return to the past

I first called myself hellish designs many years ago when making greetings cards to send to friends and family
So it seems ironic and a little sad that I've rather neglected this element of the business of late
It's probably down to commerce in that the cards are a relatively low earner and take up more space than can be justified at fairs but also lack of inspiration I'm afraid.
Its easy to make cushions and bags when presented with fabulous vintage fabrics, less easy to start designing a card from scratch.  However I was fortunate enough to buy some very old (1849) French legal documents at the Manchester fair on Sunday. This fair always delivers the unusual!
The beautiful copperplate handwriting is tiny, the perfect scale for a card and there are some interesting seals as well. I've used it as a background in a collage of family photos and fabric scraps

With my daughter's wedding in mind I've designed a wedding day card using my parent's wedding photo
They look so young! What a fabulous lace veil although not at all what Imogen has in mind for her wedding outfit

Had to even things up with a photo from my husband's past; his father with his 2 boys
Love the blue linen fabric which is actually a photo torn from a magazine, wish I had the real thing

My lovely grandma and her brother, Percy are, somewhat unbelievably given their clothes, sitting on Scarborough beach
I've now run out of documents, typical, just when I was really enjoying making the cards. Still hopefully it's got me started on card making again.

One occasion when I do sell a lot of cards is at my open house when I have plenty of room to display everything I make. Hope you'll come along next week..Friday and Saturday..do leave a comment if you need more information. I'm selling several larger pieces of furniture; photos to follow early next week.
The blogshop is now full of cushions, click on the link to the right to take a look.