TWO CARDS FOR EASTER

EASTER BUNNY CARD

Sharon and Maz have been having fun making these cute Easter cards, using Regal card bases, some hole punched and cutr shapes and a bit of  imagination.  Notice, for instance how the bunny's nose is made from an upside down heart.

Don't be afraid to draw in details such as facial features, and use materials creatively - the bunny's basket, for example is a piece of trimmed burlap ribbon.

Raid the craft supplies for embellishments - paper flowers, rhinestones, buttons, twine etc.  Most of all have fun!!

EASTER CHICKEN CARD

SCALLOP EDGE BIRTHDAY CARD WITH FLOWERS

SCALLOP EDGE CARD WITH BIRD AND FLOWER

Janet has combined papers from Kaiser's Chanteuse collection, with Regal's scallop-edge cards (SCE1) to make this beautiful card.   Janet has used a white base, but the cards are also available in ivory.

Subtle inking enhances the various elements, and embellishments - small rhinestones and paper flowers have been carefully placed to enhance the printed design.

Its a little hard to see in the picture, but Janet has coloured a greeting sticker with a permanant marker that matches the pinks of the paper and attached it to a pale green background.  More decorative paper adorns the middle of the card.

This would be a lovely design for a special birthday or even a wedding.

SWEET BIRTHDAY CARD

HAVE A SWEET BIRTHDAY

How cute is this cheerful card that Tania made, using Regal's XSQS2 lime green card as a base.
She's added a punched border, matted pictures fussy cut from Kaiser papers, and a greeting made with black alphabet stickers.

I often forget that when just the right greeting sticker is not available that alphabet's are always at hand.  You can even use permanent markers to colour them however you want!

SUPER QUICK NOTE CARD

SUPER QUICK NOTE CARD

Lynne made this true 5 minute card from one of Regal's black single fold cards and some scrapbooking paper from Graphic 45.

Just because its a quick card, though, doesn't mean that good design goes astray, and the way Lynne has arranged the elements in the 1/3 - 2/3 ratio means that this card really works.

It could be used for many occasions, including as a notecard - just to drop a quick line to a friend for no particular occasion (email's great but you can't sit them on a shelf).  If you wanted to make a set of cards as a gift, a simple design such as this would be perfect.

THREE TECHNIQUES IN ONE CARD

GOOD IDEAS CARD

This card shows three techniques you might want to try, even if you chose not to make this actual card.  The first is applying glitter to the back of acetate circles (with clear glue) and then using the circles upside down - this looks better than the photo shows.  It keeps the glitter where its supposed to be, and also provides a smooth surface for stamping or (as in this case) for stickers.

The second idea is to use thin double sided tape with (heated) embossing powder to make gold borders (as shown either side of the orange strip).  Not all tapes are suitable, but the 3mm one sold by Regal Craft Cards will do the trick nicely.  You can, of course, use any embossing powder so you can have a nice selection of colours at hand.

And.....last but not least, and following on from Janene's card last week, sometimes instead of stacking shapes up for matting, why not cut a shape out as a frame, as shown here by the cut out circle to frame the double heart sticker.

BIRTHDAY CARD WITH NESTED CIRCLE FRAME

BIRTHDAY IN BLUE WHITE AND GREEN

Janene made this card for a Regal demo we had quite some time ago, but I'm happy to be sharing it with you now.

Note how she has used nesting dies to create the nested circle frame, the rounded edges on the top layer, and the double punched band for the rub-on greeting.  Its also worth looking at how the three large jewels in the top flowers are reflected in the grouping of three smaller rhinestones on the bottom right of the card.

Blue, green and white is a very popular colour combination at the moment, and has a lovely fresh feel.  Regals plain white card has been embossed with a "Swiss dots" folder to create the card base.

ZIGZAG CARD

ZIGZAG CARD INSIDE

This is one of the cards that Anna Wilson made for a demo she did for Regal Craft Cards last year.  She has used one of Regal's white Zig Zag cards and decorated all the panels.

In the first picture you can see how she has masked an area on the inner back and then stamped around with a leaf stamp (from Darkroom Door), co ordinating it with a set of three leaves on the adjoining panel.

