of the beautiful white tapestry card (from Joanna Sheen) to make this 8x8 card and mounted the image onto some miri card then onto some lace paper (again from Joanna Sheen), apart from the trimmings this could almost be a complete Joanna Sheen one stop shop card. Does anything give you the impression that I love the quality Joanna provides in all her products? The card was finished off with bits and bobs from my stash.
My scanner hasn't done a great job with this card and it has also cut off the corners a bit, but you get the idea.

I haven't been about much lately due to the fact that my mum had a very nasty fall last week and is still in hospital, so I haven't really had either the time or the inclination for cardmaking. Today though I've got a "day off" from visiting so I'm trying to catch up with birthdays and card challenges etc. I made a couple of "get well" cards for Mum, one from me and the other from my sons and DIL.
I took mine into her last night and she loved it, these vintage ladies are her favourite images.

Well, that title is not exactly like the film but...
This is my latest card, and as the posting says is for my best friend's birthday at the end of this month. We don't get to see each other too often as she lives in Lincolnshire and I'm in Hampshire, but I'm always making bits and bobs to send to her.
This is another of those very large cards (about 9" x 10") and I used some gorgeous Stardream card from Joanna Sheen's shop for the base of this card (you can tell she must be special, just from this!). The edges were scored and stuck down to make the book spine effect again and then covered with some really "girly" scented drawer liners that I got ages ago and that smell divine! The main images are from a Daisie Company download kit that I've had for some time called "Ooh La La", the main one has been mounted onto pink glitter card and the little shoe tag was finished off with some Dior black chiffon ribbon. The card was completed by adding some strips of that gorgeous pink glitter card to the edges (again from the JS shop). I also used some more of the images, (a bubble bath and a bottle of perfume) inside the card.

I must admit that the last couple of days I've felt a bit like I'm on a conveyer belt, but this should be the last of the male cards for a while, hooray!
These two cards are for my nephew who will be 14 on the 20th of June (again the second one is from my mum).
The first card is from Cuddly Buddly's "Techie Teens" downloads and the only thing on it that isn't from Cuddly Buddly is my nephew's name which I printed from my PC.
The second card is from....you guessed it! this time it's those pesky footballers again with the logo from Shane's favourite team and a little sticker stating "sports fanatic", which he definitely is as he loves all sports and is very good at them all too.

What is it about May and June? I seem to have so many special people to send cards to, obviously all the best people must have their birthdays in these months (not me I hasten to add!) My eldest son's birthday is 10th June and as his wife's was 31st May that makes them both Gemini, (or, if you happen to be a retired parent on a fairly tight budget, it makes them both inconsiderate) and this also makes it quite an expensive month. I've made two birthday cards for him as one will be from my mum.
My card uses some of the lovely Cuddly Buddly "modern men" downloads and as he loves to play the "Singalong" games on his PS3, I've chosen the karaoke singer. The card from my mum again uses Cuddly Buddly downloads, but this time it's the football range, finished off with his favourite team's logo. I usually find making men's cards quite difficult so I use the Cuddly Buddly ranges quite a lot for the younger men.

We've been in this house for about 2 years now and a couple of weeks ago we decided to have a bit of a change around. My DH thought that our table, chairs and dresser were a bit old fashioned for this house and so I suggested putting them in our 3rd bedroom (my craft room) and I would not only have a lovely big table to craft on but also I could use the dresser for my storage. What a good idea! at least I think so now, but we were both regretting the decision when we were trying to move everything upstairs phewww! Still, now it's done it's absolutely FAB! small but perfectly formed, perfect for me (or it will be when I get used to being organised and can find where I've put everything!). Here's a couple of piccies if you'd like to see.

My eldest son called me on Friday to say that he and DIL were popping over on Saturday (her birthday) and could I make a card for her from him, stopped making cards for sale and made his one. Then on Monday, my youngest son called to ask if I could make a birthday card for him for a female friend called Sophie, it was needed for...Tuesday morning! At the moment I'm making cards like there's no tomorrow as Sophie's partner has said he'll put a box of my cards in his gym, so I stopped again and made his card, and as she's such a lovely girl I made her another card from DH and me.
Both the above cards are made with images and backing papers from Joanna Sheen's Fashion Boutique CD and just a couple of peel offs, very simple. Using this CD, you really don't need anything else as the images are perfect on their own.
I think the marathon card making session is more or less finished now as I have a box full of cards for sale, it was quite difficult to make cards for all ages and both genders and try to make them non-specific so they are appropriate for most occasions. I didn't really enjoy it as I felt I was rushing instead of just making something specially suited to a particular person. Fingers crossed that I sell some now to help towards all the money I've been spending lately on crafty goodies!

