The Dominators

Helloooo!

Another bright and frosty morning here today.

I thought I'd do a really quick post before I try to tame the chaos that is my craft desk....... and the floor beside it.  It's all gone a little feral - it can't have  just been me that made such a mess.  No, that's just not possible!

Yesterday I showed a card based around a rectangle with the sentiment printed on it.  It was a digi sentiment from Pink Petticoat - who are sadly no longer trading.  

I've used these digi sentiments a lot this Christmas - I've made them into sheets which print onto A4 card, but with lots of space around each so that I can die cut them, usually using my sets of nested basic shapes, or their equivalent scalloped shapes.

While yesterday's card was quite ornate and "lumpy", today's are simpler and less chunky so will go through the regular post ok

I'm finding that this years cards are dominated by stars, gold and red! 

Hope you like them

Thanks for looking - it would be great to hear from you

3 Poinsettias

Hello
It's mighty chilly out there!  We had a very frosty start to the day and in the shady parts of the street the frost hasn't completely gone.  Lucky for me that wheeling the dustbin down to the roadside was the only "out" I needed to do today!
My card for The Sketch File today features a trio of festive red poinsettias.  I was doing a bit of blog-hopping the other day and someone (I'm really sorry but I can't remember who's blog it was on) had added a lovely poinsettia and it reminded me that I'd not made any for cards this year - so I've rectified that with this card.

Info:

I've used a selection of red and gold card and paper, plus smooth white cardstock for the card blank and die cut square and rectangle.

The sentiment was printed onto white card and cut out with a die from a Sue Wilson set.  

The same die was used to cut the gold rectangle. 

The large white square was cut with one of the scalloped dies from the Tonic set

Large poinsettia bracts and leaves; Sue Wilson poinsettia set

Medium; Punch Bunch punch

Small; Britannia die (small poinsettia)

Stars and Snowflakes; various punches and dies

Narrow red stain ribbon

Red Stickles

Small yellow stamens

The sketch;

November 2016 LO; The Sketch File

So that's my lot for today, I hope you like the card and will be inspired to try out the LO for yourself!

Thanks for looking, please leave a message :)

 

Gift Topper Tags!

Hello!
A lovely sunny day here today.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the rain stays away this weekend as we really need to get the garden winter-ready; put the cover on the patio furniture and fleece up a couple of the more tender plants.  It would be better if everything was dry before we do that and the weather over the last couple of weekends has not played nicely

My Christmas crafting is progressing - albeit in fits and starts.  I sat at my desk the other day to make more cards and made nothing other than a mess all day!  Yesterday was much better - but I've now got to the stage where my nice big desk has a space only about 20cm sq left for me to actually work in.  I am pretty sure a lot of you will know that situation!

Anyway, one thing that has gone pretty well for a change is making some gift tags. 

This week's Daring Cardmakers challenge is another "Step Away From the Cards" challenge and it's:

 Make a Tag

Just make and decorate a tag or label for a gift -
and remember, it doesn't even have to be Christmas-themed. 

I really don't enjoy making tags at all, but still feel guilty if I don't - so I was chuffed to bits when I came up with this idea, which is really a tag and a gift topper all in one. 
Somehow, not being faced with a tag shaped piece of card makes it all so much simpler!

 Info

I started by making a Word document with the names of those we'd be giving presents to on an A4 page.  If I expected there to be more than one present, I added the name a couple of times.

I chose a nice handwriting-style font in a large size, and just had two names per"column", with space between the rows for cutting apart.  The names were positioned so that there was a large space to the left of the name, and enough space to the right for cutting the "V" shape out with scissors

I printed the pages out onto white card and chopped them up ready to use.  I've put them all in a plastic pocket (the sort you get to store CD roms in - I use them for some of my Nesties dies). 

Next I cut a load of largish stars in the same white card - I'll stick one on the end of the name label and use it as the base for everything else I stick on.

I've also cut a pile of stars and snowflakes in various kinds of card in the colours of the gift wrap I'm using this year, plus some pine sprigs and holly leaves from green card and put them in a box with the labels. 

Into the box I've added some of the new and old embellishments I thought I could use - you know, the sort of things which are too fat, or delicate for sending through the post but you couldn't resist buying anyway!

Now its just a case of assembling them when I have a few minutes - they really don't take long, even though they probably look as though they do ;)

I suppose these are more like the embellishments I like to make for cards, but even more "lumpy", so more fun to make.  and definitely an improvement on my usual tag efforts! 

