#WWC120 - GAIL'S CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE

Click on the image below to be taken to this week's Challenge


 


 I know - I bet that surprised you all - Christmas in May!  But it's never too early to make a start on those Christmas cards, right?

I've thought a little outside the box for my card this week - using Pretty Kitty Stamp Set for the cute little cats, Foxy Friends for the lovely Trees, Sweet Home for the little banner and Banner's For Christmas for the Christmas word.

 I must admit it does feel strange making Christmas Cards when the weather is lovely and warm outside - reminds me of being back in Houston when we used to live there - our weather there was so different from the UK!

I'm looking forward to seeing all your Christmas cards.  Just think if we all made a few a month it would take all that pressure off come December!




 

BANNERS FOR CHRISTMAS #GDP062

I love mistletoe and its one of the three staples of my Christmas decorations along with the Holly and Ivy which I collect from woods near my home.  Its part of my Christmas tradition and the house is festooned with it.  I'm not a lover of plastic or foil decorations - natural for me all the way.

So it makes sense that I love the mistletoe stamp from the Banners for Christmas set but, as I've said before, I've not seen it used much in blogland or Pinterest. 

The challenge over at Global Design Project this week screamed the mistletoe stamp for me.  The challenge is a sketch challenge shown below



 
 and I've turned it on its side and made it portrait instead of landscape.

I've used  Early Espresso for the cardstock and to ink up the mistletoe stamp along with some of the Presents and Pinecones DSP.

 


 I've coloured in the mistletoe with Mint Macaron and added loads of Basic Rhinestones where the berries should be to make it sparkle - I don't think it shows up very well in the photo.  The sentiment is also from Banners for Christmas making this a very versatile set.

Thank you for stopping by my blog.  All products can of course be purchased from my online store.

 

Happy Crafting 

 
 

BRONZE ELITE - WATERCOOLER WEDNESDAY FOXY FRIENDS

It's been an exciting week for me this week as I've been promoted to Bronze Elite.  It's been a hard slog to get my promotion as I have found it difficult to get my SU business off and running but I'm so glad to have made it before my 1st year Anniversary.  Onwards and upwards as they say.

I'm joining in with the Watercooler Wednesday challenge this week which is a colour challenge to use all or some of the following colours : click here to be taken to the website.





 I've used the Foxy Friends set here and the reindeer and the tree.  I love the trees in this set - there are two and they are so versatile.  I'm not sure really that I should have added the toadstools because they really are not winter things but they are so cute.  I've used the Winter sentiment from one of the Project Life sets - Date It and the Merry is from the Sweet Home set. I've used the Banners for Christmas set to make the banner.  The DSP is not from any Christmas papes - shock, horror but is from the Designer Series Paper Stack which just goes to show it can also be used for Christmas Cards.

 Thanks for stopping by. I love to read your comments good or bad.

Happy Crafting

 

BANNER'S FOR CHIRSTMAS

I haven't seen a lot of cards made with this wonderful set yet in blog land or Pinterest.  So I thought I'd get my thinking head on and try and do a few.  Yesterday I included it on a card for Less is More challenge blog.

Today I've turned the mistletoe upside down, which is the right way up - do you get me?

I've kept it as a simple card with just a touch of Old Olive.  The Basic Pearls really help to bring this card to l ive.  I've used an embossing folder for the dots on the white backing paper and a touch of the gold ribbon on the stems.  There is a touch of Wink of Stella on the flowers which gives a bit of sparkle.

I really like how this one came out and may even just make a whole load of these for some craft fairs I have booked.  I'm not very good at doing more than one card because I get bored so easily - does anyone else get like that?

 Connie and Mary have a colour challenge happening at the moment which asks you to use Old Olive so I'm going to add this into the challenge.  I'm not sure whether all the colours they've given us have to be included but I'm sure they'll let me know if this one isn't suitable.

 



All supplies are of course Stampin Up..

