Birds on Birches

Posted: December 9, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: beneath the birches, Dies, Penny Black, sennelier watercolours, winter trees | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments

In case you were wondering I have done some watercolouring for Christmas cards this year; it’s not all napkin art. I created a batch of cards for a friend which included either watercolour skies or watercolour trees.

I painted a blended sky with a couple of different blues then added hand-cut snowbanks and die-cut trees and birds from the Penny Black sets, ‘beneath the birches‘ and ‘winter trees‘.

This would be a simple card to make in multiples by painting a large sheet of watercolour paper to divide into sky panels then add the white and red elements. The greeting is from the PB ‘Christmas sentiments‘ set. How is your Christmas card sending going? I sat in a waiting room yesterday and wrote about eight cards instead of reading a book or scrolling so that advanced me through my list a little.

Eucalyptus & gold

Posted: December 3, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Airy, Dies, Penny Black, stocking stuffers | Tags: , | 5 Comments

I thought this would be my last napkin/serviette related post for now but I forgot about a pack of dinner napkins I bought in the summer. So maybe one more!?

But onto today’s cards; you can see in the photo above that the eucalyptus themed napkins are printed on a white base but my cards are all cream tones. When I adhered the single layer of the napkin to cream cardstock, the background transformed into cream not white.

The napkins are not Christmas themed themselves but I chose to add gold foliage die-cuts, gold embossed greetings and even some gold splatter on the one below to turn them into Christmassy cards. I used the Penny Black dies, ‘stocking stuffers‘ and ‘airy’.

Let heaven and nature sing

Posted: November 27, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Penny Black, Spellbinders | Tags: , | 8 Comments

This is the second collection of napkin/serviette Christmas cards I’ve made, this time with sweet birds and foliage featured. As I mentioned in an earlier post I have had success with a glue stick or double sided adhesive to adhere the single layer of napkin to cardstock, but there are other methods which several of you were kind enough to share with me.

Thank you to everyone who got in touch to let me know about the following options: spray adhesive, modpodge, freezer wrap adhered with a hot dry iron and a full sheet of Avery sticker paper. Some involve wet adhesive, some dry and the freezer wrap uses the melted wax in the paper so I imagine each method produces a slightly different thickness and flexibility. I will report back again if I try some of these approaches.

As is often the case it is hard to see the texture in the background panels and card bases. I have used the Spellbinders ‘in the pines’ embossing folder on both the white and the dark green panels and it does look nice and co-ordinates with the pine sprigs on the napkins.

The sentiments are a mix of Penny Black sentiments, the favourites I pull out every year.

2 for 1 cards

Posted: November 24, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Penny Black, Taylored Expressions | Tags: , , | 6 Comments

Here are some of the ‘2 for 1’ cards a group from our church made on Saturday. I had a couple of friends help with prep and running the event and it was a fun creative time. Of course there were snacks, laughter and plenty of conversation.

The ‘2 for 1 technique’ in this case required the maker to cut an image or word out of patterned paper and turn the positive and the negative piece into two separate cards. To add some texture and pattern we had coloured and embossed backgrounds to choose from.

I have run this event before and there is always some creative free styling when participants see the supplies available. I get inspired watching everyone create. I wanted one photo of all the cards but my kitchen table was crowded with just half so I divided them into landscape and portrait orientation.

Thank you to the twenty three people who participated before and during the event. I hope the residents at the nursing home will enjoy the pretty cards and message.

Christmas Greenery

Posted: November 21, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Christmas inchies, Darkroom Door, Elizabeth Craft Designs, Gina K, global postmarks, Penny Black, postage stamps | Tags: , , , | 7 Comments

Yes, finally a Christmas card post. I have been playing around with paper napkins for some of my Christmas cards. All the designs in today’s post use panels from a greenery + berries design. I peel off the printed layer from the three layer napkins or serviettes (depending where you’re from) and glue it to cardstock. I’ve used both double sided adhesive (pricey) and glue sticks (slightly curls the cardstock). Either option works I just need to take some time to flatten the glued panels.

Sometimes when attaching the fragile napkin layer to the cardstock you get some creases; I think they add interest and texture so I don’t let them worry me. I used my cricut and the Echidna Studio stocking design and mitten designs to cut out large features to add to an embossied background.

I also used the lovely postage dies from Elizabeth Craft and the Darkroom Door Global Postage and Christmas Inchies stamps to add postmarks along with small sentiment stamps from Penny Black to add words. For the card below I simply cut the word joy using a PB die and added it to a large panel. You could definitely make all these cards with patterned papers or your own painted or printed papers. I just get tempted by the beautiful paper serviettes out there and end up buying them for craft and dinner!

