Birdcages, bows and roses

I love the trend of vintage birdcages (even though caged birds make me sad) so when craftwork cards brought out some pretty little birdcage diecuts I had to indulge...  And this is what I came up with when the creative juices were in full swing:

I think this is one of the prettiest little cards I've made (not even going to try to be humble as I love it!).  I inked the birdcage with a flexmarker, shaped it so it was domed, and added some gorgeous little paper flowers, some punched leaves, and of course the obligatory ribbon. You can see how it is domed a bit better here:

This time the ribbon is seam binding that had been dyed subtle greens and pinks with distress inks.  I'm loving adding buttons at the moment, and if you are short on supplies HobbyCraft do a massive bag of odd buttons in their value range. The top patterned paper is Laura Ashley and the base hunkydory.

There is a bit of gorgeous washi tape behind the cage that you can just about see peeking through.

This was another card that was reluctantly given away but I know my friend would love it as she really appreciates all things pretty and handcrafted.  I need to get making some male cards as there has been an overabundance of twee on this blog for some time :-).  Hope you don't mind.

Helen x

Party Favours

My first project post in this blog was to show the post-it note holders I had made using the scalloped square nesties and some beautiful Laura Ashley papers. The picture was pretty rubbish and as I'd given them all away I was pretty stumped. One of the recipients of one of the holders has sent me this picture today (thanks R!). They were really simple and easy to make and something that can easily be customised to the recipients style and tastes. Most of mine were given out to friends at a special afternoon tea for my birthday last year, which reminds me, I must have a think about a little present for this year. Less that 10 days to go...aarrggghhhh....