Giving Thanks

Hello there

Christmas preparations are well under way.  Well,  the tree is up anyway.  We still have some gift-wrapping to do, but I think that the presents are all bought, at least!  The thought of battling the crowds out on the high street doesn't appeal one bit - I used to love shopping, and at least one Saturday a month would see me exploring the Oxford Street stores with relish!  I think I may have "shopped myself out" though 😀😀, and now I give thanks for internet shopping from the comfort of my lovely Aeron chair!

Giving Thanks is the theme of the last Daring Cardmakers challenge of 2016.  We'll be back with our next challenge on January 6th, so have left the InLinkz gadget open for sharing your creations till then.  We all have something to say Thank You for, so please join in!

It seems only right that we finish the year with cards that say
 Thank You 

For our part we'd like to say Thank You to all who've popped by over the year, joined in with our challenges and left some lovely comments too.
With luck, we'll probably all have a Thank You card or two to make, so here's your chance to get ahead and have one or two at the ready

It's rather nice to step away from all the Christmas themed stuff and use different colours and some neglected dies or images.

I went for pinky-peach shades and a lovely poppy die from Joanna Sheen

 Info

Card blank is linen-textured and 'not quite' white (PDA Woodward)

2 shades Bazzill card

Lace and narrow ribbon

Pearls and gems

Dies:

Poppy (Joanna Sheen Signature Dies)

'Thank You' (Creative Dies; CraftStashUK)

Scalloped and plain rectangles (Tonic Nested set) 

Just love a bit of pretty lace, and its just ages since I used some.  I need to fix that little oversight, I think!

Just before I go and get some lunch, I thought I'd share the envelope I made using part of a sheet of 12x12 paper from a couple of years back.  I could have used my envelope punch board, but I couldn't be bothered to clear enough space on the desk to use it!

Voucher and Gift Card presents can look a bit dull, even in a pretty envelope, so I've gone a bit 'overboard' with the tag.

  Info

Poinsettia layers are cut using my own Silhouette template

Pine sprigs are die cut (2x Joanna Sheen Signature Dies)

various star and Snowflake dies and punches

Real mini pine-cone

That's it, hope you like what I've been making - it would be great to hear from you
Have a great weekend

 

2x December Sketch Cards

Hello

Quick post from me today - I've got a long to-do list and not many ticks showing!

I didn't get round to sharing my first card for the new December Sketch File LO that launched last week, so I've two cards to show today, both using the same LO
The first is a Christmas card using a gorgeous Memory Box border die and a lovely Stocking die which is also from Memory Box.  The Sentiment is one of those I've used a lot this year, and is cut out with a Scalloped Rectangle die (Tonic)

This is the sketch

My second card is the one I've added to the Sketch File Blog this week and this time I've used the two overlapping rectangles as the feature element and just added a die cut sentiment 

The background is stencilled in shades of blue and the odd bit of black
The fancy border is made with an EK Success punch,
HAPPY is a Memory Box die, cut and layered 4 times
Birthday is from Creative Dies

That's it, the same sketch two different ways!
You can see more ideas on The Sketch File Blog, and of course we'd love to see what you could make with the sketch too

Thanks you for visiting, hope to see you again soon .)

Beaded Bauble

Morning All!

Thanks for dropping by today.  
How are your Christmas preparations going?  I think this weekend might be the one for putting our tree up - I wonder how many of you have already done that.....?
It's definitely getting closer - I know that because last night Father Christmas drove his sleigh along our road - I was so pleased as I thought we'd probably missed his pre-Christmas drive-past as we'd been to Cambridge for a mooch around the shops the evening before.  It would be soooo typical if he'd come by here on the one evening we were out!
Anyway, as I think I've enough Christmas cards  in the box (could be a case of famous last words....) it was a treat to make something different, still Christmas themed, but not a card.  
This was for the last of the Daring Cardmakers' Step Away from the Cards challenges - this time called "Decorate It!" and a bit of an "anything goes", really

 "Step Away From the Cards no. 3" is all about making those
 Little Extras.

~ ~ ~ ~   Decorate It!   ~ ~ ~ ~

You could make something to decorate your home; a table decoration, a banner or some Bunting, a Christmas Cracker or similar, maybe something to hang on the tree or how about a topper to make a gift look extra special and festive. 
Home décor, or Festive Fun Extra, its entirely up to you - and remember, it doesn't even have to be Christmas-themed. 

I made a bauble using circles of paper


For this bauble I used some lovely Kaisercraft paper.  You need around 18 circles (mine are 12cm diameter) to make one of these, however there are at least 24 in this one!  My paper was a bit too thick - you really need to use text-weight paper, but I didn't have enough of anything double-sided and pretty enough to use.  

When I started to open up the "holes" it started to tear, so I added in more circles so that the "stretch" between the various sections was smaller.

