Some new cards taking shape ...

Taking my lead from sales last week at the market, I've been working on two new cards. Both are based on designs I've created before, but I decided to bring them right up to date with 'mark two' versions that feature new techniques.

The first, a 'Get Well' card, utilises a background photo of a fabulous bouquet of flowers which came my way a year or two ago. Of course, I immediately thought about quilling a butterfly to put on it, but then I thought "no, let's try something different". So I punched out some leaves and a scallop-edged flower shape from pearlised gift-wrap paper, stuck them to the card, and set about decorating the shapes with short sections of 1.5mm twisted 'beehive' quilling. For the flower, I used a tight coil of 3mm crimped yellow to form the centre, then added pairs of gently curved 3mm pink strips to demarcate the petals, before filling in the petal sections with 1.5mm 'beehive' twists. Twisted sections like these are normally contained within the fixed borders of an outline shape, so I found it a little more challenging to use them 'free-form' to make the vein pattern on the leaves, but it's really just a matter of choosing sufficient 'anchor points' when you are gluing the pattern down.

My second project was a Wedding card. I've used the church porch picture as a background before, but this time I processed the image through my favourite Photoshop filters to create a 'painted' effect. It looks richer and more attractive than the original photograph, I think. Then I punched two heart shapes out of white paper, dry-embossed one of them with a swirly effect, and added a combination of filigree and 'beehive' quilling to decorate them. The swirl at the base is made from two conjoined strips - a construction which I find is much less likely to unravel when it comes to gluing!

Having made these, it will probably now be several weeks - or months! - before I am next asked for a 'Get Well' or a 'Wedding' card at the market ... but at least I will be ready!!