Peace and Goodwill

Hello, crafting friends!

 

What a chilly old spring it's been this year! When you have to reach for a woolly throw most evenings and can't imagine what short-sleeved tops and flip flops are doing in your wardrobe, there really isn't any difficulty making festive cards! Here's one I rustled up earlier:

 

This has become a 'go to' recipe for a Christmas card for me - a sentiment label on a DSP background, embellished with foliage and berries. I trimmed a piece of Simple Stories designer paper with a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle and glued it to a card front. The sentiment is from Stampin' Up's Hope and Peace and was stamped and heat embossed in red, then cut out with a label die from The Works. I popped this up on dimensional pads.

 

The foliage dies are from The Greetery and Flora and Fauna and I also used some unbranded holly dies. The die cuts were sponged with green inks except the berry branches which I left white. Everything was glued into place and I finished with some lovely shiny enamel dots.

CHALLENGES

Linda has an intriguing sketch at Freshly Made Sketches this week which I used for this card; I'm also linking up with Peace on Earth which inspired me with another of their gorgeous mood boards; also the Anything Christmas Goes challenge at Rudolph Days where you can link up until the end of the month.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

It's been good to have a bit of time to craft this weekend. The chilly weather has made me glad to get in from our walks and the golden girls are happy to settle down for a bit of serious napping while I create piles of papers, inks and dies all over the living room! 

 

Here's Eva being queen of the sofa! Of course it's important to keep one eye half open in case mum goes to the fridge for cheese!!

I hope you're enjoying your weekend :) Sending hugs,

Left overs and hugs

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I can't even begin to explain how much fun I had today! Some Blogland challenges had inspired me to take a look in my patterned paper drawer and the first thing I saw was the Simple Stories Christmas pad I'd bought to make some last-minute 'patterned background and bold die cut sentiment' cards last year. There were some whole sheets left in the pad but there were also some off cuts and some little journaling cards which I thought I might use to create some non-festive cards. Come and see:

 

CARD NUMBER ONE

 

I started trimming some coordinating strips which I put together in an L shape on a card panel. The large heart, which I found on one of the journal cards, was fussy cut, stiffened by stacking it up with snippets of white card, and popped up on the panel. I added another heart, die cut from a mustard snippet and an enamel heart.

 

The 'hugs' sentiment was cut using the Greetery's Slim Alphabet dies. I thought it would go nicely with the heart theme :)

 

 

CARD NUMBER TWO

Instead of going for the blue and red with mustard accents, this time I focused on the warm mustard with red and blue accents. I LOVE the patterns and muted colours in this pad!

 

 

The mug of flowers was fussy cut from a journal card and I added layered die cut hearts and a sentiment banner fussy cut from another journal card. 

Here are some of the snippets I used (I added more as I went along plus white snippets). Sadly I ran out of time as I would definitely have enjoyed making more of these!

CHALLENGES

I fell in love with Kim's gorgeous sketch at Freshly Made Sketches, and used it for both my cards; I used Patterned Paper on both, so will enter these at Double D where that is the theme; X is for Xtra Hearts at The Alphabet Challenge so I'm linking up Card One there; I'm taking my mug of flowers to The Snippets Playground - I shall give the flowers to Miss Di to cheer her up and then nip up to the treehouse and fill it up with hot chocolate! Liz said something about Baileys... I don't know what that is but it sounds delicious!!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I tend to walk the golden girls in the park at the moment because it is mostly flooded. They are thrilled with this and I can let them off to zoom around in the water because there are very few people around, and those there are tend to have dogs who are also careering about! We saw a man looking thoughtfully at the football pitch, which is completely submerged. "Looks more like a water polo pitch doesn't it!" he said to me. And then went off into peals of laughter at his own wit!

Sending hugs,

Joy to the weary world

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Thanks to everyone, the regulars and the sometimes visitors who have played at the Tic Tac Toe Challenge this year. This week's challenge will be the last one before we retire for a break, and who better to present the board than Felicita, the lady who dreamed up this fun challenge!

