March Rudolph Day

Hello everyone. Although I have another Christmas card to show you, I'll start by wishing you all a Happy Easter, I hope you enjoy the holiday weekend whatever you are doing.
My card is for the Rudolph Day Challenge at Scraps of Life by Scrappymo. I'm a bit late again but there are still a couple of days left to enter.
The stamps I've used are by Heartfelt Creations. I stamped the main image with Memento black ink and coloured the baby and the manger with Promarkers. I used Derwent Coloursoft pencils to add shading around the scroll and then coloured the background with Distress Inks and a blending tool. Having used my TH stamping platform to stamp with, the stamp was still in place for me to overstamp the star with Versamark ink and emboss it with WOW Brass Sparkle embossing powder. I mounted the trimmed image onto some dark gold glitter card and backed it with a square of funky foam to give it a little dimension when added to the card. The base card is  an ivory 15cm square and I used the stamping platform again to position the corner stamps and coloured them with Promarkers and a gold gel pen. This was quite an easy card to make and I made another three to help build my Christmas Card stash.

 Thank you for your visit and for your comments, they are all appreciated.

Jean

Snowy Rudolph Day

Hi again, I' back with my card for the Rudolph Day Challenge where the idea is to make at least one Christmas card each month. Of course my plan is always to make more but it doesn't always happen, still any Christmas cards made early save a panic driven rush when it comes time to send them. The challenge starts on the 25th and runs till the end of the month. Of course it is a short month this time so only tomorrow left to join in.
This is a 13cm. square one layer card. All the stamps except the greeting are Cardio, some I have had for  while and some I bought at the NEC show in November. To start with I masked around the area for the scene with post it notes and stamped the tiny elements and added some light colouring with distress inks and cut and dry foam. After removing the post its I stamped the stag  partly out of the frame, and the trees beside it, using first and second generation inking. I'm not entirely happy with the black stamping and I think I will try it again using my stamping platform to get better definition. The greeting is from a set of stamps that were free with a magazine. I added some glitter to the snow scene with Stardust Stickles.

Thank you for taking time to visit here and for your comments, I really appreciate them all.

Jean x

Pink Roses

Hello, once again I have been neglecting my blog lately, but today I have this card to show you. I made it for my sister's birthday but I also had in mind the Butterfly Challenge. This year Mrs A has changed the format slightly and now we have a choice colours and elements for the chosen letter.This time the the letter is P and the choice of colours are pink, peach and purple, and the elements are paper piecing, patterned paper and pearls. As you can see I have used one of the colours, pink, and two of the elements, patterned paper and pearls. The paper is from an old 6" pad from my stash and I trimmed it slightly to fit the front of my base card, and inked the edge lightly with a blue Distress ink before adding a piece of pale pink ribbon and lace and sticking it in place.The roses and leaves are stamped with an Altenew set of stamps. There are three separate stamps to make up each flower and leaf. I used several different makes of ink after rummaging through all my pads till found a colour combination that I liked.I'm afraid I don't know the name of the fancy circle die either, but I think it might be a Spellbinder one. The butterfly die and and the birthday greeting were in a freebie set with a recent  magazine. The top layer of the butterfly is cut from a piece of the same backing paper, and the under layer was a piece of white card that I inked over with the mid shade of pink in the rose. I added some tiny pearls to finish. I apologise for the poor photo, it looks much prettier in reality.

As well as the Butterfly Challenge - Butterfly + P for Pink, Peach, Purple and Paper Piecing, Patterned Paper, Pearls,
I am entering this at Stamping Sensations - Anything With Flowers.

Thank you for your visit here and for your comments which are really appreciated. I hope to be back in a day or two for the Rudolph Day Challenge. It's a short month this time so only a few days to take part.

Jean
                     

First Rudolph Day for 2018

Hello there, My poor blog has been sadly neglected lately and I see my last post was for the final Rudolph Day Challenge of last year. I have just been taking a break from blogging and spending so much time at the computer. However I decided that the first Rudolph challenge this year would be a good opportunity to start again. This is such a fun and friendly challenge to take part in and gives you a chance to make a head start on this years Christmas cards. It runs from the 25th till the last day of each month, and you just need to make one Christmas themed project to enter.
 Having sorted out all the cards we were sent at Christmas I had quite a pile that I thought I could recycle, so I decided to do it straight away before they got pushed aside and forgotten. So I have picked out a few that I liked best to enter the challenge.

I have chosen three
robin cards to start with, I
always like the robins.
This one is quite simple, I
cut the image and a gold
mirri card mat with Lil'Inkers stitched square dies. I found a snippet of grey paper to tone with the background colour to stamp the greeting on and die cut it with another gold mat to match. The 15cm square base card is covered with some patterned paper from a 6" Dovecraft pad called Time to Sparkle, before adding the robin and greeting.

