Wishing you a merry Christmas!

Christmas is an ideal time of year to say thank you to those that make a difference in our lives and a small handmade card or gift is often very much appreciated. This year I wrapped small pots of Christmassy cyclamen in the pretty vintage-feel Holly Berry Bouquet speciality designer paper, tied them up with a festive satin ribbon and added a punched label.

This is such a quick, easy to put together idea and brilliant for last-minute gifts too. I used the same gorgeous paper to make cards to match too using one of my favourite designs that you may have seen before...

... but I just wanted to show you the sentiment. I combined 'Wishing you a' from Hopeful Thoughts with 'Merry Christmas' from Contempo Christmas and I love the way it turned out!

Well, all my children have broken up from school and are full of excitement (although I'm beginning to suspect my daughter is more excited about the Downton Abbey Christmas Special than the day itself!) We've had a few flakes of snow, the Christmas lights are twinkling, there are some exciting looking parcels under the tree and this year's Christmas puzzle is out for us all to do when we have spare moments. So it's time to curl up by a roaring fire with a cup of tea and a nice slice of Christmas cake! Bliss!

It remains for me to say an enormous thank you to my readers and my customers. It is through your loyalty and support that I am able to run this small business doing something I absolutely love and I cannot thank you enough. I'd like to wish you all a very happy Christmas and I'll look forward to seeing you in the new year - with some very exciting news!

Hugs

Everything Eleanor robin card

My week, which started off so well with my lovely daughter's birthday celebrations, is not ending well! My cold has got worse and any dream I might have had of taking things a bit easy have been well and truly scuppered by the death of my dishwasher and the printer at the same time! They must be ganging up! Luckily the Make My Monday challenge was at hand to cheer me up - they're looking for clean and simple Christmas cards with the emphasis on the sentiment. Here's what I came up with:

The lovely sentiment comes from the Jolly Jingles wheel, which I've unmounted and chopped up to make loads of individual stamps (like I did with this one). I stamped it onto Whisper White card stock, added the bird using my stamp-a-majig and then cut out the 'snow bank', cutting around the bird. I sponged around the snow bank with Bashful Blue ink and although it hasn't really come out in the photos, it adds a nice bit of detail in real life.

If you're a regular reader of my blog you'll know that I do like a bird stamp! This one is from Everything Eleanor, which has to be one of my favourite sets in the current catalogue - it has such a lot of different elements to play with. To turn the bird into a robin I coloured the rubber directly with markers before stamping. My robin's Christmas hat was cut out of the Holly Berry Bouquet shiny striped paper using my Pennant punch.

Supplies needed for this card:

Stamps: Everything Eleanor, Jolly Jingles wheel

Ink: Cherry Cobbler, Bashful Blue

Card stock: Whisper White

Other: Markers, Holly Berry Bouquet speciality papers, Pennant punch, paper snips, stamp-a-majig

I'd be delighted to order any of these supplies for you and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. I am committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to help and advise. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593. 

I really do apologise for my lack of commenting this week - every time I think I'm on top of things, something seems to come along to try me! Talking of which, I'd better get this new printer installed and see if I can sort out a new dishwasher...

Have a lovely weekend and I'll hope to see you very soon.

Hugs,

Three Minute Thursday - Tags til Christmas card

Good morning! It's Thursday and time for another in my weekly series of fast cards. Last week I received my lovely Tags til Christmas set which I bought for making tags for this year's Christmas presents and, while I was making tags, I thought how useful some of the images are for quick cards too. Today's fast card is the result of that thought! Come and have a look:

I used one of my favourite papers from the gorgeous Holly Berry Bouquet speciality range and attached it to a Chocolate Chip card base. I love the vintage feel of this paper and added to that feel by adding the Real Red satin ribbon to the top of the card and tying it into a large festive bow. All that was needed then was this tag from the Tags til Christmas set.

I liked the way the pine branch on the tag coordinated with the paper and by leaving off the 'to and from' and adding the merry Christmas sentiment from Season of Joy it makes a good focal point to the card. It would've taken a while to cut round the shape but happily there's a punch which does the job for me in a fraction of a second!