If you click HERE you can see the tags the rest of our fab team have made, and of course, we would love to see your gift tags too!

Thank you for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a message and let me know what you think of these tags.

 

3 Stars

Hi there

Well. I really hate the new Blogger dashboard!  What on earth were they thinking of - surely the dashboard is the starting point for seeing what's going on and choosing the blog you want to do something with next.  Now all you see is  the posts list for whichever of your blogs was last updated.  It took me ages to find the tiny menu arrow which brought up a list of my blogs, and it doesn't show if there are comments to be moderated - so you have to go to each individual blog rather than see them all at a glance.
Oh well, what can you do.  Another case of fiddling with stuff for the sake of being seen to be doing something - what happened to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it?"

That's my rant over for the day ;)
On to the card I made for this week's Sketch File Update 

I quite like the way this one turned out.  As you can tell, I missed out the extra "line" at the bottom of the sketch, stretched the big {red} rectangle,  and changed the upper one for a circle - but that's ok because the sketches are there for inspiration, a starting point to use in your own way.

Sketch File LO, Nov 2016

Info

Digital Paper collections "Loving Christmas" and "Loving Christmas Again" 

 by KHDigi, from Etsy

Sentiment is also a digital image - from the now defunct Pink Petticoat. 

Red and Gold Glitter card (Kaisercraft)

Die cutting: 
 Star stack (Taylored Expressions), 
Plain circle (Tonic Nesting Circles) Eyelet circle (Spellbinders)

I thought I'd just add a second one, also using the Sketch.  I'm not so keen on this one - I think I chose the wrong paper for the background.  Might have been better without any, or with something plainer, or an aperture......
  

Papers are as before, Die cut baubles are the smallest one for a set of 2 by Memory Box

That's all for this time, save to say it would be great to see what you could make using the sketch
Thanks for hopping over, please leave a message ;)

Deep Borders

Hello

At the weekend I made a bunch of cards using the same simple design, so I thought I'd share a quick post today to see what you think.
I've a nice batch of download papers printed onto card and decided they deserved to be shown off rather than chopped up to use several on one card - if that makes sense!
However I didn't want to cover the whole card blank with paper so I trimmed each piece down and used border dies to make a pretty edge

Info

Both of these use a lovely star border die from Joanna Sheen

The Bauble die and the stocking are both by Memory Box

Info

I used a large scalloped circle from the Tonic nested set to make the curved shape for this one

The tree is cut in black glitter card. The die is from a set of several different shaped and sized trees by Sue Wilson

The gold snowflake is a punch (EK Success)

Right, back to it
Hope you are managing to keep dry today!

Little Town

Hello
Thanks for visiting my blog, I hope you enjoy your time here and will take a minute to leave a message too
I know a lot of you make Christmas cards all through the year, and will be laughing at the rest of us tardy souls as we moan and stress about how far behind we are...... but it's the same for me every year and I doubt it will change now!
The good thing for readers of this blog is that my posts are a lot shorter when I have a lot to do - which is probably a relief!

As it's Friday it's Daring Cardmakers day again, and after last week's little crafty detour in the first of our "Step Away from the Cards" challenges, this week it's back to cards with this challenge to make cards.....

Inspired by Christmas Carols and Songs

There are masses of them, and we all have our favourites, so it may be difficult to choose which to go with!  We're looking forward to seeing which you choose, and having a good old sing along with you

To see what the team have been singing along to, visit DCM BLOG, here!

There are a lot of traditional Christmas carols I love.  There are plenty of 'secular' Christmas songs I love too - but I went the traditional route this time and chose to use my all-time favourite Christmas carol 'Oh Little Town of Bethlehem'. It's never wavered from being my favourite - what I can't decide on is which of the several tunes it can be sung to that I like the best. 

 Long, long ago, when I first started making cards and hadn't yet realised that stamps and colouring were not going to be for me, I bought this lovely Hero Arts stamp/  It's probably been used no more than a handful of times!  Still, it was perfect for this, and I stamped it onto different colours of card and cut out the little pieces to make a more dimensional diorama

Info

Smooth White card blank, plus spare for the upper layer and the stamped image

Black Glitter card (Best Creations) 

Wording Printed on pc

Aperture - mixed plain and scalloped set of Oval dies (Sonic)

Stamp (Hero Arts), Black Ink (Stazon)

I cut the main area of the image out (town, tree and ground area).

