Christmas Cards : Button Edition

I don’t know about all of you, but I have lots of buttons.  LOTS. OF. BUTTONS.  Jars and jars of them.  Despite this, I can never find the one I need for a particular project.  I think every crafter knows this dilemma.  You need a pink one, but it needs to be a rosy pink, not a baby pink.  You need a green one, but all you have is yellow-green when you really need a forest green.  Or you need big buttons when you only have teeny ones.  Or visa versa.  It’s a conundrum and wastes lots of time.

So why would I decide to make lots of cards featuring this nemesis of quick crafts?  Because I am a crazy person and I enjoy having a floor that is covered in buttons (which mine now is).  Because my hands can be dicky (thanks again, Meningitis), I often drop things, so for every button I successfully pick up and glue down, there’s at least three that have escaped and are rolling about under tables and in between couch cushions.

I have been scouring Pinterest and other internet sites featuring all things craft-tastic, and have been very inspired by the clever designs people have come up with, using buttons as the main element.  And then I basically copied them.  Because I am, as I said before, very short on time and energy right now.  I’m also not selling these cards so I don’t feel so bad about purloining a few ideas.

Buttons are an easy way to add interest, colour and dimension to cards and can be just the right finishing touch.  Most of these ones below were made simply by drawing on lines with a pen, gluing on a button and then doodling some little details like bows and the tops of the baubles.  A stamped sentiment completes the look.  If I was feeling extra energetic I punched out some circles of pretty Christmas paper to stick down before the buttons to make them more colourful and chunky.

So now, after mammoth card-making sessions, I now have to get stuck into mammoth card-writing sessions.  There’s only so many ways you can say “Wishing you a very merry Christmas and a happy new year…” but I try to mix it up a bit.  By 11pm last night I was getting my words all doolally and not making a lot of sense.  Plus I had a blister on my finger and a cramp in my hand.  AND my pen ran out!  Gah!  But, I am lucky I have so many people in my life to give cards to – so I am not complaining at all.  I know a lot of people don’t give cards any more, but I still like to.  It’s a way of telling people they are cared about and wished good luck and health and happiness.  I know quite a few people who are on their own, not just at Christmas but all the time, so a little card is the least I can do to show them they are not alone, and are being thought of fondly.

Hope you are having a crafty, creative day today and are surrounded
by people that make you smile x

Christmas 2017

Easy Christmas Trees

I am still madly making Christmas cards and am trying to have lots of different ones so there’s a decent selection for me to choose from.  I don’t like everyone to have the exact same card and I get fed up with making the same ones over and over.  But I am running out of time and “oomph” and so I am getting simpler and simpler in my designs.

These cards were inspired by some I saw on the internet, where the artist had used buttons on a stamped image of a tree.  It looked very effective, but I don’t have a tree stamp and I knew I would drive myself nutty trying to find the right buttons and then having to glue the little buggers on to multiple cards.

So, I decided to draw the simple tree shapes and use Liquid Pearls instead of buttons.  It worked a treat.  Even when my drawing went a little bit bodgy and my trees were weirdly deformed or botanically incorrect, it still looked pretty good with the liquid pearls dotted over it (to represent snow or leaves or, um, I don’t know, dots).

Very easy to do and something I could whip up sitting in front of the telly, which is the only space I currently have left (the rest of the house being covered in craft materials, Xmas gifts and wrapping paper).

Thanks for dropping in 🙂

Oh Deer!

Aghhh!  It’s December already!  Which means it’s time to panic about getting Christmas cards made in time!  Every year I do this to myself.  I swear I am going to start making some in June so I have lots ready by the end of the year, but do I ever do that?  No, I do not.  I guess I am just not in the mood in the middle of the year and want to do other things.  And Christmas seems a long way off then too.

But, here we are in December and so the card making frenzy must begin.  I’m not feeling particularly inspired at the moment, and I don’t have a lot of free time, so I wanted to create something that would look cute and effective, but also be fairly quick and simple.  I like reindeers – they make me smile and their overall shape and design is fairly easy to replicate.  You can’t mistake what they’re supposed to be once you have those antlers on!

So, I present to you Christmas card design (for 2017) number one!  These came together really quite quickly, although they are a bit fiddly (gluing on those antlers – aggh! There’s no surface area to put glue without it squishing out the sides so I had to use teeny tiny dabs) and I nearly went insane looking for the right buttons to use for their snozzes.  Turns out I don’t have many red buttons in my collection…

Using the mottled/patterned papers gave the reindeers an almost printed quality, which I kind liked.   It made them more “organic” than if I had just used a plain coloured paper or card.  I just cut the head and ears out from the paper, free hand.  The antlers are actually made with a branch-design paper punch (which is rapidly becoming blunt now – this makes me very sad).  I drew in the little eyes and stamped one of two sentiments underneath.  I actually bought a stamp set on the weekend that had “Oh Deer” on it (as part of a Christmas theme) and I thought that was cute, but I didn’t like the font and size.  So I used another set of stamps (a really nice alphabet set I also bought that day) to make up the words myself.  I like how it turned out 🙂

So, ten cards down and about fifty to go…  I will be making up another design now – I soon get bored of doing the same one over and over.  I should probably try and do something more Australian –  a Christmas koala perhaps?  A platypus pudding?  Hmm, I will have to work on that I think!

Thanks for dropping by – hope your festive season is shaping up to be a happy one 🙂