Christmas Is Just Around The Corner….!

As if you need reminding, Christmas is literally just around the corner now!!  I’m pleased to say I think I’ve pretty much finished my shopping, time to start wrapping 🙂

I’m here to share my card for the new challenge at Sentimental Sundays – we’ve got a nice and easy “Anything Goes” theme for you this week, so you really have no excuse not to join along!!  Not only that, but we’re sponsored by A Random Fan this week, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to miss the chance to win some really cute digis!

I’ve used Christmas Decor for my card this week – cute Christmassy penguins are definitely a soft spot for me!!  The image was coloured with ProMarkers and mounted on co-ordinating mats, with a simple Christmas sentiment.

Thanks for looking – make sure you stop by Sentimental Sundays and show us what you’ve been crafting this week.

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A Special Gift

Well, at least I’m managing weekly posts for now!!  I’m back today with my regular post for Sentimental Sundays.  We were so lucky to be sponsored by A Day For Daisies this week; I couldn’t wait to play along with A Special Gift!

The theme for this week’s challenge is “Lots of Layers“.  Now, I’m the first to admit that layers get me worried, I’m so much happier when it’s CAS!  So I did just that and kept it very clean and simple…..

As you can see, I have added lots of layers, by building up the frame around this gorgeous image with more crisp, white layers!  I also fussy cut the image and mounted it on the background on tiny 3D pads, to add another crafty layer 🙂

We’d love you to pop over to Sentimental Sundays and play along – see you there!

New Challenge At Crafting At The Weekend

Well, that month flew by!!  Hard to believe that we were getting ready for a bank holiday weekend last time I posted for Crafting At The Weekend!  Today, the summer is definitely fading fast, the mornings are crisper and the evenings are starting to get dark much earlier.  And, as of this week, I’m home alone all day, now that my youngest is in school full time!  Why is it then, that I have less time to get inky, rather than more?!!

Anyway, on to this month’s card, which I only just about finished in time!!

I forced myself to raid my stash for this card!  And then I went a step further and made myself open the gorgeous set of Tiddly Inks stamps that came free with Quick Cards magazine during the summer 🙂

This is just one of the adorable little images; I have coloured Wryn with ProMarkers and some Stickles for the fluffy edging of her hat and dress.  All the papers are from my stash, the spotty one is from the Papermania Spots and Stripes collection, but I’m not sure about the others!

The sentiment is a clear stamp I picked up from one of the bargain bins in Hobbycraft!  I think I’ve had it lurking, unopened, for around 18 months……shame on me!!  It’s held in place by a plait of jute threads – I had great ideas for this piece of jute, but now I finally have a piece, I’m struggling to use it on my cards!!  So I figured that introducing it a little at a time might help me overcome my block 🙂

Right, all that’s left for me to do is remind you that the Crafting At The Weekend challenge will be running for a month, the theme is Anything Goes and we have some great prizes from Ditzie Crafts and Aurella 27 up for grabs!!

I’d like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Joyful (And Seriously Cute…) Gingerbread People!

Aah, apologies in advance again, it’s another Christmas card from me today – feels a little weird, as it’s been so lovely and hot recently, but there you go, eh?!

Today’s card is my DT make for the new challenge over at Crafting From The Heart.  As usual, the theme is Anything Goes.  Our sponsors this week are The Stamping Boutique and StampArt by Kathryne.  I chose Joyful Gingerbread, and this led to the Christmas card in June scenario we find ourselves in today 😉

The original image is just one of the pairs of Gingerbread people; I used the Silhouette software to replicate a row of little people, to use them as a border on the card.  I then offset them twice, allowing for the border around them and also the red border.  There was only a tiny bit of colouring needed, but I hadn’t thought about how tiny and fiddly it would be!  Eventually, I managed to pop on a little Berry Red Promarker, with little touches of white Jelly Roll without going too far out of the lines!

To create the shaped bottom edge of the card, I used the Silhouette to weld the largest offset outline to a rectangular shape – as I was using a pre-cut card base, I made the rectangle bigger than the card base as I didn’t need to sides and top of the card cut.  If I had been cutting the whole card base shape, I would have just made the rectangle smaller, sticking to a standard card size, of course!

The final touch was the sentiment which is by Kristen Magee and is available in the Silhouette store – I love the flow of the script, it was just what I was looking for!

