Christmas Sparkle

Good morning folks, I hope you are having a great week.

Today's card uses an MFT Stamps, Star Shaker Window and Frame Die, with the matching Shaker Pouch. This does make life easier when it comes to shaker cards.

I used the die to cut a star in to a piece of gold shimmer card, and cut the frame from black card. Then I ran the gold card through the Big Shot with a Snowflake Embossing Folder.

I added a mixture of gold and bronze sequins and shapes to the shaker pouch and then added another piece of black card to the back to seal it.

I added the whole thing to a black card base and then cut a tag from black card and heat embossed a simple sentiment on to it. Then I added a gold snowflake brad to finish it off.

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you next week.

xxx

PPPPPP - Pick up a Penguin

Good morning folks, I hope you have had a good weekend. I managed to spend some time in the craft room yesterday, so today's card is one of the ones I managed to finish.

I love doing ink blended backgrounds, and using the Distress Oxide inks from Tim Holtz makes them so easy, this one used, Faded Denim, Broken China, Peacock Feathers and Salty Ocean.

Once I had all of my colours down on watercolour card, I spritzed it with water and then laid a plain piece of paper straight on top to soak up any excess. Then when it was dry it gave this lovely mottled effect.

I used a white Wink of Stella shimmer pen to add the drops, I just squeezed a few drops out onto my desk and then used the brush nib to splatter all over the background.

While that was drying I cut the penguins and fish using a magazine freebie set we got recently and then stamped a couple of ice floats from the Avery Elle Polar Pals set.

I cut the ice out with their matching die and then inked around the edges with more distress ink to help blend them with the background.

I placed all of the images on my background and added that to a pale blue card blank. Then to finish off I stamped a simple sentiment, added some snowflake sequins and a few drops of Nuvo White Blizzard Glitter Drops. 

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx

Faux Shaker

Good morning all, and Happy Halloween. I hope you had a good weekend and are having a good start to the week. Unfortunately there was no blog yesterday as our craft room was unusable due to working on the kitchen again at the weekend. Why is it that when you do anything with the kitchen the whole house ends up a mess????? 

Anyway, we did treat ourselves on Sunday by going out for lunch and 

 then to the cinema to see Thor. Chris Hemsworth, need I say more?😊.

Right, on to today's card, this one is a faux shaker, using printed acetate instead of sequins or beads. I used the small Snowglobe Die from Clearly Besotted, and a Simon Says Stamp Circle Christmas Greeting stamp, which I stamped on dark blue card and then dusted over with Mica Powder.

Then I added a circle of pre printed acetate to give it the look of a shaker card, but without any of the depth or weight for posting.

For the background I used a piece of pale blue textured card and then a dark blue mat, which was cut out with a Lawn Fawn, Stitched Squares die.

The smaller square was an off cut I had left from a stamped background I had made using Distress Inks and a snowflake stamp.

Then I added some sequin snowflakes and a Britannia die cut sentiment.

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx

Merry & Bright

Good morning all and happy Wednesday. I hope you are all having a good week. Today's card was an experiment after watching another of Jennifer McGuire's video's, on how to do a form of Letterpress.

I decided to give it a go using three different sizes of snowflake dies. For this technique, you cut each of the snowflakes 3 times from heavy weight card, then once from plain vellum. Then you glue them all together and this is what makes your letterpress image.

I used the very pale blue ink from the Altenew Cool Summer Night ink set, which is called Sea Glass. I applied it to the vellum side of the snowflakes and then laid them on a piece of watercolour card.

You then run these through the die cutting machine using an embossing sandwich and the stacked snowflakes press into the card and leave the inked image behind.

I must admit I was really dubious about getting it to work for me, but it did work lovely, so I will definitely be doing more. I added a sentiment from the latest Simon Says Stamp kit, and heat embossed it with Bright Silver embossing powder. 

Then I cut the panel out with an MFT Stitched Rectangle die and added it to a blue note card. Then to finish it off I added a few drops of Sea Mist Nuvo Jewel Drops. 

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx

Christmas Snowflakes

Good morning all, I hope you have had a good weekend. It's been a busy one again for us, but I did manage to sneak out for a couple of hours on Saturday, to have lunch and a catch up with a lovely friend. 😊

Today's cards are all about the snowflakes. I have seen a few cards around where the main focus is on the snowflake, so I thought I would give it a try.

I started with a piece of thick black card, and inked it with Versamark ink. Then I heat embossed it with Ranger Liquid Platinum embossing powder. 

This card has a Spellbinders Snowflake with a Creative Dies sentiment. I mounted it on orange card which I cut out with an Avery Elle Wonky Stitched Ellement die.

I used the same background die for this teal version, but used a Memory Box Precious Snowflake die for the main focal point. 

I added gold twine and a single gem to the orange version, and a few gems along with some of the diamond cut-outs, with a different Creative Dies sentiment, to finish off the teal version.

Hope you like them, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx

Winter Wonderland

Good morning all, I hope you are well and having a good week. I am back at work this week  😞, so not much crafty time for me, but hopefully I will get to play at the weekend 😊.

Today's card is using the cute Lawn Fawn Toboggan Together set for the little deer, and the Cheery Christmas set for the tree.

They are stamped with Memento inks and the deer is coloured with Copic markers. For the background I used a Spellbinders Bauble die to cut a shape in a piece of shimmer card. Then I ran that piece through a snowflake embossing folder.

I used Marianne Design Dies to cut the little houses and trees, and teamed them with the Mama Elephant Stitched Border Trio for the snowy banking.

I arranged it all on a dark blue card blank and added a piece of pale blue dotty paper to the background.

Then I added the Lawn Fawn sentiment, which I cut in to two pieces, a few snowflakes and a scalloped border to finish it off.

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx

Wintry Tree Silhouette

Good morning crafty friends, I hope you are all well today. I have been a little under the weather this past week, but hopefully I am on the mend now. It's typical as soon as you have some time off work, you get ill !!!!

Anyway, you may have noticed an abundance of Christmas cards around, and I'm afraid we are no exception. It's that time of the year, where if we don't start now, we will still be making them on Christmas eve lol :o))

So today's card is a simple card that can be made quite quickly and could easily be changed to use for a different occasion. I started by cutting a piece of white card with an Avery Elle Wonky Stitched Frame.

Then I masked around the edges and blended Salty Ocean, Tumbled Glass and Mermaid Lagoon Distress Inks, to give me a wintry background. 

Then I used a tree stamp from one of last years magazine freebies and stamped it to one side using Tuxedo Black Memento Ink. 

I stamped the sentiment and snowflakes with the same ink and then just finished the card off with some tiny crystals on the snowflakes.

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx

Gold Baubles

Good morning all, today's card is one I made after seeing this lovely one on Pinterest here. I didn't have the same materials and supplies but I made use of what I had and I'm quite pleased with the result. 

I started by cutting a piece of white card stock to the right size for a 7 x 5 card blank and then cut mats in gold and black card for behind it. 

Then I used a snowflake bauble die to cut the aperture in the white card and the baubles from gold card. 

Then I ran the white card through a snowflake embossing folder from Crafters Companion, and added a shaker pocket behind the bauble aperture full of gold and silver sequins and seed beads. 

I added the baubles to the front and then coloured some white twine with my gold Wink of Stella pen to give me gold hangers for my baubles. Then I glued these down with Glossy Accents glue. 

To finish it off I added a sentiment from a Simon Says Stamp Christmas set and heat embossed it with Cosmic Shimmer Bright Gold embossing powder. 

Hope you like it, take care and I'll see you soon.

xxx