Tagged! (Countdown to Christmas 7)

 

hello!

This time next week it'll be Christmas Day - you really wanted to hear that, didn't you?  In all honesty, Christmas Day won't be much different for us as we usually spend it, just the two of us on our own at home.  But we do see various members of our family 'around' the time - not this year though,  there'll be doorstep present deliveries where we can, and the rest have been despatched to various corners of the country.by courier or post. 

However much we'd like to see them now, we'd rather see them get safely through this pandemic and then we'll have so much more to celebrate when we do get together again.  So we'll all stick to phone calls and internet 'meets' and show how much we care by staying away from each other.

If only everyone would behave the same way.

After that bit of ranty waffle its time for the last
Daring Cardmakers challenge of the year.

Countdown to Christmas Week 7 is

 Tags, Toppers and Labels

Here's your chance to share the tags or other kind of gift labels you've made to adorn your presents.  Whether simple and stylish or intricate and detailed we would really love to see them.

You cans see what the DT made, and share your own creations with us Here.

We're off now for our annual break, but we'll be back on January 9th 2021.  This challenge and the InLinkz gadget will stay open till then

We wish you all a Very Happy and Peaceful Christmastime

Tags are definitely NOT my favourite thing to make!But they are rather necessary at Christmas or it would be a free-foe-all when it came to knowing which gift was for whom!  So, over the last few years I've developed  a 'bung things on' attitude to tags and adding the recipients name as part of the 'assemblage'
 I also find writing messages on them really tedious, so my own way around is to make something that combines a name tag and decoration, then assume everyone will realise the gift is from us because no-one else does them that way 😆😆

Here are a couple of the tag-toppers I've made this year. 

The base card is a lovely pearlised copper, I've used some papers from a digital download and lots of die cuts with various card types.  For the tiny tags I started by adding the names in a list in Paint Shop Pro, choosing a font and size and printing them out with enough gaps between to them cut into tags.printing the names. To complete, I added some thread for the tags and a few little gold gems

 

  Apologies for the next two photos - the presents are a bit big to fit in my photo  light-box so had to do without.

 Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, Happy Christmas, and please Stay Safe

  

Oh Deer!

hello!

I hope your week has gone well and you're feeling on top of this Christmas malarky.  If only, eh?

No time for waffling, you'll be happy to hear - straight on to my
Daring Cardmakers project for this week

Countdown to Christmas Week 6 is

 Animal Antics at Christmas

Make anything you'd like as long as it features
a creature or two!
Reindeer, penguins, polar bears, festive robins, puppies or kittens
Show them on your crafty projects this week and then share
them all with us by leaving your link Here

My original idea to have a whole row of reindeer with their names just wouldn't fit on the card size I wanted to use, so I simplified my design and ended up making three cards instead of one,  Well, I'd spent ages cutting all those little reindeer 'bits' already

 

Info

The first two cards have 3 reindeer each, two with black noses and Rudolf has a glittery red nose of course.

The dies are ancient QuicKutz ones that tend to make an appearance each Christmas because they are so cute and easy to use.  I have several other deer dies, but for some reason I struggle to use them.

I made some new Black and White sentiments on the pc and added some red and white baker's twine for some extra detail

Now I only had one reindeer left, and I was too lazy to cut more so I delved into my little box of unused die cuts and found a few that would work together to make an 'assemblage' 

There's a simple black tree (old Cuttlebug die). some red and gold snowflakes and stars and a few red gems all arranged on a gold glitter card Scribble Circle (Tonic Studios)/ I added rhw same kind of sentiment and twine elements to make it part of the set of three.

That's it for this time, I hope you like them it would be great to hear from you.  I'd be really interested to know how you get on with deer dies - I keep buying them but never feel really happy with what I make with them.  Yes, I know that's bonkers! 

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

  

December Inspiration (Countdown to Christmas 5)

 

Hi there

I'm late with my post this week.   

We had a few days away at our flat in Southwold, we let it thorough a Holiday Cottage company, but if there's no bookings its lovely to get away, have a change of scene, do a few upkeep jobs, deliver supplies for our housekeeper etc.  This year has been challenging!

