Friday, February 02, 2007

Victorian Greetings



Quilt from www.gooseberrypatch.com




These cards are from the links below.



These are card kits you can order, which contain all the clippings and paper lace you need.




We have been enjoying some crafts involving paper doilies and scraps. One of my favorite ways to make a homemade card is with the back of old calendars. There are usually twelve small glossy squares you can cut out from last year's calendars that have beautiful scenes on them. We also use buttons, old rick-rack, greeting cards, and sparkly confetty that has cut-outs of birds and hearts.







Go here for some ideas: https://plus47.safe-order.net/carriagegifts/Valentine_2.html fan and cat

www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/valentines/valentine.html

http://www.hearthsong.com/hearthsong/product.do?section_id=0&bc=1005&pgc=1412

Here is a lovely online video with some music ( Verdi, I think (Italian))
http://www.hallmark.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ArticleView?pageName=%2FHallmarkSite%2FeNewsletter%2FFebruary%2FENEWS_CELEBRATE&storeId=10001&mailID=BAE_E_CBO_020107C_V_CelebrateVideo_NA&campaign=BAE_E_CBO_020107C_V_CelebrateVideo_NA&catalogId=10051

6 comments:

Heather @ Marine Corps Nomads said...

I love the idea of using the pictures from the back of the calendar. I've framed calendar pictures before, but I never thought about using the pictures on the back for cards. What a great idea!

Anonymous said...

Dearest lady Lydia and Fellow Readers,

There are simply so many lovely stationary products out there today, if one's craft-minded the possibilities are endless! For those ladies who use it, Braille paper is the perfect weight for card-making and the A4 sheets work as nicely in a printer as does regular paper. Though colour ink is expensive, if its used for a nice font then even folk with no sight at all can make lovely cards (just remember to mark your 'upside' prior to printing the front) then the message can be printed onto a a slip of A5 , folded up and inserted into the card. Unfortunatrely, some of the nice backgrounds available with MSWord don't print (and specific software for this type of thing doesn't speak with JFW) but its still a nice idea; if you're confident, adhesive nice stickers such as stars, butterflies, flowers could be put on, but knowing what is the 'rightside up' can be interesting, and it takes a little practice to cut tactile additions such as paper or fabric trims evenly and stick them down in a way that doesn't look tacky. If sight isn't a barrier, then the sky's the limit; you'll never be hostage to hallmark ever again!!!!! (smile). for a really professional look, photographic paper can be used in the printer and pictures inserted into your WP programme - anything you like - the options are endless! Whatsmore, with coloured A4 cardboard available from the newsagents, you can do pretty much anything yoyou like. Even collage with beautiful motifs (this was done for a lady going off on maternity leave in an office I worked in 13 years ago) can be done. They got some lovely cardboard, stuck layers of different flowers and oldie worldie scenes on it, inside and out, handscribed beautifully a mesage, and even stuck victorian ladies over the top of everything on the front before having the thing laminated. Absolutely beautiful!

When i was younger, I could have spent hours in newsagents and stationers going through everything they had - even hard-cover A4 exercise books with beautiful pictures on them are available - your homeschool girls can feel like princesses whenever they sit down to their work (and day school girls as well). You can even pick up ballpoint pens in silver and gold which write beautifully.

Alternatively, if you do purchase cared, you may like to consider buying from organisations such as 'Artists without hands" or 'Foot and Mouth )cards and calendars put out bearing the artwork of folk who paint either with feet or mouths due to amputation or paralysis - it's brilliant work and you'd never pick their impairment. My husband and I did this for Christmas 2006 as well as purchasing aditional cards put out by the Guide Dog Association - beautiful labrador puppies on everything).

For ladies here in Aus, I think oone of the large department stores who specialise in furniature, white goods, computers etc were advertising to print your favourite snaps out on canvas! (a beautiful pic of the family, scene of nature, oldie worldie cottage, modern ladies in modest dress, flowers, a table setting etc) all you'd have to do would be to frame it and you've got a lovely oil-painting-like creation for your wall - for the lady incidentally in a previous post who was wondering what to do with a painted brick wall interior, tapestries, rugs and the like really are the best for this type of background - my malaysian friend having brick feature walls in their formal living room. This includes woven/cross-stitched/tapestry verses of their scriptures (being non Christian) though this would look striking if done with Biblical verses (I'm surprised there isn't anything like that out there). If you're talented in this area, doing your own tapestry/crossstich/woven Bible verses would be excellent. They aren't big persay, but placed upon the wall in clusters of three (remember, odd numbers look best on the plate or on the wall).

Enjoy being creative and experimenting if you're only just starting out!

Blessings,

Mrs. E.
Australia.

Anonymous said...

Your article is very informative and helped me further.

Thanks, David

Anonymous said...

I never heard of using old calendars to make greeting cards. Sounds interesting. By the way, I like the picture with the two cats. It's kind of cute.

Anonymous said...

How perfectly timely! I was looking for some information on homemade Valentines just this past week! :)

Kelli said...

What a great idea for Valentine's day! In Australia we have a shop for paper crafts called Pepe's Paperie. I love to visit there. Often they have nice vintage designs available.