 Happy Crafting

 
 

LESS IS MORE - 300TH CELEBRATION - BANNER'S FOR CHRISTMAS

I haven't had the time lately to join in with any challenges but this one over at Less is More caught my eye this morning.

I was having one of those Monday's when I had no mojo and couldn't settle to anything.

I took the dogs out for a walk in the country.  It is still beautiful weather here in the UK - one of the warmest October's I can remember - reminds me of warm Houston weather.  So we did a bit of Conker gathering and blew the cobwebs off and I came back and did a bit of crafting.

Some of these conkers and the leaf are actually bronze mixed in with real - can you tell which is which?
 

 Tegan (Welsh Springer red and white) and Bracken (English Springer) enjoying their walk

My card for the Challenge uses two stamp sets and a thinlet.  The mistletoe comes from Banners For Christmas - this isn't a set I've seen used an awful lot yet but I love this mistletoe stamp.  Here I've turned it right way up to represent a bunch of flowers and stamped it with Versamark and our Gold Embossing Powder.   I've used the Celebrate stamp from Here's To Cheers.  I used one of the bauble thinlets from Merry Tags to cut out the bauble shape and then stamped inside it with Versamark and embossed with our Gold Embossing Powder.

A touch of gold Baker's Twine and some Basic Rhinestones finishes off this card - which has a lot of 'white space' - okay red!

 Thanks for coming to see me - do leave a message or come and visit me at my YouTube channel to see some of my tutorials.

Happy Crafting

 

SIMPLY SKETCHED SATURDAY CHALLENGE - MERRIEST WISHES, MERRY TAG FRAMELITS

It's time for another Saturday Sketch Challenge and this month our sketch was chosen by Sally Shaw.

This was the sketch we had to work with.

Here is my card - I actually have to thank my dear husband for the inspiration for this - he saw me sitting looking at the sketch - having discarded a few ideas into the bin when he thought the stripes looked like ribbon - Eureka! as they say!

I used Cherry Cobbler cardstock for the base and some of the Designer Series Paper This Christmas Suite. The Ribbon is Mini Striped Ribbon in Tip Top Taupe but it looks almost silver against the paper.

I've used the Merry Tag Framelits again - love these with a bit of Smoky Slate Cardstock.  The Banner and Sentiment is from Banners for Christmas with a touch of Dazzling Diamonds around the outside.  On the cardstock just on the bottom left I've used one of the trees from the Foxy Friends set with Versarmark just to add a bit of interest to the cardstock. 

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO BE TAKEN ON TO  ANNA'S PROJECT

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THANK YOU FOR STOPPING BY ON OUR BLOG HOP AND HAPPY CRAFTING 

 

 

 

RAK - GLOBAL DESIGN PROJECT

The Global Design Project has a great challenge this week - Random Acts of Kindness.  I've been making lots of these box cards with attached tealights - they make great presents and so far I've made a New Home one and a 60th birthday one - 

My entry for the GDP is a Christmas one.  I've used the lovely Candy Cane Lane DSP and Real Red cardstock.

 The size fits three little tea lights perfectly - I think Yankee Candles are slightly bigger than these ones though.

 I cut out the house from the DSP and attached it to one of the Merry Tag Framelits and attached to the card with some lovely Candy Cane Lane Baker's Twine.  I used  Banners for Christmas Framelits for the sentiment and the sentiment itself came from Jar of Love.

The ribbon is Very Vanilla Stitched Satin - so beautiful to work with.

The whole card is then presented in a lovely box - I used Real Red Cardstock for the base and Candy Cane Lane DSP for the top.  A belly band was made in the same DSP and I used the Decorative Label punch with sentiments from Sweet Home stamp set.

If you would like to purchase a PDF tutorial for this project for £1.50 please lick on the paypal button below.

 

POOTLERS BLOG HOP - NEW CATALOGUE

 Welcome to the Pootler's Blog Hop - I hope you are ready to see some wonderful Christmas inspiration.

In case you hadn't heard our new Winter Catalogue went live on 1st September.  Full of lots of Hallowe'en , Christmas and New Year goodies and also some lovely autumn stamp sets too.

