New Baby Boy.....

Hello again and welcome to Wednesday. Halfway through the week and all going well?

Today I am showing you a lovely item I made to mark the birth of a colleague's baby boy. I'm so happy with how this turned out and I used the beautiful gems I bought ages ago to finish it off and add a bit of sparkle. Once I uploaded the image into Cricut and made it to the correct size, I added the birth details and name. This was quite fiddly to cut out which is why I'm pleased I have the Cricut. Can you imagine cutting this all out by hand using scissors or a craft knife? It would have taken absolutely ages. I still sit and watch while my Cricut cuts out though as it's when your back is turned that something always snags up and you end up having to start again. All went well though and once it was all cut out, weeded for small pieces, mounted onto a blue backing card, I laid this in the frame, adding the gems first and then just put a further piece of backing card and the back of the frame into place. This is a lovely keepsake and addition to any nursery.

Enjoy your day, have fun with whatever you choose to do, and please come back again soon.

Bye for now, take care.

Leavers cards - Part 2

Good morning once again, and Happy Tuesday to you all. I hope you managed to get through Monday well and are raring to go today. What do you all have planned? I will be working the late shift for the next week, so I have the mornings free to make other cards. As soon as I cross one card off the to-do list another 2-3 cards are added, unfortunately, 3 more leaving cards which is good and bad. Good as I have more card orders but bad as I will be losing more lovely colleagues I work with.

Today's cards were again cut out on my Cricut. I'm getting used to it more and more each time I use it and find better ways of making items. The first card I also designed by adding SVG elements and welding altogether. These represented items on my colleague's office desk and I added the sentiment in also along with her name. Once cut out I mounted the image onto a coloured backing paper then stuck it to an 8x8" scalloped card. These are my favourite blank cards for using when making cards as they are very sturdy and tend not to bend after adding several layers to the front. I finished off with some lovely contrasting pearl gems in the corners.

On the second card I made I cut the letters out on the Cricut in one of my favourite fonts. I have several fonts I use and when trying to decide which one I use a website called Wordmark.it. This website allows you to type the word you want to use and then it shows the word in all the fonts available on your PC. You can then see which one will look best before cutting and wasting any card. Again I use this for most cards I make that have wording on the front. I double cut the letters in two colours and mounted them slightly to the side. I then finished the card off with some bright flowers from my stash that I've looked at so many times and never had the right opportunity to use them.

I hope you enjoyed looking at today's, cards. Please come back again tomorrow.

Bye for now, take care.

Leavers cards - Part 1

Good morning to you all and Happy Monday.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend and are ready for another fun-filled week.

Today I would like to show you some leaving cards I have made recently. Unfortunately, there have been, and still are, many people leaving our department at work. Due to my love of making cards, I have been given the wonderful job of designing each one for my colleagues leaving. I try to come up with something different for each person, that is certainly a challenge!

Today's two cards were for one of our team leaders. The wording on one had a special meaning to her and this was made up with a hand to represent each person in our team. I'm glad I had my Cricut to cut all the hands out once they were printed as that would have been a feat in itself! I positioned them all and attached them with either glue or 3d foam pads to give them dimension.

The second card was made up of various memorable photos taken during her time in the department. Hopefully, this bought a smile to her face. Neither of these cards would you be able to find in the shop and it's lovely they have a special meaning to them.

Please come back again tomorrow where I will show some more ideas for leaving cards.

Have a good day, take care.

Framed gifts....

Good morning to you all and welcome to the weekend. I've actually been on annual leave this past week so the weekend does feel like a weekend for once. I hope you have some lovely things planned for the next couple of days, but if you are just sitting here scrolling through the internet, please feel free to look at other items on my blog. Also, there is a link on the right-hand side here that will take you to my Glittergirl Handmade Cards Facebook page. Please pop over and give me a 'like' or a 'follow' as this will mean a lot to me. When building up a small business, it is good to see people interacting with us and sharing with other people they know. You never know when someone will want something that we promote and it's lovely when I have some new customers who give me new challenges.

