A Notably Ornate Christmas

With an fat, new catalogue coming out on Monday, I've been packing away all my retiring sets ready to make room for lots of exciting new ones. Is there anything more fun than playing with new stamp sets?! By the way, if you live in the UK and you'd like to put your feet up with one of the new catalogues, I can post one to your door for £4.95 - you won't be disappointed I promise you! Just email me to order one.

Of course, while putting the retiring stamps away, I couldn't resist having a go with some of them, including Notably Ornate. Now, this isn't a set you would immediately associate with Christmas but I had a sudden idea... come and see:

I started by swiping Whisper White craft ink over a Baja Breeze card base, masking off the centre and inking the exposed edges with Baja Breeze ink. To add dimension to the paler part, I scored the join with my Simply Scored board and added a little shading with a watercolour pencil.

The swallow in the Notably Ornate set makes a brilliant dove: I stamped him onto Whisper White card stock, cut him out without including the fork in his tail and added dove-like markings on the other side with the watercolour pencil. I thought this sprig from Tags 'til Christmas made a reasonable olive branch.

All that was needed was a suitable sentiment and I chose this one from my Jolly Jingles wheel. Now wouldn't this be an excellent card to send to a feuding relative!

If you'd like to make some of these little doves, Sunday is the last day to order the Notably Ornate set - and everything else on the Retirement lists! Check them out here and email your order through to me before 8pm on Sunday at the latest.

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Notably Ornate (retiring), Tags 'til Christmas, Jolly Jingles wheel
Ink: Baja Breeze, Real Red, Whisper White craft ink
Card stock: Baja Breeze, Whisper White
Other: Old Olive marker, Watercolour Pencils, Simply Scored, paper snips, 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. 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 01280 820593.

I don't know why I made a Christmas card for today as the bizarre wintery weather we've been having has been interrupted by a day of glorious warm sunshine! It was just the weather for me to venture into the garden with a pair of secateurs and do battle with the triffids - and you'll be glad to know we can sleep safely in our beds tonight!

Have a lovely weekend won't you, and I'll be back very soon.
Hugs,

PS The lovely Sandra has reminded me that a Christmas card is all that's required for Rudolph Day! This will be my second entry - go me!

Beyond the Garden notebooks

On my blog yesterday there was a card I'd made using the beautiful Beyond the Garden designer paper and today I have some coordinating notebooks to show you.

These notebooks are sold in supermarkets and are really useful for shopping lists and notes but frankly wouldn't win any beauty contests... but with a bit of a make-over they turn into something you'd be more than happy to keep on display on a hook in the kitchen or by the phone or, with a magnet glued to the back, on the fridge!

To make them, you just peel back the black tape at the top, remove the soft cover and replace with card stock topped with designer paper. I use Sticky Strip for this job so that I can be confident the notebook won't come apart. The little label on the front is from the Notably Ornate stamp set. I stamped it in Basic Black and embellished with a leaf from Bright Blossoms and my favourite little flower punch from the Itty Bitty punch pack centred with an adhesive pearl.

Since I've covered everything I used, I won't type out a supply list today as I do normally - time during the holidays is at a premium and apparently there are Poffins to be baked... watch this space!

It's Three Minute Thursday tomorrow - see you then for a fast project!

Notably Ornate thank you

It's always so much fun playing along with One Layer Wednesday but I'm only just getting round to Wednesday's challenge today! It's Susan's turn to host and the theme is 'At least one star and at least one stripe'. There are lots of patriotic entries celebrating last week's American Independence Day but, since it's Masculine Monday here, I decided to go for a useful male thank you. Come and see:

This is such a quick card. I started with the notepaper - picking it out of the frame stamp with a Marina Mist marker, huffing on the stamp and stamping it on the edge of my card front. The sentiment was stamped over the top and the stars added.

Here's a close up. Making a simple collage by stamping images over each other is one of my favourite things to do. I created a little bit of interest by stamping one of the Itty Bitty stars onto watercolour paper and cutting it out with sharp paper snips before popping it up over the larger star. I used the water colour paper because (despite its name) it's really thick and has a lovely chipboard feel.

