Blackbutterfly Handmade Cards & Crafts: February 2010

About Blackbutterfly Cards

I started making cards for pleasure in 2007, and quickly found my home was becoming swamped by cards everywhere. I decided to put some of them up for sale on a webpage in an effort to recoup some of the costs of my hobby. I called the webpage Blackbutterfly Handcrafted Cards, and it can be found at http://www.blackbutterfly2007.co.uk/

I try to take my cards to a couple of table sales or craft fairs a year, but make my cards mainly for friends and family. I would love the website sales to take off, as I nowhere near cover the costs involved in this all absorbing hobby, but for me the main thing is the pleasure I have in making my cards.
Recently I have decided to expand my blog to cover my other interests too. It's a sort of substitute for going to work and chatting to people, as due to ill health I was unable to work, and since the beginning of 2014 I am officially a pensioner.
Although I'll still show my cards, I'll also be covering my other interests and how I attempt to make ends meet day by day.

In fact anything that crosses my mind will be on here, so be prepared for waffle and a wasted five minutes as you read. Make coffee and settle in, why don't you?

Friday, February 26, 2010

Update - Half way there!

Well, my son and I worked hard today to move my craft room into the lounge, and its still not done. The main furniture has been moved but none of the stash yet. It's going to be harder than I thought fitting everything in! I suspect this is going to be an ongoing 'work in progress' as I really need to get cards made before next weekend's craft show. No pictures tonight as I can't unearth the camera at the present moment.

Busy Day ahead

Today is the day I bring my craft room into my living area. This was something I was trying not to do! I'm just waiting for my son to arrive and help me with the furniture.

I've had everything set up in a corner of my bedroom since I moved into my flat last April, but having spent my first winter here, I'm going to have to put up with the mess on view.

I don't get that many visitors anyway!!

My bedroom faces North so was always a bit dingy, but this winter has been awful. I know we've all had bad weather, but this flat is horrendous to heat, and when your hands get so cold you can't hold a pen, then I call that TOO COLD! The lounge faces south and although that hasn't got very warm either, it feels so much brighter with the little sun we get flooding through the windows.

The old crafting area

Hopefully once I get my new area sorted out, inspiration will start flowing again and I can make some really good cards. I'll update on progress later on.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Cards for Craft Table

I suddenly realised today that its only about 10 days until International Women's Day, and I have to put up a table at South East Essex college for their craft fair!
It's taking place on the 6th March about a week before Mothers Day, so I need to be able to make a good showing of cards for the event.

I have a stock of Dufex die cut decoupage flowers that have been in one of my boxes for nearly 2 years. Also I found some create & craft card blanks with laser cut out designs. Unfortunately I found with age the laser cut filigree has gone brown, as though scorched by the laser.

I hate to waste anything, so I decided to use the glitter inserts (that were made to show through the filigree) and back some A6 Papermania round aperture cards, and place the Dufex flowers on top. It seemed a shame to waste the filigree pieces so I cut them out of the main card and coloured them with chalks, and used some of those to backfill the apertures too.

I made some sentiments to go on them on the computer, and added some little bows. If they don't sell, I can always put different sentiments on them and use them as Birthday cards.