This was a very good friend’s birthday card, which I made years back. It was to mark her fortieth.
I am posting this whilst I am in the process of organising my tools and materials after a very sucessful first Warwickshire Open Studios. I would like to thank you, dear reader and visitors, for your interest in my works and the really positive feedback received! I am truly chuffed!
I wanted to show these beauties, as they are one of my folly flowers. They are made by ‘fringe-ing’ strips of paper manually. I use tiny, sharp scissors for this and keep the paper strips to between 1cm – 1.5cm in width. I find that on opening the flower petals, this gives the best proportion (subjectively, of course). I also have these fringeing machines from America, but I do think they don’t make a better fringe, (a) because the fringing distances are too narrow (flimsy), often causing tears, and (b) you are somewhat limited to a much thinner grammage of paper, which the blade can cope with. These are tiny details, but they matter quite significantly in card making. It is to do with choosing one’s materials well to make the work have that visual delight.
The background card is especially nice, but can I remember what it was? Not a chance! Typically, every time I have these ‘Eureka-moment cards’, I forget to record the specific card stock I used and where I sourced them. I am in the process of correcting this, as it is annoying to say the least, hence the ‘organising’. I really like this milky, semi-matte, chocolate brown, but sadly I no longer have it.
I also made a white card box, using a punch tool to make envelopes from We R Memory Keepers. It seemed to do the trick after everything was glued together. Quilled cards like this are too bulky for normal envelopes. I do think ‘boxing’ them makes the card even more special.
The Art of Jeff Ting 