I absolutely love making Christmas cards and what better job than to be able to make them in August/September!


For my card today I am sharing this lovely card made with a few of our new sets and some adorable accessories.

I started out with a card base made from Smoky Slate.  I used a new Versamark pad to stamp some of the sentiments and a lovely accessory stamp from the Banners For Christmas set.  Regular readers to my blog will have seen the state of my Versamark pads.  And whilst they still work when they are covered in ink - its no good if you want to do tone on tone so I had to bite the bullet and buy another one!

I then added some of our Warmth and Cheer Designer Washi Tape - this then gives such a versatile card base for lots of different ideas.

 I'm a traditional girl at heart - so Christmas to me is reds and greens and traditional style stamps - so I adored this stamp set Christmas Magic when I saw it.

One of my favourite Christmas films of recent times is Polar Express.  May I bore you with a little story about this film.  We used to live in Houston, Texas when the children were small.  Our first Christmas out there was spent in very warm weather and on Christmas Eve we decided to go to the local cinema to see the new film Polar Express.  Imagine our surprise and delight when we came out of the Cinema to see it was snowing.  The first time in Texas in 50 years - it was so magical and everyone was out calling out Merry Christmas - which is unusual in America as its normally Happy Holidays.  A very special memory and all evoked by this little train stamp!

 I've coloured just parts of the train using a Blender Pen and Garden Green and Cherry Cobbler.  A touch of Wink of Stella on the steam makes it shimmer slightly.  I've used some of our lovely Candy Cake Lane Baker's Twine with the added sparkle and wrapped it round the card and added some of the lovely Mini Jingle Bells.

Well, there's another tale.  Attempting to thread the bells with the twine.  An Eureka moment when I used a touch of Washi Tape around the end of the twine which helped to thread them a lot easier, as shown below.

 A touch of dimensionals to pop the train onto the card base and that's my card done.

 I hope you like it and it gives you some inspiration for your own Christmas cards.
 

 Now pop along on the blog to Jillian's fab blog to see what she has for you..

or pop back to our fabulous Sam Hammond to see her project

And don't forget - if you would like to get your hands on any of the goodies shown above just click on the image of the new catalogue at the side of this post.







 

WATERCOOLER WEDNESDAY - WATER

Well its been a while Bloggers since I've posted - nearly a week!  That's because I've been busy playing with my new Christmas goodies from the 2016 Winter Catalogue and I've been having lots of fun.  I've had to remind myself that its not actually Christmas for another four months, but I am a bit of a Christmas fiend.

I always fancied having a year round Christmas shop - unheard of in the UK but I was delighted to find one when I used to live in Houston!

Anyway - on to my card which is for the Watercoolers Challenge this week - and Water tricky challenge it is (oops sorry for the pun)   its one layer - clean and simple!

I don't have a lot of stamps that could fit this bill of water apart from the little fish in the Jar of Love but I didn't really want to use him.

So I've been playing with the reflection technique with some of my Christmas cards for another challenge I'm doing, revealed later in September so I thought aha, this would fit perfectly.

I've kept it clean and simple - with only the one layer matted onto cardstock.  The trees are from one of the new Christmas Sets - Christmas Magic and the wording is from another new set - Banners For Christmas but this card doesn't really look like a Christmas card I don't think.  The trees are stamped in Early Espresso and I've used Pacific Point, Night of Navy and an old SU colour Bordering Blue for the blues.

There's a touch of Wink of Stella just on the water part and a little bit on the moons just to make them sparkle. Otherwise just ink and stamps!

As this is a clean and simple card I'm also putting it in for the Less is More challenge - their challenge found here is Blue and Brown.



 PS - did you spot my banner at the top of my blog - I'm over the moon to have been asked to join the Splitcoast Stampers Creative Crew Design Team for the next four months - my favourite time of the year too.  Starting in September.... keep coming back to see some fabulous projects from all the Crew!