Twisted Treat Box - December Elemental Challenge

 

    Hello!

We had our Covid booster jabs this week and have both felt a bit grotty for a few days since.  Much better now, but I really fell behind with things on my to-do list, so I'm going to make this really short in an effort to get some more ticks on that list!

This week's  Daring Cardmakers challenge

 

"Have Yourself a Crafty Little Christmas"

 

wk 5: December Elemental Challenge

 

Our December mood board is all about the excitement of getting ready for Christmas.  The house needs decorating and the gifts need wrapping so there's holly and stars, wrapping paper and twine, baubles and candy canes... and loads more goodies to choose from. 

 Just pick any 3 elements or more from from the picture below (the colour palette counts as one) to use when you make your project

Remember it doesn't have to be Christmas themed, and it can be a card or anything else you're inspired to get crafty and make!

See what the rest of our clever team made HERE 

 

From the mood-board I chose the colour theme, the printed page, Twine, Greenery and a few other bits and pieces!  I made a little treat box and tiny gift card to attach to it.

 

 

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kraft card to make the box

White card to print with 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' wording

Various die cut leaves and boughs in green and gold

Due cut stars and snowflakes in white card, plus a few gold stars and red dots

The box is held closed with red satin ribbon and the gift card attached with red and white Bakers' Twine

These treat boxes are so incredibly east to make - even though they look a bit complicated: just make a tube (like a kitchen roll inner)

Squeeze the gap at one end together and glue - hold together with clips while it dries. 

 Squeeze the open end together, but in the opposite direction so you get a kind of triangular shape

Don't glue this end, but pinch firmly and add clips as before until you're ready to fill it with goodies.

Punch holes through both layers of the open end so you can add ribbon and tie it closed

 Great for hanging on the tree, using as decorations, adding to a place setting at the table...  Not that I ever get around to doing any of those things, of course!

 Thank you so much for coming by, please don't go without leaving a little message, I do love to hear from you.  

Or maybe I really am just talking to myself

 

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe,

 

Easel card in Silver, Aqua & a dash of red

  

                                                        Hello!

I've spent a lot of this week plodding on making my Christmas cards.  I wouldn't say it going brilliantly, but the pile has been growing and when it began to teeter I moved it into a box.  It was then that I counted them and found that I was less than halfway there.  Ho hum.

On the positive side, I have updated my '2020 Gifting' list yo one for 2021 and actually ordered up a few things, so soon I'll be able to fill the spaces next to the names on the list!

I like to use the Daring Cardmakers Christmas challenges to get a few of the special cards done and this week's was perfect for that.

 

"Have Yourself a Crafty Little Christmas"

 

wk 3: Silver, Aqua & a Dash

We've a colour theme this time!  

Use Silver and Aqua/turquoise shades and add a pop of any other colour you fancy

Remember it doesn't have to be Christmas themed, and it can be a card or anything else you're inspired to get crafty and make!

See what the rest of our clever team made HERE 

 

 

 I was tempted by this snowflake easel card die set by Card-making Magic and as there were snowflake dies  in the set to feed my addiction I didn't resist the urge to buy it! To be honest, easel cards aren't so difficult to make, but this one is a shape that would have taxed my limited maths skills to make myself, not to mention some tricky cutting to get the snowflake shaped 'easel', it wasn't a hard sell!

I chose red to use as my extra colour pop.

 

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White card to make the base card and for other layers and details. For the carious snowflakes and details I used white Bazzill Bling, different shades and finishes of turquoise and silver cardstock, including glitter card, plus a few scraps of shiny and glittered red card.

Not all the snowflakes are in this dies set, I used several dies from my collection to fill out my design. The 2 rectangular shapes and the sentiment are in the set though, which is handy.

To finish the card I added a few red gems

The lovely thing about an easel card is it folds relatively flat to send in an envelope.

Thank you so much for coming by, please don't go without leaving a little message, I do love to hear from you.  

Or maybe I really am just talking to myself

 

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe,

 

 

Jolly Holly-Days!

 

   Hello!

