Rosettes

I spotted some boxes of glittery rosettes in Matalan the other day. They are with the wrapping paper and gift bags, and are on 3 for 2.
Each box has a mix of three colours, in two sizes, twelve to a box (so 36 for £4)


They are meant to be 'gift toppers' but of course I bought them for crafting.

I would have liked the large rosette to be at the bottom left on this card and the smaller ones in its place but with 'Christmas' being the longer word it wouldn't fit.
Sentiment die is Memory Box (or Poppystamps, I always get them mixed up)

Slightly different version; the sentiment stamp is by Chloe's Creative Cards and I've infilled it with glitter.
Embossing folder is Papermania.

Christmas

I've been too busy to craft recently but am trying to get going again.

A simple card to ease back in, paper and tag by Craftwork Cards. I've just added some Glamour Dust and ribbon.
I need some Christmas cards for people who have been bereaved/ had a rough year and didn't really think "Merry Christmas" was appropriate, so I quite like the sentiment on this one.

I've made some lovely friends in the crafting world. One of them, Maria, sent me this card recently (along with emergency chocolate!) so thoughtful of her. She's always there when I need a whinge :)

Merry Christmas

Stamp is by Anna Griffin
Paper is Craftwork Cards
I've scored some vertical lines down the right hand side but they're almost invisible on the pic.

Christmas Wishes

I couldn't get a decent pic of this card. It's a kraft blank and I've stamped a tree in green ink.

Then, I've stamped the stars stamp on a piece of tracing paper and over-laid it. I tried it with vellum initially but it was too thick to see through.

To finish I've stamped the sentiment, and added a strip of gold card and some cord to the spine.

Deck The Halls

Papers are by Phill Martin and I've used the matching Colour Cloud blending ink (on the edges and also to colour the sentiment from the original white)

Sentiment die is by Tonic and the others are Sue Wilson

Bauble

Bauble stamp is by Woodware. I've decoupaged it, coloured with Copics, and added Glossy Accents for a glaze.
Scalloped square dies are by Tonic.

Mum

I wanted some large sparkly centres for paper flowers and decided to make my own.
These were really simple to do, just used a hot glue gun to drop some blobs on a silicone sheet, then covered with glitter.

And this was the card I wanted the sparkly-blob centres for. It's an 8 inch easel card,  I used Go Kreate dies to make the card blank.
Papers are all Lili of the Valley, stamps are a mix of Waltzingmouse and Papermania.

Country Landscape

Country Landscape die by Memory Box
Ticket die and punch are SU
The 'snow' is chunky white embossing enamel

The card was one of our craft club projects but we needed something else to go with it. If in doubt make a box...
Sentiment die is by Tonic, holly sprays are Sue Wilson

Candi Tree

Christmas tree stamp is by Woodware, I've used card candi and some gems to decorate.

I'm not sure what brand the snowflake stamps are (you can just see them on the kraft card-blank). There's a really friendly craft shop in Kendal if you're ever in the Lake District. They do workshops there and now and again they sell off some of their old workshop stash. I picked up the set of snowflake stamps for £3, no packaging hence me not knowing who manufactures them.

I've also made a matching wine-carrier to go with the card.

Please excuse the dreadful photographs. I have asked Santa if he will teach me a few tricks with a camera. I did actually buy a new camera about sixteen months ago and have yet to take it out of the box!
Worse is that my husband (aka Santa) is a very keen photographer so I should have no excuse. He's just had one of his photos chosen for a charity calendar of the Lakes and is about to have something published in a national photography magazine, fingers crossed he can help me improve my sad little blog efforts.

Season's Greetings

I managed to find some gorgeous shimmery purple card at one of the fill-a-box places recently and knew it would be great for Christmas cards.
I've used a Docrafts embossing folder on the gold card, and stamped and heat embossed (with clear powder) on the purple using a HOTP swirl stamp.


The bauble and sentiment stamps are by Waltzingmouse, dies are by Spellbinders.
The finished card is 7 x 7 inches.

Happy Anniversary

Thanks for bearing with me!

