Yesterday was Michael’s birthday, and naturally, I made his card. Having just made an Easter Card for my Mum using the Spring is in the Air Collection I returned to it again for this card choosing the Keeping Watch set. I have just realised at this point that I have not shared the Easter Card with you so as a bonus here is that card.
The Keeping Watch set was appropriate for Michael’s birthday because, apparently, it is spring now and the imagery is all appropriate to the season. The Sheep Dog featured in the card with a lamb is sweet, and especially since the Fibro, Michael very much keeps watch over me. Let’s jump in and talk you through the card.
The Keeping Watch Card
Creating the Decoupage
The first step was to build the decoupage layers of the featured image. When I work with pictures with multiple layers, I always prefer to use my Collall CollKit 3D Adhesive instead of foam pads that I routinely use to fix sentiments to a card quickly. My decoupage work went to a whole new level when I invested in the Tonic Floral Crafters Tool Set, I’m not sure if it is just for Prime Members of everyone but there is a 35% discount on them at Amazon at the moment making them not much over a tenner. If you have started using decoupage techniques and you don’t have these or something similar I can’t recommend you invest in some enough they will transform your completed images. If you don’t have Amazon Prime, you can get a free 30-day trial here. If you are unfamiliar with Tonic Floral Crafter’s Tools, you can see them in action here with Paula Pascual on YouTube. Here is my completed Decoupage Image once I had shaped the layers and fastened them together with the Collall Coll Kit.
Creating the Background
I’m sure it is no surprise to my regular reader’s to see I went for an 8″ squared card blank. I changed things up slightly by choosing the Ivory colour though, I was once again using Crafts Uk Card Blanks, the cheapest price I have found for them at the moment is on Amazon. My standard measurements when working with a 20 cm card (sorry I jump in and out of metric and imperial) is to cut the cardstock to 19 cm squared and then a matting layer to 19.5 cm squared. As usual when working with Hunkydory designs I don’t have to think about this very much as the coordinating cardstock is provided and I choose the matting layer to match the edging and highlighting of the featured image, this time it is gold mirror card. Here is the completed background:
Creating the Keeping Watch Card
Although the image on the cardstock is the same as the decoupage element, I decided not to cover one with the other. I made this decision because the decoupage image has gold decorative elements throughout the picture which is pretty but also takes away some of the purity of the design. By putting the decoupage element above the image on the cardstock, you get to see the picture in both forms. Showing both details is something I wouldn’t have done a year or two ago and, I believe, it shows some of my growth as a cardmaker that I looked at it from this perspective.
Adding a Sentiment
I could have used my ScanNCut again as I did on the Easter Card to cut some words out but I decided that I wanted to add a verse, so I turned to Serif Craft Artist instead. Although Daisytrail no longer exists and the software is no longer wholly supported it still works perfectly well, and you can get Digi Kits from so many different places now. Pixel Scrappers is one of my go-to places as is My Memories. I turned to the Country Day Out Digikit by Victoria Nelson (from Daisytrail) for the feature images above the verse and then wrote the poem myself. Before I even started making cards, I dabbled in writing poetry so it is great when I can bring the two elements together. I set the background to ivory so it would blend better with the rest of the card. Once I had printed it on some Crafters Companion Printable Light Card I cut it out and added a gold mirror matting layer to tie it together with the card design. Michael prefers less fussy designs, so I didn’t add any further embellishments. Here is the completed card.
Purchasing Cards
I now sell some of my cards through this website, and you can find those listed so far here. There will be plenty more coming soon.
Until next time,
Gentle Hugs,
Susan