Actually, these were all made on Wednesday. I ended up having a real 'purple patch' creatively, I think my muse must have been working overtime! I haven't made cards for a while - I've been working more with ATC's, but cardmaking really is my first love, as it were. I sell quite a few through my ebay shop, as well as to friends and family, I'm beginning to get some sales by word of mouth now, as well, which is very nice! As you might notice from these photos, my theme on wednesday was tags. I thought I would have a go at some fairly simple, all occasion cards. IMHO, the red roses are rather gorgeous, very feminine and rather elegant. The papers are from a design cd by Marie Johnstone, who sells on ebay - she produces some amazing cd's in various themes. I have added embellishments in the way of funky fibres and some buttons from my ever expanding collection of buttons. I've even got my eye on the buttons on my youngest daughters trousers! I might have to wait til she's outgrown the trousers, though!
The two 'Live every Moment' cards I thought would be particularly suitable for men. I don't know about you, but I find it very hard to find decent cards for men. Most card manufacturers seem to assume that all men are beer swilling football and darts fans! Actually, not many of the men I know fall into any of these categories, maybe I just mix with the wrong sort of men...
The main reason that I got into card making in the first place is that I got so frustrated trying to find suitable cards for near and dear ones. The biggest problem I had was finding an anniversary card for my OH. Our wedding anniversary is at the beginning of November, by which time all the big card shops have got their christmas cards in, and only squeeze a few other cards in a dingy corner somewhere. The choice at this time of year is not overwhelming. Having found the 3 anniversary cards that are actually in stock, I then had the problem that either the pictures were totally inappropriate, or the wording was naff. There were rarely cards which had decent pictures and appropriate sentiments! I may love my OH to bits, but I don't do slushy, and neither does he! I very often ended up buying an 'open' card and finding my own poem, sentiment or whatever. I can honestly say that I have never, in the 22 years we have been married, been totally happy with any bought anniversary card. So, I decided to make my own. Really, it just all took off from there. I made the first couple of cards, and I was well and truly hooked! I love cardmaking, it gives me the opportunity to work with loads of different materials, techniques, colours etc. I'm not a patient person, and with cards I get reasonably quick results. There have been times when I've spent literally hours making a particular card, but those have been special cards for special people using fiddly techniques.
At school, I always did the academic stuff, believing that I had no aptitude for art at all. It has been a joy to discover that actually I can create some quite beautiful things, and I have grown in confidence over the past months. As I've previously mentioned, I belong to several on-line craft groups, from whom I get a tremendous amount of support and constructive feedback. My next door neighbour, the soon to be famous archaeologist, Maria, has a fine arts degree but has always worked on a large scale, she has recently started crafting on a small scale and has produced some truly amazing stuff. She has also been very supportive and constructive re my own art, and for that I am truly grateful. I still get the heebie-jeebies when I send my art work to other people, but so far no-one has admitted to hating anything I've sent them! One apsect I particularly worry about is that I sometimes have a distinctly quirky way of looking at things, and am never sure that other people will 'get' what I've done!
The last couple of days have been glorious, weather wise, so we've spent a fair amount of time at one of our local beaches. I got some lovely photos this afternoon, and am hoping to use some of them as the basis for some art in the near future. I love living by the seaside!!! We even went for an absolutely scrummy ice-cream after we finished at the beach today - a locally made ice-cream. FAB! I'm really hoping that the better weather is here to stay for a while, it's been too dark and gloomy for too long! I need some sunshine...
Lastly, you may have noticed a couple of new additions to my blog. Firstly, there is Tiggy - a pink tiger. Well, sometimes you just gotta do these things! Go and say hello to her, give her a rub, maybe a steak - go on, give it a try. It's been scientifically proven that pet owners have a longer life expectancy, that petting animals can significantly reduce stress levels!
The other thing I've added is a slide show of my images. I will continue to post pics in the main part of the blog, but they will be added to the slide show as well, so you don't have to trawl the whole blog just to find a particular image.
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