Christmas wreaths

I have so many Christmas wreaths over the last couple of weeks I have absolutely no idea what I will put on my front door this year, When I was looking through a Christmas magazine in the shop yesterday i even saw an Eco wreath that was made out of sprouts, Not that I fancy one of those.

The wreath on these cards is from the Welcome Christmas stamp set, stamped whole it is a wreath but if you only stamp half of it across the top of the card then it makes a garland swag.

 A fake bow is a great way of adding texture to a card, by making a fake bow you use a lot less ribbon, but make sure if you are putting any kind of embellishment on a card that you take it to the post office to make sure that it fits through the slot & has the correct postage on it.

I always use fake bows on my cards, I can tie a bow but i'm never happy with it and always find the it sticks up at the wrong angle, I do also have a bow maker which does work, but is not very economical with the amount of ribbon you need, hence you wont ever see a hand tied bow on one of my cards.

Happy crafting until next time

Can you spot the Punch?

Did you spot the punches that I've used to create this cute card?

 

Did you guess?

The flames of the fire are made from the bird punch & a little less obvious the logs in the fire are made from the word window punch.

I love these two cards & they are very simple to make, The fireplace is embossed using the square lattice embossing folder. The wreaths are stamped before embossing, using the wreath from the Welcome Christmas stamp set, I did make the original sample in the wrong order & stamped the wreath after I had embossed the fireplace & it doesn't work, well they do say you learn something new everyday.

Until next time Happy crafting

Last nights Stampers 6

Last night was the final meeting of our current stampers 6 group. So we made three cards inspired by a workshop that Monica shared on her blog a few weeks ago.

The card above Was the original inspiration for the card set that we made I just love the real red & the crumb cake together, I chose confetti white for the mat, I love the confetti white for this style of card as it isn't such a bright white as the whisper white & the little confetti flecks just add a little something..

 This was the last card that we made during the evening so some of the ladies took theirs home to finish, I am mindful of time with this group as two of my ladies travel for around 50 minutes to get to me & yesterday was a very foggy day here in Easy Anglia. We usually make just two projects but we did manage to squeeze in a third last night.

As the ladies were colouring the little bird from Beautiful season, they decided they would mount their panel up slightly differently to my original sample, I love it when they add their own twist to their cards.

This card uses stamps from; Beautiful season, Serene Snowflakes  & Heard from the heart.

 Here is the first card that we made a nice simple card that would be relatively easy to mass produce, I know some people make batches of each design of card, I personally like to make one or two of each design. The card is the zig zag style card again in Real Red & Crumb Cake. The snowflake baubles are so sweet. The card is nicely glittered but thats not very clear in the pictures.

And lastly everyone's favourite Dasher, you can see from the second image that the snowy hill that dasher is standing on is torn from a white piece of card, the whisper white works better for this than the confetti white, on the rough edge of the tear we added dazzling diamonds with 2 way glue pen, this is great as it goes on blue so you can see where you've added the glue & dries clear.
We had a lovely evening & were spoilt with a beautiful sugar free fruit cake from Veronica who was the hostess & scrummy little chocolate tarts that Marie bought with her from Steph, Thank you ladies.

I plan to start another Stampers 6 group in January, if you are interested I will post further details later.

Many thanks ladies for a lovely 7 months

Welcome Christmas

Welcome Christmas I love Christmas, especially the preparations before Christmas & now that a certain advert has been shown on television I know that Christmas will be upon us in the blink of an eye.

 The colour way for these cards is Cherry Cobbler, Crumb Cake & very vanilla. I love the vintage american look that this colour combo makes.

 Using the square punch to make the window frames is easy if you use a post it note to make a mask, ensuring that after punching the first hole you then place the mask securely on the card in line with the first hole, leaving enough space between the squares for the bars of the window pane.

To make the front of this card easier to construct I cut an additional front panel a fraction smaller than the A6 card & punched the window frame the same way as above. The window panels are made from acetate.

The Stamp set Welcome Christmas is one of my current favourite's I have seen some wonderful samples online so it it always seems to be at the top of the pile just lately when I'm making up my own Christmas cards & samples.

Until next time Happy Crafting

Can you guess what this little cracker is made from?

I wonder if you've spotted it? 

The cracker is made from punch outs from the extra large tag punch. This is one of the quick & easy cards that you could make a whole batch of in an evening. The stamp set used is one that I've now been using for the past three Christmas's so you could dais that it's an old favourite Season of Joy. This card also uses some of the 2011 / 2013 in colours Calypso Coral & Pool Party.

