Taste of the Orient

The images on this were taken from Robert Addams Goes East CD ROM.  The card was black textured card from the Papermill range.  I decoupaged the image - cutting out the orchids was a real pain, but well worth the effort in the end.  Unfortunately, I do not have Japanese characters among my fonts, so I settled for doing the sentiment in a font that could be ready by the recipient, printing it on vellum, and immediately embossing it with silver powder.  This is one of the techniques I learned from Shaz at Silverwolf Cards.  On this occasion, I put the sentiment into a text box in WordPerfect (my word processor of choice, but you could do it in Word or Works) and put a border round it, embossing that at the same time.  You do need to be very organised to do this and have your powder ready to sprinkle the instant the printer allows you to grab the paper.  You will also need to experiment a little with your own printer's settings to ge the right level of ink.  I find that if you choose a high quality print, it is too slow going through the printer and has already dried too much to take the embossing powder, so on my printer I have settled for a simple Text print.  You can do more than one sentiment at a time, but try to get them in a line at the bottom of the page, and don't go for more than one row at a time, otherwise you may find you cannot get the powder to stick.  You may wonder why I say the bottom and not the top of the page.  That is because my one printer will not recognise vellum / parchment and I need to attach a piece of ordinary copy paper to the back with repositional glue and put them through together. and I just find it easier to print from the bottom and cut off the bottom of the paper.  You do have to remember when you do the next one that your paper is now not A4 and move your sentiments up a little.

Another Silhouette card

This is a photo I took of a dog belonging to friends.  Using the Silhouette, I was able to cut even the fence slats accurately to give extra depth to the decoupage, adding bushes and the dog on the top of that.  If I had had to cut the slats by hand with a knife or scissors, I would not have done it.  The file is now saved and I can change the size or change it in any other way I like at the click of a button.


The card was sent to the owner as a special, very personal birthday card - no chance anyone else could send the same one.

Start looking at your own photos, animals, flowers, landscapes etc, and see if you can see where to split a picture to make your own individual decoupage.  When my mother was in a nursing home, I used the picture on the front of the brochure to create decoupage cards for them to sell in the home to make a little extra money for treats for the residents (always ask permission before using other people's photos - if you have a good reason, usually you will get permission).  I also made sets of notelets using the same photo for them to sell.