COSY

Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

This time I've a couple of cards made for the

Daring Cardmakers Challenge Blog, where we're onto week 2 of our annual seasonal craft-along challenges

Jolly Crafty Christmas Time 2023

This time it's a One Word Prompt:

COSY

What to make:  Anything Goes

Its not just cards and its not just Christmas!
This week share any crafty project - Tags, Bags, Cards, Décor, Boxes - whatever you want, Christmas themed or not
just be inspired by the word 'Cosy'

See what the team made HERE

Card 1

I thought I'd make a Christmas Jumper shaped card for a bit of fun.

I like Christmas and I like jumpers, but tbh I don't see the point in putting those two things together!  I mean, a jumper you can only wear a couple of times - then what?  Wear the same thing next year?  Buy another one?  Or maybe there's a whole 'Christmas Jumper Exchange' thing going on during the rest of the year...

Anyway, I made this card using some lovely digital paper with a Nordic kind of feel.  Actually once I'd got a template I liked it was an easy one and I may even make more - as its a hand cutting job I could make these even if OH has a day of non-stop online meetings and calls!

It was quite a fancy paper design so all I did was add plain red details  and then a whole lot of tiny gems for some sparkle.

Card 2

I thought it was about time I got onto the Gbome card bandwagon.

I actually bought this cute little guy in a sale a year or two ago but he looked fiddly so I didn't actually get him out of the bag. Indeed the pieces are tiny and some kind of backing die shape would be handy but its not as bad as I thought - and hopefully I won't lose any of the tiny elements.

I stencilled the background with inks and embellishing mousse then added some black and cut a few trees using black and gold card and the fabulous
 Sealed Christmas Tree Squiggle Etched Dies

 I cut the lower brances off this time as I wanted them a bit shorter

I just used card scraps for all the gnome parts and added some metallic thread to his lamp which has some glittery gold inside to light the way

I printed some 'warm wishes' sentiments on the pc to keep to the cosy theme

 

I'm planning to make a few more cards using this gnome - but we'll see how that goes!  If they prove too fiddlyto make a lot of then he could be the only one after all!

 

If you buy from Spellbinders and you're happy to help out a crafty friend with a stash addiction...

  HERE is my Affiliate Link to the Spellbinders store - you can use it to access the store any time, and I'd really appreciate it if you did, don't worry, it doesn't cost you anything!

There's a UK based shop now, so you can use the 'Visit Our UK Store' button at the top right of any page on the Spellbinders site  

 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

 

 

Christmas Box

 

Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

Over at the Daring Cardmakers Challenge Blog it's time for our annual seasonal craft-along!

Jolly Crafty Christmas Time 2023

For the challenges leading up to Christmas we'll give you either a picture or a word prompt each week and then the rest is up to you!
Anything Goes - you're free to make anything that takes your fancy that fits the theme.
Tags, Bags, Cards, Décor, boxes, and all kinds of trimmings - whatever you want to make, Christmas themed or not - it's up to you  

This time it's a picture prompt

November Elemental Challenge.  
What to make: Anything Goes - Christmas themed or not
Just choose a minimum of 3 elements from the moodboard above to use when you make your project.

In the bottom left square there are lots of gift boxes so I decided to use those as one of my elements and actually make a box - then use my other elements to decorate it - the main ones being the Black and White checked ribbon and the snowflakes

As usual, I got a bit carried away so there are other things that douns their way onto this one!

 The box was made from white card then covered with papers from a digital collection called Frozen Forest - using digi for projects like this means I can crop and resise the papers to work better, and print more copies if I need to

Once the box was made it was just a case of arranging a whole bunch of things onto the top!  I tied a double bow from the ribbon and die cut a few different snoflakes from glitter card - to make sure my chosen elements were in there.  Then I added some extras, mainly things that were already cut ready to put onto cards, including various snoflakes, holly, greenery and cuties from the:

   Sealed Squiggles and Sealed Christmas Tree Squiggle Etched Dies

I thought the box needed a bit of elevation, so added some feet to the ase, and to finish the decoration I added springs of holly to the corners and sone red bead berries  

 

 HERE is my Affiliate Link to the Spellbinders store - you can use it to access the store any time, and I'd really appreciate it if you did, don't worry, it doesn't cost you anything!