How are you?  If you are a cardmaker, how is your Christmas card stack coming along?  In my case its all going rather slowly and I've yet to buy a single Christmas present - so not good!

For the Daring Cardmakers

 

"Have Yourself a Crafty Little Christmas"

 

Challenge this week, our theme is

Jolly Holly-Days!

We'd simply like to see some holly or other Winter greenery on your 

projects this time
We'd love you to share anything you make so, not just cards but boxes, bags, tags, labels and decorations.  Whatever you make we want to see!

 And of course, remember, your makes don't even have to be Christmassy!

 Info

I resized and printed off some lovely digi papers onto white Bazzill card and made a little pillow box using an Xcut die that I've had for ages and comes out most years! For the tag I used another of the designs resized smaller so the words would fit onto the tag.

Using some green card I cut a load of holly leaves and also a bought of much smaller leaves.  These were all glittered with Glamour Dust and I think I overdid it.  oops! The berries were cut from different kinds of red card using a small circle punch.

To finish I added a gold thread bow and used more of the tiny holly leaves to decorate the tag

Thank you so much for coming by, please don't go without leaving a little message, I do love to hear from you.  

Or maybe I really am just talking to myself

 

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe,

 

November Elemental Challenge

 

   Hello!

It doesn't seem five minutes since I was moaning about the cold and whinging about having the 'January Blues' and here we are back to long dark nights and chilly weather..  Actually, I don't mind the cold so much, you can always light the fire or put another layer of clothes on - and there are all those cute socks and fluffy slippers to make you smile and keep your toes toasty.  Its that bit when the clocks go back and suddenly its dark before 5pm and the nights are interminably long - and you know you won't be cooking dinner in natural light again till sometime around March.

This week's  Daring Cardmakers challenge

As it's the first Friday of a whole new month this week its time for the

 

November Elemental Challenge

 

Our November mood board is full of textures and warm colours just right to bring a cosy glow to your craft projects this week

As usual, you simply need to pick any 3 elements or more from the picture below (the colour palette counts as one) to use when you make your card

Check out the ideas from our wonderful design team HERE

This week also sees the start of

"Have Yourself a Crafty Little Christmas"

From now till the big day arrives, we invite you to share anything you make on the themes we give - so, not just cards but boxes, bags, tags, labels and decorations.  Whatever you make we want to see your creativity

And of course, your makes don't even have to be Christmassy - we'd love you to use our themes in whatever way you like 

 

From the mood-board I chose the rectangle shapes, the trees and the greenery when I made my card

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Starting with a white square card and some Stamperia Glitter Paste I stencilled a background of stars and snowflakes using a Memory Box stencil.

I resized and printed off some lovely digi papers from Busy May Studios (via Etsy) onto white Bazzill card, then cut out the trees.  I also cut the trees using plain black card and glued the 2 layers together for some dimension.  I adhered three black rectangles onto the card and arranged my trees on top. 

The sentiment is one of my printed ones and works well I think as a small extra rectangle.  I added a silver thread loopy bow, die cut pine branch, a couple of tiny holly leaves, plus some red glitter card 'berries' and I was done.

  

Thank you so much for coming by, please don't go without leaving a little message, I do love to hear from you.  

Or maybe I really am just talking to myself

 

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe,

 

The call of the Wine...

 Hello!

Another catch-up post today, this time a wine themed card made for one of our lovely neighbours' special day.  You'll know if you read my blog regularly that our street has been just the best and most supportive place to have lived through the pandemic in. 

Any excuse for a street mingle has been grabbed with both hands and Anthony's 50th was no exception.

Anthiony is a great favourite - possibly because hardly a week goes by without him bringing fresh-from-the-kitchen treats out with him for our regular Sunday lunchtime street meet 🤣😋😋

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To start with I inked up some card with various wine coloured shades till ai got a nice depth and a bit of colour variation tp ise for the grapes.I repeated this using some green inks ready to cut the leaves and vines.

