Office Skills

Just when I thought I was getting a grip on everything it's all gone manic again.  Ah well better busy than bored.....haha

Friday lurches around again and that means a new challenge on the Daring Cardmakers' blog.  It's our lovely Rein's turn to set the dare and she's come up with the theme of "Office".  A great chance to raid the desk drawers and stationery cabinets for staples, paperclips, and all manner of office supplies.

I went to my drawer of "stuff that might be useful one day" - in there are pages from old books, playing cards, stamps and all sorts of other "stuff" that I can't bear to throw away just in case.....  I bet you've all got one!  A few years ago a forum friend had a clear out and sent bags of vintage bits and pieces out to all who wanted some - what a treat to find old book pages, buttons, lace, fabric and all sorts of other things - obviously all little treasures and far too nice to actually use on cards and projects - so into the drawer they went.!  Hunting through said drawer I found this page from an old typing manual which I thought could help with this card, I'm adding the page here too as a blog share for anyone who might want to copy it for their own projects - click on the image for the larger version.

The page gave me the idea of  trying for something evoking the old-fashioned secretarial image - the sort of office girls you see in those old 50's movies. Somehow those girls always looked so businesslike - but always feminine too - so I reckoned I could add a bit of lace into the mix (well, you have to take every opportunity, don't you?)

It looked better in my mind's eye than it turned out - but by then I didn't have time to pull it apart and re-do it - but you can't win 'em all.

I cropped and resized the lower section of the scanned page and printed it directly onto my card base, then cropped, resized and printed the photos at the top to use as embellishments. 

I used an image from google to make a Robo template for the old fashioned telephone (if you would like the template, email me at the address in the sidebar)

The vintage photo is from a sheet that came in an old Bubbly Funk kit.  The brackets on the definition are chipboard covered with black Enamel Accents (Charmed Cards and Crafts)

From the desk drawer I added staples, ring-reinforcements, parcel twine 

and one of those paper clip thing that probably have a proper name but I can't recall what it is!

I think what I don't like is the colour of the typing photos - so I might be able to get away with just tweaking the colour and printing them again - or printing them onto a creamier coloured card.

As usual the girls on the design team have made some wonderful cards using the Office as their theme, so please visit the DCM BLOG to see what they've been doing. We'd love you to join in and we always enjoy wandering around all the blog links that are left each week.

I'm off now to prepare the cards blanks and inserts,  and cut the other bits and pieces I need to make a set of invitation cards I've said I'll do.  Now, I've always shied away from such things as I'm so useless at doing two cards exactly the same - let alone a whole set!  So this should be interesting - I only need to make 15-20, so we'll see if I can cope, eh?  I'll let you know how I get on!

Thanks for popping by, I hope you'll visit again soon