Susie & Vikki's Christmas Club challenge

This week over at Susie & Vikki's Christmas Club blog the challenge is to make a Baby's 1st Christmas card.

The image is taken from Joanna Sheen's Precious Petals CD and printed out onto satin photo paper. It has been mounted onto some red mirri which, in turn, has been mounted onto some Anna Griffin cardstock I've had in my stash for ages. I used my Fiskars ribbon edge punch down the left hand side and threaded through some ribbon and tied it in a bow in the centre. The red backing paper is from my stash and put through my Big Shot in a Cuttlebug embossing folder. The sentiment is also from the JS Precious Petals CD. I didn't think it needed much embellishment as the face speaks volumes!!!! lol

Thanks for looking.

Silhouettes

This weeks challenge at Bah Humbug is silhouettes so I was thinking of using an image from Joanna Sheen's Dancing with Shadows CD but my friend Anne beat me to it!!! So I had to get my thinking cap on. Did a bit of a trawl on the internet but didn't come up with anything I liked so went through my Christmas stamp box and found a Creative Expressions set which has silhouette images on it.

I have used a square white base card and covered it with a black and silver backing paper from my stash, added a piece of vellum across the centre which was punched using my Fiskars border punch. I added a ribbon across the vellum. The robin image was stamped in black and clear embossed, as was the Merry Christmas sentiment around it. They were both cut out using Nesties circles dies and then mounted onto black mirri card cut using a Nellies die. I had a flourish die and cut two from black mirri but they were too big for the corners so I cut off the "swirls" which I then used at the bottom left and top right of the vellum. The addition of some gems finished the card off.

Thanks for looking.

Lettuce edging and more.............

This is totally different to my normal posting about cards............... I have been doing lots of sewing recently and have just finished these two pieces ready to take to my class tomorrow morning.

The piece on the left is a strip from a pair of black opaque tights, satin stitched down each edge, then a thinner strip finished in the same way sewn down the centre. There is a tacking stitch down the length which, when gathered, gives this lovely frilly "embellishment" - it's normally referred to as lettuce edging and is great fun to do. The second piece is a piece of felt sewn from centre of the circle to the edge continuously going around the circle numerous (and I mean numerous) times - it gets to a stage where you cannot sew any more into the centre as the stitching is too thick so you cut out the circle from the piece of felt and continue stitching around the edge until it actually doubles in size and you can manipulate it into various shapes. I would hate to tell you how long this piece took but believe me it was ages!!! Now all I've got to do is find a use for it........... lol

Thanks for looking.

A Riot of Ribbons

I must admit that this challenge at Bah Humbug really made me think. After all, we all use ribbon in some form or other on our cards; tying around the spine, bows, knots, threading etc etc.

So, how to make it a bit different? After a while of ruminating on this I came up with the idea of making my "backing paper" from ribbon weaving. I started with a square 6" white card blank and cut a piece of card 5 1/2" square and then started my ribbon weaving using some Christmas ribbon I had in my stash. When it was finished I adhered all the ends of the ribbon to the back and then used d/s tape to mount the piece on my base card.

The main image is from Creative Expressions and is a Umount Stylish 1 Christmas A5 stamp plate. This was coloured in pink for the robin and green for the branch and flourishes and clear embossed. I stamped the robin twice so I could give the image some depth by decoupaging it. The bottom of this was punched with a ribbon threader edge punch with a piece of ribbon threaded through and tied in a bow at the left hand side. The sentiment is from the same stamp set cut out using my SU oval punches. I added some pink gems for the bird's eye, at the side and on the flourishes and then used a small piece of left over ribbon and a brad on the top right.

I'm also entering this card in Susie & Vikki's Christmas Club challenge - #18 Anything Christmas.

Thanks for looking.

Pastel Workshop

We had a great day yesterday at our pastel workshop. Our tutor for the day was Richard Turner who was brilliant and, of course, made everything look extremely easy - unfortunately when we had our go in the afternoon it turned out to be a bit more tricky!!!! lol Most of our group hadn't attempted painting with pastels before and mostly use watercolours. I must say that pastels are much more forgiving than watercolours as you can layer lights over darks and if you don't like what you've done you can virtually scrape it back to the paper and start again.

I thought I'd be brave and share with you my attempts at a pastel landscape. I was reasonably pleased with the way it turned out for a first attempt and when Richard put a mount over the painting it enhanced it so I think I might frame it and see how it looks. Richard runs workshops at his home where he has a studio and as it's quite near to us I think I might sign up for a couple and see how I get on.

Thanks for looking.

