Many people have been celebrating special landmark birthdays during lockdown, no parties allowed but we can still send an extra special card. My friend’s Son celebrated his 30th birthday recently and here are the cards I made for him, one for my friend to send him, featuring one of his favourite sports Rugby and I sent from our family. For details of the dies and materials used to create these just click on any of the pictures.

Men’s cards are always a source of angst for card makers. Here’s one I made for my Brother In Law’s recent birthday. He’s a keen cyclist and loves a good wine. I used both of these as the theme for his card. I recently bought one of the latest Tim Holtz 3D embossing Folders Typewriter. I just love how it looks when embossed, the addition of some distress ink and silver gilding makes it look like metal, I used it to create the lettering on the front of the card. I used the following items to create the finished card : Crafters Companion Textures 8×8 Embossing Folder Woodgrain, Apple Blossom Embossing Folder Wine Varieties Drink Trolley, Sizzix 3-D Texture Fades Embossing Folder 664760 Typewriter by Tim Holtz, Apple Blossom Die Set Cheers! Wine Bottles & Glass Set, Nested Chains (ETL626) – Tattered Lace, John Next Door Media Dies – Chains (3pcs) – JNDMM001 and Spellbinders Sprightly sprockets dies set. Various distress inks and pebeo gilding waxes.

Here are two fun cards made by request. The first was for my friend’s Son celebrating his 21st Birthday, His adores his Pet black Scottie dog and is currently studying small domestic and farm animal care. The second was for someone leaving their current job for a job in a veterinary surgery. I used an assortment of dies of different brands to create these. For details of the dies used, just click on any of the pictures.

My Son in law celebrated his birthday recently and has been working hard on home renovations so I used that as the theme for his card. I used quite an assortment of dies to create this. For further details just click on any of the images. The light bulbs were stamped onto shrink plastic. He’s been doing all kinds of things from plumbing, woodwork, painting and demolition so I tried to reflect all of these in his card. Because of the pop up middle I had to put the verse on the back of the card.

I love Heartfelt creations flowers dies and recently have also acquired a few of their 3D Flower Shaping Molds too. They make the most beautiful realistic looking flowers and the shaping molds take a lot of hard work out of creating them. I recently bought the Blazing Poppies stamps set and matching dies and so they were the obvious choice to make a special card for my youngest sister’s November Birthday. I started by making a whole bunch of poppies using the stamps and dies. I created a topper using the poppies and decided to make a pop out gatefold card so that the topper would be a surprise found on opening the card rather than it being on the front. This style of card also makes for a fabulous display on the mantlepiece. I used a couple of additional spellbinders dies to create the poppy centres and the leaves and for the belly band I used Altenew layered stamps and dies from the  ALTENEW Modern Blooms Magazine kit Issue 1 to create single layer poppies.  I used Bright Rosa dies for the sentiments. I found some perfect patterned papers in my stash but was looking for something else to go inside. I ended up creating my own poppy backing paper using  the stencil from the Altenew cover gift of Simply Cards & Papercraft magazine Issue 194 . I used distress ink through the stencil and then added detail with a black fine liner pen. The final finishing touch was the addition of some Nuvo Glitter drops in Midnight Sky and Glossy accents to the centres of the poppies. I loved how it turned out and am glad to say my sister loved it too.

Butterflies have to be one of my all time favourite things to craft with. I have a vast collection of different dies and stamps from all kinds of different brands. I was delighted to get the Hunkydory All of a Flutter matching stamps and dies at a bargain price on ebay. They offer a wide scope of design possibilities but,  for this first time out of the packaging, I’ve kept things simple using them as originally intended to create custom shaped apertures which fit around the stamped images. I’ve not finished these cards as they are in my stash awaiting an occasion to use them. I intend to add coloured which will show through the aperture and add appropriate sentiments when needed. I thought I posts pics anyway to see what you think. I had lots of fun getting messy with these. I started by stamping the image in Versafine Onyx Black ink and heat embossing with clear powder. I then painted over the images with masking fluid before colouring the whole card with ink blending. I decided to add some pearlescent ink spritzed and splattered to add extra interest. Once dry, I die cut the apertures and removed the masking fluid and then coloured in the stamped images with marker pens. These examples are all very vibrant but am sure they will look beautiful done in pastel shades too. There is lots of scope for snipping into and layering up of these beautiful butterflies so will be adding this to my ‘to do’ list.