Anyway.... I did manage to get my DCM project completed and photographed ahead of Friday, I just didn't get rounf to blogging it so here it is now.

Countdown to Christmas Week 5 for the Daring Cardmakers is also the first Friday of the month, so its

  December's Elemental Inspiration Challenge

This week is the first Friday of December - Christmas is definitely on the way!
We're making cards again this time

Remember, you just need to pick a minimum 3 elements from the picture to use when making your card - there are masses of choices on this one! 

The colour palette counts as one element, and other ideas you could use are Squares, Layout, Advent, Grid, Numbers, all the little pictorials...

We are looking forward to seeing your creations, but do check out the blog for some from the team to get you in the mood!

I've used some of the colours, the squares and some of the little pictures to make this card, and I quite like how its turned out (for once!)

Info

I started by using Washi tape to create the 3-squares grid and then added some inky colours from the picture.  I didn't measure the squares, just went by eye, so they a little random.

I cut the scribble squares and other shapes in various types of silver card and added some red glitter card 'berries' for another colour-pop

The sentiment is pc generated and adhered over some lengths of silver thread.

A few tiny silver stars were added to give a bit of 'out of the frame' interest

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

 

Gone Crackers

 

 I hope you've had a good week.  
I'm afraid that once again its been one of those weeks of many projects started but very few getting completed.  I really need to pull my finger out and get on with my crafty to-do list,  At least the Christmas shopping is well on its way - when the crafty muse fails to show up, there's always retail therapy - even if is for things for other people!

Anyway.... I did manage to get my DCM project completed and photographed ahead of Friday morning for a change so that was good.  The fact that its now Saturday and I've just started writing my blog post, we won't mention, eh?!

Countdown to Christmas Week 4 for the Daring Cardmakers has us moving right away from cards for our projects

This time we're not making cards at all!

Boxes and Bags

A handmade box or bag can make even the
smallest gift special and they are fun to make.
We'd love to see what you can make
to present a gift in

 

I made a cracker, using an old DoCrafts Xcut die which I've had for years and really love. Sometimes, if I want to put something inside which is too long for the central portion of the cracker, I cut the whole thing in half and add an extra length of card between the cut ends - its easy to disguise the alteration, or just use a toning or contrasting strip and it looks like a design element!

This one doesn't have any alteration though

 

Info  

The paper design is from a digi set called Cute Christmas II by MaishopDigitalArt 

The die does all the hard work, so all you have to do is roll the card a little to give it some shape, pop the tabs into the slits and squish the ends in at the cleverly cut 'hinges' (sorry, I'm sure there's a proper word but I can't think what it is!)

To decorate I tied the gold and turquoise ribbons to rubber bands, which I added to those 'hingey' places to keep it all in shape. 

Next I printed off a couple of A5 pieces of 2 more of the paper set designs. From the striped one I made a band to go around the middle of the cracker and used an EK Success border punch along each edge, then added a narrow strip of the dotty paper on top.  Once this was secured, I made the rosette (Spellbinders) from more of the dotty paper and added a couple of glittery die-cut snowflakes on top.

To finish I glued a gold gem to the centre of the snowflake

The rubber band means they are easy enough to fill, and the cracker is big enough for a couple of chocolates or a mini shower gel type bottle. They would make great place settings for your table.  To give a small sized gift in, you might want to add that extra strip to the centre. I'd say the tube is about 4-5cms in diameter

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

 

All Dressed Up (Countdown to Christmas 3)

 

 I hope you've had a good week.  
Its been a week of many crafty 'starts', but few projects reaching the 

finishing line for me!

Countdown to Christmas Week 3 for the Daring Cardmakers is a Card Challenge:

This week please share your cards on a theme of
All Dressed Up
We'd like to see your Christmas Jumpers, or Mittens, boots, hat or scarf.... or if you'll be somewhere warm this Christmastime maybe you'll be thinking Christmas T-shirts, flip-flops and beachwear instead - its up to you

 

 
Info

I used a stencil and a few shades of blue embellishing Mousse, plus silver (Tonic Studios) to make the off-the-edge circle, then a Memory Box Snowy skies stencil and Stamperia Silver Glitter paste over the top

The snow family are made using 3 x punches and white glitter card/

The scarves and the top hat are cut using a very very old QuicKutz die. the other hats are hand cut.  

