Twelve Crafters Crafting (Part 1)

OK, first of all, "thanks" (kind of …) to Jackie of the marvellous Funky Hand design team for this month's challenge. As if crafters didn't have enough to do at this time of year with making cards (due to some mid-winter festive event being just thirty four sleeps away … and, more pressingly, the last posting date for Australia only two weeks hence), this month's challenge wants us to present two projects. To be fair, I did make big early in-roads into my Christmas cards in January this year, when inspiration struck. Although they're not finished, I'm still happy with them and think (hope!) it shouldn't take too long to get them ready for posting. There are a few other designs that I'd like to try out … and I don't think I'll be able to resist and keep them for 2012! Must try harder to focus on the task in hand.

Speaking of which, back to this month's Get Funky! challenge, which is two projects (ie for me will be cards). One is to have a Christmas theme and use traditional Christmas colours (red, green, gold etc rather than the more contemporary pink, blue and purple - which I love) and the other is to be a non-Christmas project using Christmas papers. The challenge has been inspired by the recent release of Funky Hand's new CD: Twelve Crafters Crafting. Full of gorgeous design papers in a range of lovely colours … can easily see them gracing my cards.

As I might have mentioned once or twice, I've had a busy, and rewarding, autumn of card-marking and had just one more November birthday to go: my friend Cilla. I thought that I'd address this and combine the challenge with my long-standing wish to make a waterfall card from scratch. That's three birds with one stone, isn't it? And, so I did …

I've used three papers from the "O Christmas Tree" collection, which is a delightful combination of shades of jade, turquoise and brown. I love this mix of colours - and it's especially good at the moment as my printer's low on yellow ink due to all the autumnal papers I've printed and crafted with recently. I feel that I've cheated a bit - or at least taken the easy option - by using a star paper and one of the plain textured papers rather than anything more festively challenging. Apart from the stripes and spots, they are probably the least Christmassy of the collection. I have also used tiny bits of a third paper that has a snowflake background but have snipped carefully just to get the neutral dashed line. I'd usually have gone with some of the striped and spotted papers, which Anice always includes in her collections, but they are too busy for this waterfall design. Will use them on something else - especially the gorgeous striped one with hand doodles.

The waterfall mechanism is actually really simple: just a case of cutting a long enough strip, scoring accurately (2 cm gaps work well here with a 4 cm width), folding well, positioning the decorative elements carefully and fixing the whole thing securely to the card (belt and braces with brads as well as double sided tape). I've taken a bit of a risk using scalloped circles that are a tiny bit wider than the 4 cm squares on which they are mounted but they are moving well … so far. I'm pleased with how the holographic card and the silver embossed letters work with the browns and turquoises of the design papers. And am glad to have found scraps of matching ribbons in my stash to make the pull-tag. Another example of why crafters are right never to throw anything away! Embellishing with a few holographic stars added a little more to the Christmassy reference.

So, halfway there challenge-wise, and pretty happy so far … I think the Christmas card component will be to my 2011 design, but I haven't decided which papers to use yet. Happily, the closing date for the challenge is a week beyond the Australia posting date so I've got a bit of a breathing space there.

Amble into Autumn

This month's Get Funky! crafting challenge has the theme of "Autumn". This seemed perfectly appropriate and very appealing, as I've been enjoying the autumn this year so much. It feels that it's been one of the best autumns ever: fantastic colours lingering long and bright in the trees, mild, still, dry and warm weather, and plenty of time to amble around London and enjoy being surrounded by it.

Over recent weeks - as part of my response to so many of my friends and family having birthdays and other occasions to celebrate in October and November - I've made several cards with an autumnal feel but only one of them with the Funky Hand challenge in mind. In fact, I would have felt uncomfortable entering the others for this challenge, as they are variations on two card designs that I put in for challenges earlier in the year: more details towards the end of this blog post if you're interested …

As usual, the amazing Anice designed a special freebie paper for the challenge's theme. It has a terrific falling leaves design and, although there is no such obligation, I really wanted to use it in my challenge card. Unsurprisingly, it tones brilliantly with the design papers in the "Orange October" collection of the Funky Hand Papercraft Factory "Craft the Year Away" CD. I chose three of the plainer papers in the collection: the same design in toning autumnal shades of brown, orange and gold.