There's a UK based shop now, so you can use the 'Visit Our UK Store' button at the top right of any page on the Spellbinders site  

 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

 

 

 

a bit of bling

Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

 My card today is for Shabneez's Daring Cardmakers Challenge this week.   

It's Shabneez here and I love

 a bit of bling

 on a card so now’s your chance to get out those shimmer pastes, glitter glues, mirri card and those glorious gems!

 Click Here for some ideas from the design team

I'd planned to make something other than a Christmas card but being deep into making those, I'm struggling to make anything else right now.  Even though I have a few birthdays coming in the next couple of months that I need to come up with non-festive ideas for!

I think I might have to clear the glitter and shiny card and all the Christmas sies off the desk and focus my mind on other things next week!

 

I did make two cards though - I made the black one first, but then the Sealed Squiggles set arrived and I couldn't resist trying them out! 

Black and Silver card

I made the starry background piece using black card. silver foil  and the

 Celestial Star Background Glimmer plate

You've seen those trees before and you'll see them again - the brilliant tree dies from Spellbinders' Sealed Christmas Tree Squiggle Etched Dies,  cut in different finsihes of silver card.

Finally a hot foiled sentiment from Waffle Flower. 

 

White, Silver and Red card

I die cut 2 of the lovely dies from the Sealed Squiggles set plus the longstemmed tree from Sealed Christmas Tree Squiggle all from the same silver glitter card - this card is a much more subtle pale silver than I usually use.

The NOEL die is an old favourite, also by Spellbinders but not available any more, sorry!

I added a bow o metallic red thread, and a few stars and circles in white, silver and red, then finished it off witg a bit of extra bling in the by way of some tiny silver and red gems

 HERE is my Affiliate Link, to the Spellbinders store - you can use it to access the store any time, and I'd really appreciate it if you did, don't worry, it doesn't cost you anything!

There's a UK based shop now, so you can use the 'Visit Our UK Store' button at the top right of any page on the Spellbinders site 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

 

Christmas 2

Hello!

 

Thanks for coming by.

Here is a round up of some of the Christmas cards I've been making

 

Card 1

 

Outline is created by hot foiling the holly die onto the background.  Then the die is cut in gold card and other items added. All dies by Spellbinders except the hot foiled sentiment which is by Waffle Flower. 

Card 2

Glimmering Snowflakes Hot Foil Plate & Die Set from the Bibi's Snowflakes Collection by Bibi Cameron   

 

Christmas Die & Glimmer Sentiments Hot Foil Plate & Die Set from the Classic Christmas Collection

Poinsettia and all other dies are by Spellbinders

Card 3

Sealed Christmas Tree Squiggle Etched Dies from Sealed for the Holidays Collection

Hot Foil sentiment All is Bright by Waffle Flower

Card 4

   All cutting dies by Spellbinders 

 

Christmas Die & Glimmer Sentiments Hot Foil Plate & Die Set from the Classic Christmas Collection 

 

 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

 

Alphabet Soup

Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

 My card today is for Nat's Daring Cardmakers Challenge this week

Alphabet Soup

I don't know about you, but I have a slight problem when it comes to alphabet dies and stamps... I love the look of them, I buy them, but I rarely take the time to use them for anything other than personalising the odd card here and there.

So this week I'm challenging myself and you to grab those alphabet stamps or dies and use them to create the sentiment* for your card!

* Hint, short words could be your friend, especially for the upcoming festive season!

 Click Here for some ideas from the design team

Recently I've been trying to make more use of my hot foiling machine and this challenge reminded me of a Hot Foiling alphabet I must have bought about 3 years ago and have never actually used  (but don't you pretend you haven't stash sitting there unused for just as long!)

So I used silver foil to create the HAPPY letters for my sentiment and die cut them with the smallest circle from a nested set.  I was actually going to cut 'Christmas' from silver card using a set of handwriting dies but they are small and fiddly and I ran out of time.

I absolutely love the brilliant tree dies from Spellbinders' Sealed Christmas Tree Squiggle Etched Dies,  so I used them in two different ways.

