Dreaming of a pink Christmas

Hello crafting friends!

One of the card-making challenges I've been enjoying this year is the Jingles Belles Challenge, run by Stephanie and Lauren, which has been helping us all get a stash of Christmas cards ready for posting later in the year. Well, it appears that's not the only help these ladies are offering! For every card linked up in their current Pink Christmas challenge, they will be donating 2 dollars to Breast Cancer Research. Now that's definitely worth creating for! Why not join in and tell your friends about it too!

Here's my first effort:

This card started with a wash of Smoky Slate ink on watercolour paper and a pink ground. Once this was dry, I inked up the trees from Stampin' Up's Waterfront stamp set using pink markers and stamped them along the ground.

Detail was added using a white gel pen for snow and I finished the card with a lovely sentiment from Uniko's Simply Said Blocks Christmas set and some gems I coloured pink with an alcohol marker.

As well as linking up with Jingle Belles, I shall also be linking up with CAS(E) this Sketch, which has a gorgeous sketch for us this week, and As You See It, where the theme is trees.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
It absolutely poured with rain all day yesterday but dogs don't care about the weather so off we went out into the sodden countryside. At one point, our way was blocked by a fallen tree which had taken a bramble down with it. We got past it and it was only later after we met a man walking his dog that I realised something was wrong. The man didn't greet us, just edged past us cautiously as if the dogs were hunter-killers (they were my own waggy, smiley golden retriever and a trembly old lady boxer!) I looked about to see what had made him behave so oddly and realised that my hand was dripping blood. Perhaps he had thought that in a moment of abandon, the slavering beasts had bitten me?!!!

Thanks for coming to visit today. I think we all know someone who has been touched by the horrible claw of cancer, so I do hope you'll be making some pink festive cards. Do let me know!

Hugs,

White Christmas polar bear in a bauble

Hello crafting friends!

It's important to look on the bright side of life isn't it, so I'm going to start this post with saying that the miserable weather here has been SO good for my Christmas card stash! There's snow in today's card although things haven't got quite that chilly in real life yet! Come and see:

Several people have given me gifts of dies and although I was going to hold out until Christmas for a die cutting machine, I crumbled the other weekend and bought a Big Shot Foldaway. It deserves a post all of its own I think so, for now, I'll just say I really, REALLY enjoyed cutting this bauble aperture using a bauble die and a circle die from nesting sets - thanks Gill!

The scene inside the bauble was started by stamping the bear from Stampin' Up's White Christmas (retired) in Smoky Slate ink on a separate piece of white card stock. I coloured in the sky with a couple of pale blue alcohol markers, using a colour lifter to add the suggestion of snow. The trees from Waterfront were added and I added snow to those with a white gel pen. The scene was glued to the back of the bauble aperture.

To finish the card, I used the bauble die again on Smoky Slate card stock, then trimmed it to add a topper to my bauble. A bakers twine bow and a stamped sentiment were added before the card panel was attached to a Soft Sky card base.

The sketch I used for this card is the current challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.

I shall also link up to CrazyHazelnut's Christmas Challenge where Anything Christmas Goes, with optional For Someone Special theme.

You can enter up to two projects at Sweet Stampin' Christmas, where Anything Christmas Goes, with optional Christmas Decoration theme. This is my second entry there :)

AND IN OTHER NEWS
It's been a hectic weekend here with both my daughter and my eldest son visiting to make sure I was bearing up after my youngest had gone off to university! (They are sweet but, considering he spent most of his time at work or out socialising, I had plenty of time to get used to not seeing him much!) It was so good to see them both but, as always, I realise that we were so busy enjoying ourselves that we forgot to take photos. Note to self: memories are twice as sweet when you can relive them through photos afterwards!

Thanks for joining me today. Judging from all the inspiring challenges that have come out over the weekend, I shall be back VERY soon! How are you getting on with your Christmas card stash? Do let me know in the comments below - I always love hearing what you've been up to :)

Hugs,

A bit of Christmas dating

Hello crafting pals!

You know when you find something in the crafting cupboard and immediately think of something to do with it? That's how today's card came about! Come and have a look:

So that's the card. And this is what it looked like before it developed into a proper grown up card:

Not ALL that exciting! The idea was to turn it into a significant Christmas date...

