HAND STAMPED SENTIMENTS - #378

A colour challenge for you this week from Hand Stamped Sentiments.  As most of you know I am not a SU demo so don't always have the colours but I'm lucky that I'm allowed to use similar ones and so can you.  Choose the closest you have to the challenge in your stash.  I have used Tim Holtz Distress Inks for the green using Rustic Wilderness and Speckled Egg for the blue.  I do have Merry Merlot so I used that for the watercolour holly on the right hand side of the tag.

When I say watercolour - I inked the stamp directly with the green and red ink and then did a very light spray over it before then adding it to the paper.  It gives this lovely watercolour effect which is very soft.  I used some Tim Holtz die cuts  for the holly and wanted to do some holly stencilling but didn't have a stencil.  So I used the negative from the die cuts and lo and behold I had a stencil.  I used the wording from Tim Holtz Tiny Text Christmas stamps and cut them to suit.  I am currently doing a set of 25 numbered Christmas Tags so this one had the number 4 added to it.

I'm back crafting....

It's been a long six weeks but I'm finally back crafting after moving home from England to a mountain in Wales and with no internet for about four weeks.  I had to make the decision to cut back on most of my obligations to Design Teams but wanted to continue with Hand Stamped Sentiments and am so pleased Genny was pleased for me to stay.

So I finally made it into my craftroom to make something for this week's challenge.  Here's our sketch we are working with.  I chose to do a Christmas card for mine as it's getting near that time of year and I just love making Christmas cards.

I started off by masking the part in the middle and used some Distress Ink in Antique Linen from Tim Holtz to cover the panel. I then took a Tim Holtz stencil which has fir cones and leaves on it and stamped over it in Pumice Stone. For the panels at either side I used some Tim Holtz Collage Paper in Holly.  I added some Washi tape from my stash.

I used a Tim Holtz wreath die for the wreath in the middle.  I first covered a piece of card stock in the same Collage Paper and then cut it out with the die cut.  I used Liquitex Matte Medium for the collage paper.  I used some SU card stock for the bow and added some white dots with a white gel pen.  The Christmas Wishes banner was from my stash.

613 Avenue Create - Anything Goes with optional twist of Thanks

Our challenge this month at 613 Avenue create has an optional twist of Thanks.  I wanted to use this gorgeous toadstool stamp from Visible Image for my card.  the set is called Totally Toadstools. I started by using a Visible Image stencil for the background and some Tim Holts Distress inks.    The stamp was stamped over it and coloured in with Distress Inks. 

SPARKLES CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE - PRESENTS

Our challenge this month at Sparkles Christmas Challenge  is presents.  Years ago I remember doing a card which had presents as pop up's inside the card and wanted to do it again and managed to find some instructions on youtube.  

I started off the front of my card using some Tim Holtz christmas wallpaper and used the same papers throughout for the presents.  I added a panel on the front of the card which has been embossed with holly and added some paper shapes for the presents and added string.  The sentiments are from Clearly Besotted.

Inside the card there are three pop up presents which are really easy to do but they look so effective.