GET WELL SOON.

Graham's friends Mum has just come out of hospital & has to be in a wheelchair for three months & he spends quite a bit of time at their house, so I thought I would put together a card to hopefully cheer her up a bit. The bright pink stitch works well will the flowery background!

OCTOBER CARDS

During October I have four female birthdays Grandma, Graham's two sisters & my Mum. This has got me thinking about what to do on their cards. These are my Mum's last two birthday cards from me, to remind me not to do the same!

This is Mums birthday card for 2009, it is simple with stitch, pretty lace & a button.

Mum's birthday 2010. She really loves the pretty, girlyness of the cards I make for her I have used floral fabric & a rose button, along with a cross stitched Mum & heart, all in keeping with the pink/peach/cream colour palette.

22ND SEPTEMBER - SCARLETT'S BIRTHDAY

I had to make a card practically the same for Graham's other niece Scarlett's 5th birthday, as she had seen Alyssa's & asked me to make her one too! This time I made Hello Kitty a little more girly with a spotty outfit & frills & also a lot of pink in an attempt to make her more girly!

10TH AUGUST - ALYSSA'S BIRTHDAY

I drew a traditional Hello Kitty for Graham's niece Alyssa's 7th birthday, I used bold colours whilst still being girly :) I like the grey outline of kitty as it doesn't look too harsh.

10TH AUGUST - DAD'S BIRTHDAY

Dad likes the badgers on my wallpaper for my degree show best, so I drew him a 'posh badger' for his birthday. I used a brown paper that has the texture of wood to mount the badger on to & used watercolours & acrylic to give it a texture.

4TH AUGUST - KAREN'S BIRTHDAY

I found out last minute that it was my Uncles fiances 40th birthday, she did very well to keep it hidden from us! She loves Cath Kidston so I used some letter writing paper to create the background, I then added a cross stitch 40 & a pretty rose button!

Mum also needed a birthday card for her friend, so I used the same idea & cross stitched a happy birthday instead of a 40, because the writing was bigger I felt no button was needed & I used the paper the opposite way round.

CHARLOTTE'S GET WELL SOON CARD

During the summer my friend from university was poorly, so I sent her a letter & card to cheer her up. Charlotte has caught my Charlie & Lola obsession, so I did a collage of cut outs from a magazine to create the poorly Lola scene. I also cut Charlotte's name out from different patterns to create the illusion of texture on the card!

24TH JULY - BEN'S BIRTHDAY

Ben did graphic design at university & now designs kitchens so I felt pressure on this card! I chose four different types of paper - red, green, cream & a brown textured one. I cut stripes for the background as they are masculine & also used black ink. I was impressed at how well I made the stripes all look identical.

17TH JULY - LYNNE'S BIRTHDAY

This card had to be a pretty one because it was for my boyfriends mum, I decided to do something along the lines of what I'd done previously for Emma's birthday. So i painted watercolour butterflies & then drew detail on to them, stitched a happy birthday & also three embroidered butterflies to make it that bit more special. She absolutely loved it & some people thought I'd bought the butterflies to stick on!

1ST JULY - JESSICA'S BIRTHDAY

My Brothers fiance Jess had her birthday in July & I decided to cross stitch her a puppy because she loves dogs. I added a pink bow to compliment the floral pattern of the paper I planned to collage with when the cross stitch was complete. The finished result is really cute!

24TH JUNE - UNCLE NEIL'S BIRTHDAY

I find it difficult to do male cards without them being boring. For Uncle Neil's birthday I used Hello Kitty's boyfriend Dear Daniel & gave him a smart little outfit & watercolour balloons! I chose this child like style because Uncle Neil always buys me pretty niece cards with cute pictures on that are meant for younger children!

FATHERS DAY 2010

For fathers day last year I made Dad a card with the contrast of the delicate cross stitch with masculine wooden buttons & the brown/green colour palette. I really like this card as I feel it has a nice balance between detailed & simple.

19TH JUNE - FATHERS DAY

For fathers day this year I chose to paint a daddy monkey & a little girl monkey, as my dad loves the little animal character watercolours I create! I love the naive style of drawing & the large cross stitch echoes this.

19TH JUNE - SELINA & BEN'S ANNIVERSARY

The traditional wedding anniversary symbol for the first year is paper & the flower is pansy. So for this first anniversary card I thought I would incorporate both of these using acrylic & watercolour to create a textured pansy & orange stitch to secure it down to the brown paper & bring out the orange centre of the pansy.

MAY 2011 - NEW HOME

In May this year my oldest friend Kirsty moved away from Doncaster to Warrington to live with her boyfriend. I made this card for when they moved in, it reminds me of one of those welcome home door mats! I stitched a heart for the bottom left hand corner too as the card looked a bit bare, i added a clear superglue over the top of this heart to harden it & give a 3D effect, it worked well.

10TH MAY - EMMA'S BIRTHDAY

I really enjoyed making this card for Emma, she is a lovely, bubbly person so I wanted to do something colourful. I created some pretty watercolour butterflies & once dry I added detail with grey ink (as black would be too harsh) & personalised it with a bit of lilac embroidery!

MOTHERS DAY 2010

This is also my mothers day card from last year, it was a stressful time of year at university as we were getting into the final major project, so i just put together this simple collage for Mum & added a couple of buttons & she loved it, zig zag scissors are a must!

3RD APRIL - MOTHERS DAY

I had more time on my hands this year so I created a more delicate card for mother's day. I used a tighter Aida to make the detail of my cross stitch more intricate. Using the pretty, girly palette of peach, lilac, green & cream I layered up fabric & paper & finished with a little thread bow & hearts cut out from lace. The lilac running stitch through the bottom of the card finishes it off nicely & brings the whole colour palette together.

17TH MARCH - LORAH'S BIRTHDAY

i have finally managed to find a picture of lorah's birthday card. When getting a card for a friend with a princess castle on, lorah said she wanted a princess castle & a shark on her birthday card, so this is what she got. i love the naivety of the crayons & mostly the lady shark having pretty eyelashes, lips & a bow! she loved it :)

10TH MARCH - EMMIE'S BIRTHDAY

I lived with Emmie at University & her 23rd birthday was her first since we graduated. I made her a pretty princess Lola glittery card to cheer her up because she was getting old & of course Lola reminds her of me because I love Lauren Child's Charlie & Lola!

20TH FEBRUARY - GRAHAM'S BIRTHDAY

This card was for my boyfriends 24th birthday. I tried to create a masculine card whilst still using stitch, brown paper & fabric to create texture. I found a heart I had previously stitched & attached it to create the illusion of a balloon & of course the dinosaur went down well!