... which I did using a (very useful) retired Stampin' Up stamp set called 25 Days. The star was stamped twice, once in Garden Green and once in Crumb Cake inks. I cut the number 25 out with a circle punch and popped it up on the fussy cut star. The bold 'W for Wednesday' was inked up from the word 'twenty' and stamped on blue card, then glued over the original W. I highlighted the word December with a pale blue alcohol marker.

And then I thought of making a little snowy scene inside the 'wreath'.

I made a mask using a circle punch and also used a post it note to mask off the snowy foreground while inking the sky. After removing the post it note, the trees from Stampin' Up's Waterfront set were stamped in the circle mask, and snow added with a white gel pen. The wreath was turned into a berry wreath with a flower centre from a retired Clearly Besotted stamp set, Flower Arrangement (I seem to use these flower centres all the time but you could also use an eraser on the end of a pencil.) Adding tiny stalks and highlights on the berries makes them look more like berries! The card was finished with a faux button and a bakers twine bow and a sentiment from White Christmas.

Once I'd found the Project Life card, what really set me off making this card was the challenge at Jingle Belles, where the challenge is to include numbers, or to feature elements from The Twelve Days of Christmas. I'd really like to have done 3 French Hens or 7 Swans a-Swimming inside the wreath but will have to get myself hen and swan stamps first!

I shall also enter the card into Crazy Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge where 'Anything Goes, with an option to use something beginning with S' - there's snow and a star on my card :)

Is it me, or have I been rambling on for hours? Hopefully you've had a nice nap now and have woken refreshed - all part of the service!

Hugs,

Sea-ing double

Hello crafting pals!

Writing the title of this post made me laugh like a paper bag but I have mastered myself now, so let's get on and have a look at some cards. Yes, that's right, not just one but TWO cards today!

If you can hear me sighing, it's because I really wouldn't mind being on either of those peaceful looking islands. They were both created with Stampin' Up's Waterfront set, a real favourite of mine.

This one layer card was made for AAA cards' challenge where they want clean and simple cards made in minutes with an optional summer theme. I didn't time it, but it was really fast! The background is literally five stampings:

1. Stamp the water in Balmy Blue
2. Clean the stamp, turn it over, stamp the sand in So Saffron
3. Stamp the palm trunks in Soft Suede
4. Stamp the palm leaves in Old Olive
5. Stamp the sun in So Saffron

The part that took the longest was getting out my Concorde and 9th Enjoy it All set, and inking up the word 'enjoy' with a Basic Black marker. A huff and a stamp and the card was done!

I made the second card because I suddenly realised that tropical islands could be construed as nautical (thanks Darnell!) which meant I could join in with this month's Twofer Challenge! Yay!

I started this one off with the sentiment (from a long-ago retired Stampin' Up set, Hello You), added the sand and the trees and layered on the 'wavy sea' paper.

I wanted to underline the sea with a card stock strip in the Shaded Spruce colour I'd used for the palm leaves but I didn't have any. I swiped my ink pad across the bottom of the card front instead and topped it with the paper. Canny eh?

Here are the challenge details and - oh look! I've missed the deadline for AAA Cards! Now that's not like me is it?! *slinks off dejectedly*

Thanks for joining me today and I'll see you soon.

Happy summer holidays

Hello crafting pals!

I've found another fab challenge I remember from when I used to craft before - Just Us Girls! This week, the challenge is to make a card with the word 'summer' as inspiration.

You'd think that living in the UK, rain would be the thing to bring out for this challenge but, as I am ever the optimist, I have used Stampin' Up's Waterfront stamp set to conjure up a beautiful, peaceful, tropical beach scene. Ahhhh! Feel those shoulders relax!

I sponged Balmy Blue, Pool Party and So Saffron ink across card stock, representing sky, sea and sand. The Waterfront set includes lots of stamps you can use to add texture, so I was able to give my sand plenty of interest. 

The two-step palm trees were stamped off the edge of the card stock and detail doodled on with a marker. I added waves to the shoreline with a white Signo ball pen.

That big sentiment has been put together using words, to my amusement, from Merry Christmas to All. I do love a versatile set!

I've realised that I'll be squeaking this card under the wire for this challenge so I won't hang about chattering!

Thanks for popping in today and I'll see you very soon for more crafting fun :)