MORE Watercolour Winter!

Last week, just before I keeled over (!) I made this card for the fabulous new CAS Colours and Sketches challenge. I was rather taken with the sketch and thought I'd use it for another card but with more conventional Christmas colours this time. Come and have a look:

I used the same quick technique - cutting thin strips of a post it note and using them to form a masked cross on my central panel before stamping my design. This time, I used the outline holly image from Watercolour Winter and coloured it with markers then sponged in a background with Pool Party ink. The mask was then peeled carefully away, a stamped sentiment added to the centre using dimensionals, then the whole panel attached to a card base.

I love these colours - they remind me of those bright and frosty Christmas mornings, which is what I like to have if we're not having a white one!

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Watercolour Winter, Timeless Type (sentiment)
Ink: Early Espresso, Pool Party, Raspberry Ripple
Card stock: Very Vanilla, Naturals Ivory
Other: Markers
I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on +44 (0) 1280 820593. Check out current special offers here.

I don't know what it is but we're all ready for Christmas in our house and it's taking great restraint not to rush out and get the Christmas tree! Last night, my daughter and I made a Christmas playlist together and I can't remember when I've laughed so much. Naturally we had to do tossing our pony tails and neighing along to the Sleigh Ride song and we were doubled up over a video of Slade singing Merry Christmas Everyone in a studio where you could hear someone hammering and drilling in the background. Ahhh Christmas - don't you just love it!

I'll be back tomorrow with more crafting fun - see you then!

Zoo Review Christmas snow

I am always delighted to see new challenges for clean and simple stampers and the latest is Addicted to CAS which kicks off this week with the codeword Snow. I've combined the theme with the sketch from another of my favourite clean and simple challenge sites, Case this Sketch. Come and see what I've come up with:

When I first saw Zoo Review in the catalogue back in September, I immediately thought of the Christmas card possibilities. Well, here's the penguin looking perfectly at home in a sponged background of ice and snow, with drifts created with a torn paper mask. The scene is mounted onto a card base decorated with scored lines.

I stamped my penguin onto Very Vanilla card stock and watercoloured him with inks and an aquapainter before cutting him out and mounting him onto the background. The sentiment is from Merry and Type and I thought it was a very apt wish for these incredible creatures who survive in the most challenging climate on Earth.

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Zoo Review, Merry and Type
Ink: Sahara Sand, Pool Party, Midnight Muse, Tangerine Tango classic inks, Whisper White craft ink
Card stock: Whisper White, scrap of Very Vanilla
Other: Simply Scored, Basic Black and Tangerine Tango markers, stamp-a-majig
I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK, France, Deutschland, Nederland or Osterreich. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on +44 (0) 1280 820593. Check out current special offers here.

We have said farewell to our lovely French Exchange student. It was my daughter's birthday during his visit and I didn't want him to feel left out of the celebrations so I suggested he made a card for her. He entered into this project with great enthusiasm, enlisting my youngest son's help, and on the day itself sang happy birthday with gusto. This was his first trip away from France and I hope he will carry back fond memories of his time with us.

Now... I've got some catching up to do! See you tomorrow,

Merry and Type in the pink

The annual Stampin' Up convention took place in Mainz, Germany last weekend and although I wasn't able to go this time, I've been shown photos and swaps and drooled over all the gorgeous freebies. I'm determined to go next year when it will be held in Manchester here in the UK, and it would be fantastic if my lovely team could come along with me! If you'd like to come too, then why not join Stampin' Up? It's always a great time to join but there's an extra deal this month - read all about it here. Who knows, it could be the perfect thing for you!

Back to today and I'm carrying on with my Christmas designs. This one was inspired by the 'Pink' theme at Less is More. Now, pink is not my first choice of colour, particularly not for Christmas, so this was a real challenge for me. Here's what happened:

(The card proved to be a nightmare to photograph so bear with me...!) I started off by stamping the baubles from Merry and Type with versamark, heat embossing them with silver embossing powder and colouring them with Pink Pirouette, Pretty in Pink and Sahara Sand markers. Then they were ready for a touch of Dazzling Diamonds glitter...

