I'm Not Thinking About It!

Jo is a great friend and a fabulous crafter, but every now and then she shows her...shall we say, "mischievous" streak - this usually seems to coincide with her turn to set the challenge for the Daring Cardmakers.  When you see Jo's name come up on the list you know there'll be a "panic" moment, or a "aaggghhh" moment or an "oh noooooo" moment.

It's the middle of June, some places here in England have already been declared as being officially "in drought" - I think if we've had 4 days in the last three months when any amount of rain (and that includes the odd 5 minute shower) has fallen then that would be all.

and then Jo says: "I was thinking about something with a Christmas theme...."

and Kathy's heart sinks right to the toes of her crocs and out of the little holes it finds there!

Yes!  this week the DCM have all been making cards with Father Christmas on them and that's what we'd like to see on your cards when we follow your links this week......

I like Christmas - I LOVE Christmas.

But I like it to happen in December

and I don't like making Christmas cards till after my birthday in September = BUT a challenge is a challenge and the challenge this week has been to overcome my "bah humbug" and make a card with Father C on it.

  Oh Jo....what a meanie you are! hehehe

I

It was probably the bah humbugness that made making a card soooo difficult - that and a bolshy refusal to dig out any Christmas stash.

Originally I thought I might try to do a "Father Christmas is on his Holidays" or "Wish you were here?" sort of card, but I couldn't find an image I liked.  In the end I found this cute copyright free image of Santa waving and thought it would work with a tongue-in-cheek "see you soon" sentiment.

Converting the image to a Craft Robo template was the easy bit - but once again it was creating a background that was the tricky bit and in the end I gave up trying to be clever and just made this really simple LO.  Poor Santa was beginning to look a bit tatty after being glued on and ripped off three other cards!

Funny thing is, I quite like the final result - my Christmas cards are usually quite simple in design so that I can make lots in a fairly short time so maybe something like this will work when the "right" time comes!

I used:

14cm square white card blank

red, black, beige and white card, White Flowersoft

Santa and sentiment are Craft Robo templates - email if you would like a free copy

Red Seam Binding is from Creative Treasures - I've now got a lovely big bag filled with most of the colours Tracy sells (yum yum!)


The cards the DT have made this week are great fun and definitely worth a look, we hope you'll enjoy seeing hat we've made and you'll  conquer any anti-Christmas-in-June feelings you have and rise to the challenge of putting Father Christmas on your cards this week!  You can see all the cards the team have made HERE

We have a prize on offer too, it's a gorgeous Echo Park paper pad and has been kindly donated by Crafty Emma's Store 
Check out the DCM BLOG for all the info on how you can get your sticky mitts on it!

From this month The Sketch File will have a new LO sketch going out on the first Tuesday of each month - it's about time we put it on a more organised footing, hopefully the blog will get more use if the dates are more reliable! 

I do appreicate that this is totally my fault and I promise to be better from now on hehehe

You can see the newly released June Sketch above and on The Sketch File Blog - over the next few days and weeks we'll add more photos of the things we've made using it.

I kicked off on Tuesday with this card:

There's STAMPING on it - are you shocked?  haha

The background is made with three colours of Distress Ink, I also made a second piece for stamping a couple of sets of the flower squares.  The first set of squares were arranged on the card - some have a chipboard layer beneath them.  I then cut some of the flowers from the other images and added them to the squares, also with scraps of chipboard for more dimension.

I inked up some black and white Bakers Twine with more DI to match the card and wrapped it around before pulling the strands together with a knot.

Please take a look at The Sketch File- there are lots of (what I hope are) inspiring LO ideas there - and at them moment we have some Blog Candy up for grabs too.

That's all for now, thank you for visiting, I hope you'll come again soon