The next two were made in a similar
way using Spellbinder dies. I think
theses were slightly smaller 13cm
base cards. The patterned papers
came from my stash, and the mats
are cut from dark green glossy card
from Imagination Crafts. The die cut greeting is done with Bittania dies.

I made seventeen cards altogether and I will add another photo that I took of some of them. I have saved a few more that I thought turned out best to show you another time.

In the meantime I am happy to have actually done something with them and made a good start this years Christmas card collection. Lets hope I can keep it up now and not have to panic in December like I usually do.

Now I am off to link this up at Rudolph Day Challenge at Scraps of Life by Scrappymo

I am glad to have got back to posting something here again as well, and thank you for taking a look. I enjoy reading your comments too and appreciate them all.

Jean

Last Rudolph Day For This Year

Hello, here I am late again for the Rudolph Day Challenge, ( the last one for this year, oh my! how quickly the time goes by these days.) Once again my card card was ready in time but I just haven't got round to posting it till now. I've been too keen to spend time in the sitting room keeping warm this week as the temperature around here has taken a bit of nosedive lately. Nice bright days though, so not all bad.
Anyway here is my card.
All of the stamps are a small
set from Inkylicious. I used
Gathered Twigs Distress Ink for the stamping and used a water brush to draw in  some colour on the birds and bird box. I added a little red colour to the birds with a Zig Clear Colour water brush, and used a white gel pen to colour the snow, and then added some loose glitter, sticking it with a glue pen. The greeting which is also part of the stamp set looks brown in the photo but I used a red ink pad, I think it might have been a Versafine one. I stamped it onto a snippet of blue card because it made me think of a bright blue sky on a frosty day. I mounted it onto another snippet of darker blue card  and then onto a 15cm square base card which I had embossed the front of, using a falling snow EF. ( sorry I don't remember the make.) The snowflakes were cut with X-cut punches from some tiny snippets of smooth glitter card.

I am entering this at The Rudolph Day Challenge - Any Christmas Item
and at Pixies Snippet Playground - Use Snippets

Thank you for taking time to visit my blog and for your comments, I really appreciate all of them.

Jean

A New Arrival

Good evening every one I have some happy news today, my Granddaughter's fourth baby girl was born yesterday lunchtime. We are all so happy that she arrived safe and well as it has been a difficult pregnancy. Here is the card that I made for the occasion. The stamped images
are Lily Of The Valley
Stamped with Archival
Watering Can ink, and coloured with Pro Markers and a gold gel pen for the stars. I used the largest die in the Spellbinders Elegant Ovals set to cut the image, and because I have made so many pink baby and toddler cards in the last few years,
(we now have six great granddaughters!!),that I wanted to add a little bit of blue as well this time, so I coloured the ribbon in the picture blue, and inked the edge of the die cut using Broken China Distress ink and a piece of blending foam, and then chose one of the patterned papers with a little blue in it as well. Both papers are odd pieces from my stash, I'm not sure of the make. The bottom of the pink one is cut with a Fiskars border punch and all the cut edges are inked with a matching blue Distress Marker. I wrapped some pink organza ribbon around before fixing to the 6" square base card. The die cut image is fixed with foam pads and the tiny tags, bow and teddy charm are stuck on with glue dots as are the little Hobbycraft flowers.

Before I go I'd just like to show you these. I saw this crochet pattern in a Prima Makes magazine a while ago and as I knew another baby girl was on the way I just had to have a go at making them. They are somewhat impractical but sooo cute.

I am going to enter my card at
Sweet Stampin' Challenge - Babies

Thank you for visiting my blog today and for your comments, I really appreciate them all.

Jean

A Big Butterfly For A Special Birhtday

Hello everyone, as some of you will know my sister Kate recently celebrated her 70th birthday and today I am showing you the card that I made for her.
I used the very large butterfly stamp from Chocolate baroque. I used Black archival ink to stamp it with, and coloured it with Zig Clean Colour brush pens, before fussy cutting it out and giving it a generous coating of Wink of Stella. I found a piece of pink card that went with butterfly colour and cut a mat slightly smaller than the 6" square base card. The embossed panel was cut from a sheet given to me by a craft friend, so I am afraid I don't know what it is called. The greeting is die cut using Britannia dies. I cut each one four times, three from white card and one from pink, (all backed with Stick It adhesive) and layered them up for dimension. I am happy to say that for once this went well and they all stacked up nice and neatly. Lastly I fixed the butterfly in place with silicon glue, and placed a tiny flower gem to dot the i.

I am entering this at
       Emerald City Craft Challenges- Challenge 5 - Always Anything Goes
       Simply Papercraft - Challenge 52 - Always Anything Goes

Thank you for your visit here today and for your comments, they are really appreciated.
Jean