Rose Frame Card Holder

My first blog entry for the year 2017!  Happy new year!

I have been thinking of making a card holder to house few of my cards with inspirational quotes. Drawing roses has been my favorite pastime since childhood though I have never got past simple doodling. Nonetheless I decided to use my rose doodles to form the frame for my card holder. Since it is a new year, I salvaged one of the old desk calendars and used it as the base. I was keen to try my hands on paper cutting. Though I didn't have a craft knife I managed it with a simple paper cutter. It took me close to 90 minutes.

I was quite happy with the result. Didn't wish to color the frame as I felt white was classy and the paper cutting would stand out better in white. Here is my card holder. The card it holds is from the "Indian Mouth & Foot Painting Artists" (IMFPA). 

There is no denying that its the card that makes the card holder look so lovely.  Here is a view of the card holder housing another card from IMFPA.

Sparkle Card

I didn't find enough leisure time this week to design a detailed card. So I made this very simple CAS card using the Fevicryl Acrylic Colours - Pearl metallic set. Designed this one to link to Simon's Sparkle Challenge. I have used rust, copper and silver colours for the background.

Didn't quite turn out the way I wanted, but here is the card.

 

 A closer look at the card.

 

Gift box

It has been a bad week with 3 missed days of work and 5 agonizing days of flu. I just celebrated having successfully published a blog entry every week(Wednesday's, for no auspicious reason) for a quarter of year! It is an achievement for a person like me who would never manage to stick to any of my new ventures for sustained period of time. And Alas! I worried if I would miss this one as it's already Wednesday and I don't have anything as yet.

As I might have referred earlier, I follow the Simons for my weekly inspiration. So I just thought I would try to make some stuff to link to them. Their last(when I saw it was still current) week's challenge had been Gift it. Inspired by Virginia's cute little gift bag, I searched youtube for the most simplest gift box to make. This is simplest one I could find(going by the length of the video!). May be kid's stuff. Nonetheless this is possibly the only one within my capacity at my current energy level.

With several minutes of ransacking my cupboard for an old CD,frustrated I had to use a substitute(my Fruit n Nut tub lid). Then an never ending search for a scoring tool(can't use eraser on the kind of paper I used) and this is when I find all my age old pen's sweating it out for me(all of them at least left a mark). Finally manged these. Didn't look for perfection (seldom do though aspire), and just completed them.

You may wonder why did I attempt doing something for the last week's challenge. Because I am stupid person who can't get third grade arithmetic right (timezone conversion)!  At the end of the day just glad to have met my Wednesday deadline.

Tiny Punch Flower Card

I recently got some punches and stamps to add to my craft arsenal. This is my first card using the tiny little punches of flower and leaves. The punches measured only 5/8". I typically cut out my card embellishments by hand but was quite happy to use the punches and get that crisp finish. I had cut out quite a few maroon and golden flowers and few dark green and light green leaves. But I was quite disappointed by the fact that the flowers and leaves were too tiny to be used in any real project.

I tried to assemble them in various patterns and contemplated using the pattern as a background for my main card. Finally, I hit upon a pattern that I liked. I just used the tiny flowers to create a wreath around my main sentiment of the card. My first card using my tiny little punches and clear stamps from Itsy Bitsy.

A closer look at the wreath made of tiny punched flowers.

Dry Flower Art

As the saying goes "Necessity is the mother of all inventions", this creation of mine is a result of the dire need to cover up the cubicle walls in my new work location. I initially planned to just cover it up with some white sheets of paper. But I didn't like the idea of it looking so bland. I temporarily put it on hold for some time to think over what I should do about it.

Occasionally I go to office on weekends to have some peaceful 'me' time. During one such weekend, my eyes caught the lovely colorful flowers in the office campus when I was on my post lunch stroll and it struck me that I could make some dry flower art as I used to do during my school days. I collected a few flowers, leaves and twigs and dried them by compressing using a heavy hardbound book. I let them dry only for a couple of days as I wasn't patient enough. Here are my creations in the order they appear on my cubicle walls.

Actually, I am the gatekeeper to my floor sitting just next to the entrance.

Wire Flower Nail Polish Bracelet

I have come across art and jewellery based on wire flowers and nail polish on various occasions. Recently, I stumbled upon this one on YouTube and found them stunningly beautiful. I am not into accessories and am not very fond of jewellery of any kind. But these were so pretty that I wished to make one for myself though not sure if I would ever use one.

Although the tutorial suggested use of glue followed by a coat of nail polish, I skipped the glue owing to the unavailability of the specified variant. However, am still happy with the results. Since I used some thin flower making wire strings for the bracelet base, I used a few beads to add some dimension to it. This being my first try at making jewellery, I didn't really attain a smooth finish. But, still love what I made!

Here is the side view of the finished jewellery. The jewellery in both the pictures is the same, the first one was taken in day light and the one below at night. I used pink, brown and golden color nail polish for the flowers.

Christmas card

I lack discipline and haven't managed to persist in any of my earlier pursuits of my passion. My new passion for card making and blogging is also losing its momentum. I had initially planned to publish a blog entry every Wednesday which coincidentally also aligns with Simon's Wednesday challenge. Though I had many ideas for the Christmas card, I felt real lazy to do one. I finally ended up searching in the google images for inspiration for a real simple CAS card. Here is my inspiration and here is my card!.

I did love the way the card turned out to be. But I feel I should definitely work on my free hand drawing skills. I can't get my circles right and the graphite marks look real messy even after sketching with the black markers. I should have probably sketched the design lightly with the pencil.