Head over to Crafting From The Heart now to see the other DT makes – they’re not all Christmas cards, I promise!!

I’d like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Ditzie Digi Designs – Anything Goes

Pretty Polly!

Warning!!  The following post includes references to “that time of year“!  Readers of a sensitive nature may wish to pop back tomorrow!!

Well, here goes….my first Christmas card of 2014!  If I’m honest, I’m normally start my Christmas crafting in November, or even in a blind panic in December.  It feels a little bizarre to have spent my afternoon with Poinsettia Polly, when the sun is (finally!) blazing outside – but I am feeling very proud of myself for starting early.  Not sure if one card counts as really starting though, guess we’ll have to see what the next few week’s crafting result in!

For this week’s challenge at Crafting From The Heart, we have three amazing sponsors; Lacy Sunshine, Sassy Designs Studio and PaperNest Dolls!  As always, our theme is “Anything Goes” so you are bound to be able to join in!

I have used Poinsettia Polly for my DT card; this little cutie was coloured with ProMarkers.  The layout is based around the current sketch challenge at Your Next Stamp.  Unfortunately, I can’t remember where these papers are from – I can tell you that the bauble paper is from the first paper stack I ever bought though!

As usual, my teamies over at Crafting From The Heart have been crafting their socks off – we’d love you to pop by and leave us some lovely comments!

I ‘d like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Paper Nest Dolls – Anything Goes

Bunny Zoe’s Craft – Layers

Fan-Tastic Tuesdays – Anything Goes

Fairytale Stamper – Flowers

Pile It On – Use Patterned Paper

A very quick, last minute post…

I promised to share my three special family cards with you, and here I am with the last in the trilogy….

This card is for my husband; we’ve been together since our late teens and celebrated our 12th anniversary earlier this year!  I chose “Christmas Together” by Sami Stamps as it reminded me of that moment, before we tiptoe up to bed on Christmas Eve, when we just take a look around and count our blessings…

I kept the style of the card very simple, as that is the card style that he prefers – the bright reds and greens bring the tree to life, while the doodle frames it all off nicely.  I paper pieced the jumpers from the Harper Finch Sweater Weather paper collection and coloured the rest of the card in with Pro-Markers, not a spot of glitter in sight on this card!

Anyway, I’ve got brownie mince pies in the oven, so I’d best hustle on…  Best wishes to you all for Christmas and the New Year!

I’d like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Tuesday Throwdown – What Christmas Means To Me

Try It On Tuesdays – Trees

Top Tip Tuesday – Christmas

Scribble And Scrap – Anything Goes

Partytime Tuesdays – Challenge #152: Merry Christmas

LEJ Designs – Challenge 84: Anything goes

Ladybug Crafts – CAS

The Squirrel And The Fox – Merry Christmas

Thanks for reading x

Happy Christmas Little Star

As promised, I have the second of my three special family cards for you today.  This card was made for my 4 year old daughter, who loves everything sparkly and is very attached to her bear, Poppy.  This adorable image from All Dressed Up was a perfect fit!

I had a background paper in mind, so steered away from too much pink, opting instead to colour the image with a range of turquoise Pro-Markers.  I used the print and cut option on the Silhouette to print the image in this lovely oval frame, then added a little Tumbled Glass Distress Ink to soften the edges.  After hunting through my ribbon collection, I came across some leftover 3mm satin ribbon that I used for some wedding invitations last year – it threaded through the frame so easily and, for once, the bow landed well too!  I added a little Glossy Accent to the big star sentiment and also to the stars clips in her hair, then a little Stickles magic along the edge of the tutu and on some of the gifts.

The paper is from a First Edition Christmas Joy paper stack – not sure if you can make it out from the photos, but there is a striped snowflake pattern running through it.  The snowflake border is from Hobbycraft – I’m not sure what to call it, as it’s not ribbon or paper or card, but is stiff and almost crunchy feeling…if you know what I mean!

I based the layout around Sketch 276 from Sketch Saturday, just flipped it over to suit my card.

