Hello there!

So, as a Design Team member I make two projects a month to share with you and any bits of left over kit I tend to incorporate into other projects or add them to my scrap stash. When I came to make my second project with the ‘Say Cheese’ kit I realised I’d hardly got anything left! The fold out mini folio I shared with you in February had taken virtually all the papers and most of the extra bits of loveliness!

I decided to make some cards with what I’d got and as always try to come up with new ideas. My sewing machine is always out and it happened to be threaded with black thread, I had some scraps of painted papers on the table, one of which was in shades of blue and yellow which teamed beautifully with the dotty paper bag and I had some old family photos out.

The background of each card is a piece of paper bag and a painted scrap. I took a couple of pieces of the ephemera and removed the centre to create mini frames then using the drawn black lines as my guide I randomly machined around each piece which became a frame for an old photo of my Mum and one of my Dad.I wanted to keep the cards fresh and simple so decided not to add any splatters or additional mixed media, that was hard for me!!

I cut up my one remaining gold tag and used a piece to tuck behind the frame with Mum in.

I gutted the heart on one of the papers to use as a frame for “Be the reason someone smiles today’ which I also machine stitched around. I secured the threads with a piece of the washi and cut a small gold heart from the gold glitter tag which is mounted on an ephemera piece.

The heart shape I gutted from the previous card became the base for the ‘Smile’ card with the simple addition of washi, a tiny heart and the ephemera piece.

For the card using Dad’s photo I added a slither of gold glitter card, three word stickers and an ephemera piece.

Initially I planned to send the cards featuring Mum and Dad to my mum at some point in the future as I thought they might spark some happy memories for her, however, I decided they would make lovely journalling spots in one of my family history albums. I’ve added a tab to each card and next time I’m with Mum I’ll get her to tell me about when and where the photos were taken so I can preserve her memories.

I hope I’ve given you some ideas, not necessarily to make cards but just to use pieces in a different way.

Until the next time, happy crafting

Love Philippa x