 

 

If (like me) you are still scrambling to make a few extra cards, this board is sure to give you some ideas! I chose the top row December Holiday/Winter Foliage/Red or Green:

A gorgeous paper from Simple Stories and a large die cut sentiment from Reverse Confetti were the beginning of this card. I trimmed the paper, layered it onto red card and glued it to the front of an A6 card front, leaving a white frame round the edges.

 

 

The die cut sentiment was left white to pop against the paper. I glued it to the paper, tucking some wintery sprigs around it to bring it to life. An additional sentiment from The Greetery's Banner and Boughs added some curvy interest, along with some pearls.

My team mates have some gorgeous inspiration for you, so do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe challenge site to admire those. And then it's your turn! Choose a row, column or diagonal and make a card using the ideas in the boxes. You can use the Linky Tool at the bottom of the challenge post to share your card with us. We can't wait to see what you come up!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at The Four Seasons challenge where Anything Winter Goes, and where there is a lovely wintery mood board.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

The halcyon days of summer are a distant memory, and it's hard to remember a time when the dogs and I haven't been coated with mud. It's beginning to get me down a bit. The silver lining is that Lulu, who fought like a lion when I introduced the concept of a bath to her, now hops in happily and seems to enjoy the spa treatment. All that practice!

 

 

Here she is on a rare sunny (but still muddy!) day last week, my little huntress, eyeing up a cheeky squirrel. And look - she pointing like a real hunting dog!

 

You may be wondering where Eva is. She is just out of shot. It's quite hard to get a photo of them together at this stage of a walk as Eva, at 9 years old, trots about and spends a lot of time sniffing in the hedgerows, whereas Lulu gallops about like a total loon and does everything at 100 miles an hour!

 

Sending hugs,

Wreathed in festive florals

Hello, crafting friends!

 

It's Thursday and the Tic Tac Challenge invites you to come and play with our new board! Devised by Betty this week,  there are plenty of options...

 

... including suggestions to enable us to crack on with those festive cards! I've chosen the middle row Wreath/Free/Enamel Dots to create mine.

 

I started this card by offsetting Funky Fossil's Holly Wreath stencil on a card panel and sponging reds and greens into it. I added a snippet of DSP  to the bottom, trimmed it to size with my guillotine and then went in search of a focal point.

 

I've been adding to my Embossing folder collection just lately and have found a few retired Stampin' Up beauties that I've really enjoyed playing with. The florals on this card come from a set of two called Floral Affection. I embossed the large floral on an offcut of pink card and again on a snippet of red card, added detail with markers and cut them out. The pine branches and holly leaves were found in the snippets box, left over from other projects. The sentiment is a retired Uniko's stamp combined with a die cut from Avery Elle. To finish, I attached the panel to a card front and added enamel dots to the flower centres. 

Right! Now it's your turn! Here's how to play along: Choose a row or column or one of the diagonals and create a card using the inspiration suggestions. Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe challenge site to check out the samples the team has made for your enjoyment! You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and you can use it to share your own card with us. We can't wait to see what you make!

CHALLENGES

I used lots of left overs for this card (snippets of DSP, pink red and blue card offcuts, left over pine branch die cuts and holly leaf cut outs) so I'm skipping over to the Snippets Playground with this card in my satchel; I'm also joining in at Peace on Earth where there are wreaths everywhere on the mood board! I used an embossing folder to create my flowers so I'm also linking up with Can you Handle the Pressure where Anything Goes ( with optional twist of Spooky); also Happy Little Stampers Stencil challenge where Anything Stenciled Goes.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Here's a heartwarming story for the dog lovers among you: Yesterday, I took the golden girls on a walk in the countryside. Both dogs have great recall so they run off lead, sniffing in the hedges, chasing things in the undergrowth. If they lag behind too long, I just call them and they catch up. Well yesterday Lulu didn't come back when I called and I realised there was something wrong. Eva and I walked back to find that Lulu had managed to get the wrong side of a fence. She was trying to get to us but was running up and down the fence looking for the way back, giving frantic little barks. Eva went into Big Sister mode and ran alongside her on our side of the fence, obviously trying to help her find the way. In the end, I found the gap under the fence in a very overgrown thicket with a ditch (delightful!) but I was so pleased to see how the girls interacted with one another.

Sending hugs,