Until next time Happy Crafting

Welcome Christmas ~ A new Favourite

What is your favourite stamp set? which set do you always reach for first?

With my Christmas card preparations well under way I seem to be favouring the Welcome Christmas stamp set. The two cards in this post are both made using the same main stamp from the set but both have a completely different look.

 Did you spot the stamp? the family Christmas scene.
The above card uses the fir tree from lovely as a tree as the branches to hang the baubles from.

The silhouette scene in this card is simply adorned with basic rhinestones.

The greeting is stamped twice, with the top of the greeting " Welcome Christmas" positioned under the top of the panel and the bottom of the greeting "Into your heart" positioned under the bottom of the card.

Just making an additional way that the greeting can be used.

Until next time Happy Crafting

One Sheet Wonder ~ Part 2

Well as promised two more cards using up the leftovers from the A5 One Sheet Wonder background that I made this morning.
This time I've made two A6 cards using bashful blue card stock I think these really compliments the colour palette I started with today.

Supplies for these projects
Inks
Perfect plum
Pretty in Pink
Concord crush
Rich razzleberry
Cardstock
Bashful Blue
Perfect plum
Whisper White
Concord Crush
Rich Razzleberry
Tools
Decorative Label punch
Heat Tool
Paper trimmer
1/2" Circle punch
3/4" Circle punch
1" Circle punch
1 1/4" Circle punch
1 3/8" Circle punch
Scallop Circle punch
Decorations
Dazzling Diamonds glitter
Basic Rhinestones
White Gel pen
Sticky Strip
3/8" Very Vanilla taffeta ribbon
Linen Thread
Brights Designer Buttons
Stamp Sets
Serene Snowflakes
Contempo Christmas
Four Frames ~ 2011 Mini
Curly Cute
Gifted ~ retired September 2011

One Sheet Wonder

One sheet Wonder, I wonder how many of you have heard that phrase & have wonder what exactly is that?

Well to start a one sheet wonder you need to make either an A4 or A5 sheet of backing paper which you will use for a whole project.
For this backing sheet I used the Serene Snowflakes Stamp set & four coloured ink pads In Perfect plum ( A colour I don't use enough) Pretty in Pink, Rich Razzleberry & Concord crush.

Also I decided with this project to make small cards. I worked out that from a single A4 sheet of card you can make 2 4" square cards & a single 3 1/2" x 3 1/2" Square card, so here they are.

3 1/2" x 3 1/2" Square card

A neat trick for making a glittery border is to make lines using the Sticky strip & cover it with the Dazzling diamonds glitter, This also works as a frame around a square or rectangular aperture. It does look really blingy but I cannot seem to get good light today to take a decent picture.

4" x 4" Square Card

4" x 4" Square Card

Supplies for these projects
Inks
Perfect plum
Pretty in Pink
Concord crush
Rich razzleberry
Cardstock

Perfect plum
Whisper White
Concord Crush
Rich Razzleberry
Tools
Decorative Label punch
Heat Tool
Paper trimmer
1/2" Circle punch
3/4" Circle punch
1" Circle punch
1 1/4" Circle punch
1 3/8" Circle punch
Ornament Punch
Decorations
Dazzling Diamonds glitter
Basic Rhinestones
White Gel pen
Sticky Strip
Stamp Sets
Serene Snowflakes
Contempo Christmas
Four Frames ~ 2011 Mini
Curly Cute
Gifted ~ retired September 2011

Well after making those three cards from an A5 piece of " One sheet Wonder" background I still have a few pieces left over.
I will have a go at a couple more cards this afternoon.

AU naturelle

Christmas Au Naturelle, Christmas using Crumb cake cardstock I could quite happily use the crumb cake for all of my Christmas projects, It goes with Everything.
What colours are you using this year?

Both of the cards in todays post are A6 if you have loads of cards to make this is the most economical size card to make as you get two cards from a single A4 sheet.

Supplies needed for these cards
Cardstock
Crumb cake
Very Vanilla
Early Espresso
Real Red
Ink
Soft Suede
Whisper white ( Craft )
Early Espresso
Real Red
Versamark
Stampin' Write pens
Stamps
Lovely as a tree ( I don't use this set enough )
Serene Snowflakes
Welcome Christmas
Gifted ~ retired September 2011
Tools
Stamp a ma jig
1 1/4" Square punch
1 3/8" Square punch
Heat tool
1/4" Circle punch ~ Retired
Decorations
Basic Rhinestones
Dazzling Diamonds
Heat & Stick powder.