Here's what you'll need to make today's card:

Stamps: Notably Ornate, Thank You Kindly, Season of Joy, Itty Bitty Bits

Ink: Poppy Parade, Daffodil Delight, Marina Mist

Card stock: Naturals Ivory, scrap of watercolour paper

Other: Markers, paper snips, stamp-a-majig

I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and can have them delivered 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 01280 820593. Your free brad and ribbon set will be added automatically to any order of £45 or more.

We were away in Tynemouth this weekend visiting my in-laws. My daughter and I nipped into Newcastle on Saturday afternoon for a little retail therapy and I was amused to see everyone sat around on deckchairs at the monument watching Wimbledon on one of those huge screens. We missed the mens final, as we were on the road, but got back in time to watch the presentation. It broke my heart to see Andy Murray struggling to keep his composure as he thanked his supporters.

Hope you're having a happy Monday. I shall be back tomorrow with something gold - hope to see you then!

Using up the scraps!

My first stop when I'm making cards is my card stock scrap box so it's no trouble to me to follow this week's Less is More challenge where Chrissie and Mandi are inviting us to use scraps on our cards. Here's the card I made this morning:

The background strip is made by layering two pieces of designer paper together, popping them into the Square Lattice embossing folder and running them through my Big Shot. I had been demonstrating this technique to one of my customers who is a keen patchworker, as I thought she'd be fascinated by the quilted effect, and I'm pleased to give the resulting piece a proper home today!

This little cluster is made with items from my embellishment scraps box. This is where I toss all the things I make to decorate cards before realising they don't quite work! You can see the box on the left in the photo below with all sorts of interesting things in it:

The little jar on the right is full of die-cut letters and numbers which I use to spell out words, checking for size and position. When I have what I'm looking for, I look for the right colour in my card stock scraps box and cut the letters out - occasionally I'm even lucky enough to find the right colour in the jar! You can see I changed my mind about the orientation of this card - I am ALWAYS changing my mind about things!

Here's my card stock scraps box - looking remarkably similar to Chrissie's! The box is transparent so that I can see what's going on in there (!) and I keep the colours in rough order as Chrissie does, so that it's quick and easy to find the colour I'm after. It works really well.


I thought I'd show you another scraps card I made today using the left-overs from a retired Simply Scrappin' kit. As well as being great for scrapbooking pages, these kits are brilliant for incredibly quick cards - the hanging baubles on my card are stickers and so is the sentiment/border strip. Come and see:

All I did to complete the card was add piercing using my mat pack template, doodle in some bows with a marker and finish off with pearls. I'm entering this Christmas card into Sandra's Rudolph Day challenge and the 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown Challenge where Jacqueline wants to see Christmas cards using stickers and/or rub-ons. Thanks for those challenges ladies - it certainly is good to feel that I'm gradually making a nice little stash of festive cards for 2012!

Supplies needed for the top card:

Stamps: Notably Ornate

Ink: Not Quite Navy

Card stock: Naturals Ivory, Very Vanilla, Pear Pizzazz, Basic Grey, Marina Mist, Bravo Burgundy

Other: Paisley Petals designer paper, Large Oval, Boho Blossoms, and 2-step Bird punches, Timeless Type junior alphabet dies, Square Lattice embossing folder, Circle Ice rhinestone brad

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.

Click here to see all the free Sale-a-bration sets and don't forget to let me know which free Sale-a-bration set or sets you'd like - remember, one item for EVERY £45 spent!

My husband's just come in with a Gervase Phinn book he bought on the market this morning. He told me that he'd heard Phinn, a school inspector, talking on the radio and had been much amused by a snippet from one of his books: "Hello young lady," he said, greeting a little girl at one of the schools. "What's your name?" When she answered him, he exclaimed: "What a pretty name! Were you named after Portia from the Shakespeare play?" The child shook her head. "No," she replied. "It's Porsche after the car!"

Thanks for visiting me today. I'll be back on Monday with a masculine birthday card so do pop back then if you have a minute. Enjoy the rest of your weekend,