The various sizes of circles are holly or mistletoe berry dies and the moustache is made using waste from a scallop edging punch!

I added some shiny red thread, a pc generated sentiment and some punched red glitter stars to finish

   

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

 

 

 

Gorgeous Gifts - A Gift Card Holder

 

Hello

Hope all is well in your corner of the world!

The news that a Covid19 vaccine might finally be within touching distance at last gives us all some hope for feeling more confident about the future

 and a 'normal'  life.

I'm not sure how soon it'll be before I'm happy to sit in a busy restaurant or get on an aeroplane for a 'Greek-fix', though - I'm rather risk-averse!

Week 2 of the Daring Cardmakers Countdown to Christmas series is an 'Anything Crafty' Challenge with a Gifts theme

Gorgeous Gifts

It simply means that we'd love to see anything on a theme of Gifts this week.
So it could be a card featuring parcels all wrapped up, a gift you've made for a friend, or how about a card and gift combined? This could be a bookmark, gift card or a little chocolatey treat as an added extra on your card.

 I made a Gift Card Holder, as I often buy those kind for things for our various nephews and nieces and its so much nicer to put them in something other than an envelope

Info

I cut the card base from double sided gold card, then used some fabulous digital papers from MayTreeDesignStore which I resized and printed onto white Bazzill card.  I love the versatility of Digital papers!

I used one design for the front and back of the card. These were adhered in place with one end of my pieces of ribbon stuck between the layers.

To decorate I made a parcel shape from some spare digi paper and topped it with a glitter card 'lid' before gluing it onto a recycled clothing tag.

The tag was adhered to the card, and embellished with another piece of ribbon and some tiny stars cut from the gold and blue papers. The letters were cut from a shinier gold card using an alphabet die set 

For the inside of the card I used 2 of the paper designs. Two equal pieces to got on the left and right, and a design with wording on to make the holder section. The gift card tucks inside the folded holder piece

I'll probably add a panel to the inside for writing my message inside

 

   

These are quite easy to make, especially if you use digital paper as you aren't constrained by how much of a design you've got left ;) and if it all goes wrong, you can just print some more!

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

 

 

 

DCM Countdown to Christmas wk1: November Inspiration

 

Hello

I do hope you are keeping safe and well and getting to grips with the Lockdown 2. To be honest,  I don’t hold out much hope that all those selfish people who’ve ignored all the advice and carried on socialising in large groups because they don’t give a toss about anyone but themselves will behave any differently. At least a lockdown means that those of us who are trying to keep those we care about safe can do so. 

This week on the  Daring Cardmakers  we're kicking off our Countdown to Christmas series and over the next few weeks we hope to inspire you to get crafty with a variety of projects and themes.

Some will be cards,Some other papercraft projects, and some will be for absolutely anything you want to make and share.
Although the themes will be Christmassy, that doesn't mean you can't 'think outside the box' and make non-Christmas projects too!

We'll stick to cards this week, and as usual our first challenge of the month is our
 Elemental Inspiration Challenge.  
 For November we're kicking off our Countdown to Christmas with a mood-board stuffed with loads of ideas for you to choose from.
 Remember, you just need to pick a minimum 3 elements from the picture to use when making your card, The colour palette counts as one element

 

 From the picture I chose the colours, the squares and the tree and made this card

 

Info

Starting with a white card blank, I used washi tape to mask off the borders and filled the centre area with a turquoise shade of Tonic Studio’s Embellishment Mousse. Next I used a stencil to add gold stars over one corner. 

The overlapping squares we’re cut in different types of gold card using two sizes of Scribbled Squares dies - also Tonic Studios. 
The trees are all unbranded dies that I saw on Amazon and couldn’t resist as they looked so cute. I cut them in various card types in gold, white and turquoise 

 

 

I added a few punched gold stars and tiny red gems to the trees, then a pc generated sentiment with a gold thread faux loopy bow

   

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

 

 

 

Fireworks!