The front view shows panels covered with Kaiser paper, and featuring an inked "Tasmania .  (Regal sell 3 panel cards with a cut-out Tasmania in the middle panel)

The back panel also features creative inking and Darkroom Door stamps.

Zig Zag cards are great for people who like a lot of surface to decorate. Anna has showcased her skills with stamps and ink, but you could also use more patterned papers, die-cuts, stickers etc.

FRONT OF ZIG ZAG CARD

BACK OF CARD

VICTORIAN NEEDLEWORK BOXES

Regal Craft Cards make the cardboard bases for these ever so useful needlework boxes.  Sharon and Marilyn have both made examples.

As you can see, the boxes open out when the lid is removed (a bit like an explosion card) to reveal a number of panels on which needles, pins and suchlike can be stored, as well as a little cube in the middle for your thimble.

Its not strictly speaking "a card" but its a great handmade gift to go with your handmade cards!

TASMANIA CARD

FRONT

Middle

This card was made in a recent Regal Craft Cards demo by Anna Wilson.  Its based on Regal's three panel textured white aperture card with a Tasmania cut-out.

Anna has given equal attention to the front, middle and back of the card, using some lovely Darkroom Door Stamps and lots of inks!  The right hand inner panel has been embossed and a smooth oval added for easy writing.  Notice how effective the inking is on the textured surface of the card - who says we can only use smooth cards for stamping!!!

Regal has a variety of different aperture cards ranging from straightforward shapes such as ovals and rectangles to more "exotic" offerings such as dolphins and frogs!!

Back

AUSTRALIA DAY CARD

You still have time to celebrate Australia Day on Monday with this cut card.

Marilyn has stamped the Stamp-It koala in black ink and added a little shading with coloured pens.  She's matted it on a dark card and then fixed it on top of torn layers of Core card and a little Kaiser scrapbooking paper.

You'd have to be extra speedy to finish it in 5 minutes but its quite do-able in 10!  If you love making cards and always have more than you need, why not give your friends a surprise for Australia Day!

WITH LOVE - PINK ROSES AND BUTTERFLY

ONE FOR THE LADIES

Tania has made a charming feminine card, using a square textured ivory singlefold card from Regal Craft Cards as a base.

She has incorporated a butterfly, stamped with brown ink onto an oval cut from Kraft cardstock, as well as lace and ribbon, and paper roses.  The "Love" on the small die-cut panel is made from metallic gold alphabet stickers, coloured with a brown permanent marker.  Tania has added a finishing touch with adhesive pearls.

Its worth noting that three different patterned papers have been used in addition to the plain.  It pays to be careful when doing this, but Tania has chosen well and they blend together beautifully.
Note too, how she has tied a piece of grosgrain ribbon around the lace in a know, and trimmed the edges to ive the impression of a bow.

DL EASEL CARD

3D EASEL CARD

What a great idea from Tania - turning a three panel Regal DL card into an easel card.

Just cut off the third panel, fold the back panel in half and mount the cut-off panel onto the front of the fold.  All you need to do then is add something for the edge of the folded panel to rest against - in this case a stamped greeting, matted on card, decorated with punched flowers and mounted with low foam tape.

Tania has used a 3D picture panel from the Sparklelight range as her main decoration, and has co ordinated her papers, corners and edging.

QUICK BABY CARD

A CARD FOR A BABY BOY

What better way to start the new year, than a card for a new baby.
Marilyn has used some simple materials to achieve a clean but cute result - just some striped paper, and a couple of plain blues coupled with some stickers.  All of which are stuck on top of a white textured singlefold card from Regal Craft Cards.

You could easily adapt the design by using different colours, and/or substituting the stickers for stamps or diecuts.

CALENDAR SCRAPBOOKING

Here's an idea for a little project for the coming year.

Regal make 12 month calendars with lots of space for decoration and journalling.  If you don't have time for traditional scrapbooking, why not just take (or select) one photo from each month, list all the important things that happened, add some embellishments when you have a spare moment, and then, at the end of the year, you'll have a record of 2015 to treasure in the future. It may be "express" scrapbooking but I bet that the grandchildren in 2065 will love looking back at it!!

