Cards for family - birthday and Valentines

Since I started my adventure with card making I made lots of different kinds of cards - for family, friends, neighbours, for sale and for practising :).

Card making is very creative hobby, something perfect for artistic souls - you don't need to be painter or be great with drawing - you just need to have no fear, artist is in every person, sometimes just hidden deep inside, you don't know that if you not try, so.... have a go!

In this post I'll show few cards I made for my man and our parents. Just few, cause don't see a point to overload any of you with photos :).

Valentine's cards for my man :)

2014 I was playing with textures :) I love handmade paper :)

2015 - bit of goth :) plus doggy - my man is proper dog lover :)

This year Valentine's card :)

Here few birthday/namesday cards for parents :)

For my Mum - gold and cream birthday card - she loved it :)

For my Dad's birthday - I love blue/yellow combo :)

For my man's Mum birthday - lots of embossing, shading plus feathers :) - my friend's Pat idea.

Namesday card for my Dad - he liked colours on it :)

This year Namesday card for my Mum :) She likes to received handmade cards :)

Making cards giving a chance to play with colours, textures, dies, images, you can use buttons, feathers - almost anything to create something amazing, something that will be loved and treasured by a person who receive it.

That is why I'm doing it :) cause I love to give something made by myself, something one of a kind :) Cause every piece you make is One Of  A Kind.

My first cards

I'm sitting and thinking how long I'm making cards... when I started? Hmmm... 9-10 years ago... Something like that.

I remember one thing for sure - first card I made for my Dad and to be honest with you result was hmmmm.... my card looked like made by preschool child :) Random man's related stickers (mainly cars) on green cardstock if I'm not wrong. I didn't like it, cause looks so childish, not exactly as I wanted - but from other side my Dad loved it, so I decided to learn properly how to make cards.

First I found some books in local library, then I bought some online, then join craft club in local community centre, then my friend - Pat - very talented cardmaker - offered that she will teach me few things and we were meeting almost every Friday and crafting or just chatting - she moved to the Netherlands more then half year ago, so I'm trying to learn by myself :)

Some of my first cards...

Butterflies from tissue paper

Iris folding

Playing with texture papers and stickers

Cut out butterflies - shame I have no photo of card with cut-out butterflies I made for my Mam for her birthday - I really loved how its turned out.

I also played with different kinds of folds - below Birthday card for my Dad (second).

Card below I made when spending time with craft group - image is in 3D.

This one was a fun - wasn't easy to figured out how to fold it properly :) and I think leaf I cut out from handmade texture paper looks great on it - by the way I had this card printed in one of paper crafting magazines :)

More playing with shaped cards - below :) Plus more stickers :)

And here is my first ever printed in craft magazine card and also my first sold on Etsy card :) This card was also first one I made under close eye of my crafty friend - Pat.

What wrote a buyer about this card in her review? Her words: 'Very pretty and extremely well made. My daughter loved it. Fast shipping too. I'm very pleased with this purchase.'

I was very happy. Since that time I made and sold lots of other cards, but more about them later :)