I am packed up ready to do Christmas card making with some friends from church tomorrow. We are making 2-for-1 cards to give to the residents in a local nursing home. I’ll try and share a few of the designs next week. Have a lovely weekend.

Stencilled Tendrils

Posted: November 14, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: AALL & Create, twirling tendrils stencil | Tags: , | 3 Comments

I would call this a watercolour/inkblending/stencil mashup which is probably not the catchiest name! Regardless of the name, I like the result. I used blending brushes to blend three distress inks through the beautiful ‘twirling tendrils’ stencil from AALL & Create.

Salty ocean, chipped sapphire and seedless preserves will always be up there with my all time faves so I blended them onto hot press watercolour paper through the delicate stencil. After blending I gently spritzed water over the panel so come of the ink would move into the surrounding area. In places it reminds me of the crackled lines you get with batik.

I chose the layered sentiment because it mimicked the curls of the stencilling but was bold enough to stand out over the busy pattern.

The Magic of Brusho

Posted: November 4, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Background Stamps, Brusho, contemporary, cricut, Penny Black | Tags: , , , , | 5 Comments

I’ve said it before but here is more evidence, Brusho watercolour paint powders make magic! I embossed the ‘contemporary‘ background stamp from Penny Black in a copper colour (I think it was ‘Penny‘ from Brutus Monroe) on hot pressed watercolour paper.

You can see the pattern in the background stamp is made up of curved and straight edged shapes. The embossing creates enclosed spaces on the panel and the the brusho powders get trapped in the spaces.

There are a couple of ways to trap brusho in an embossed design, you can spritz the embossed panel with water then sprinkle some brusho over the top, or you can sprinkle the brusho first then spritz. I often end up doing a bit of both. For this panel I think I spritzed some water first then sprinkled both blue and green brusho over the wet areas. My aim was to keep some sections blue, some green and others a mix of the two colours. I also wanted some areas to look speckled and other sections to look softly blended. Less water keeps things speckled; more water gives the paint more time to dissolve and blend.

I had some bronze shimmery cardstock which matched the embossing powder so I cut the ‘thank’ and ‘you’ on the cricut. I stacked two layers so the words would stand out from the busy background.

Handpainted blooms

Posted: October 28, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Hand painted | Tags: , | 3 Comments

I’ve been putting together some gift collections of cards, no overarching theme, just a selection with greetings or blank options. To do so I’ve raided my stash of panels or as I’ve called it before, my ‘pile of possibilities’!

This handpainted watercolour panel was in the pile and I couldn’t say how long it’s been there; long enough that I can’t remember which paints I used. It is on cold pressed watercolour paper and I added some gold cord wrapped around several times before I attached it to a card base

Initially it was going to be a portrait oriented card as shown above and below but when photographing it I turned it on its side and quite liked it that way too. What do you think? There is no sentiment so the person who receives the gift set can make the final decision.

The happy cut-out

Posted: October 22, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: cricut, Dies, Penny Black | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Today’s card is very similar to yesterday’s. I used the cricut to cut the letters H, A, P, P &Y from a cream panel which reveals the patterned paper layered below it. Because the patterned paper is the same size as the card front there is a border revealed by the smaller blank panel.

I’m know there are various ways to get the same effect but in some way it is easier to let the cricut cut the large letters in a straight line rather than expect myself to glue the cut-out letters in a perfect row! I used a Penny Black die to cut the little birthday word from pink cardstock. The patterned paper is one of the bonus pages you sometimes get in paper-crafting magazines. I think it’s the first time I’ve used one but I have a little stash which I will continue to put to use.

The map card

Posted: October 21, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Collage cards, cricut, Spellbinders | Tags: , , | 6 Comments

I’ve recently been using the cricut to cut letters in different fonts to complete my cards. I took the process a little further by cutting words out of the card front in order to reveal some coloured paper behind. This one shows a vintage map; tomorrow’s card features some patterned paper from a magazine.

To create this birthday card for my son who just returned from visiting our family in Australia I had fun positioning the map behind the cut out to reveal some of the places he stayed. The map page is from an old atlas I am using for collage. The birthday die-cut is from the Spellbinders ‘serenade sentiments’ set which also has co-ordinating shadow dies. (currently the shadow for the word ‘birthday’ is missing somewhere in my work room!)

I wish I could tell you which font I used on the cricut but it appears I didn’t record that important information, something tall and bold! You could also do this technique with alphabet dies, the trick is to have dies open enough to show a decent amount of the paper behind. When cutting the letters out of course I am saving them in case I can use them on another card.

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