Newest Card...

This is one of the newest cards - made with 300gsm card it is very sturdy and serious, with a delicate and flighty parchment style white insert to lighten things up a bit, and gold embossed message on the front as a crowning glory! I've meant to have a set of these blessings for ages, so I'm glad I have one down at least...next up: 'May the wind be always at your back'.

Photo Regression :(

Sad face! My photography is getting worse! I don't know what to say, I'm hoping that it is down to time constraints forcing me to take the pics in the evening...this card is actually a gorgeous warm cheeky red!

It is badly washed out in these pics though (and another of the green cards, also a 'Celtic Heart', looks grey! Criminal!), so I may have to try to make time to have a do-over.

ALTHOUGH! I must say they look much worse on Etsy than they do here or on Picasa as I'm trying to edit them, typical!!

Avalanche of Embossed Cards!

I am taking my hopes to be a little more pro-active with the cards seriously, happily! These are all just the different permutations of the Connemara series, combining all three images with the different messages and both silver and gold embossing...phew!
It means listings may be a little monotonous for a while, but I'll feel better, in that princess and the pea way!, knowing that I have given them a good shot. I like these cards, they are certainly simple, but I worked hard on the images and they mean a lot to me as my first cards - the first things I'd admitted to making much less trying to sell! I'm planning to list every second day, which is still a world away from what I was doing, totally ad hoc, but still isn't setting myself up to fail :p

Mother's Day Card

I am not as sure about the colour of this one now as I was in the shop! But at least it's not Green ;p!

I like the reduced size of the cream insert against the orange, it looks well with the outline - it may become a feature...

The embossing on the front, hmmm: I knew I wanted the main flower and the lickle-ickle flower which is looking up to it, aw, to be highlighted, but as I was scattering the powder on the first card quite a lot clung to the ink of the surrounding flowers...and I thought I'd see what that looked like, as I liked the idea of it looking like a reflected glow from the main flower...and it kinda does.

Kinda!

I wasn't completely sold, so for the second one I cleaned it up much more, but filled in the leaves to have a little wow factor. Hmm. Again, not completely sold on that, but some of the pictures of both cards did come out well.

Finally, I was considering a little white ribbon holding the two pieces of the card together, which would bring some more colour to the front of the card, but then I tried the reduced insert and so had to stick it in to keep the lovely surround. Again: hmmm!

Final St. Patrick's Day Card: promise!

This, like the Tricolour card (completely unloved and unhearted on Etsy btw! Boo!), has been kicking around in my head for a while, mostly because I do like drawing snakes; but, of course St. Patrick afficianado's out there will know, snakes are also relevant to the great man himself, seeing as it is popularly believed that he single-handedly drove all serpents from Ireland (and kept them out by growing fields of shamrocks - news to me ;p !)

So here's the before and after - dammit all but again I'm disappointed that I couldn't get all the details of the drawing to show through in the embossing, but CLOSE! Actually the detail - showing the under-and-overs of the celtic knotwork - can't be seen in the above pic, the final one is in Paint and I couldn't find it to upload. Silly!

Anyway, I'm retiring my Green goggles now - my Etsy page looks mouldy at the top, thank goodness for the featured spots to showcase a little colour!

St. Pat's day cards #3!

I know, once I was booted onto the St. Patrick's Day bandwagon I went wild for it! Here's a third option, that I did up on a whim seeing as I have had that knot drawn up and scanned for ages now...

St. Patrick's Day Card #2

This one took a little more 'thinking', and drawing up the knotwork was a bit difficult. I thought I HAD it but the embossing does muddy up some of the finer details (fun game, see if you can spot where...!) (Please don't!) I'll see if I can give it a bit of a touch up.

Also, curses, this paper I'm using has a smooth and a rough side...and I never know which I prefer for images and embossing...In these cards the textured side of the white card shows as the second panel of the flag, which works well as it leaves the writing side inside smooth. My mistake was in having the green smooth side out - what possessed me? I'll definitely try changing it next time.

But I do like this idea, of the tricolor...Yep, I think I probably definitely do.

Actual DOING

Papering, that is. It's outrageous that what, 2 weeks?, could have gone by between my actually making something, booo...

So I lit a little fire under myself to do another few valentine's cards. I don't actually think they would even get to America in time now, but I gave myself a giggle-blush with the prospect of having them to bring to a shop or even a market stall to sell, fun!

Anyway they are just a variation on previous: a golden claddagh ring on red card instead of white, and with the words "Love, Friendship, Loyalty" in Irish embossed inside instead of the phrase 'Let Love and Friendship Reign'.

That textured card is lovely in real life...you'd never really know it, wouldja? :( !

On my map: Oklahoma!

Oh yes, I am so grateful and happy - a wonderful lady in Oklahoma has seen the light and bought the red/gold Claddagh Ring card! Phew! 'Cos I was starting to wonder if I was the only one who kinda liked it...if I do say so myself *blush!*

And I'm also happy that it gave me the shove I needed to make an effort with finding a consistent package for single cards at least: I always knew I wanted it to have a board backing, and to be something that needed to be 'opened' - that anticipation is what it's all about, isn't it? And it had to be something that I could put together quickly and efficiently (I don't want the packaging to cost more in time or material than the card itself!). And I'm pretty happy with how this one combined all of the above...

So there's a board, glued onto an A4 sheet of nice textured card with my etsy avatar and contact details printed on the back; I scored along the board and cut out the 4 corners, so I'm left with 2 small and 2 big flaps. The small ones are folded first, and the big next, and then it is tied closed with a little red ribbon. Yes, in a bow. I can't help myself!

Etsy Heart Validation

Giggle - some fantastic person has seen the Red and Gold Claddagh Ring card and Hearted it!!! It's the nicest thing in the world EVER...bar if she'd also bought it! I was looking through the forums etc last night, in desperation really because it was literally as if my little shop had fallen off the face of the Internet, and it was a cold lonely feeling! Anyway I know people keep saying you should comment on forums etc to get attention, but that feels kind of a little itty bit like oh-um-ah prostitution?! Well, I did it last night!!!!!! Actually it was a relevent post - the forum was about people underselling, and technically I'm as guilty as sin (remember my free-giveaways-in-exchange-for-feedback scheme?!), and so I owned up...Got a couple of views out of it though so I still feel a little dirty. Happy, but dirty. Confusing!

Here's a little filler: silver thank you card.

Valentine's Day - Claddagh Ring

My latest efforts...Bottom shows how the card would look laid flat, which means that when folded closed the 'ring' extends around the card.

The inner sheet is a nice crimson red, but it's a much lighter paper and reacts kinda funnily to the embossing.

More embossing woes is the 'ring' itself: it is much more detailed than anything I've done before - and the pic above was the only decent one of FOUR! Soul destroying!