The shimmer of this card is stunning & the photo really doesn't do it any justice.

To make the shimmer on this card I first stamped the Lovely as a tree image using Early espresso ink, using my Stamp a ma jig to make sure that the image was central as I had pre-cut the panels for this card.
Then I covered the whole panel with Versamark embossing ink using the ink pad directly onto the card.
Then sprinkled on a generous coat of heat 'n' stick powder, tipped off the excess & returned it to the pot & heated the card using the heat tool.
Quickly I covered the whole area with Dazzling diamonds whilst it was still tacky & sprinkled off the excess & carefully heated to set the glitter into the heat & stick powder.
This is a beautiful technique & works well with many images.

The Gifted Stamp set is retiring at the end of September 2011.

Managing to find some Mojo for Christmas ~ At last

Last week I was quite pleased with myself as I managed to make three Christmas cards in a spare hour that I had. I do have to say that they are only small cards, so don't get too excited.

The measurements of the 3 cards in this post are 4" square.
With these three cards I challenged myself to use the colour family that I seldom choose which is the Regals collection, I tend to go for the Brights since the colour renovation last October I Love the brights.

Supplies needed for these cards
Cardstock
Very Vanilla
Riding Hood Red
Early Espresso
Garden Green
Basic Black
Ink
Early Espresso
Riding Hood Red
Garden Green
Basic Black
Tools
Scallop circle punch
Stamp a ma jig
1 3/8" circle punch
Corner rounder punch
Large Oval punch
Sponge Daubers
Decorations
Basic Pearls
Basic Rhinestones
Love Letter DSP
Very Vanilla 5/8" Grosgrain Ribbon
Shimmer paint in Champagne mist used on the sponge daubers & also made into a shimmer mist using Iso-propyl alcohol.

Well i did say that they were only small cards but just by starting the Christmas cards it has given me the incentive to carry on & get prepared, especially as someone told me that there are only 15 weeks to go.

Stampers 6 project from August

Inside flap of the box has a greeting, but you could also put an image here if you prefer.

I have been such a bad blogger this summer, todays post is the August project from my Stampers 6 / 7 group that I have only just got round to photographing & editing.
The summer has been very strange for lots of reasons.

• Abi went on Study leave in May & went on to take her GCSE's
• June our middle son got married
• June Dan came home from his first year at University & bought bags & bags of belongings that wouldn't fit into storage.
• At work we lost both of our weekend staff, but to safeguard jobs neither were replaced immediately, leaving the existing staff to cover both Saturdays & Sundays, which is something that I seldom had to do previously, so extra hours & commitments ate into my spare time.
• Two litters of beautiful kittens the first litter had two kittens & the second litter had four kittens, one of which we kept as one of my big cats went missing 15 weeks ago.
• I also re-discovered my love of baking, well cupcakes & cake pop's but i'll save that story for another day.

I realised something last Tuesday after we had taken Dan back to Nottingham & Abi had started 6th Form that I hadn't spent a day at home on my own since early May, I don't mind my own company it gives me quiet time to be creative. Usually I start Christmas projects in July but this year I am very much later.

So to kick start Christmas I made this delightful little matchbox card & matching gift card. I thought that you could use these as Table favours or as little gift boxes containing Chocolates, Mini soaps or even a pandorra charm.

I have used the set Contempo Christmas & the Elegance wheel ( Which isn't strictly Christmas but thats exactly what I love about Stampin' Up & being creative )

Contempo Christmas 118734 wood mounted 120594 Clear mounted

Supplies needed to make this card

3" x 12" whisper white card

Scored at 3" , 4", 7", 8" & 11"

The areas coloured red are the areas that need to be decorated  before assembly

4 7/8" x 4 7/8" Whisper white square

Scored at 1" in from the edge on all four sides, this makes the drawer to slide inside the box.

2" x2" Whisper white

2 1/4" x 2 1/4" co-ordinating card stock

Scraps of co-ordinating card stock & DSP to decorate.

Tools

Tombow glue

Mini bulldog clips ( available from good stationers )

Stamp a ma jig

1/2" circle punch

Ornament punch

1 3/8" Circle punch

Word Window punch

Paper Piercer

Stamps

Contempo Christmas

Ink

Old Olive or Wild Wasabi

Real Red or Cherry Cobbler

Decorations

Dazzling diamonds

Basic Rhinestones

Jolly Holiday DSP

This is the first of my Christmas projects for 2011, so keep checking back over the coming weeks while I catch up with all of my Christmas preparations.