Less is More - Week 70 - Colour Challenge

Hello fellow bloggers from a very wet and windy Somerset!  It's actually freezing and we've resorted to putting the heating back on!  Although I'm pleased to say that London seems not to have been badly affected by the weather yet (think they had more than enough the other day)..........  Anyway, here we are again at the Less is More challenge which, this week, very aptly, is:

RED WHITE AND BLUE

I've actually got a couple of cards for the challenge.  The first one is using my Spellbinders Cut, Fold and Tuck dies using red, white and blue cardstock.  In the centre of each is a pearl brad of the same colour.  I've used a Martha Stewart edge punch to make the central border.  The sentiment is on a sheet of clear stamps but doesn't say where it's from.  I've finished off with 3 tiny red gems.






The second card I couldn't resist............. it's actually a freebie topper from Crafters' Companion and I thought it was really appropriate for this weekend.  All I've done is added a cross of red ribbon and put the topper on top.

Hope you've all had a great bank holiday weekend.  Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving comments - it's very much appreciated.

A last minute Christmas card........

Hello everyone - things have been pretty hectic lately hence my not posting as much as normal but I'm sure it's the same for everyone.  I recently bought the country landscape die from Memory Box and made this card.  I saw something similar on a blog a while ago but unfortunately can't remember which one.  I placed the die on an A5 card blank and ran it through my Joy Trouvaille.  I then cut a piece of navy card to size and punched a circle for the moon.  I then sprayed the navy card with Crafters' Companion Iridescent Glitter Spray.  The country landscape die cuts a convenient slit in your base card and you can then slip the navy card through from the back.  I lightly sponged shadows under the trees and houses using Faded Jeans DI.  I die cut the tree from black card - it's the Twiggy Tree also from Memory Box and edged the branches in white.  The sentiment is from Pink Petticoat printed out and cut to size.  I added some silver peel off borders and gems to finish off the card.

Thanks for dropping by.

JustRite Friday Challenge #063

The current JustRite Friday Challenge is asking that you use JustRite stamps on your project.  For those who aren't familiar with these stamps they are the ones that have been manufactured specifically to match the Spellbinders dies.  I have stamped and embossed with WOW glitter embossing powder a Christmas ornament and sentiment from the JustRite Merry & Bright stamp set.  I then die cut it using my Spellbinders Heirloom Ornaments 2010 dies and cut a red mat which had been sprayed with Crafters Companion gold glitter spray.  I took a blank DL card and adhered some paper from my stash, added an edging of red liner tape all around the edge of the BP and poured over red glitter.  I also put a line of red liner down the centre of the card to act as a ribbon.  I also used the top hanging part of the ornament, from the same stamp set, and embossed in gold e/p, added a red bow, some poinsettia flowers and some gems.
Thanks for dropping in today.  Happy crafting.

Bah Humbug - Challenge 40 - Glitz & Glitter & Timeless Tuesday Ornaments

This week the Head Honchos over at Bah! Humbug! have asked us to create a Glitz & Glitter card.  Over at Timeless Tuesday their challenge calls for you to use an ornament in your card or to make an ornament so I thought this would fit the bill.  For this I have stamped and embossed with WOW glitter embossing powder a Christmas ornament and sentiment from the JustRite Merry & Bright stamp set.  I then die cut it using my Spellbinders Heirloom Ornaments 2010 dies and cut a red mat which had been sprayed with Crafters Companion gold glitter spray.  I took a blank DL card and adhered some paper from my stash, added an edging of red liner tape all around the edge of the BP and poured over red glitter.  I also put a line of red liner down the centre of the card to act as a ribbon.  I also used the top hanging part of the ornament, from the same stamp set, and embossed in gold e/p, added a red bow, some poinsettia flowers and some gems.

Thanks for dropping in today.  Happy crafting.

DYSU Challenge - Thank You

The challenge over at DYSU is Thank You  and as I had to make a thank you card for some friends who hosted a party on Saturday.  I started off embossing a piece of white linen card using a Crafts Too butterfly folder.  I then cut this out around the image, inked it with Distress Inks and then sprayed with iridescent Crafters Companion spray.  I tied some purple ribbon around a 6x6" card blank and then stuck the embossed panel on the left hand side.  I die cut some butterflies out of pearlescent and mirri card using my Stampin Up Beautiful Butterflies embosslit and added them to the card.  The final touch was the sentiment (again SU) which I cut out using a Stampin Up scalloped square punch and added some gems.

Thanks for stopping by.

Do It With Digis - Fairies, Pixies and Elves

The latest challenge over at Do it with Digis is Fairies, Pixies and Elves.  I had to hunt around all my digi images to come up with something nice for this card and I found a lovely mushroom house and a baby which I think looks remarkably like a pixie.  Unfortunately I don't know where either of them came from and I do wish that artists would actually include their name on the downloadable images.

I first copied and pasted the two images into Word and then printed them out.  I have used a set of nesties to die cut the image leaving the little pixie outside the frame.  I left the images inside the die and sponged some Shabby Shutters Distress Ink around the edge.  This was then coloured in using Promarkers and matted onto the larger size die cut.  I printed out the mushroom house again and cut out the image leaving the negative space which I then sprayed Crafters Companion Spray and Sparkle Iridescent through.  Unfortunately when I looked at the photo this spray doesn't show up very well at all which is a shame.  The backing papers and border strip are from NitWit Collections Cotton Candy Kisses which was a free giveaway with a magazine and I joined the two pieces with a border strip of bazzill card punched with Martha Stewart Wild Flowers deep edger punch.  I added a button and ribbon bow.  The sentiment comes from Crafts4fun.nl and I used my Stampin Up oval and scalloped oval punches.

Using Stencils

The folk over at Bah! Humbug! have set us a challenge card this week using stencils.

For this card I started off with a brass stencil with the word NOEL - I thought I'd using it slightly differently so got out my gold embossing paste which was spread evenly over the stencil.  I've often found that the stencils are slightly warped/bent so you tend to get paste under the stencil; but this time I used some Crafters' Companion Stick & Spray as a temporary adhesive on the back and it worked very well, keeping the stencil very flat to the card.  Removed the stencil immediately so I could wash it and let the paste dry.  I then trimmed the image and matted onto gold linen card.  I then took another stencil (Imagination Crafts) and laid it down on card and spritzed over the top with  Moon Glow.  This was matted onto white pearl card.  I took an 8x8" blank card and cut some gold linen card to size and used my Martha Stewart punch to cut out the snowflake border; these were attached to the base card.  I attached two pieces of gold ribbon to the spritzed background, used foam squares to attach the NOEL panel and then cut out some more snowflakes using a nesties die.  When the card was assembled I added some gems for that extra bit of "bling".

Thanks for looking.

Marathon finished............

At last I've just managed to finish off all my Christmas cards and ended with these three.

These first two cards use sets of clear Creative Expressions Christmas stamps which fit my nesties perfectly. The first card is made up with a base card of black stamped randomly with snowflakes; a white card border clear embossed with the swirly border stamp; the main image matted and layered onto silver mirri and black card and the same with the greeting.

The second card uses Papermania Signature linen paper, some white and silver sparkle paper, ribbon, gems and stickles. The main image is clear embossed and matted and layered using nesties. The greeting is the same border stamp used in the black and white card.




The next one uses the Crafters' Companion Cute Companions Winter Tales CD and stamp set. This is not my usual style but the set was given to me by my friend Dee so I thought I would use them to make her Christmas card to show how much I appreciated the gift. Although it looks pretty simple there was an awful lot of cutting out for the decoupaged elements - the swags especially were rather a trial but the finished card looks pretty good and I hope she likes it.