Anniversary card for my parents (married 54 years today)

Very dull here when I took the photographs, hence the weird colours, but hopefully you get the gist.
I've used a Sue Wilson die, the sentiment stamp is by Chloe, and I've added Glamour Dust.

The metal heart clip is from my stash and I've looped some white tulle net through it.

Box

A quick one in-between hospital appointments!
I find boxes are much speedier to make than cards.

20 cm x 20 cm card-stock and scored at 2cm all round.
For the lid I used the same measurements but didn't butt all the way to the left-side of my scoreboard, pulling away just a mm or two means the lid fits perfectly.

Deck the Halls die is by Tonic, stitched holly leaves by Poppystamps. I added some Glossy Accents to the berries.
The box fits one of these bars of chocolate, 250g, available in Lidl.

Apologies for lack of posts. My MIL has been quite poorly so I'm currently unable to craft/ blog (my husband is an only child, she's a widow, we live an hour away...you can imagine)

2015 seems to have been a year of ambulances and hospitals for our family, hopefully back to normal soon!

Fishing

Another card club project.
Two Woodware stamps and the fish is a Sizzix die used with shrink plastic.

Special

Card club project, cards for men are always popular.

I've had these stamps about ten years but haven't used them in an age so it was time they were inked up again.

Waistcoat stamp is by Personal Impressions and has been paper-pieced.
Sentiment stamp is by Hero Arts.

Celebrate

As usual I left it until the last minute to make projects for card club.

Some weeks ago I realised we were having issues with people queuing to use the Sizzix (normally have two machines between twelve women) or waiting to use a particular stamp or one of the heat guns or whatever.
I didn't want the ladies becoming too frustrated if they felt they were wasting half their time in a queue, so made the decision to split the group into three tables of four.

Now I make three separate projects, trying to mix the equipment needed, so that one group does not need to do any die-cutting that week.

I think the ladies prefer this way of working because not only are they not waiting for eleven other people to finish with a die but also because they haven't got eleven other people breathing down their neck when they want the die.

The negative is that it's more work for me!
I have to think of the three projects, take three separate lots of stuff, worry if the projects will now be finished too quickly because not so much waiting...

So when I leave it until the last minute I only have myself to blame really. In these circumstances I've found Sue Wilson is my saviour, her dies are so easy to make a card with.
The only thing not SW on this card is the sentiment, a Waltzingmouse stamp, on vellum. Initially I had planned to make more, fuller, flowers but I really had left it too late, oops.

Thanks

I've used SU Watercolour Wings stamp set and matching die for the butterflies. There's a bit of second-generation stamping to get the two shades of purple from one ink-pad.
Sentiment is an old Cuttlebug die

Gilded Snowflake

Seeing as the weather here has definitely turned Autumnal I decided to make a start on my Christmas cards.
I didn't want to pull out all my C-themed stash so just picked something from the first box I reached.

I've used an Indigo Blu snowflake stamp with some gilding flakes.
Normally I used gilding flakes with self-adhesive sheets and die-cuts so using them with stamps and glue is a new one for me.

The card was so difficult to photograph to show the gleam of the gilding. It's a much richer metallic colour than embossing powder and there was no warping which I sometimes get when I've used a heat gun.

The sentiment stamp is by Sweet Dixie (I chopped it in half as I wanted to stagger the words, really easy to do with clear stamps)


I like the gilding technique but I don't like the actual card!
I know who will like it though and it will be flat to post which is always a bonus.

Wedding

I've cheated with this card, it's copied from an idea in a book by Chloe Endean.
I just changed the colour slightly and missed off some extra beads and bits.

All stamps are by Chloe, embossing folder by Sue Wilson.
Lots of cutting out, and glitter everywhere.

Happy Birthday

Topper is by the Hobby House, I've added Glossy Accents to the watering can.
I found some glossy pink card in my stash but have no idea where that's from, can't remember buying it at all.

Embossing folder is Sue Wilson, scallop border punch is SU, and the sentiment is a peel off (gasp!)
Card is 8 x 8".