I stamped parts of the image on coloured card and cut the roofs, doors, grass and tree out to glue in place on the main image

Tiny areas of yellow and gold used for highlighting

The image was then glued behind the aperture and the card assembled

Lastly I followed the placement on the original stamp to add the stars - punched from silver glitter card

That's it for today.  I'll be off then, back to the Christmas card making.....!  See you soon

Have a great day and a lovely weekend

A Silver Tree

Hi there

I hope you are feeling well this damp Tuesday morning.  It's a Work-from-Home day for hubby, and as we share the study it's a case of keeping my crafting noise to a minimum while I try to get to grips with my Christmas crafting.  Wouldn't it be nice if the various crafting machines we use were just a bit quieter.

Today's card is made using the November LO from The Sketch File

I've used a bit of artistic license with this, but look closely and you can still see the sketch - or I hope you can!  I cut an aperture for one of the rectangles and the tree takes the place of the other one

The Sketch File, November 2016

Info:

Aperture cut with scalloped rectangles from the Tonic Nested Rectangles - a mix of scalloped and plain dies

The green printed paper behind the aperture is from the Retro Christmas download collection from YourPaperStash 

Lovely, isn't it?  There are a few other more geometric collections in the same colours; which really add a lot of variety.

The tree is a Memory Box die from a couple of years ago

Small stars and Snowflakes; Cheery Lynn Snowflake plate,

 Joanna Sheen Starry border

The tiny sentiment circle is backed with a MS Snowflake punched in glitter card, and a scalloped circle from the Spellbinders Nesties set

That's it - short and sweet in the hope that I can actually manage to get through a bit of my to-do list today!
Thank you so much for taking the time to pop by - I ghope you'll leave a message too, or is that being greedy? :)

Mixing It Up

Hello!

After a rather dismal week weather-wise, the sun is shining today and the Autumn colours are glowing again - well the leaves that are still on the trees, anyway!
I'm still trying to catch my tail after all the coming and going of recent weeks; every time I think I'm getting to grips with the to-do list, something else pops up - you know how it is!
It didn't help that I wasn't entirely happy with my project for the Daring Cardmakers this week and decided to have a second attempt!  

As we're well and truly in the run-up to Christmas (there, I said it!) we thought we'd have a bit of fun with a few non-card challenges thrown in among the usual card ones.  We've called this series "Step Away from the Cards" and this week's challenge is the first of them

Gift Bag or Box

We'd just like you to make or decorate a box or gift bag (it doesn't have to be Christmas-themed) then share your creations with us via the InLinkz gadget  on the blog as usual.  

In the end I'm sharing both of the things I made.  I managed to alter the depth of the box which made the proportions better, but I still think I should have used slightly smaller circles for the flat sections - or made the container part of rth box with a larger diameter

I made this box using s set of download papers which I printed onto card, plus some matching Bazzill Bling card.

I've made a couple of other shapes using the same kind of

 technique in the past.

Once the box was created I decorated it with ribbon and die cuts

 
My second project was a gift bag - over the years I've made loads of these gift bags as they are fairly simple to make to whatever size I need.  This one is about 17cm high.  

 I used a sheet of 12x12 paper from a lovely Kaisercraft paper pack.  I've never actually tried, but I think it would be fairly easy to size this up for a larger gift by using two sheets of identical paper.  

I have a tutorial for this gift bag {HERE}

To decorate:

Starry border (Joanna Sheen)

Pine cone and branch dies (also Joanna Sheen)

Baubles; Spellbinders, Memory Box and a Tonic circle 

MS Snowflake punch, Tonic border punch for tiny stars

 

 That's it for today.  I'm going to try really hard to spend some of the weekend catching up with what my crafting blog-mates have been up to recently - I've missed such a lot.  
I've about 15 Christmas cards made....ie. not enough, and I've not bought a single Christmas gift yet......panic is beginning to set in!

Hope you find time to join in with The Daring Cardmakers this week, it would be lovely to see your creations.

Have a great weekend, see you soon
 
 

Joy!

Hi there

We're back home after a quick visit to the Isle of Man to attend a family funeral.  It's a sad fact that the only time families manage to get together these days is for things like this.  Seems as bit of a shame that more coupled don't take the plunge and get married - weddings are a much nicer way to see everyone than funerals, aren't they?

As we were there for a couple of days we rang OH's old school friend to see if he was actually on the island while we were there.  He is part of the filming team for loads of motor-sport events which means we usually don't get to see him as he's off filming in some far flung corner of the world or other.  We were lucky this time, he'd just come back from filming the Grand Prix in Mexico, and was heading off yesterday (Monday) for the next one in Brazil.  It sounds an exciting life, exhausting.
It was just so good to catch up with him at last - and finally get to see the wonderful barn conversion he and his missus have been working on for the past few years.  They have a view of the sea. and there's a bit of an old Victorian folly attached to the house - seriously cool!