First I hot foiled them using different finishes of turquoise and silver foils.  I really like seeing which of my regular dies work well with the hot foiling technique

Secondly I die cut the trees in the regular way from matching cardstock and adhered them over and among the foiled trees

I glued the letters onto a strip of silver glitter washi tape before fixing them in place then added the die cut 'Christmas' to the lower edge

 Since making this card I've been trying the same kind of technique using different colours so I'll be sharing them soon!

 HERE is my Affiliate Link, to the Spellbinders store - you can use it to access the store any time, and I'd really appreciate it if you did, don't worry, it doesn't cpst you anything!

There's a UK based shop now, so you can use the 'Visit Our UK Store' button at the top right of any page on the Spellbinders site 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

Fun and Games

  Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

 My card today is for Joanne's Daring Cardmakers Challenge this week

 Fun and Games

It's Joanne here this week and I'd like to challenge you to a game of something!

 It might be an indoor one (like Kerplunk, Twister, Snakes and Ladders, Dungeons and Dragons...) or outdoor (football, netball, rugby, hockey...). The best part? You get to be creative, somebody receives a lovely handmade card — nobody loses this game!

 Click Here for some ideas from the design team

 

First of all, appologies for the rubbish photo! I sent this before I'd checked the photos and this is the best I have - if you think this is bad, be glad its the only one I'm sharing!

I found a hockey background paper design on the internet. I resized and printed it on to a textured Bazzill cardstock then adhered it to my base card.  

Next I found a picture of a hockey stick to use as a template. In my graphics program (Paint Shop Pro) I copied and pasted so that I had two, then used the mirror tool to reverse one. I resized and printed them out, but just on copier paper this time. 

I glued the template hockey sticks to the back of some black card to make it easy to cut them out with scissors, then just cut the trimming strips and stuck them on the right sides

The sentiment was cut in matching colours using one of my alphabet die sets and to finish the card I added some hockey balls using some red 'card candy' 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

Christmas 1

Hello 

Thanks for visiting.  

I've made a start on my Christmas cards!  Yes I know I've already shared a few of the ones I made for some early Spellbinders Christmas releases but I also need to come up with cards that I can make more quickly  in larger numbers but that I still enjoy making and easy to vary a bit so I don't get bored!  They also need to be flat enough not to cost a fortune to send as our postal rates are
exhorbitant!  It's such a shame that people are sending les and less cards at Christmas - you know, the cards I send to, and recieve from some of those on my Christmas list are the only contact we have from year to year and its so sad to lose those few words of greeting, don't you think?

Anyway, that's my rant for the day over

I wanted to make and share a record of the card styles I'm making this year so I'll do that here on my blog and also on my Instagram dodah.

 

I usually make most of my cards with a smooth white cards, so this year I thought I'd try some coloured backgrounds by adding squares of coloured card to my cards

 

I've used various items from this year's Spellbinders range of goodies.

There are Glimmer hot foiling stamps, cutting dies from several collections, and the blue card has hot foiling done with one of the regular snowflake dies

On the blue card I used:

Snowflake Card Creator Etched Dies

 

Delicate Snowflakes Etched Dies

 

Christmas Die & Glimmer Sentiments Hot Foil Plate & Die Set from the Classic Christmas Collection

  

 

 

 

 

Here's a list of the sets used for the red cards

 

Glimmering Snowflakes Hot Foil Plate & Die Set (sentiment on red2)

 

 Snowflake Card Creator Etched Dies

 

Sealed Holly Sprigs Etched Dies from Sealed for the Holidays Collection 

 

Christmas Die & Glimmer Sentiments Hot Foil Plate & Die Set from the Classic Christmas Collection   (sentiment on red 1)

 . 

 Please note that as a Spellbinders Affiliate I may receive a small commission - when you use my links - it doesn't cost you anything but it helps me buy more stash so is much appreciated!  HERE is my Affiliate Link, you can use it to access the store any time!

There's a UK based shop now, so you can use the 'Visit Our UK Store' button at the top right of any page on the Spellbinders site 

 

 

- I always print my messages inside because writing them is just a step too far! There's room to add a personal note if I want to!

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself, 

 Kathy x