The stars are brightly shining

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I thought I'd have heaps of time to craft now that I'm hunkering down with my golden girls and letting Lulu relax, feel safe and really learn about the life of a dog in our family. But it's like having a young pup again and we're doing lots of stress-busting walking, so I'm only crafting in short bursts! Today I managed to complete this simple Christmas card:

 

I found the starry sky paper pad in The Works about a month ago and thought it would make great Christmas card backgrounds. It's 6"x6" so I fell at the first hurdle as I'd selected a slimline card base! But I cut two short pieces the same width and joined them in the centre, mounting that on two vertical strips of fabulous gold washi tape that came in a prize I was lucky enough to win at ABC Christmas Challenge - thank you ladies!

 

To conceal the join, I cut a musical stave using The Greetery's Noted die set and, before attaching it to the card front, stamped the sentiments in Versamark and heat embossing them in gold. The 'Oh holy night' part is from Reverse Confetti's Greatest Gift of All, and the lovely curvy line from the song under the musical stave is from The Greetery's Sing a Song of Christmas. I finished the card with a little star punched out of gold foil card.

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at ABC Christmas where V is for Vertical and U is for Use it Up - and I did use up a snippet of white card stock and a tiny piece of gold foil card! I'm also joining in with Rudolph Days, where each month on the 25th we make a festive card for the stash; and am choosing the Anything Goes option at Peace on Earth Christmas and Happy Little Stampers Christmas.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

No time to stay and chat as it's late and I'm off out into the real life starry night with two golden girls before bed!

Sending hugs,

Playing with plaid

Hello, crafting friends!

 

It's a Tic Tac Toe Challenge day today and Betty has come up with a great board:

 

 

What I love about these boards is that the ideas in each box can be adapted for almost any occasion. I chose the top row: Red/Patterned Paper/Die Cuts and, since I'm growing my Christmas card stash, used it to make a festive card.

 

While rooting about in my designer paper drawer earlier in the week, I came across a snippet from a gorgeous pad of plaid paper - a much appreciated gift from a lovely friend. I glued it to a card panel and then trimmed the panel down with a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle. The 'to the world' part of the sentiment was stamped in red ink under the plaid panel and I made the 'joy' part from the Greetery's Slim Alphabet dies. Each letter was cut several times from offcuts of red card and stacked together for dimension.

 

Next I brought out lots of white offcuts and cut curvy brackets using The Greetery's Noted die set, and lots of pine branches and berries using the Holiday Foliage die set by Flora and Fauna. The brackets were positioned around the word joy and I coloured the foliage and berries with ink and sponge daubers adding snow with an acrylic paint pen. I made a swag out of these, curving it around the sentiment.

Right! It's your turn now! Which column or row will you choose this week - or will you opt for one of the diagonals? Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe challenge blog and check out the gorgeous sample my team mates have made to inspire you. You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and can use it to link up your own card. Have fun!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with Happy Little Stampers Die challenge where Anything Goes; I'm also nipping back to Jingle Belles with another entry for their Pine Trees or Branches challenge;

AND IN OTHER NEWS

We're having funny old weather at the moment! It's warm and sunny most of the time but it will often rain overnight, which makes it humid and plays havoc with my hair do! I am deeply envious of a certain natural blonde...

 

 

...who can get her hair wet, leave it to dry naturally and it always looks fantastic!!

Sending hugs,

The song of a robin

Hello, crafting friends!

 

The garden doesn't have much in the way of flowers at this time of year so it's lovely to see the birds fluttering about instead. Watching a bossy little robin on this frosty morning prompted me to pull out an old Clearly Besotted set called Red Robin and make a Christmas card.

 

I started the card by sponging blue ink through Funky Fossil's Burlap stencil, removing the stencil and layering more of the same ink over the top for a subtle look. On top of that, I stamped holly and fir branches from Uniko's Winter Foliage and a sentiment from the Red Robin set.

 

A die-cut music score was added using The Greetery's Noted die set. I stamped one of the little birds from Red Robin and coloured him with coloured pencils before fussy cutting him and popping him up on the music score with a dimensional pad. The card was finished with a cluster of enamel dots to represent holly berries.

