Bah Humbug Challenge - Peel Offs

As I hadn't joined in with the Bah Humbug challenges for the last couple of weeks I was determined to have a go at their latest challenge - peel offs. As they say "love them or hate them" - well I must admit to having quite a few boxes of peel offs but apart from using corners and borders the rest tend to just sit there.

So I got out my Christmas peel off box and rifled through to see what I could use for this challenge. Well I found not one peel off, but three and I couldn't choose between them - so to make up for missing some of their challenges I actually have made three cards; which means my Christmas card box is getting fuller!! lol

This first one uses the waste (negative) from a three kings peel off. I used a low tack sellotape over the negative image and rubbed over it with a bone folder. I then lifted the image carefully and placed it down on some silver mirri card (sorry, this doesn't show up well in the photo). This was then matted onto a piece of black mirri. I hunted through my Christmas paper box and found a left over scrap of text paper and guess what - it is the text of the carol "We Three Kings" - pretty appropriate I thought. This was matted onto silver and black mirri. The main card is an A6 black textured card and finished off with some gems and a ribbon bow.


For my next card I used a bauble peel off and layed it over some Graphicus patterned paper and then cut it out. This was matted onto red and gold mirri. The main A6 card front was covered in the same paper. I used three peel off stars and greeting and finished off with a red ribbon and a smaller bauble peel off. Finally I put some red Stickles on the bauble.

My last offering is using a candle and tag peel off. I placed these onto acetate and sprayed the back with Crafters Companion Stick & Stay and then added metallic flakes. The candle image is matted onto some green card with an edging of Copper Krylon pen. I had some lovely embossed gold text card which I used on the front of the A6 card; tied a green ribbon across and added the peel off tag with a bow. I laid the waste of a holly leaf in the top right hand corner and more waste (holly berries I think) at the bottom right hand corner.

Hope you enjoy looking at my three cards made up entirely from peel offs.

Wirework beads and more grungepaper

On Friday at my free machine embroidery course we will be "playing" with wire so yesterday I was looking out all my stocks, pliers etc etc and decided to have a "pre-play"!!!

This is a selection of wire beads and beaded wire beads using a variety of coloured wires. I used seed beads, some coloured pearls and some larger silver lined beads. I particularly liked the pearls but thought for my first attempt at wire beading that they all came out quite nicely. Now I have had to put in an order for more wire!!! Never ends eh? lol

The other day when I was playing with the grungepaper I made another flower and decided to make a very simple card using a white square deckled base card, three layers of label Nesties, the flower and leaves cut from my L-Em punch and a Stampin Up sentiment.

Thanks for looking.

Something old and something new...........

My great cyber buddy Liz of Make a Lasting Impression kindly sent me a sheet of her precious, mainly unobtainable, Grungepaper to have a play with. I haven't used it before and although very pliable it is quite fibrous and my punches didn't like it - so ended up putting it through my Big Shot with a scalloped circle Nestie. I spritzed with Glimmer Mists and then followed Tim Holtz' instructions for making his rose. I think it would be easier using a plain circle Nestie as the scallops don't help when curling the petals. Anyway I ended up making a couple and then had to make a card to put one on! I used my Clarity Stamps "Velvet" lady and dug out some fantasy fibres which had been lurking on a shelf for a very long time (something old). I decided to use two colours for her outfit which I was quite pleased with. The backing card is from my stash with an offcut edged with my Martha Stewart Arched Lattice punch, some mirri card behind and a ribbon added. The sentiment is from a Stampin Up set, matted and layered using the SU oval and scalloped oval punches. The leaves are made using my L-Em Fern punch.

The other day I was watching Create & Craft when they featured their Loopi Loom. I loved the effect you got with the scarf but thought it was pretty expensive at £22.99 for a piece of wood and a couple of dowel rods........... so I fluttered my eyelashes at my DH and no sooner said than done and I had my very own version. Last night I made two scarves using it and here is a photo of one of them.

This next card is a simple one made for a friend. I used the Papermania stamp set coloured with ProMarkers. The backing paper was from a SU set. I added a piece of ribbon and some gems. The sentiment is from a SU set and matted and layered using their punches.

Thanks for looking.

Labels card

I've been neglecting my crafting over the past few days as I'm trying to get my husband's Open University assignment typed and ready to go tomorrow - unfortunately it's got lots of statistics, regression analysis (don't ask) and figures.................. I'll definitely be glad when he's finished the course!!!

I bought this lovely stamp last week from one of the girls in our craft club. It's by Impression Obsession and called Large Gift Tag Trio.

I stamped the image three times; once on the background card, another where I cut out the tags completely and the third where I cut out elements from the tag to decoupage. It was coloured using my ProMarkers and matted onto purple mirri cut out using Nesties Labels 8 dies. The plain backing on the main card was put through my Big Shot in a Crafts Too embossing folder (daisies), and the bottom card is from Elusive Images. I added some purple ribbon; the sentiment is from Stampin Up, cut out and matted using SU punches. The flower was made by punching 5 layers of matching card using SU scalloped round punch; these layers were spritzed with water, crumpled and then fixed together with a matching brad. I then teased the petals into the shape I wanted and left to dry. The decoupaged elements were finished off with some Diamond Glaze.

