Beautiful branches, twinkling for Christmas

Hello crafting pals!

I'm just sharing a moment of complete and utter excitement today! Eva is looking slightly concerned as I have let loose some strange squawking noises! Come and see what I've made:

When I made this Christmas card, I enjoyed the sparkly berries (which I was inspired to add for a challenge) but secretly yearned for something subtler. Here, I stamped the branches and berries with the gorgeous Beautiful Branches by Concorde and 9th, and added details with a fineliner. Then, to give the berries a bit of shine, I heat embossed them with clear embossing powder. Nice and glossy but not quite what I wanted, so I laid the card aside until...

... my Wink of Stella pen arrived! A gentle brush of the berries with the brush - and magic happened: shiny red berries with a delicious slick of subtle gold twinkle! Lots of people have told me I needed one of these little pens and they were quite right. What they didn't tell me though is that now that I have a pen that adds a subtle gold shimmer, I also need one that adds a subtle silver shimmer too! Can anyone advise?!!!

My card was finished with Stampin' Up's brilliant Merry Christmas to All stamp set. This is a sentiment set with added bits and pieces and versatile words that can be mixed and matched, and many of them can be used all year round. Love it!

I shall link this card up with Happy Little Stampers Christmas challenge where the optional theme is Twinkle. I am definitely twinkling today - and so is my card!!!

AND IN OTHER NEWS
Here's someone else who's having a twinkle today :)

I was trying to capture the sparkle on those berries, kneeling in an odd, leaning back position on the floor with a camera clamped to my eye, and found a damp nose in my neck. This is Eva's "What on earth are you up to?!" expression!

Thanks for popping in today. Does your pet find you amusing? Do let me know in the comments below!

Hugs,

Beautiful festive branches!

Hello crafting pals!

There have been a lot of Christmas cards spotted in Blogland lately and while it's a bit of a stretch to say it's made me feel festive, it has made me think about getting ahead! I love a stamp set that can be used for lots of purposes and the Concorde and 9th set, Beautiful Branches, is a perfect example. Come and see what I made with it:

Those branches can be Eucalyptus or blossom and they can be winter branches too! I've stamped them twice and fussy cut them out, adding glittery berries made from red glimmer paper cut out with my cropadile - it's amazing the stash I actually kept!

I am in love with this sentiment! I made it out of words in Merry Christmas To All, a current Stampin' Up set, and another one that's versatile. Stamping on the blue card was going to dull the red, so I chose the very bright Poppy Parade for the word 'Happy' and it matches the glimmer paper well.

Can you see how shiny those berries are? I'm not big on glitter but it's great to have smaller touches on a Christmas card. I drew the frame with a Uni pin fineliner and a ruler, before glueing all the elements onto the card front.

My starting-off point for this card was the CAS Christmas challenge where they're looking for glitter on clean and simple Christmas cards. There's a very pretty gallery already there as well as some glorious DT inspiration - well worth a look!

AND IN OTHER NEWS
Summer has returned to the heart of England so I thought I'd celebrate by wearing my shirt inside out all morning... can you believe the dogs didn't let me know?!

Thanks for popping round today :) I think I might have another little festive moment while the stamps are out! See you soon,

Triple panel Secret Garden

As always when I've been away, I just want to dive into my crafting and lose myself in creativity... but the laundry says otherwise! I couldn't resist Anne Marie's colour challenge at the Paper Players this week though and the sketch at CAS Colours and Sketches inspired me too. I began by stamping a background design which turned out to be too big for my card, so I made another out of the left-overs - which means I can go for a skip about in Di's Snippet playground too, YAY!!! Come and have a look:

This is the snippety one which turned out to be my favourite! I used Secret Garden (fast becoming a favourite) for the background and cut it up into these tiles. They've been arranged on a Crumb Cake card base which I stamped with the leaf image in the set.

I added a line of piercing to balance out this fabulous sentiment from Delightful Dozen. You may notice I've doctored it - I decided I probably wouldn't use a stamp that said 'thank you so, so much', whereas a stamp that said 'thank you so much' would be really useful! I love that I can alter my stamps with a snip of my brilliant craft and rubber scissors.

Here's the other card I made:

I kept it very clean and simple, letting the colours and floral design do the talking, and adding just a sprinkling of glitter for that feminine touch.

Are you curious to know how I made the background? It was very simple:
1. Sponged Baja Breeze ink over Whisper White card stock
2. Stamped Crumb Cake leaves all over it
3. Added the flowers in Rich Razzleberry and coloured them with an aquapainter
4. Coloured the centres with Island Indigo marker
5. Cut into panels, rounded two corners, sponged edges with Island Indigo ink.
What do you think?!

This are the challenges I worked from today:

Here's what you'll need to make today's cards
Stamps: Secret Garden, Delightful Dozen
Ink: Rich Razzleberry, Island Indigo, Crumb Cake, Baja Breeze, Black stazon
Card stock: Whisper White, Crumb Cake/Naturals White
Other: Essentials paper-piercing pack and tool, Island Indigo marker, corner rounder, stamp-a-majig
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This has been a rather long post, and you're probably parched from going so long without tea/coffee, so I won't bore you with any of my domestic witterings - except to say: Trousers in the laundry without removing tissues from pocket - AAAARGH!

See you tomorrow with more crafty goodness,