Today's make is a lovely box frame gift that seems to be popular with my customers. The inside item is a 3d initial of the person the gift is for and this is then finished off with vinyl lettering of their name across the glass. I made a couple of these at Xmas also to include as secret Santas and the people who received them absolutely loved them.

Thank you for visiting today. Have a lovely day, see you again soon.

Baby Girl

Good morning

Happy Wednesday to you all, hope you have something nice planned for today. I will be in my craft room again today, designing yet more beautiful cards for my lovely customers. Birthdays, retirement, wedding, new born and then some Christmas cards. The list keeps going on.

This is a card I made recently to celebrate a special couple becoming Great Grandparents. Can you actually find a Great Grandparent card in the shop these days or do they think people don't need them? There's definitely a market for them!

I designed the wording for this card on my Cricut Air2 which I love using at the moment. I'm able to measure out the size of the base card and then build my card detail around that. A few layers were used on this card to give it definition, some added embellishments and to finish off some glitter around the edge. The insert is always left blank on my cards so that people can write their own personal message inside which is another thing not normally found in the shops.  The cards normally seem to have a nice picture and unsuitable words or lovely words with a very plain/boring picture.

I hope you like this and look forward to seeing you here again soon.

Happy Saturday......

Good morning everyone

Well, it's a cold start to the day but I have already been out doing a couple of chores and I am now cosied up in my craft room with a list as long as my arm of cards I need to start making today. It is a good day and I am feeling very positive with things I have ahead of me.

The card below is one I made recently when I bought some new pens from Amazon. I've been using Promarkers in the past but several of these are now running out and I was looking at changing to a different brand. I still need ones that blend well as I enjoy colouring digi images in and using these on my cards but I was stuck on which brand to go for. Copics look lovely and I follow several people on Facebook and blogs that have lovely colouring skills but Copics can prove to be very expensive if you want the whole set. I was looking on Amazon and came across the Ohuhu pens. These had very good reviews and the price was excellent. There were several sets to choose from and once purchasing a set you can then add to that with other sets. I decided to go for the 200 pen collection as this had a good assortment of colours. I have then added the skin colouring and pastel set to my Christmas list.

After colouring the image I mounted this on a base layer that had the word 'brother' cut out using my Cricut Air2. The good thing about digi images is you can resize them to suit whatever size card you are making. This is the first time I have done one this big and I'm pleased with how it come out. I am enjoying designing cards on my Cricut now and I'm gradually getting used to how to do things. This layer was also then mounted onto another piece of contrasting card and card candy was used as a finishing touch. This card wasn't an order this time so I have added it to my box of spares for whenever someone asks for a card. I hope you like this and it helps you with your own ideas for the future.

Have a lovely day and I hope to see you back here again soon.

So near and yet so far.....

Good afternoon

As you can see it has been a very long time since I have been on here. I was unable to access this blog for ages and believed that it was no more. I was determined to get back here one day and have tried on many occasions and HEY PRESTO I am here once again. It is so good to be back. I have loved having a look through all my old posts and reminiscing over the cards I once made. There are so many favourites and I have used many of the designs several times over with slight variations since showing them on here.

I have lots of new items to show you so I am hoping you will stick around and enjoy seeing what I have for you. I will be posting suggestions of things I have bought which I like and recommend to hopefully entice you to also buy these if they take your fancy. I have lots of craft items to show you which I have gathered over the years, organisation ideas and designs I now make. Please feel free to post any comments below and let me know what you like seeing. I hope to carry this blog on now for as long as I can and expand it in several new ways to help others.

Here is a card I have made recently just to wet your taste buds. This was made for a couple of lovely friends when they moved into their first home last month. I now own a Cricut Air2 and enjoy designing cards on here. Always original and not something that you will ever find in a shop. A one off for sure.

Take care and I hope to see you back here again soon.