Wine and a little bit of Cake

Good morning everyone,
Here I am again, I've had a busy craft week this week, and it's not over yet!
Just want to share a couple of cards today that I've made and sent to very special friends who have had birthdays this week.  Hopefully, the postman will have kept his side of the bargain and delivered them by now.  If not, I hope they're not reading this!!
First off it was our friend Nick's birthday on Monday.  Now I know I was late posting his card, (Sorry Nick!) what with Easter and all that, but, I hope he's received it by now.
I'm not too keen on making cards for guys, I always struggle to come up with a theme. This one wasn't too bad though.
I'm not saying Nick likes the odd bottle of wine or anything but, Nick likes the odd bottle of wine, or two.  We always have a great time when he and his lovely wife Julie come to visit. Good food (Nick always helps me in the kitchen), great wine (we all like a glass or two) and fabulous company.  We don't see them often enough these days, especially since moving to the Isle of Man.
Anyway, here's the card I made for him

I was going for the vintage look - vintage... wine .... never mind!   I went for deep reds and brown shades with a hint of black for my colour scheme, had to really as I'm a red wine lover, anything Italian. Chianti, Barolo, Amarone, and the recently discoverd Montepulciano (think I've spelled that right!). You can't beat a nice glass of red!
The scrapbooking paper was from a lovely old Prima collection and the stamp is Inkadinkadoo.  I love this stamp as it's one of those that looks different depending on what colour of ink you've used.  This time I used Crimson Red Versafine ink and stamped onto cream card, then embossed with clear powder to give it a bit of a shine.  This doesn't show up in the picture I know, but it is there.  I tore the edges and distressed them with Vintage Photo and Barn Door Distress inks.  The sentiment was done on the computer and inked to match.
The seam binding is from SU (Cherry Cobbler) and there's even a cute little cork knotted on there too. Have to be careful with embellishments on men's cards - can't put bows or flowers!

A little bit of stamping was done on the inside too.  I like to decorate the inside instead of putting an insert in. By adding another layer to the inside I think it helps to balance it a little, so that the card doesn't topple over when they stand it on the mantlepiece - not a good look!

 Happy Birthday Nick, hope you had a great day.

The other card I sent this week was to my good friend Susan, whose birthday was Wednesday.  I was ready for this one, I'd made the card a while ago. I was just a little late in buying the gift to go with it.

Susan is one of my lovely crafting buddies across in the UK.  She shares my love of rubber stamping and all things crafty. Shops as much as I do as well!!!   Can't wait to see her again in May, we're off to the Happy Stampers show at Port Sunlight.  Another expensive day out, but lots of fun.
Susan's card was made with the SU Designer Papers range Spice Cake.  I love this range of paper, I think it's the colours that do it for me.
When I made this card and matching tag, I knew exactly who I was going to send it to, just had to wait a little while that's all. The picture makes it look like it's only a small card,  but that's not the case, it's the tag that's BIG! (ususal for me)
Happy Birthday Susan.  Hope you had a fab day. 

Speaking of Spice Cake, this is something I did a couple of weeks ago

I had a great evening, along with a couple of other crafting friends, at a Stampin Up! workshop with the lovely Kirstie, who's an SU demonstrator on the island.  I met Kirstie through Facebook and now I regularly attend her workshops. 
The bag was so easy to decorate.  We cut the shapes from Stampin Up! fabric using the Big Shot machine and dies.  I chose the Spice Cake, but there are other lovely designs to choose from.  The adhesive had already been applied to the  of the fabric before we cut it (you just iron it on with a warm iron and leave it to cool - another fab SU product) then the shapes were just ironed directly onto the bag  - simple but very effective.  I added co-ordinating buttons to the centres of a couple of flowers, and then I stitched two of the matching giant buttons to the handles.

The bag is big enough to hold 12x12 papers so I can see this going to the Craft shows with me.  Very handy indeed.

Well I think that's it from me for today - need to catch up with household stuff now. Boring!!!

Thanks for looking

Linda
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