Truly gorgeous,Sue and Mada.

I must be completely round the bend! I just made a huge card, it is over three feet when open, for those who only understand metric that is not far short of a metre! In an envelope it weighs almost 280 grams so it sure as heck isn't going 'overseas'. When folded it fits into an A5 envelope, it is just 'thick'.

Counting the back and front it has fourteen surfaces which I decorated, a different oriental flower design on each page.

Here is a scan of the front of the card, it ties with a ribbon at each side.

This is the front, then if you follow the link you can see my PhotoBucket folder, all the pictures up until the forget-me-not card are this one card!



The album

The big card is amazing! I sat still and watched the whole show, I just could not stop looking. I have seen your cards before but the range and debth of your talent is really amazing all grouped together like that. Once long ago before I had children I listed card making as a hobby, I am now embarassed to have included myself in a group that also has you.

Theresa

Sue has huge talent, yes, you are right, theresam, but I think she would be the first to say she learns from other people still and would join me in encouraging you to go on card making , enjoyment is the keyword. They are wonderful cards of course, but Sue has improved over the years. She makes cards because she loves it. Keep going!

Wowzers!!! That is incredible, Sue. I sometimes have trouble filling up a little normal card front - the thought of doing a card so well that size is haunting.

Blast, I can't open photobucket at work, and am still waiting for my home PC to 'recover' ... but I bet it's a stupendous card, knowing Sue

I've been too tired to make anything much recently, but I got inspired for a competition over on another forum where I am a member. The challenge was to create a page using the forum banner for inspiration. This is the page I spent my evening making:



Yes, that is real sewing, with my sewing machine, and each piece was cut to size, re-cut to fit, trimmed, abandoned, replaced, and tweaked until it all met in the right places. Then I had to sew, sew, sew, with no leeway to make a mistake. Unlike sewing fabric, if you make a stitch in paper and it's wrong, removing the stitch leaves a gaping hole in your item, which has to be hidden or else you start over. Thankfully I had no slips with the machine, but boy was I in a sweat as I neared the end. The thoughts of ruining all the work that I had done by one small slip was piling on the pressure.

It's a totally different type of page for me, and a style which I have not seen this far in my rambles in the blogosphere. However, I'm sure if I thought it up then someone else has done something similar, and probably lots better, at some stage. I'm now off to trawl the net on searches like 'Patchwork scrapbooking' and any derivations thereof that I can come up with ...

Wow, oh wow! That is totally amazing Toni, I love it.

As some of you will know, I have just returned from a parchment holiday, we worked from after breakfast until late into the evening and even sometimes into the early hours of the morning.

This is one piece we did, we mounted it on our last day so I popped it into a frame that I had in my 'stash'. What probably doesn't show too well is that you can see the 'water level' in the vase. The vase is much the same colour as glass that I have.

More pieces to be shown over the next few days, some are not finished yet.

So glad your parching week wasn't cancelled, Sue!

And boy was it worth your while going if you made pieces like that vase! It's fantastic, the colours are excellent, and the detail is just stunning.

I'm looking forward to seeing some more of what you made.

You are just too kind. I see that I posted the photo above at one minute past midnight so technically today but since I have been to bed in between times perhaps the moderators of this forum will overlook that discrepancy - either that or they can delete it!

In this card that is supposed to be cow parsley in the middle, you cannot see the flower heads too well in the scan. The stems were drawn in green ink and the back of the parchment coloured with pastels, more muted in real life. The butterflies are 3-D, the white ones have been stuck over the top of the ones which have been coloured using glitter pens. The gold, both around the rectangle and the four corner butterflies was done by drawing in glue using a mapping pen then dusting with gold powder.

You do amazing work, both Sue and Santana! I haven't started working on my christmas crafts properly yet, but in the next few weeks, and shall show you all

Wow - all great projects. THe level of detail in your parchments, Sue, is amazing.
Love ths stitching on your page, Toni - looks fabulous! Was that one of those fiddly things you start and regreted? LOL

oh and I have started my Christmas cards! Even written, enveloped and stamped a few. Whenever I see a nice idea I'll copy it and have now grown a nice collection I won't have to worry about come December!

This is the little card we made during our pyjama party session. A quick and easy card and useful for sending to far-flung places to acquaintances from the graft website I belong to, the postage can be dreadful for heavier items so I will try to send those to selected people.



The most useful part of the lesson was learning how to cut a triangular card from a piece of card. The parchment started as white and I coloured it blue using oil pastels on the back of the paper then blending it.

That's very effective, sue! Love it!

Absolutely gorgeous!

And if anyone anyone has a problem with you posting that second one, you send them to me. I'll take care of them for you.

Here is another one, I had to redo all the holly leaves as misery-guts jogged the table and ruined one of my painted holly leaves. I went over them all in coloured pencils.

The backing card isn't actually this one but the proper one has a white centre so won't scan.

That is beautiful, SUe. How long did that take???

I don't have that kind of patience which is why I end up with these for Christmas cards this year I do like them but they are simple. Did the colouring on the three 'line up' stamps with a mixture of markers and watercolour pencils.

Love them! xxx

How long did it take? Quite a while, all except the flowers and red berries were painted in ink and I haven't painted in years. What we did was put a piece of parchment over a line drawing then paint it, we didn't have to trace the outline. The red berries were painted with acrylic paint then the flowers were traced and embossed. I suppose if you add it up it might have been about a day.

I love your cards, nice and clean.

WOW Sue, amazing work in that parchment, it looks great!

Copago, I love your cards, and your coloring! Are they Stampin' up stamps?

What wonderful cards Sue and Copago. You have been busy!

Oooh Can I have the reindeer one? I just love it!

Are we placeing orders already?