Aaarghh!! I can't believe it's been so long since I last updated my blog (or since I last made any cards!) but I've made 2 cards for my lovely daughter-in-law Anna's birthday on Saturday (two cards because one will be from my Mum).
Anna took a shine to my Tilda stamps so I've made her a card using my two new stamps, they have been coloured with pencils and sansador using paper stumps (a new technique I'm just trying out) and mounted onto some very sparkly backing paper from Joanna Sheen, the sentiment was printed out from the PC. The seated Tilda is perched on some card made from the swiss dots cuttlebug folder (kindly sent to me by a crafting friend), the little strip of grass and flowers in the corner are from Cuddly Buddly's garden download kit and the large white flower and pink gem brad are from my stash.
Mum's card to Anna was made using some stencils that another crafting friend kindly purchased for me. I've used some gorgeous Diane Rooney papers that I downloaded from Daisie company for her name and the co-ordinating flowers came from the same place, I think the set was called "Fleur". Again I've used some sparkly backing paper, just hope she likes them now.

Well at last, I thought the glaze I put on this card would never dry! This is the final ladies card for my order and is for a 40th birthday. The customer who ordered it is going to the party, but does not know the birthday girl really well so she asked for champagne or something celebratory. Well, I didin't have any images of bottles of champagne but thought that cake and balloons seemed quite a celebration, so hopefully that will be ok.
The image is (again) from Greetings Card Factory and I've (again) printed 2 copies, for decoupaging the balloons and bows on the parcels. I've mounted it onto some glitter card, added some K & Co numbers, stickle glue (I use this on everything!)and some crystal glaze to add highlights to the balloons.
Apologies for the quality of the picture, for some reason my scanner didn't like this card!

I made a start on the other orders I received last week. Now that those pesky men's cards are finished I knew I would enjoy making some feminine cards.
The first one is for my hairdresser's daughter Kellie who has recently had her first baby. I have it on good authority that she is a shopaholic, so I thought a shopping card would be just right. The image is part of a kit from Daisie Daisie mounted onto some Cuddly Buddly papers. I printed the image twice and decoupaged some of the details, added some glitter and gems and Bob's your uncle!
The second card is for my hairdresser's aunt who's in her eighties, so I thought a floral image would be nice. The image is from Greetings Card Factory, again mounted onto Cuddly Buddly papers and finished off with some peel offs and a few gems.
The sentiments for both cards were done on my PC.
I've started the third card but it's still drying so I'll post that one tomorrow.

Well, I should be making cards today, but I felt like doing something a little bit different instead. I had stamped some images to send to a friend and so decided to make a little "pouch" to put them in.
I used a 12 x 12 scrapbook paper and trimmed it to 6 x 12, then folded it in three and stuck down the sides of the bottom third to make a little pouch to put the stamped images in. I finished it off by embossing and cutting a scalloped edge then adding some co-ordinating ribbon, a sentiment and little glittered embellishment. The fastening was made from some little buttons and ribbon.

I had some orders from staff at my hairdressers for quite a few cards for birthdays this month. There were 3 men's cards required, now I find it a struggle doing men's cards as I get bored with them so I thought I'd better do those first and get them out of the way. The subject matter was interesting to say the least, one ice hockey theme and 2 football themes, one for Spurs and the other Man Utd. This is the result and I hope they like them because I really don't want to have to do them again!
The ice hockey images are from Greetings Factory, the footballer images from Cuddly Buddly and I googled to get the club logos and then used them to make backing paper for both football cards.

My best friend lives so far away that I rarely see her, we do speak on the phone but that always makes me miss her more. She had asked me to make some family birthday cards for her and I decided that I'd make a little friendship book and pop that in with the cards when I posted them to her.
I made the book from some stiff cardboard packaging that I had kept. The covers are 6" square and the inside pages 5" square and I decorated them with lots of girly bits and bobs that I already had including flowers, gems, peel offs, rub ons, embellishments and stickers. She's very fond of cute images so I stamped a variety of cuties, (a couple of Magnolia Tildas, some Cuddly Buddlys and All Night Media's "Friends Forever"), now as soon as the book rings I've ordered arrive I can put it all together and post it to her.
I won't have to do my little books like this after October because I'm getting a "Bind-it-all" for my birthday (along with a Cuttlebug) hooray!

It's my son and daughter-in-law's 3rd wedding anniversary on Monday. I just can't believe that three years have gone by so quickly, it really does seem like their wedding was only about a year ago, ah well I suppose that's a sure sign of my getting older!
I wanted to make them a card that had quite a young, modern feel to it so decided to go for a black, white and silver colour scheme.
The greyscale image is from the Greetings Card Factory CD (the shadow images actually do look a bit like them!) matted and layered and then simply mounted onto some monochromatic backing papers from my stash and finished off with a silver metal look sentiment and some peel offs for their names.
I suppose before I know it I'll be making a card for their fourth anniversary!