CHALLENGES

LeAnne's challenge at The Paper Players this week is to make a card with music as the theme so I'm linking up there; I'm also playing along at We Love Stamping where the challenge is Anything Stamped with the option to add a stencil; and the ABC Christmas Challenge where C is for checks and/or D is for Die Cuts.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

The dog walks have been wonderful for the last few days - crisp and frosty in the mornings, then glorious blue skies and golden sunshine by lunchtime and warm enough to go without a coat! That's me not the pups ;) We had Murph the spaniel to play this week and as one of his favourite things is to go rabbiting*, we went on the special Rabbit Walk. You can often find other interesting creatures in the hedges...

 

... don't know what this one is, lurking in the undergrowth, but I'd guess it's probably a Beige Beast!!

*Please rest assured that no bunnies are ever in danger of being harmed in the course of our walks!

Sending hugs,

Birthday bits and bobs

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I got right back in to the crafting saddle today, and had a nice canter round the Craft Square Metre! Hmm. It needs a bit of clearing out if I'm honest, but I'm much more interested in crafting than a clear out (anyone else?!) so I had a look in my snippets box and pretended that using up 3 items was a full-on Marie Kondo!!

Here are the snippets I found - all had been cut but not used. I made myself a nice cup of coffee and had a little think about them:

 

And here is the result of that thought process:

 

The die cut is supposed to be a musical stave from The Greetery's Noted die set, but I like the little bit of movement and texture it gives behind the arch aperture. The floral sprig is from WPlus9's Hello and Thanks stamp set and has been hanging around in my snippets box for two years! It seems to have held up quite well but I added a little bit more colour to it and snipped away any untidiness on the edges.

 

I decided to stencil a hopeful sunburst on the card base using an arch stencil as a mask and my well-used Sunny Day stencil from Clearly Besotted. The sentiment is from Altenew's Birthday Greetings set, coloured to match the leaves on the sprig with a coloured pencil.

 

I glued the elements together on my stenciled and stamped card base, popping up the arch on dimensional pads and pulled the colours together with some pink enamel dots.

CHALLENGES

I'm rather late but, since I was already in the saddle, I galloped through the Snippets Playground gates just as they were closing on their Anything BUT Christmas challenge!!  I'm also celebrating Double D's Birthday where they theme is Anything Birthday Related - Happy 7th birthday ladies and congratulations!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

January is doing its usual grey and murky thing but with extra rain this year. The river has burst its banks but I can tell you that the Golden Girls don't mind at all!

 

We cross a little footbridge to get to the river walk and when they realised that the footpath was now a paddling pool they both looked at me with the fondness and appreciation usually reserved for chicken in my pocket. I honestly think they believe that I laid it all on for their enjoyment!

Sending hugs,

Singing under the mistletoe arches

Hello, crafting friends!

 

If you were here yesterday, you'll know that I have developed a mad passion for a new stencil set! I've already used it for an autumn birthday card HERE, and today it's taking an outing as it was intended - on a Christmas card!

 

I'm using the Mistletoe Arches stencil set from The Greetery and this time I wondered if I could stencil the arch using coloured pencils. I can tell you that it IS possible but NOT recommended; the the pencils need to be sharp but they wear down really quickly in the stencil. It also takes a lot longer than using ink and dauber! I do quite like the look though.

 

The stencil set includes an arch and I used it to sponge in a pale blue background in the centre of the leafy arch. I layered over a die cut musical stave and notes, added a die cut 'joy' above it and a stamped sentiment under it following the curve of the stave. These new dies and sentiment stamps are going to get loads of use - I love the movement they create on a card front.

 

Snippets were used in the making of this card and I have a tip for you:

 

You can die cut bits from the centre of panels you want to use for matting and when you place the smaller panel on top, no-one would ever know! Double the snippets! Cunning eh?!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking up with Rudolph Days where we make a Christmas card on the 25th of each month; I'm also joining in with the Happy Little Stampers Stencil challenge where Anything Stenciled Goes; The theme at Addicted to Stamps and More has come round to Die Cuts and/or Stencils so I shall link up there; I'm off to The Snippets Playground too where we share cards made with snippets; The Noted die set and the curved song title sentiment set are being aired for the first time so I shall nip over to Darnell's NBUS challenge to share them there!

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I am lavishing attention on this beautiful lady this week.

 

Shhhh! Don't tell Eva!

Sending hugs,