Alternatively, if there's a new baby in your life, or a child who has just started school, a month by month record now would be a great gift in a few years time E.g. 18th or 21st birthday!!!

FOLDED SQUARES CARDS

 Most folks have finished their Christmas cards by now, but Marilyn's card won't take too long, if you are still in the making phase - just select some pretty doublesided papers, fold up the ends and place the folded edges together.  Cut a zig zag from one end of a plain strip and assemble as shown in the picture.  These card's illustrate how easily a Christmas design can be adapted for other occasions simply by changing the colours, and embellishments.  It might be worth having a look back over the last few postings and thinking of ways in which the designs could be used for birthdays etc with a little imagination!

CHRISTMAS FOLDED SQUARES

OTHER FOLDED SQUARES

TWO MORE SUPER QUICK CHRISTMAS CARDS

SUPER QUICK CHRISTMAS TREE CARDS

O.K. Rule 1 of not having started to make Christmas cards yet......DON'T PANIC.

Rule 2 - chose something really easy and just do it!!

These cards can be made in under five minutes each.  Begin with a cut out Christmas tree from Regal (Kraft to the left, silver to the right), run it through an embossing machine in your favourite folder (not necessarily specifically Christmassy).  Use foam tape (or a sticky square) to mount onto a premade Regal card ("Natural" or "Sparklelight" in our examples).  Add a bow or rhinestone (or sticker) to the top and there you are - a finished card in just a few minutes!  Your time starts now.............

STITCHED CHRISTMAS CARDS

 I have three more lovely stitched cards by Sandra Bell to share with you.  If you started right now, you might be able to finish a couple of your own by Christmas.....but if not, why not add it to your "New Year's Resolution" list for next year!!!

Thanks again Sandra for allowing me to show others your beautiful work!

LAST MINUTE CHRISTMAS CARDS

Card Inserts

 By this stage, time is probably of the essence if you are still to make your Christmas cards, so here are two 5 minute ideas!  The first is a Sparklelight sticker on a Sparklelight card ( a good range of each is available on  from Regal Craft Cards) and the second is the background from a 3D sheet, stuck onto silver card and mounted in a large oval cut-out card.  If you use the backgrounds and built up images separately, you can get six cards from each sheet rather than just the three!  Each card is finished with a pre-printed Regal inserty.  How easy is that!!!!

Sparklelight Christmas Cards

GINGERBREAD HOUSE CHRISTMAS CARD

GINGERBREAD HOUSE CHRISTMAS CARD

This is a fun card that can be as easy or difficult as you want it to be.  Its also quite a good card to make if you want to keep children entertained with a Christmas craft project.

Basically, take one of Regal's square white cards, Add a triangle of card for the roof and then go wild with the decoration!!!  I've kept this example fairly low key, using scrapbooking papers, a punched border, and white heart and greeting stickers, but you could use rhinestones, stamps, punched shapes or whatever you have at hand.

The gingerbread man was cut by folding a scrap of paper in half and cutting free hand until one turned out well enough to use as a template for the "real thing", but you could also trace around a biscuit cutter, use a stamp, or download something from the net.  The white detail and border was added the old-fashioned way with a white gel pen.
If you didn't want a Christmassy theme, try adding turrets for a fairy castle or fort, or just make "a house"..........if you are doing it as a project with the kids, no doubt they'll have good ideas....but actually its rather a fun idea for us grown ups too.....perhaps as a "New Home" card?

5 MINUTE CHRISTMAS CARD

QUICK XMAS CARD 

Stickers are a great way to make super-quick Christmas card.  A matted sticker and a gold panel with a torn strip of patterned paper is all that you need for Marilyn's 5 minute card.  The base is a white textured (PL1) card from Regal Craft Cards

CHRISTMAS CARD WITH KITE FOLD MOTIF

TEABAG FOLD MOTIF

 .....And here is an example of the second teabag fold from the October demo and the posting I did a couple of weeks ago.  Eight little kite shapes are arranged edge to edge, and taped down to a base.  Its easiest if you start by fixing the four opposites and then filling in the gaps - you're more likely to end up with good spacing if you do.

