A calm subtle card from me for a change!

As some of you may know I am not religious but there are many people in my life that are so I make sure that I respectfully celebrate along with them. My children's grandparents are Christians (my ex-father-in-law was a vicar before he retired) and I felt the need to make them an Easter card this year as they have been wonderful with the children.
Easter is in a lovely time of year. All those wonderful colours in nature, new life with the lambs being born. One of the fantastic reasons why I love living in Sussex, as every field at the moment is full of springing lambs, and it takes all my energy to keep Hilda on her lead!! I love the fact that the days are longer and down here in the south, much warmer. I feel invigorated after the dark winter so there is inspiration everywhere.

This card was a doddle to make. I like working with big cards, and this is a nice big A5 sized card which is a fantastic space to work with. I wanted to keep the colour palette simple but still have an opulent feel to it (now a leopard can not change it's spots, not even for an ex vicar). I started off with a pastel yellow core card as the base and edged with silver outline stickers. Some people do not like outline stickers as they say it is cheating, but I love them. They tend to enhance the look of a card by focusing your eye onto the main images and really make them pop. I got out my big shot and spellbinders dies out (as usual) and cut out a few shapes, not too many as I wanted a subtle design and not my usual complex creations. Now with this part of the card I combined 5 dies to make the shape with the word Easter at it's centre, then I just dotted a few gold dots at particular points on the design.

The main image of the card is a decoupaged cross entwined with flowers. I saw this Papermania decoupage set in my local craft store and snapped them up. I adore flowers and I thought that the way that they were wrapped round the cross was just lovely. I matted the cross on to a spellbinder rectangle and finished it off with some more of those silver stickers that I love.

So I am not religious at all but I respect the people in my family and friends who are. I understand that their faith is very important to them and it brings them comfort especially in difficult times. I enjoyed making this card. I love complex designs, playing with shapes, changing shapes into something else. However this time I had to calm my creation down a little and to be honest it was good for me to be more reserved for a change. I hope you like it as much as I do and you can be assured there will be more subtle designs from me in the future.

Ta ta for now.

B'xxx

I made this lovely cat recently after making a smaller one for my daughter Billie when she went away on Scout camp for a week. My daughter is a real tomboy (with lippy and heels) and loves roughing it getting dirty and all that lovely stuff. This last camp however was the first one without her older brother so a milestone of sorts. She let slip to her step dad that she thinks she might be a little homesick at times but she will try to be brave. This got me thinking. How can I provide a little bit of home without her looking like a baby? Then I thought a little one of my stitched pets with a little lavender inside to remind her of our beautiful garden. She could hide this away in her pillow and bring it out from time to time if she was feeling a little wobbly. From all accounts the little kitten did the trick and so I made a few in different styles for my daughters friends for Christmas, but I managed to save a larger one for the shop.

I made the cat from some lovely floral cotton which has the most delicate lavender, pink and yellow flowers. I added some pink, brown and grey flower patches which I think add that lovely vintage charm that we are all loving at the moment. The back of the cat has a purple heart with a yellow flower and light green button at it's centre with red contrasting thread to make it really stand out. I filled the cat with soft toy stuffing and a small sachet of lavender (grown here in sunny Sussex). I stitched the whole thing together with contrasting red stitching which adds to the shabby vintage style.

I love this cat so much I had to make a couple for us to keep (the only cats allowed in this house as our Lakeland Terrier is in charge here) but I am sure that you will see more of these cute pets in my Folksy shop. This particular one is just £5.00 + £1.50 P&P. Check out my mammasheart page on www.folksy.com for other lovely gifts and cards.

See you all tomorrow.

B'xxx

Whatever the weather

This a A5 prymage 3D effect card. The image is a girl walking in the rain with an umbrella. I used printed vellum flowers to embellish the card. I liked the fluid look of the vellum which goes very well with the image. This card would be great for a friend or family member who is or has been through a tough time & you want them to know you are there for them. Something we should do more of, just in my simple opinion you understand. You can find this card and many others on the mamma's heart page on www.etsy.com see you there.