The main image on the card is "Copper", who is a lovely fairy designed by Lili of the Valley. As well as being a very suitable autumnal colour, something about her reminded me of my only female cousin Sue, who will receive this card for her fiftieth birthday. I didn't want to include a 50 on the card but felt that the autumnal colours and the gold mirror board hinted enough in that direction. I haven't been using mirror board in my cards recently and rarely use it with Funky Hand papers but this time the combination seemed right.

I had the idea for the design of the sentiment element of the card when thinking about a card that I am yet to make for the ninetieth birthday of a friend of my mother's and am pleased that it's come out so well in reality. (Hope it does again when I repeat it for the 90th card.) After printing the three coloured papers, I put the sheets back into the printer and printed a different colour on the reverse of each. I cut several 6 mm strips from each, inked the long edges (fiddly and messy) and then cut each of those strips into lengths of about 7 cm. After folding each at an angle, I stuck them randomly around the reverse of a circle of gold mirror card and then trimmed the ends of each at an angle. Inking the cut ends of these paper "ribbons" was fiddly but worth the effort, as it makes them look finished - and avoids those "nasty" white edges! I stamped the circular sentiment, added a small gold circle and two tiny gems. I was reasonably pleased with the effect but felt it wasn't quite finished. Nervous of doing too much, I put it to one side while I assembled the rest of the card.

I fixed three paper ribbons to the left of a square of the leaf backing paper, tucking the ends under for neatness. I punched away three corners of the square and matted it onto gold mirror card, with the narrowest border that I trust myself to achieve, and mounted it onto a cream 13.5 cm square card. The sentiment rosette was mounted over the ribbons with foam pads and a circle of the orange paper layered between two gold circles put flat at the bottom right corner of the card. Onto the layered circles, I attached Copper the fairy, whose edges I had inked (using a cotton bud for the most fiddly bits), with foam pads. A few touches of yellow Sakura gel glaze pen brought out the centres of Copper's flowers and I added a tiny gem to her necklace. I thought about using something glittery to emphasise her fairy-wings but felt that that was going to be a texture too far. Once again, following the crafter's golden "rule of three", I put three tiny gems into each of the three cutaway corners.

The card looked pretty good (IMHO) but didn't feel quite finished: there still seemed to be a gap in the centre of the sentiment and a bit too much backing paper showing. I recalled having some flowers left over from one of my other autumnal cards: coincidentally made for my aunt - my cousin's mother. Typical of a crafter, I had saved them and - amazingly - was able to find them. For my aunt's card, I had put tiny punched flowers in the centre of slightly larger ones and then heat embossed each several times. I had thought that all I had left was the punched flowers but was really pleased to find that there were four assembled and embossed. Perfect! One for the centre of the sentiment and the other three (that rule again) scattered over the background.

Then I felt that the card was finished and ready to make its way to Sue for her birthday next Thursday. Time to turn my hand to cards for two friends who also have birthdays that day: one of them lives in Luxembourg, so I probably ought to have posted a few days ago … oops!

As promised, here are the other autumnal cards that I have made. The butterfly one was for the one for my aunt - Sue's mum - that resulted in the leftover flowers. It is similar in design, albeit very different in colours, to the card that I made for my other aunt's birthday in April. Part of my inspiration for the original card was the Get Funky! "Zing into Spring" challenge. There is something very satisfyingly symmetrical for me in making similar cards for my two aunts, although it happened by coincidence rather than plan.

The other card is for a female friend's birthday (next Wednesday) and uses my modal design of the year, which was first made for the Get Funky! "Boys Boys Boys" challenge. She's a very sporty, outdoors kind of a woman, and the autumn colours remind me of that side of her character. It's also her fiftieth birthday and, as with Sue, I didn't want to emphasise that but also not to ignore it entirely. Thinking about it now, I suspect that neither woman is overly sensitive about her age (they are both practical, get on with it kinds) and it's how I feel about numbers on cards that has led me to leave them off. They're great at the bottom and top of the age range but don't work - at least for me - in the middle.