The die set is by Spellbinders it was quite dear, but I bought it using my discout when I was on the Spellbloggers team 😉.  What a good buy!  I've used it loads - there's a wine glass and a hunk of cheese in the set aswell. The 'straight' bottles are from a newset (might be Lawn Fawn), the numerals and small letters are Sizzix (I think)

I made up the various elements, adding extra grapes and leaves  to give some dimension, making labels from scraps of coloured card and touches of gold for the foiled bits on the wine bottles.  I did make a glass of wine too, but decided to leave that off as I couldn't work out where it would look best!

 

 

I glued a strip of black and white printed card down the side of the card (I love the contrast) then moved the various pieces around until I was happy to stick them down. To finish I added the gold numerals and made the name banner to go across the corner

 

  That's it for this time, Thank You so much for coming by, please don't go without leaving a little message as I do love to know what you think.

 

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe, 

 

Orange, Purple and Black with Stars

   Hello!

Have you had a good week? I hope so.

Finally, after taking just a couple of days to travel from Prague to the UK then sitting in a Customs shed in Dartford since the start of the month OH's new work tech (laptop, keyboard, screens, wires etc) was released and deli vered this week. In the meantime, as HM Customs don't give any info as to when or even if they will release goods, his new company arranged to have another laptop delivered from a UK supplier just so he could start to get on with stuff.  Don't ask me, its about processor speed and such like. 

Thank you sooo much to all those who voted FOR Brexit and have made life difficult in so many ways

Obviously everything arrived on the same day, the separate laptop arriving about an hour after the enormous box with the whole kit in it.

So that's about as exciting as its been around here this week

This week's  Daring Cardmakers challenge

It's Dawn here this time and as this weekend will be full of Ghoulies and Ghosties and Four-legged Beasties, I thought we could make 

Halloween Inspired

our starting point. So you could make a traditional kind of Halloween card, but it doesn't have to be ghosts and witches, instead, you could choose to use  Halloween colours (black, purple and orange) or Autumn things like pumpkins and apples, or creatures connected to the season such black cats, cute owls, or a starry sky.

 

Check out the ideas from our wonderful design team HERE

Not being a great fan of Halloween stuff I chose to go with Dawn's suggestion to use the colour scheme, plus the starry sky and add a card to my meagre pile of Christmas Cards.  I'm so behind with making them and you know what they say; Every Little Helps!...

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Starting with a white square card. I used washi tape to mask a rectangular shape, then filled it in with orange, purple and black inks/

After removing the tape I added stencilled stars using a Memory Box stencil and some silver glitter paste (Stamperia).  This time I stencilled out of the rectangle, so that some of the stars are on the white area of the card.

The row of tiny houses and the silver trees are die cuts. I added tiny bits of black and gold paper behind the doors and windows

To finish I added a white on black Christmas sentiment and a loopy bow topped with an punched star

 

Thank you so much for coming by, please don't go without leaving a little message, I do love to hear from you.  

Or maybe I really am just talking to myself

 

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe,

 

Commuting to Prague and Peppermint Fondant!

   Hello!

Our little 'between jobs' holiday is now over - as my OH has started his new job today.  Thanks to the amazing thing that is the Internet, he is working for a company in Prague, Czechia. However as it's a fully remote role his 'commute' is still a walk across the hall to the study.

This week's  Daring Cardmakers challenge

It's Svenja here and I would like to celebrate the sweeter sides of life with you: 

Candy Corn & Peppermint Fondant

In the US candy corn season is going pretty strong these days whereas here in Germany Peppermint Fondant is a traditional (all-year-round) sweet that usually comes in blocks of white and strong pink.
To celebrate these favourites, make a card using either a combination of white, yellow & orange or white & strong pink.
Extra (virtual) brownie points if it's sweets-themed.

 

No sweet cravings yet? Just LOOK at the mouth-watering examples the Design Team members have created!

 

Well I was a bit stuck for an idea for this one until I decided on using Svenja's colour-theme option.  I rarely use Hot Pink, but you know, I really enjoyed keeping to the clean pink and white colours of German Peppermint Fondant - though I did sneak a tiny bit of minty green in there too!

