Like sand through the hour glass ...

No, I'm not a soapie fan!. I'm just aware of the last few granules of sand running through the 2011 hourglass! I have been a useless blogger and I'm not even going to come up with excuses, because it's hard enough to forgive myself! I won't expect you to do the same! But, I was determined to blog at least one more time in 2011, so here we go ...

Talking about sand I thought I'll share some pictures of cards that I've done for Katya. She discovered me after getting married, so she decided the ask me to do thank you cards for her wedding, in stead of the invitations themselves. Katya had sent me images of her wedding stationery and asked me to use my butterfly design on cardstock that would compliment her invitations. I was so excited, because just before Katya contacted me I've discovered a new cardstock colour that I was desperately wanting to "test drive". The colour is called "Sand" and it has a beautiful shimmer to it. I knew this would be perfect, but of course I gave Katya some other colour options too and did my best not to force my personal preferences on her. When Katya contacted me to tell me that she chose the sand and white colour combination I was over the moon. It was exactly what I thought would work the best too and I could start playing with the new shade of paper straight away ...

The sand cardstock is a lovely neutral, but rich colour. It was a perfect match for Katya's black and white invitations, but it goes equally well with bright colours and pastels. It does make me think of sandy beaches, but it also reminds me of  a nice warm cuppachino ...

I have to apologise for the photographs which aren't that great, but at least they will give you a general idea of what I was up to ...

Since the cards were to be written by hand I've included a simple, but elegant crystal white insert (also with a shimmer). The handmade envelopes matched the inserts.

Try not to peek through the card at my messy desk! I just wanted to include this photo to show off the beautiful lace effect of lasercutting!

Yes, this is a bit of a silly photo, but it so well demonstrates one more reason why I love lasercutting. The sun unexpectedly came out from behind a cloud and shone through the lasercut details of a card standing upright on my desk, waiting for an insert.

I hate it when anything goes to waste, so I've used the off-cuts from the above batch of cards to make the bottom layer of these layered tags (available on Etsy). The top layer is from a single sheet of scrapbooking paper that I simply could not resist ...

On the above photo you can see the tags from the back.