I raided my collection of gorgeous glass beads to find some beauties to use on the tail, and then added a paper tassel to finish it off.  There's a seam binding  triple bow at the top of the paper ball and a loop for hanging the bauble up.

That's it for this time, but please do check out the {BLOG} to see what the team made this time - we don't just make fantastic cards, you know!

Thank you so much for visiting - please leave a message before you go, I'd love to hear what you think

 

Pepperoni Pizza

Hello
We have another frost morning here and even though its bright and sunny the frost isn't really thawing.  These sort of days are so pretty, aren't they? We were in need of a change of scene yesterday (and a break from writing cards and wrapping presents) so decided to head out for a coffee to one of the garden centres a few miles away.  We took a circuitous route along country roads and through some of the pretty villages and even stopped to take a few photos as everywhere was looking lovely and Autumnal.  
Mind you, while we were expecting the garden centre to be busy (it always is - even when its not Christmas) we weren't ready for them to need an overflow car park and parking attendants on duty to direct you to where the spaces were.  Never seen that before!

As you can see I'm not sharing anything Christmas-related today.  Instead I have the card I made for my cousin.  His birthday was at the start of November but it was a bit chaotic back then and I forgot to blog it.  This is my birthday-averse cousin, who's favourite way to spend his birthday is to take the whole week off work,  do as little as possible, see as few people as possible and avoid all mention of the B word if he can.  Obviously he doesn't entirely get away with it as we still send card and give presents whether he likes it or not!
He's quite partial to a pizza, so when all other inspiration fails.....

 Info

Base card cut from a folded piece of black card, using a large circle die (Xcut), and positioning the die to leave about 7cms for the hinge. 

Then a second (full) circle is cut and glued over the front of the folded card so that on the front there's a full circular "plate"

To make the pizza I found a suitable image and resized to fit, printed it out onto card and cut it out.  I used the Clone Brush tool on Paint Shop Pro to copy a few extra pieces of 'pepperoni' and another full size copy of the pizza picture and printed those out too

I cut the original pizza picture into slices and arranged them on the 'plate' and made a little support thingummy (like you get in a takeaway) from white card.

I used the extra print-outs to cut extra pepperoni slices from and glued them over the first copy - some are stuck directly to the base, some are raised on bits of cereal packet chipboard.  To make my pizza look as realistic as possible I added a coat of Glossy Accents to some of the slices.

As it's a circular card, I needed to check that it was weighted properly so that it would actually stand up.  To do this you need to keep checking, and adding extra bits of pepperoni as necessary!

Actually, I could just eat a slice of pizza right now.... Well it is lunch time......hmmm .... if only I had something more interesting than toast to look forward to.

Oh well!

That's it for this time, thank you so much for popping by - I hope you'll leave a comment before you go.

See you soon

It's Elemental

Hello!

It's the time of the year when I start to feel swamped by cardboard boxes!  Do you get that too?  I've now got most of the presents I need, but haven't really starred on wrapping them - so there are boxes with presents in, boxes with wrapping paper in, boxes with trimmings in, large empty boxes I've kept because we need to send off a parcel or two and I don't know what size boxes I need for that.  A serious sort out is what is needed!
Fortunately, I think I can see a time now when the Christmas card making stuff can be tidied up - ok, so there are still piles of stuff on my desk and a workspace just about big enough for a card....and there's the overspill on the floor too, but I'm getting there!  I hope you are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel too!

It was lovely actually to spend a bit of time away from making my regular sort of Christmas Cards and make something a bit fussier and more involved for this week's Daring Cardmakers Challenge.  It's the last Elemental Inspiration challenges of the year, and this month's picture is a gorgeous mood-board style concoction.  
Using the picture for inspiration I chose the colour palette of silvery greys white and black, the lovely Wreath, Snowflakes and some Pine-cones

Info

Black card Blank, Smooth White card for upper panel and die cutting

Silver ribbon and twine

Scraps of different kinds silver and white card

Black, white and silver glitter card

Various pearls and gems 

Tiny pine-cones were sprayed with Spray and Sparkle (iridescent)

Pink Petticoat digi sentiment printed onto the white card panel. 

Dies and Punches:

White panel - largest scalloped rectangle

 (Tonic nested set of plain and scalloped rectangles)

Snowflake Wreath (Memory Box)

Pine Sprigs x2 (Joanna Sheen) 

Leafy Sprig (Spellbinders)

"Berries" from Holly and Mistletoe die sets (Crafter's Companion)

Tiny stars - Starry Border (Joanna Sheen) and a Starry edger punch by Tonic

I had such a lovely time building this one, and I love the way it turned out.  I may just get around to doping a few similar - if flatter versions.  Using Black white and silver was part of the joy - a bit of an antidote to all the stronger Christmas colours maybe

Anyway, that's all for today, I hope you like this card and will stay a moment to write a comment.
Thank you for visiting