Bah Humbug Punched Borders Challenge

Yet another card to meet the Bah Humbug challenge - this time it is punched borders. Unfortunately I don't have a particular Christmas border punch so have used my Tim Holtz "On the Edge" die to cut a border from a piece of My Mind's Eye Christmas Glitter paper which I attached to a burgundy square card. I had run the main card through my Big Shot in a Cuttlebug snowflake folder to give it some texture. I then just had to use my new SU stamp "Dasher" which was matted onto some more of the glitter paper and then a plain card mount. The sentiment is a peel off on SU punched ovals and I have added a burgundy ribbon to the side. Things have been very hectic this week and I have been out at a pastel workshop today and only managed to finish the card before I went out. On looking at the photo I took I realised it needs something........... so I am going to add some Stickles to Dasher's antlers which I think will make it zing.

Thanks for looking.

New Baby

Our great friends Linda & Steve have just returned after two years of living in Malaysia and they have a new addition to the family - their son and daughter-in-law, Stephen & Lisa, have just had a baby boy called Oliver.

I recently got a Happy Hopper stamp called Love Bunny and I thought this would make a lovely new baby card.

I stamped and embossed the image onto a piece of SU card and then cut it out using my Nesties dies. I mounted the image onto a white piece of card which, in turn, was mounted onto another piece of blue card - all die cut with my Nesties. The sentiment was computer generated and punched with my SU oval and scalloped oval punches. I added some blue ribbon and gems to finish the card.

Thanks for looking.

If only my waist was this size!!!!

I recently treated myself to two Clarity stamps - the corset and the word stamp "feminine". They have just arrived so couldn't wait to have a play and came up with this very quick card which I think is lovely.

I inked the corset up with black Memento ink, placed some Angelina fibres over the inked stamp with a piece of baking parchment over the top and ironed it. As soon as you see the image coming through the parchment then you know it's ready. I then inked up the word and stamped it twice to look like a pair of legs, cut out the corset image and glued it on top of the "legs". A piece of patterned co-ordinating paper (from my stash) covered my base card and I punched the bottom with a Martha Stewart deep edger punch (Floral Vine). A small piece of blue mirri card was placed at the bottom of the base card before attaching the paper. The main topper was matted onto another piece of blue mirri and attached to the main card. A small blue bow and some blue gems finished the card.

Thanks for looking.

Super birthday blog candy

There's some wonderful birthday blog candy over at Passion for Crafts - well worth having a go as there are some great goodies up for grabs.

Bah Humbug Food Challenge

Just managed to finish a very quick card to enter the Bah Humbug food challenge. I hunted through my stash but couldn't find much Christmassy food items but then I found a lovely image I had kept from a Christmas card we were sent which pictured this cheeky robin standing by the Christmas pudding.

I photocopied the image twice onto pearl photo card and cut out two images using my Nesties labels dies. I layed these onto the main image which I had trimmed down and then mounted the whole onto green mirri card. I used a square green deckled edged card and used some My Mind's Eye paper which had the bottom edge punched using my new Martha Stewart floral vine punch. The sentiment is a peel off which I coloured using Dufex pens mounted onto shaped punched using my Stampin Up oval and scalloped oval punches. Three gems at the top right of the card finished it off.

Thanks for looking.

Still here!!!!

Can't believe it's nearly a week since I last posted but I was asked - very last minute - to take a table at a local village coffee morning and I have spent all week doing inserts, bagging up and pricing cards etc. You all know what it's like - you make cards and they go on top of the pile and then it's a mad rush to get them ready to sell. Also had to make another treasure box and get out all my other crafty stuff that normally goes on my table. Anyway the sale was this morning and as I had already arranged to be out all day they kindly offered to look after my table for me - I am due to go in about an hour to pick up what's left (hopefully not a lot!!!!! lol) and see if I've made a profit which I can put towards our trip to Newbury in July.

Anyway I thought I would post a couple of kiddies cards I made this week which is something I never normally think of doing. I bought the two stamps from my friend Anne a couple of weeks ago as I really didn't have anything "children friendly" in my stash.

Both the stamps are from Funstamps and I decoupaged the clown and his balls and added Diamond Glaze to the balls and bells to make them stand out and I did the same with the steam train by covering all the steam with Diamond Glaze. I masked my clown and added the Whispers Happy Birthday sentiment behind. The backing paper on both cards was from my stash and the sentiments are peel-offs on punched card using my SU oval and scalloped oval punches. A few gems finished the cards off.

Thanks for looking.

Bah Humbug Snowflake Challenge

This weeks Bah Humbug challenge is to make a card with the theme of snowflakes.

Here is my offering - I used a square card blank and put some white card through my Big Shot in the Cuttlebug snowflake embossing folder. This was cut down into four squares and mounted onto red card and added to the front of my card blank. The main image is a Forever Friends sticker which was put onto white card and matted onto red card; both of which were cut out using my Nesties labels die. The sentiment was computer generated and matted and layered using my Stampin Up oval and scalloped oval punches and then I added some gems, a ribbon and four more snowflakes to the background.

Thanks for looking.