Look at all these lovely images in the Tags til Christmas set - and most of them coordinate with a punch to make your life really easy!

Supplies needed for this card:

Stamps: Tags til Christmas, Season of Joy

Ink: Wild Wasabi, Real Red, Chocolate Chip markers

Card stock: Chocolate Chip

Other: Holly Berry Bouquet speciality papers, Real Red satin ribbon, stamp-a-majig

I'd be delighted to order any of these supplies for you and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. I am committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to help and advise. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593. 

Thank you for dropping in today and for all your lovely comments and emails. I so enjoy reading them and returning your visits. I've really appreciated all your get well wishes too - although I'm still suffering with this wretched cold! It seems that several of my electrical appliances have sensed weakness and given up - we're now without a printer (disaster!) and a dishwasher (oh the novelty of handwashing the dishes!) and I've just had to replace the kettle!

I'll be back tomorrow with more Christmas inspiration and I'll hope to see you then.

Hugs,

Three Minute Thursday - three Holly Berry cards!

Good morning! It's Thursday and time for some more speedy designs here. I'm now focused on Christmas cards ever since someone told me that it's only a matter of weeks until I'll be wanting to post them! Yesterday I brought out my new Holly Berry Bouquet speciality papers and spread them out on the table - I find just looking at them inspires me!

Those clever designers at Stampin' Up have made these gorgeous vintage-style papers perfect for all the year round - some are very Christmassy but some are quite ambiguous! And the speciality paper are delicious! Look:

It's a pretty rubbish photo but I hope you can see the glittery embossed finish on these - they are lush! Anyway, I digress - I'm here to show you fast cards!

How about these? Punches and designer paper are a marriage made in heaven and this is what happened when I brought out my square punches. The small square nests perfectly in the large one and that makes for very fast cards.

For the first, I made a tile by punching a small square and glueing it onto a larger punched square of Wild Wasabi card stock. This lovely sentiment from Beautiful Season has a space perfect for adding a tile into and it's easy to pick out words in different colours using markers. There was even time left over for punching a hole through the tile and tying a rustic bow with linen thread!

Here's another quickie. This time I made a super-fast background with my Very Vintage jumbo wheel, added the tile over a strip of Wild Wasabi card stock and stamping another sentiment from Beautiful Season - this one has a tile-shaped space too!

For the last card, I mounted my tile on a background square of Wild Wasabi card stock. (It was when I made the four cuts to produce this that I really began to appreciate the time-saving square punches!) A simple sentiment stamped onto the background and my linen thread embellishment, and the card was finished!

These cards are so quick to make and use very little paper, so why not make some extras and send them off to the St Lukes Charity Challenge? They'll be sold to raise vital funds for the hospice which cares for terminally ill patients and their families. Christmas cards are needed at this time of year of course but any cards are welcome. Click on the link for sending details.

Supplies needed for these cards:

THINKING OF YOU CARD

Stamps: Beautiful Season

Ink: Chocolate Chip and Cherry Cobbler markers

Card stock: Naturals Ivory, Wild Wasabi

Other: Holly Berry Boutique speciality paper, square punches, stamp-a-majig, linen thread, handheld hole punch

MAY YOUR SEASON CARD

Stamps: Beautiful Season, Very Vintage wheel

Ink: Wild Wasabi, markers

Card stock: Naturals Ivory, Wild Wasabi

Other: Holly Berry Boutique speciality paper, square punches, stamp-a-majig

MERRY CHRISTMAS CARD

Stamps: Teeny Tiny Wishes

Ink: Chocolate Chip

Card stock: Naturals Ivory, Wild Wasabi, Real Red

Other: Holly Berry Boutique speciality paper, square punches, stamp-a-majig, linen thread, handheld hole punch

I'd be delighted to order any of these supplies for you and can have them delivered to your address in the UK. I am committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to help and advise. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593. 

This seems to be an extremely long post so if you're still with me - thank you! I'll go away now as your relatives may be sending out search parties... See you tomorrow for more designer paper fun!

Hugs,