Id like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Sketch Saturday -Challenge 289: Anything Goes (Any Sketch After #215)

Tuesday Throwdown – What Christmas Means To Me

LEJ Designs  – Anything Goes

Inky Chicks – Christmas

The Crafty Blogger’s Network – Girly

C…Is For Challenge – Modern Christmas

Scribble and Scrap – Anything Goes

Glitter ‘n’ Sparkle – Non-traditional Christmas Colours

Thanks for reading x

 

Pop Up Star Card

I don’t know about you, but I find it really difficult to focus on making a card I really don’t like the design of…  That’s what happened to me this week.  I have been making a batch of personalised Christmas cards for a friend, based around cards I have made previously, however I just couldn’t bring myself to re-create this card – I wasn’t entirely happy with the way it turned out the first time; I had an idea in my head and I just couldn’t make it work.  Luckily, my friend was happy to leave me to it….as long as the final card was in West Ham football club colours (sky blue and burgundy).

I was stuck for inspiration – I’ve been so busy recently that I just came to a screeching halt.  Then I saw this card at www.downloadpsds.com and I thought I’d see if I could come up with something similar.

Here’s my card:

I used my Silhouette to create the partially cut star shapes in the sky blue card, then placed some burgundy card behind and added some 3D pads behind the shapes too, to pop them open.

The sentiment was printed directly onto the white cardstock, using the NeoRetroDraw font.

And, the best bit of all, it only took 20 minutes from start to finish!  By far the quickest Christmas card I’ve made this season 🙂

Thanks for reading x

Blonde or Brunette Pixie Holly – Your Choice!

Today I have two fairly identical cards to show you.  A very good friend asked me to make Christmas cards for her daughter and niece, based around this card.

The girls are the same age, all but a day, but one is very blonde, while the other is much darker haired.  So I decided to incorporate this into the cards, to personalise Pixie Holly a little more.

Pixie Holly was a freebie from Pollycraft earlier in the year before the shop closed.  I have made several cards with her this year, she’s a pleasure to work with!  As usual I coloured with Pro-Markers, adding some Stickles o the wings for a little magical sparkle.  The spotty and striped background papers were from Digital Bake Shop on Etsy, and were a sale bargain!  I cut the sentiment using some glittercard and my Silhouette, welding an offset version of the sentiment to a rectangle to create the red background.  I matted the image onto a little green glittercard too.  The little holly leaves have been abandoned in stash for ages, no idea where they popped up from!!  Glad they’ve been put to good use now though 🙂

I based the cards around Sketch #225 from Saturday Sketch, in the current challenge, you can pick from a back catalogue of sketches – there really is one to suit every card!!

Thanks for reading x

Listing Your Wishes

Over at One Stitch At A Time this week, it was my turn to pick the image for the teamies in my  mini-team.  After a lot of umm-ing and aah-ing (as anyone that knows me, will testify that decisions are not my strong point!), I settled on Listing Your Wishes by My Heart Pieces.

This lovely image reminded me of Christmas cards I received as a child, so I opted to complement Santa and Rudolph with some lovely vintage style Christmas papers which I stumbled across on the Paper Inspirations website.  I welded the image to the card blank before cutting it on the Silhouette, so my Santa is using this gorgeous paper as a direct backdrop.  Originally, I had used white cardstock for the card blank, but it felt too harsh against the vintage-y creams and browns, so I popped a little slice of kraft on the front of the card.  The stripy paper on the front is from a First Edition Christmas Joy paper stack.  Finally, I created a circular stamp, which I printed and cut with my Silhouette, adding a couple of rich cream satin ribbon and a spotty epoxy button to top it off.

Make sure you pop over to One Stitch At A Time to have a peek at other DT projects…and why not enter the challenge too while you’re there!  The theme is Use A Digi, and there is another great prize for the winning entry using a Stitchy Bear Stamp, as well a runner up prize for entries that don’t have use Stitchy Bear stamp.

I’d like to enter this card into the following challenges:

The ABC Challenge – A: Almost Christmas

Natalie and Amy – Cute and Cuddly Christmas

Cupcake Inspirations – Challenge 239

A Creative Romance – Vintage Style

Sugar Creek Hollow – Vintage Christmas

Crafty Catz – Santa’s Coming To Town

QKR Stampede – It’s Starting To Look A Lot Like Christmas

JellyPark – Christmas

Robyn’s Fetish Challenge – Christmas Cards

Sentimental Sundays – Traditional Christmas Colours

Thanks for reading x