Merry Christmas to All

 Merry Christmas to All my Family and Friends.

Today I have pre-schedule this post.  As read this Christmas Day will be almost over for me. Our day will have started with breakfast with our son and daughter-in-law and the two granddaughters.  After they leave we will have headed north to have lunch with our friends in Mangawhai - going to be 19 of us for lunch!

Today is my day to share at Die Cut Divas 

Our sponsor this month is Altenew. They generously will be giving our winner a $50 gift certificate to their online store. 

Today I am sharing a Birthday card.   I have a friend who's birthday was only a few days ago.   Altenew kindly provided the team members with a Build A Garden set - and I chose Morning Asters.   I got it a few months back and have already used it a number of times.  It's a stunning set to use. 

I started by using some Altenew dark grey ink to stamp the bigger of the florals in the set.  I then used the matching stencils set to add the ink - Altenew's Burnt Red and Mahogany inks for the flowers and Eucalyptus and Forest Fern for the leaves.   The embossed background is Altenew Dotty Circle 3D folder inked with the ink left on my blender brush.  In my "magic mug" I have a few of the flag dies cut from an LDRS sentiment stack die and I took one and stamped the sentiment from Altenew's Sentiment Strips 2. 

Wishing everyone a Very Merry Christmas 

Poinsettia Christmas

 I case'd one of my own cards with this card... in fact I made two of them 

I used the same design - just changed up the colour of my arch, poinsettia  and leaves, and used a different sentiment.   Just used the same embossing folders.   The arches are from a Hero Arts set, and the sentiment is from Scrapbook.com.  

Here's the original

Now to address and send all my local cards to friends and family.   

Christmas Gnome

 Hi there.  It's time for my card for this month's challenge at Die Cut Divas.   Our sponsor is Kat Scrappiness 

Our theme is  "Anything to do with Holidays (Any Holidays)-"  I've chosen to make a Christmas card. 

 I don't have any Kat Scrappiness stamps or dies so Arlene sent me some stamped and die cut.  This little gnome is from Christmas Gnome stamp set.  I coloured with him alcohol markers.  I used Gina K Master Layout dies to cut my red panel.  My pink arched die is from Hero Arts. My sentiment is from a Waffle Flower set.  A few die cut stars finished my card.  

Do come and join our challenge (here)

Watercoloured Baubles.

 I've seen a couple of reels where crafters have inked or coloured up a jar lid, or other round object and then used water to spread it around.   I had a finished toilet roll so thought I'd try it.... well it turned out sort of okay... a bit amateurish but not too bad for a first go. 

 I used the toilet roll as a stamp and pounced it onto some Catherine Pooler purple ink and then used a paint brush and water to spread the colour.  I then used some iridescent spray and painted that over top for some glimmer.   I used some gold paint from my Jasart Metallic paints to add the tops and strings.  I stamped a sentiment from a freebie stamp set called Christmas Florals.   And a few gold sequins to finish.

I'm entering this into the Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge  

I finished early today as I started early so a couple of Christmas cards for a Flickr swap.  So they'll be in the post soon and as soon as I hear that they have arrived, I'll share.  

Christmas overload....

 I am in Christmas card making overload!   This time of the year I get carried away making lots of Christmas cards.  Over the weekend I was tidying up a bit and came across more ephemera packs of Christmas images - brought over the years and forgotten about!   And lots of Christmas stamp sets I'd forgotten about too!  

Here are a couple I've made - first up using some ephemera baubles.  I made a mini slimline base and die cut a central panel from some shiny green paper. 

I added the baubles and used a gel pen to add lots of dots around them.  The strings and bows were drawn with a gold gel pen. The sentiment is a Spellbinder's hot foil set.   A CAS card. 

My second card used a stamp from Inkadinkado (0 Joly Night) and one of the circle die cut cards I found at an Op shop a while back. 