    Hello....

What? Two posts in one week? I'll keep this one short, I promise!

So. just a quick post for this week's Daring Cardmakers project. 

Jenny is in the Challenge Setter's Chair for the very first time this week and once again, we have a topical challenge for everyone  to have some fun with!

"I'm so happy to be setting your challenge this week for the first time! 

Next week in the UK it's Guy Fawkes day or Bonfire Night on the 5th of November so in honour of this I would love to see your

 Fireworks 

themed projects this time round.

  In case you haven't heard of Guy Fawkes, he was part of the Gunpowder plot in 1605 which attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament .  The plot failed as someone warned the government and they caught them in the act and executed them for their crimes.  Traditionally we would celebrate by going to a firework display where we would burn a "guy" on a bonfire.  For those outwith the UK don't panic, nobody is actually harmed, it's just a fake!  When I was a kid we used to get an old shirt and pair of trousers and tie the ankles and wrists with string before stuffing him with scrunched up newspapers and adding a balloon head.  So every year we remember poor Guy and his friends and their failed plot to bring down the government!"

 Click here to see this week's design team inspiration 

 

 It's ages since I made a pyramid (aka Tepee)card, but I do remember there being a pyramid shaped firework in the firework selection boxes we had when we were small, so I thought I could probably alter one of those card folds to fit in with the theme.  It does fold relatively flat so could go in a DL envelope

Info

 

My Pyramid Card and printing Tutorial is Here

Following the tutorial, I printed out 3 pieces of star design digital paper (from an old Funky Hand collection) and glued the pieces together as shown on the link.

Once I'd put the pyramid together, I cut off the 'legs' you get when you make this card shape, to leave just the triangular pyramid. 

So that you can fold the pyramid into an envelope you need to fold two edges together and make a crease down the entre of one 'face' of the pyramid, its easier to do this before you start decorating!

I cut a small piece off the tip so that I could glue the 'fountains' of 

 paper and wire inside. 

These were made bu fringing silver paper and twirling it tightly around the ends of the lengths of wire before poking through and gluing it into the hole at the top of the pyramid.  

I added silver and red glitter stars along the pieces of wire. 

The words were created on the pc and printed out onto card before 

adding to the card front.

 The phot below shows the card when its folded down for mailing.  You might find a paper-clip helps to hold it flatter

We'd love to see your firework inspired creations, so please join in and share them with us!

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

Where the Heart Is

 

Hello!

I hope your week is going well, things are better here now because our heating is fixed at last! It seems that several things went wrong at around the same time, not just the boiler but the thermostat and other electrical things. We ended up getting the boiler fixed and then replacing everything else with a 'Hive'.  Once Hubby read that you could self-install the Hive, there was no way he'd miss out on that new challenge so Saturday saw him drawing wiring plans and reading up or wathcing videos on how to do it and by Saturday afternoon we were all set up again and the frequent trips into the loft to manually turn the heating on andoff were over.

He checked on his phone when he'd finished and found he'd done 22
'flights of stairs' while doing the job - but worth the effort as it cost a lot less than the £300+ that the electrician quoted

When the Lockdown first happened the people on our street made a big effort to connect with each other and its continued ever since, with regular Sunday chats in the street. So we were really sad when some of our lovely Neighbours moved to a new house.  We hoped to see them at our Sunday chats once they'd settled in, but the Rule of Six has made it more difficult for everyone to get together, even with our careful social distancing.

Anyway, I made this card to wish them well in their new home:

Info

White card blank stencilled with aqua inks.  I used the stripey stencil horizontally, then turned it vertically to get the criss-cross pattern

Die cut letters cut once in aqua, and 4 times in red, then glued together in stacks

Tonic Studios Scribbled Circles were die cut in silver, red hearts from various sets were added, then the little house matted on top.  I added some foil elements behid the windows and fanlight, and used an inked piece of card to make the door.

The sentiment was printed from the pc

 That's all for today, thank you so much for visiting, I hope you'll leave a comment, ots always lovely to know you're not talking to yourself

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe