Christmas Greetings

Wishing Happy Christmas to all of my blog-land friends and followers. I hope you all have a blessed and peaceful day tomorrow. Thank you to all of you who regularly visit here and for your kind and encouraging comments, I really appreciate your support.
Jean

Just in Time

Hi everyone, I hope all your Christmas preparations are going well, not long now.
Some of you may remember that a few  weeks back when I showed you the little crocheted blanket I made, I said I wanted to knit a dress for my baby great granddaughter before christmas, well tah-dah!! I finished it just in time.
My daughter and SIL are off to Lanzarote on Tuesday for some winter sunshine and their daughter, my granddaughter and her partner and two littleies are going to spend christmas with her in laws, so we all met up today to exchange our gifts, so I needed the little dress to be done. I finished sewing it up yesterday morning. I'm sorry the photos are not very good, I took them in a hurry. The top one is the dress just after I had given it a light press, and in the one below I added the little pink t-shirt I bought to go with it. I had wanted to get some pink tights as
well but couldn't get any the right size, so I will have to try again when the shops restock.
Thank you for taking time to visit today and for your comments which I really appreciate.
Jean

Wisteria Glitter Card

Hi everyone, it has been a while since I posted anything here, I am afraid I have been frantically trying to catch up with Christmas preparations. At last my christmas tree is decorated and in place now, and all my cards have been posted, so I feel I can relax a bit now although I still have the food shopping to do of course.
So here is the other Sparkle Medium card I said I would show you. The Wisteria stencil is another one from Imagination Crafts, and this time I used a Sparkle Medium called Diamond Quartz, a lovely mix of silver and purple glitters. Again I used black card to work on because the glitter looks so good on it. When it was dry I trimmed it close to the image and mounted it onto a mat made from a snippet of silver flecked white card, and then onto a pale lilac pearl DL size base card. I finished it off with some organza ribbon tied with a knot.

I am entering this at,
Imagination Crafts Challenge - Always Anything Goes
Pixies snippets Playground - Use Snippets.

Thank you for visiting today, and for your comments all of which are really appreciated.
I hope to be back with a couple more posts before the big day, but in the meantime I hope you can enjoy your preparations and find time to relax a bit too. To those of you who have been a bit poorly recently I hope you make a speedy recovery so you can enjoy the celebrations next
week.
Jean

Glitzy Birthday

Hi everyone it has been a while since I posted anything here as I have been busy making my last few christmas cards, and also I have several family birthdays at this time of year that need to have cards made for.

It was my granddaughter's birthday earlier this week and today I have got the card that I made for her to show you.
I bought some Imagination Crafts stencils while I was at the NEC last month and at the first opportunity I got out my Sparkle Medium to have a play. I used an A4 sheet of black card and tried out three of these newer DL size stencils each with a different colour sparkle. When they were dry I cut them apart and they have been hanging about in my craft space while I decided what to do with them. As I already mentioned it was my granddaughter's birthday this week and I also have a step granddaughter whose birthday is the day before, they are both the same age, in their twenties, and I thought they would appreciate a nice glitzy card. This one is my favourite of the stencils, I love the curvy elegance of this design, and also my favourite of the Sparkle Mediums, it is called Metallic Sparkle and has lovely gold and copper glitter in it. So to make the card I trimmed the black panel down quite a bit and edged it with a gold Krylon pen. I then cut a backing panel from some lovely gold coloured pearl card, which I also bought at the NEC. I cut it to fit a DL size ivory base card and trimmed the right hand edge with a Memory Box scalloped die. I tied a piece of rust coloured ribbon just behind the scallops and added tiny gold coloured gems between the scallops. I don't think these show up too well in the photo, the colours look much better together IRL as well, I am still struggling with poor daylight to take photos in at the moment. On the whole I am quite pleased with this card and Melissa loved it as I hoped she would. I may be back to show you the other card I made in a day or so.
I am going to enter this at   Imagination Crafts Challenge - Always Anything Goes
                            and at    Seize The Birthday - Anything Goes Birthday

Autumn Lingers

Hi every one, we have had some really gloomy days this week and I am afraid this shows in my photos, The colours in this card look much nicer IRL. I bought these beautiful autumnal Chocolate Baroque stamps recently and just wanted to make sure I used them before autumn finally morphed into winter.  I have a friend with whom I swap ATCs  on a more or less monthly basis. We don't use a theme, just do whatever we like or sometimes use it as an opportunity to showcase our latest stamps, as I did here. Along with the ATCs we usually send a card in which we write a short note, these cards are sometimes quite simple and sometimes more elaborate, again depending on circumstances or time available. So this month in order to use my new stamps I used them for both the card and the ATCs, I stamped all of the images onto snippets of ivory card using black Memento ink, and coloured them with Coloursoft pencils. I used Sansodor and a paper stump to blend the colours, and then used a pastel Flexmarker to create the shadow around them. For the card I trimmed the image fairly close and matted it onto a snippet of brown pearl card. The base card is a 15 cm ivory square and I marked where the image panel would go and made an embossed line either side of it using my scoring board.
 I then stuck the panel in place, and stamped the sentiment above it with brown Memento ink.
This stamp is one I've had for years and as it is one that I removed from the wood block I can't remember the make. For embellishment I punched two leaves from snippets of brown and gold pearl card using a woodware punch, and then stuck them top RH corner. The ATC images were stamped and coloured in the same way. I liked the mushroom one just as it was so I simply used a small corner punch to round two opposite corners and then mounted it onto a snippet of the same brown card leaving a very narrow border. The image for the second one is a bit smaller so I tied some brown ribbon across the top of it and added another punched leaf. I thoroughly enjoyed colouring these lovely images so I hope my friend likes them too. We have never met each other by way, I think we came into contact  through the Craft Stamper ATC swap and she asked me if I would like to swap with her one to one. That was a few years ago now and we are still going.
I am going to enter this at Pixies Snippets Playground - Use Snippets

Thankyou for visiting here today, I hope I haven't bored you all with the swap stuff. Thank you also for your comments, I really appreciate them all.
Jean

Three Rudolph Day Cards

 It's 25th November already which means it is the last Rudolph Day for this year and although I am a bit late turning up I have got three cards to show you today. It is also the last RD to be hosted by Sarn at Stamping for Pleasure, and I would like to thank her for this  friendly challenge which has revolutionised my christmas card making so that I no longer have a mad panic about now to get enough cards made in time for posting. This year I have a nice box full already made and just have a few close  family ones still to make. RD is all set to continue next year though as it is to be taken over by Scrappymo, of  Scraps of Life by Scrappymo.
A crafting friend of mine gave me some die cut christmas ornaments and ribbons that I wanted to use so my first two cards are designed around them. They were mostly cut from red satin card and gold mirri card  so I began by pairing up the solid and filigree cuts as you can see. I think I had to take the photo under my craft light as good daylight is in rather short supply at the moment, and that has caused a shadow to dull the gold card in the lower bauble, but it is actually just as shiny as the top one. The base card is DL size and the backing paper is from an LOTV pad, inked around edges with fired brick Distress Ink.  The greenery was cut with a Tim Holtz Winter Foliage die and I assembled it intertwined with one of the die cut ribbon loops from my friend. I then hung the baubles from the ribbon using a fine gold peel off for a chain. The greeting is from Chocolate Baroque.

Also among the die cuts from my friend was this glittery purple ornament with the silver overlay already attached and although it not the sort of colour that I usually use for christmas it is beautiful so I looked for some card to go with it. I found this snippet of pale pink pearl card and cut it with my favourite Spellbinder die from the Marvelous Squares set. I also used the largest die from this set to cut a mat from another snippet of textured silver card which just fitted onto a 4" square base card. I  layered everything up and added a purple metallic bow to the bauble and a tiny christmas greeting. I have had this little stamp for years and have long forgotten the make of it, it has a square outline round it which I don't like so I usually colour the words with a marker pen before stamping it.  I am not sure if the tiny snowflakes were punched or die cut but they were in with the other die cuts so as they matched the bauble I decided to add them to the corners.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
My third card is made with a stamp and an embossing folder that were  free with a craft magazine. I cut and folded an A6 base card from red cardstock. I used the free border EF to emboss across the bottom. It made a lovely deep embossing but it did sort of stretched  the card and made it look a bit wonky so to tidy it up a bit I embossed a line either side of the border with my scoring board, which helped a bit. I stamped the holly wreath with Olympia  green Versafine ink onto a snippet of white card and added the berries with a marker pen, and drew over the twiddly bits with a Sakura gold sparkle  pen. I think the greeting is from another free set. I cut this out with a Spellbinder scalloped circle die and coloured the edge with a red marker pen, and then mounted it onto a snippet of gold mirri card. When this was mounted onto the card I  added some gold coloured gem stones below the image and rubbed a little gold wax over the embossed panel for highlights.


As I used quite a few snippets in the making of these cards I am also going to skip over to see what everyone  else has been making at Pixie's Snippets Playground.
Thank you for visiting my crafty corner today and for your comments all of which are really appreciated.
Jean

Sweet Birthday Card

Last Friday was my Great Granddaughter's 2nd birthday and this is the card I made for her. This sweet little teddy is from LOTV, stamped with Memento Rich Cocoa ink onto a snippet of white card and coloured with Promarkers. All of the papers are LOTV as well, from the same pad, Bonnets and Bowties, I think. Having coloured it I die cut the image with a Spellbinders Exquisite Circles die, and then using the same die cut it from the pink paper. I then stuck them together offsetting them slightly so that the pink showed to one side. My base card is a 15cm square and I cut a piece of thin scrap card just very slightly smaller to make the background on as I wanted to wrap the ribbon around it and thought it needed to be a bit more substantial than the paper.  The pink patterned paper is cut along the edge with a Britania  die and the top border of the check pattern cut with the scallop edge on my paper cutter. I layered the papers onto the scrap card and secured the ribbon at the back before sticking the whole panel onto the card. The image was fixed in place with thin foam tape and a short piece of ribbon tied around the ribbon band. The greeting is cut with Britannia dies in three layers, which was made easier with the use of a Stick It sheet. Still a bit fiddly though. Once the layers were joined together I gave them a coat of Glossy Accents and when dry added them to the card.
I am taking this over to Pixies Snippets Playground, I used a snippet of white card for the stamping and the checked paper was a snippet as well. There is a great prize on offer if you fancy having a go, you just need to use at least one snippet in your project to enter. I'll see you there.
Thanks for dropping in and for your comments which I really appreciate.
Jean