... and here you can see how lovely and shiny and glittery they are. The large one at the bottom got a bit of extra sparkle with a large rhinestone!

Watercolour Winter was the first Christmas stamp set I bought this year partly because I knew how useful the pine needle stamp would be for this sort of thing. The sentiment is from Petite Pairs and was cut out with the word window punch.

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Merry and Type, Watercolour Winter, Petite Pairs
Ink: Always Artichoke, Rose Red
Card stock: Very Vanilla, Pink Pirouette
Other: Versamark, silver embossing powder, heat tool, Dazzling Diamonds glitter, Word Window punch, markers, Basic Rhinestones
I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK, France, Deutschland, Nederland or Osterreich. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on +44 (0) 1280 820593. Check out current special offers here.

It's nearly the weekend again! Are you doing anything nice? I thought I might take a look in at the little bric-a-brac market in Buckingham - I love browsing round markets and car boot sales. The boys are not so keen on this activity and my youngest son complained bitterly when I asked him to accompany me to one on holiday this summer. "You'd enjoy it more if you were to start a collection of something like stamps or egg cups," I told him. "Would you like to start collecting something?" He looked at me artfully. "Yes," he said. "Wireless network adaptors!"

Have a lovely weekend and I'll see you very soon,

Deck the halls with one layer of holly

The lovely Ardyth is hosting One Layer Wednesday this week - or is that last week?! - and her challenge is to create a one layer card based on a song. I could've gone anywhere with this but it was half term so my time was limited, and also I needed to get on with Christmas cards, so I went with the rather predictable 'Deck the halls with boughs of holly'. Come and see:

The gorgeous focal sentiment comes from my new Merry and Type stamp set which not only contains some fabulous vintage-style sentiments but some fabulous strong images too. I can't wait to show you more cards made with it! On this card, I masked the sentiment with a cut-to-size post it note before stamping the holly outline image from Watercolour Winter and colouring it in with ink and an aquapainter.

If I zoom in you can see the effect. I love the different shades you get on the leaves with just one ink and adding a dot with a Soft Suede marker makes the berries look more realistic. After removing the mask I gave my sentiment a double frame with the Simply Scored board and sponged the edges of the card with River Rock ink.

You may have noticed (!) that my sentiment isn't as crisp as it could be. I was using my old-style ink pad, and perhaps it could do with a re-fill, but the new firm foam-filled pads give a much better, cleaner finish - even with solid stamps - with just a light tap into the ink. My new in-colour ink pads came in the new style and this is what the sentiment looks like in Raspberry Ripple...

...much crisper, even on the porous Naturals Ivory card stock, and with no pressure into the ink pad at all. Amazing!

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Merry and Type, Watercolour Winter
Ink: Cherry Cobbler, Gumball Green, Riding Hood Red, River Rock, Soft Suede
Card stock: Naturals Ivory
Other: Markers, Simply Scored, aquapainter, stamp-a-majig
I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK, France, Deutschland, Nederland or Osterreich. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on +44 (0) 1280 820593. Check out current special offers here.

The children went back to school yesterday. I'd tried to schedule posts during half term so that I had more time to spend with them and we did have fun. The last day of the holiday was wet and windy, so we curled up in front of the fire with a board game we'd found in a charity shop called Game of Life - does anyone remember it? It's a great game where a combination of your choices and the roll of the dice gets you through 'life'. I'm still chuckling over my youngest son, who, on landing on yet another 'pay up' square, looked up, sighed and said: "There's no end to the bills - am I right?!" This is mostly funny because he's a very English child - I think he must have been watching too much American TV!

I'll be back tomorrow with something suitable for a male birthday. Hope you'll come back and have a look!