I'll stop waffling now and get back to the crafting - this time another card for The Sketch File's November LO

Info

Ruby Red Glitter card for the lower rectangle and the narrow strip

Overlaid piece is cut in the same Smooth White as the card blank

Baubles in a mixture of different gold card pieces, with a couple of snowflake accents in the red glitter card

Gold Twine for the strings and the bows

Dies:

Joy - Memory Box

Baubles - Memory Box, Spellbinders

Snowflakes - from a plate by Cheery Lynn

The Sketch:

The Sketch File - November LO

That's it for this time, save to say it would be great to see you joining in with us and using the sketch this month

Thank you for looking

Rich November

Hello
Thank you for coming to visit me today, I hope you like what you find!

Today I'm sharing the card I made for the latest challenge from The Daring Cardmakers, and as it's the first Friday of the month it's an Elemental Inspiration Picture challenge.
All you have to do is select three or more elements from our fabulous photograph and use them when you make your own card.

Here is this month's picture

Rather than go for the Christmas theme in the picture, I made a birthday card, but I couldn't resist using the wonderful, rich colours as one of my elements, along with the hint of a gold frame, some ribbons and bows, the tassels and the wispy bits at the top of the tree

The  stamped, heat embossed, inky panel nside the frame is something I made ages ago for another challenge, but I can't actually remember much more than that!  I was actually trying to tidy my desk a bit when I made this ion Wednesday and came across it again - the perfect colours for the photo, so I had to use it!
 

Info

Card base is Centura Pearl Hint of Gold

Fine ribbed gold card

Bazzill card in Black and Deep Turquoise

Tissue and crepe paper, Printed gold Tissue paper for tassels, 

Twine, Purple organza ribbon

Turquoise flower made using petals cut with a large punch

Pink flower made using various fabric petals and some stamens dipped in gold glitter gel

Purple flower came in the October Craft Box

Frame apertures cut using various square die sets 

I loved making this card, I adore the colours and it was especially gratifying to actually use something that had been sitting on my desk for so long!

It would be just the bees knees if you'd pop over to see the rest of the DT makes this time - and even better if you'd join in with us, we'd love to have you play with us!

Well, I've taken another photo of my tree.  Poor thing has pretty much lost all its leaves now, there's a huge pile on the ground which make a great noise when people walk along the path.  Thanks to the tree just behind it though here's still lots of colour when I look out through the window

Thank you for visiting, have a great weekend

November New Sketch

Hello!
We've had some rather foggy mornings over the last few days, though yesterday the sun burned through the fog and it turned out quite pleasant,  Today though November has arrived and brought one of those days where it starts foggy damp and grey and stays that way all day. ho hum!

At the minute I've got a head cold and the headaches, sniffles and low concentration levels make it hard to settle to anything much - well, it's as good an excuse as any for wafting from one thing to another and not really doing anything!
Anyway I did manage to do one good thing at the weekend - I did a bit of Etsy shopping.  I was looking for nice digi download paper sets that would kick-start my Christmas cardmaking as I've done pretty much nothing so far!

I did a bit of printing yesterday morning and in the afternoon sat down and made some cards - now 5 cards may not sound a lot to you, but it's a big deal for me!

I used the new November Sketch File LO along with my lovely new papers, resized and printed onto some White Bazzill to give some texture and dimension

Info

Digital Paper collections "Loving Christmas" and "Loving Christmas Again" 

 by KHDigi, from Etsy

Sentiment is also a digital image - from the now defunct Pink Petticoat. 

 I filled in the background with a paler shade of one of colours from the paper designs then resized to the exact size I needed

Extras; Gold card, Red glitter card, Gold twine

Die cutting:  Star stack (Taylored Expressions)

Here's the sketch, as you can see I twisted it round for my project

November 2016  Sketch File LO

I think this one worked pretty well, which is a surprise  - I usually hate the first Cword cards I make and it takes a while to get into the groove! 
This is the sort of card I like to make when there's a lot to be made for sending out, a fairly simple design which is easy to put together but has plenty of room to tweak a bit with different papers, die-cuts etc. 
Sadly,  I've never got the hang of making a huge batch of cards that are all the same!

Rightio, I have a birthday card for my cousin to finish off and it needs to go in the post tomorrow, so I'd best get to it, eh?

Enjoy the rest of the day, thank you so much for visiting