 

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White square card

Pink stripes are stencilled with Pink Flame Nuvo mousse

I created the design for the candles by changing the colours on an existing digital paper, resizing and printing out onto white Bazzill. The candles are made by rolling small strips of the paper tightly around a bamboo skewer. Once the shape is formed I aided wicks (twine) glued into the tubes to complete the candles.

I decided to make a 'faux' eclipse effect for the letters by  stencilling another piece of striped card then cutting the letters from that plus other plain card layers and sticking to the bas card - a bit of a cheat, but it worked really well!

I used one of my home made sentiment stickers, arranged the candles and added a glitter card flame to the first one, then finished it all off with a few punched pink stars

 

Thank you so much for coming by, please don't go without leaving a little message, I do love to hear from you.  

Or maybe I really am just talking to myself

 

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe,

 

Awesome Autumn

 

  Hello!

Just back from a few days on the Suffolk coast. Not a lot of sunshine around but we did stay dry, which in October is a bonus. I'd put together a box of blank cards, inks, a few dies and my mini die cutter, so even managed to fit in a bit of crafting. That, along with a change of scene and some sea air,  and the odd ice cream - it doesn't get much better.

 Amazingly, I actually got my card for this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge made before we went away - I meant to write my blog post while we were over there, but I didn't get that far, so I'm a bit later.  Oops!

  

Awesome Autumn

Shabneez says:
I love autumn and all the colours and textures associated with it so I’d love to see your creations to celebrate my favourite season with me!

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White square card

Spellbinders Christmas Wreath die cut from gold card

Thin card inked on both sides with various Autumnal shades The leaves are from another Spellbinders set which has Seasonal accents to add to their plain woody wreath die. I used the Christmas Wreath because its 'fuller' and has the more swirly bits that make the basic design more interesting.  After cutting the leaves I added them to the wreath shape, gluing some under the gold wreath and others on top - covering the more Christmassy holly and berry areas with more leaves.  I also cut a few pine branch shapes from green card, and some pine cones from brown card.

There was a biot too much 'white space' around the wreath so I added some gold twine and a bow to the top edge, and wove in a few pieces of the gold twine around the wreath

The large 'hello' sentiment is another of my home-made black and white printed ones

 

 

 

Thank you so much for coming by, please don't go without leaving a little message as I do love to hear from you.  

Or maybe I really am just talking to myself

 

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe,

 

 

October Elemental Challenge

  Hello!

This week has whizzed by and I'm not keeping up with it!

So straight on to this week's  Daring Cardmakers challenge!

  

October Elemental Challenge

This time our 'First Friday' Elemental Inspiration Challenge actually lands on the first day of October!
Ruth has chosen a mood board full of textures and colour to inspire your crafting this week.
For those of you that need a reminder you simply need to pick any 3 elements or more from the picture below (colours count as one) to use when you make your card

After some deliberation and changes of heart (I really wanted to use that stained glass window, but couldn't work out now other elements would fit in with it) I came up with this, using the zigzag pattern from the floor, a potted plant and the tiny tag and Bakers' Twine from the bunny picture.

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Starting with a White square card, I used a zigzag stencil, masked to leave just a roughly shaped rectangle and added inks in various aqua shade using a soft brush.

The flower pot is a cup die minus the handle, cut from a piece of inked card, then covered with Glossy Accents. Once dry I glued a piece of thickish cardboard to the back of the pot and glued it in place first adding the Black and White Twine. 

 The piece of card gives dimension and means there's enough room to poke some leaf shaped die cuts under the rim later. 

For the roses I inked up some thinner card with several peach and pinky shades, then cut the petal shapes with a smaller dies from a couple of different sets.  These were shaped and layered to make the roses.

Several different leaf shapes were die cut from a couple of shades of green card and the layout of leaves and rose was built up and glued in place.

Next I made the tiny tag and used a pin from my stash to attach it onto the pot/

To complete the card I cut a couple of tiny butterflies and added some mini jewels to decorate the plant pot

 Thank you so much for coming by, please don't go without leaving a little message as I do love to hear from you.  Otherwise I think I'm just talking to myself (again)

 

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe,