A little bit of ribbon can go a long way.

 recently received a phone call from my Sister-in-law. My niece is getting married in a couple of weeks and as she always wanted to get married in Gretna Green she is off north of the border to tie the knot over the old anvil at the blacksmiths cottage. It will be a really small wedding, her mum and dad and her daughter and her future in laws.

The purpose of my Sister-in-Laws call - can you make me two wedding cards one for her and my brother-in-law to give and one for her daughter to present to her Mum. The conversation went something like this.

'Will you be able to do it? You know a couple of those lovely large square cards you do'
'Yeah no problem I have a day off on Wednesday I'll do them then'
'Ahh the thing is Patrick is wearing a Kilt and we've got this ribbon in the same Tartan that Amanda will have on her dress. If I send you some can you include a piece on both cards'
'No Problem'
'I'll put it in the post first thing Monday and you should have it Tuesday'
'OK I'll do the cards and get them to you before you go to Scotland'

So I arrive home from work on Tuesday and there's an envelope with my Sister-in-Laws writing on. trouble is it feels really thin, on opening it there was a length of ribbon that would do one card but not enough to do two. So time for me to get creative.

I knew I was going to use Tattered Lace dies for the focal points on the cards because they do look stunning. I have just bought the Tattered Lace magazine and used a project from there to make the card for her mum and dad to give Amanda and Patrick

The background panel was made by cutting the Deco Arch 6 times and layering it onto white card. By snipping the ribbon I was able to make it look like it was wrapped round the whole panel when in fact there is a gap hidden by the topper. I used another of The Deco arch shapes and stuck it to white card this was then matted onto a really dark purple pearl card that matched the purple in the ribbon. I cut the couple twice once in purple and once in silver. I snipped the man off the silver die cut and before layering the lady onto the purple die cut I cut a small section of tulle and pushed it through one of the cut section in her hair, to form a veil. I made a faux bow and added more tulle behind it and the heart is made from Martha Stewart paper clay and the bells were from the die included as the free die with Tattered Lace magazine. The sentiment I generated on the Computer.

So there was card 1 almost finished I needed something for the inside plus I now only had a small piece of ribbon for the second card and even hiding a gap behind a topper wasn't going to work on that one. Also a pit of Tartan ribbon added at Random wouldn't look right. That' when the idea struck.

I placed the remaining piece of ribbon on my flat bed scanner and scanned it into Paintshop pro. I used the crop tool to crop the image to a single pattern repeat of the ribbon and saved the image. The using My Craft Studio I imported the image and used the tile feature to create my own tartan backing paper,

I printed of a sheet with the full colour intensity for the second card and then used teh opacity feature to create the insert sheets.

I found a lovely verse in a very useful little book 'Just The Right Words' and typed this onto white card and die cut this before adding it to the left hand side of the card. So after a couple of hours it was one down and one to go.

The card I created for Amanda's daughter to present to her was next and I used the tartan paper that had been printed at full opacity and more of the purple pearl card and silver card for mats and layers.

I added a panel of white card that I embossed with a interlocking ring design. Then added two overlapped horse shoes these were cut with a Tattered Lace die and I threaded white organza polka dot ribbon through the tops and intertwined this before sticking the horse shoes down. I added the remaining ribbon to the bottom of the horseshoes and then added three sprigs of 'lucky' heather and a rose from Wild Orchid Crafts as well as some organza flowers from my stash and some leaves which I die cut and coloured with promarkers.

I finished off with computer generated sentiments and another tartan insert.

Adding a die cut heart for the verse. So there we go from that little bit of ribbon two cards and I just hope that on the Big  Day Amanda and Patrick like them.

I don't feel comfortable using the first card for a challenge entry because it is almost a straight lift from The Tattered Lace Magazine, so I can't really claim any credit for it. However I am entering the second card into the following challenges

http://artisticinspirationschallenges.blogspot.co.uk/ - Anything Goes/Valentines Day
http://craftycatzweeklychallenge.blogspot.co.uk/  - Love is in the Air
http://lilredwagon.blogspot.co.uk/ - Love
http://throughthepurplehazechallenges.blogspot.co.uk/ - Anything Goes