Some card making at long last :-)

Hi everyone, I am really feeling like my life is settling into a new routine which finally includes crafting again.  I did let my job take over but fingers crossed I am back on track.  

Here are some cards I have made and loved putting together.  This one was for my Mum, the starting point was green which is her favourite colour.  I found this vellum with tiny flowers which sat nicely on the checkered paper background paper.  I don't think I have used this label die-cut before and really like the look.  Added some paper punched flowers, the vellum flowers I ran through the swiss dots embossing folder.  Added the bow and bling.  The Mothers Day sticker was black but I coloured it with a permanent silver pen.

This card I made for my Mother in Law and is part of the Uniquely Creative Dreamer Card kit I bought to help with motivation and inspiration in my card making.  The kit has certainly done the trick as well as the beautiful papers I came to realise that patterned papers don't have to be only used as background papers.  If they have a busy design, a piece of the pattern can be cut out and used as an embellishment which is what I have done with the flowers above.  I am now looking at my papers in a different light.

This card I made for the Craftmad Monthly Swap - theme was Black and White.  I put my new found inspiration of using patterned paper as an embellishment and hand cut these beautiful roses out and attached to the striped patterned paper, finished with some pearls etc.

The second part to the swap was two tags.  The first tag, I decided to put to use a stamp (one of many) that a friend had given to me.  The light house which I have coloured with with water colour pencils.  The sentiment stamp was also another gift from the same friend.  I'm not the greatest stamper and the words were a bit hit and miss so I added the light beams from the lighthouse to cover the flaws.  I hand drew the rope border and layered up the tag, finished with a variety of ribbons.  The second page started with the flower which I simply added to a layered tag and added some bling and threads.

Hope you have enjoyed my cards.  Thanks for popping on by.