Thanks for looking.

Fantastic blog candy

There is some fantastic blog candy up for grabs by JakHeath. Pop over and use Mr Linky to leave your details and then just keep your fingers crossed!!!!

Introducing "Chicken Lickin"............

Yesterday I went on a workshop to make doorstop chickens at the Bower Hinton Workshop. Check all their other great workshops. This course was run by the lovely Dee Wallis who provided everything we needed to make these great patchwork chickens.

As usual we had a great day although it was quite challenging to use manual sewing machines after all these years. The hall doesn't have any electricity sockets in the main hall so Sara, who runs the workshops, brought along her manual machines. It was quite funny having your foot reaching out for the foot pedal when you had to turn the handle!!! Very green...........

Anyway, here's a photo of my chicken

Club Night samples

On Wednesday evening we had our monthly club night and did two projects. The first one was tri-shutter cards and the second was puffy boxes.

The shutter cards are fun to do and all the girls enjoyed them. We actually had a challenge at the start of the evening to show all our club members how easy it is if you have the right equipment. The challenge was to see how long it would take Anne, Jan and I to make a shutter card by cutting down a 12x12" sheet to 12" x 5 1/2", then cut two slits 1 1/2" in from each long side from 2" down to the 10" mark and finally to score the card at 2", 4", 8" and 10". Anne had her trust Fiskars cutter, Jan only had a cutting mat, ruler and craft knife and I had my fabulous Scor-Pal (which I wouldn't be without). I think it actually took me about 20/30 seconds, Anne was quite far behind and poor Jan had virtually not even started!!!! It was good to show the girls how easy things can be with the right equipment.

The second project was making a puffy box using a CD as a template. These are lovely little boxes. The box on the right hand side of the photo had a flower made out of five pieces of card that were cut out using my Stampin Up scalloped circle punch, cutting about 1/2" in from the side of each scallop, wetting the card and scrunching them and then securing with a brad. Once they are secured you just tease them into the shape you want and leave to dry - it's interesting to see how much they hold their shape and just how firm they are when dry.

Bah Humbug!!!! Stitching challenge

I've been playing about trying to complete the Bah Humbug!!! latest challenge which is stitching. I took a base A5 card and cut a piece of SU green card to use as a mat. I then cut a piece of card from My Mind's Eye Christmas Glitter Book. I used a zigzag stitch in red thread to mount one on top of the other, sewed a snowflake design all the way round the card and stitched circles around some of the holly berries.

I cut a piece of pewter to size and put it through my Big Shot with a Dreamweaver's stencil - as the pewter is so soft it really embossed it very well. I zigzagged around the pewter in red thread and mounted this on the main card using silicone glue. Finally I put some Stickles in the centre of the holly berries and also on the snowflake and used a Copic pen to highlight the N, E and L. I had a small piece of pewter left over which I had trimmed from the main piece and couldn't resist winding it round a skewer to curl it and add it to the top left corner.

Thanks for looking.

And another..........

This is a very quick and easy Easter card. My friend Dee gave me some sheets of watercoloured flowers on vellum and I liked the cheery colour of these primula (I think.........). So I used some more of the yellow gingham on a square card blank, cut the image using my nesties labels and mounted it on another label the same size cut out of white card - this made it look much crisper as vellum can look a bit "dingy" if you're not careful. Then I cut out a larger nestie label in yellow SU cardstock which I put through my Big Shot in a Crafts Too embossing folder (daisies). The greeting is a peel off and matted onto white and yellow ovals cut out with my SU punches. A yellow ribbon and some gems finished the card off.

Thanks for looking.

Easter card

Just finished this Easter card using a Sarah Kay free digistamp, coloured in using Promarkers. Matted and layered onto SU card using Labels 8 nesties with a nesties heart border and ribbon. The gingham paper is from my stash and the SU yellow card has been embossed using a Crafts Too embossing folder. The corner swirls are also part of a nesties borderabilities. The flowers are held together with a brad and fern leaves are from my L-Em rock fern punch. The sentiment was computer generated and matted using my SU oval and scalloped oval punches. Final touches are some gems and Diamond Glaze on chicks and hat.

Trees - Bah Humbug!!!

It's been a few days since I have posted anything but things have been pretty hectic recently. A group of us went to Farnborough on Friday to the craft show and had a great time but were glad we didn't go on Sunday as it was cancelled due to bad weather. Wouldn't have been happy bunnies travelling all the way from Somerset to Farnborough to find it wasn't on!!!

Anyway, just had time to join in the Bah Humbug challenge which is trees.

I have used my Penny Black "Fantasy" for the main tree image which was embossed onto SU cardstock. I then added various gems and a ribbon from my stash. Main image was matted and layered onto more SU cardstock and each corner was punched with my new Martha Stewart eyelet lace corner punch with is part of a Punch around the Page set. I have used a 6" square cream card as the base which I covered with a piece of My Mind's Eye Christmas glitter stack and, rather than making it a "normal" easel card, I have made it into a diagonal easel card by scoring the front of the card diagonally from top left to bottom right corner. The sentiment was computer generated and I used my SU oval and scalloped oval punches.

Thanks for looking.