I've cut a V into some gold cardboard as a base and mounted the whole thing onto red.  The background is die-cut from red card using a Couture Creations die and stuck down over Forest green.  The whole thing is then mounted on a white textured card.

Its really quite a simple card but looks quite effective.

SPARKLELIGHT FAIRY CALENDAR

SPARKLELIGHT FAIRY CALENDAR

If you combine a calendar with a card, it can stay up all year, instead of just a day or two around Christmas or birthdays.

Regal's stepper card base gives the structure to this card.  Then I've covered parts with gold butterfly sparklelight, added a base picture from a 3d sheet (so I can use all the other parts on another project), added a small and large butterfly from another die-cut sheet stuck together with a foam dot for depth, and finally a small calendar.  All of the bits are available from Regal.  This is a really quick project - in fact most time was devoted to assembling the various bits and pieces!

They also have a selection of 2015 calendars out and ready for your craft projects so check out their website and get busy!!

CHRISTMAS CARD WITH CIRCLE MOTIF

CIRCLE FOLD TEABAG CARD

I posted instructions for this simple circle fold a couple of weeks ago, so thought I'd better pop a card up with a finished example too.

As you can see I've just used a simple paper - gold on one side and white on the other, and without any pattern to distract, the form is really evident.  I promise the middle was just lovely but if it had been a bit dodgy, the gold split pin would have covered it.  I used Kaiser paper as background and border, but if I was doing this card again, I'd skip the dark green edge and use real lace or paper lace, probably in gold to link it in with the motif.  The greeting is off a sheet available from Regal, and I've coloured three little silver rhinestones as a feature.  Again, if I hadn't done this for a demo ("See how you can colour your rhinestones with alcohol markers") I would have chosen red for all three.

I guess that's the idea of a lot of the cards on the blog (the ones I make anyway).  They aren't perfect - just a starting point to get you thinking of what you do and don't like so that you can create something wonderful of your own.

IRIS FOLDED CHRISTMAS TEAPOT

Although this iris-folded teapot (the pre-cut cards, NO55 are available from Regal Craft Cards), was not made specifically for Christmas, the red, white and gold colour scheme could easily fit the bill.

Japanese papers are lovely, but expensive, so iris folding is a good way to use up small leftovers for maximum impact.

The maker of this card is a bit of a mystery - no one at work remembers....but if this is your card and you'd like to claim credit please let me know and I'll happily update the post!!

Whoever made it has adapted an iris folding template designed for a circle, and added a handcut corner.  The bottom is a strip of paper with two hole-punched circle at either end.  If you wanted to add a tiny sprig of holly to the side of the lid and an appropriate greeting, it would make a great seasonal card.

TWO SIMPLE TEABAG FOLDS

TWO SIMPLE TEABAG FOLDS

Here as promised are close-ups of the two folds I used during October's Christmas Card demo.

For the Circle fold you begin (not surprisingly) with a circle.  Fold it in half, then unfold.  Using the line you've made in the paper as the base, fold up a little bit of each side as shown in Fig.1.

Turn the shape over, then fold both sides to the middle line.  The little folds you made in step 1 will pop out to form "petals." (Fig.2).

Its a good idea to wait until you're happy with the end result before squashing the folds down firmly, as sometimes a little bit of adjustment is needed.

The second fold is easier.  Just take a square.  Again, fold it so that you have a middle line down the diagonal, then fold the edges to this line to make a kite shape.  There are lots of different ways to use this basic shape with just a little modification, e.g. turning up the edges, opening one edge etc.

To make a motif from either of these folds its just a matter of placing them side by side and sticking them down.  Again, its worth fiddling around with placement until you're totally happy (and/or use a folded circle or square base underneath as a guide) before you get out the glue or double sided tape.

If you find the middle of the motif isn't quite what you'd hoped, a large rhinestone, split pin or punched shape will cover quite a bit.  (Its OK.....its a "design feature")  Good Luck!  I'm happy to help you with the folds (or show you some more) in the shop as long as you're happy to wait between customers!