Calendar Cards

Posted: February 18, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: border collection, Concord & 9th, cricut, Dies, online class, Patterned papers, Penny Black | Tags: , , , , | 4 Comments

Here are some happy flowers to remind you of spring if you are still surrounded by snow like I am! Also to get you through winter there are details about a sale of my online classes at the bottom of this post.

I received a beautiful Earth Greetings calendar last year from my brother and sister-in-law in Australia. I enjoyed the original artwork all year while also planning to turn the pages into cards once the year was over. I decided to start with the cover which features a beautiful floral design by Jayne Branchflower. The cover has the January artwork on the back so I used bits of each design, both painted by Jayne.

In this post I will feature the blue background panel covered in Australian native flowers such as waratah, bottlebrush and flannel flower. I created two portrait orientation cards shown below. The accents on all the cards are cut from gold cardstock to co-ordinate with the bottlebrush (callistemon) and wattle in the design. The greeting below left was cut on the cricut, below right features a Penny Black border die and a retired C&9 sentiment.

The two cards below I made in landscape orientation and used the PB Border Collection die to add a scalloped edge on the right along with a cricut cut sentiment. On the left I die-cut a PB sentiment, So Many Thanks, and lay it over duralar so it would be easier to see on the busy background. It is also stacked up on navy cardstock to give it a bit more prominence. I created the narrow gold border with WaffleFlower A2 rectangle dies. The cards in this post obviously do not have to be made with calendar pages; your own printed, drawn or painted papers would work, as would scrapbook papers or art papers. I am just having fun with calendar pages right now and hope I have inspired you to recycle and repurpose a few of yours!

All my online classes are on sale for 50% off. Just click over to https://heathertelford.podia.com/ to purchase.

This post includes affiliate links from Scrap’n’Stamp . If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Pretty Papers

Posted: January 21, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: cricut, My Favorite Things, Patterned papers, Penny Black | Tags: , , | 7 Comments

If you are anything like me you probably have a stash of pretty papers. Maybe they are scrapbooking papers or rice papers, perhaps they are pretty papers you made yourself by watercolouring or printing. I have quite the stash in all the above categories. So in the spirit of using what I have (UWIH), I pulled out some of the pretties and turned them into cards.

All the papers on today’s cards are rice papers featuring bold colours and gold details. They were a lovely gift from a lovely person. Because the papers are so beautiful I really didn’t do much to turn them into cards. (the red one, the bluey-green one, the blue floral one)

All the cards featured today use a panel that fills or almost fills a card front. I simply added sentiments and rounded corners to the red card and the bluey-green cards. For the hello card above I used the cricut to cut the word hello from a cream panel so the pretty paper would be revealed. I added the word ‘Beautiful’ from a Darkroom Door set, ‘You are Everything‘.

The word birthday below is die cut; the other letters are cricut-cut.

I like the finishing touch of rounded corners and have a corner rounder that I really like; it’s the Kadomaru PRO which gives me the choice or large, medium or small corners. What else do you do with pretty papers? I’d love to read your suggestions in the comments.

Watercolour trees & skies

Posted: December 23, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Penny Black, ski lodge embossing folder, Spellbinders | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

Here are a few more watercolour Christmas cards I made this year. I painted a large panel of watercolour paper in blues and greens blended together to create a striped mix of tones. From the large panel I cut background rectangles a bit smaller than my card bases and trees of different heights to arrange against embossed white skies. I don’t know the name of the tree die set as I borrowed it from a friend. I really like the non-symmetrical trees featured on the cards above.

To create the snow banks I cut curved hill shapes, sometimes one, sometimes two per card. The cards were all finished with Penny Black sentiments. I have sent most of my cards but there are a few that will be new year greetings. Last week the snow was gradually disappearing around here as we had warmer temperatures and rain. This week it’s a different story; it’s been snowing for days.

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.

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.

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.

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