Mad Hatter's Tea Party

Good afternoon everyone

Today I would like to share a card I made for my niece for her 19th birthday at the end of July.  When I came to make her birthday card I couldn't decide what to do for her - she is mad about hats, just loves her cups of tea and is an Alice in Wonderland fan.  So on with the thinking cap and out at the other end came this card

The image of the Mad Hatter is from the My Craft Studio cd "A Very Important Date" and all the other elements I used are from the Daisytrail digikit Fairytales Tearoom.

I took the image of the Mad Hatter into Craft Artist and manipulated him so that the frame sat over his head and shoulders - it seemed to fit in with the mad theme to do it this way somehow!  Then I simply added other items from the digikit. 

The challenge this week over at the CD Sunday Challenge Blog is Tea Time so I have decided to enter this card.  Why not pop over and have a look for yourself, or even have a go at entering.

Thankyou for visiting my blog

Catherine x

Thinking of you Card

Good evening everyone

This evening I am going to share a card I made a few weeks ago when I wanted a Thinking of You card.  I wanted something with flowers on it but wanted to keep it simple.

Here is the finished card

The image is from My Craft Studio Wings and Things cd2 which I imported into my Craft Artist programme.  I started by making a matching backing paper from the image and then added the text. Finally I placed the image where I wanted it and printed this out as a topper onto white linen card.  This was then matted and layered onto more white linen card and a card base also made from white linen card.

This was a very easy card to make - simple but pretty.

This weeks challenge over at CD Sunday Challenge blog is "Awash with Flowers" so I have decided to enter this card.  Why not pop on over there and look at all the lovely entries - or even join in the challenge.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Catherine x

Flower Card

Good evening everyone

Well I haven't exactly got back up to speed with my blog posts yet but I have got a bit better!

Tonight I would like to share a card I have just made in Craft Artist Professional  and I am particularly pleased with myself because everything on this card was made from one of my own photographs.

Here is the photograph

I started out by turning this photograph into a line drawing and making the flower itself more prominent.  Here it is

The next step was to digitally colour the line drawing

Once I had coloured the image I copied it and made embellishments by cropping the flower from the background, and cutting shapes out of it and then distorting and manipulating them.  Next I used some of the embellishments to make a set of backing papers - here are the two I used on the card

And here is the finished card front

And the matching insert

I shared some of the background paper I made, and also the flower itself, with the members in Serif Craft Artist Users Group on Facebook and one of my members, Ann Whitfield, made a beautiful card using the flower.  My friend Heather also used one of my backing papers to make a wedding anniversary card for me and hubby, and I was really pleased to think they liked what I had made enough to use them on cards.  So a big  thankyou  to Ann and Heather.

I hope you like my card.

The second challenge over at Digitally Sweet Challenges is "Anything Goes with Flowers".  Entries must be 100% digital and I think I can safely say that my card is certainly that so will be entering it into the challenge.  Why not pop over and have a look, and even better if you decide to join in the fun.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Catherine x

Not a card - a photo page

This morning I want to share a photo page I made using the wonderful Craft Artist software from Serif.  As any of you who know me will already know, I don't do scrapbooking or "layouts" and use my software to make cards - and of course I also used it to make my family history book recently.  But I do love photographs, especially old ones, and so regularly make photo pages.

This page has been made using three photographs of my late father in law and a fourth photograph of hollyhocks from his garden.  It took me a long time to get this page just right and I hope you think I have - the photo of him as a young man in the Irish army on the left is facing the photo of him taken a couple of years before his death, as though he is looking towards the future, and in the old photo on the right my late mother in law looks as though she too is looking towards him in the future.  The main image looks as though he is reflecting on his life as it was many years before. The background and the main photo are all one  and I took this when we visited his place of birth together.  The older photographs were his own.

For anyone who is interested in learning more about this software I set up a group on Facebook back in April where we share hints and tips, projects of all sorts and learn lots of new techniques together.  We also have fun and I have made a lot of new crafty friends in the group.  The group is called Serif Craft Artist Users Group and if you would like to join us then just click HERE and ask to be added to the group.

This week a new challenge blog has been born and it is specifically for digital projects.  It is called Digitally Sweet Challenges and I have decided to enter this page into their very first challenge, which is "Anything Goes Using Multiple Photos" - do pop on over and have a look at the lovely project the DT have done - and even better if you decide to play along too.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Catherine x