These cards are tri folds, so I made the most of that idea and stamped and coloured the manger image onto the middle fold.  The card bases are also very textured.  I stamped and clear embossed the manger and added the colours with Prisma pencils.  The sentiment from the Inkadinkado set is line art type - but the texture meant some didn't stamp well, so I took a black pen and filled in the letters. 

I did do some more card making last week and during the weekend... one that I made for my NZ swap group... something really outside my comfort zone - the theme this month is Steampunk.  As soon as the recipient lets me know she has it, I can post it.   And one for an upcoming design team post that doubles as my son's birthday card... for his upcoming birthday on the 13th.   

 

 

One kit, - five Christmas card...

 I went to my local Spotlight store today as I had a 40% discount code and I've been eyeing up some Jasart Metallic paints... at $47 - I was waiting till I got a good discount voucher.  While I was there I picked up a Crafters Choice DIY Kit for around $10. 

There are die cut pieces and beautiful double sided glossy papers - Patterned on one side and solid colour on the other.   Today I am sharing the first 5 cards I've made. 

All the cards use the ephemera die cuts from the kit and some of the patterned paper. 

This one used a design from Jess Crafts- this was part of her session on the Stress Free Cardmaking Summit.  Great design/sketch. The sentiment is from a Crafters Choice stamp set, embossed with silver power.  A few silver pearls.   I used both sides of the paper. 

Another one using the Jess Craft sketch and another die cut ephemera.  Used some Peelcraft stickers for the sentiment.  

This one used on of the ephemera on top of a red embossed panel splatter with some of the gold paint from my new paints.  Added the wreath and added some gold paint dots and some red gems. The foiled sentiment is from Spellbinder's Yana;s Christmas Sentiments hot foil and dies. 

This design is another from the Stress Free Cardmaking Summit - from the session by Craft Al.  For my embossed background I inked with some Festive Berries Distress Ink and ran it through my machine with a Tim Holtz folder and one of his diffusers - the oval inner portion.  This lets the folder only emboss where you add the oval diffuser.  Another of the sentiments from the Spellbinders hot foil and die set.   I'm entering this one into the current - Just Us Girls challenge.... CAS - use just the centre of your card   

and the final one - which I think is my favourite 

This uses some of the patterned paper and the plain paper.  The sentiment is from the Crafters Choice set embossed with some Rose Gold powder.  Add a thin strip of green mirri card above and below the sentiment panel.

There is so much of the kit left so I'll be using it up to boost my Christmas card stash. 

Merry Christmas Poinsettia

I finished up the card I was working on yesterday, later in the evening.  I took me ages to do... but I love the way it turned out. 

This card was quite the labour of love!   The beautiful sentiment - from Carta Bella, was cut with some green Mirri card.  Each letter was cut separately apart from the "AS".. which meant trying to get them added to the embossed layer was a bit difficult.   I die cut one from white card to use as a template to stick them through.    I started by trimming a white panel for the background - embossed it with an unnamed folder which had the embossing around the edges.  Think it may have come from a magazine.  Next up was to print the patterned paper.   I pop the download onto Word and was then able to recolour the red to green before printing it out.   I used a Hero Arts Infinity Arch die set to cut it out.  I used a smaller die from the Arch set to cut the centre panel which was embossed with a snowflake folder.  The poinsettia is by Spellbinders - Layered Poinsettia, cut from white card for the three smaller layers and lightly ink blended with green ink from the brush I used.  The last layer was cut from some textured green card which I also used to die cut some of the Pinkfresh Curvy leaves dies.  The entire panel was then layered onto some of the green Mirri card before adding to the white base.   I have to say the Mirri card is hard to get a good photo of.    Well worth the time it took.                                                   

Retro Christmas....

 Hi there.  I've got three cards to share today... all using the same theme of "Retro Christmas"  

I picked up a Retro Santa die from my local stationery store.   It was a freebie from a 2021 magazine - they were selling it for $3.99.  

Yesterday I snuck into my craft room and did the die cutting.   I tracked down the magazine and issue number and downloaded the free papers and sentiment toppers.  I CASE'd a square card on the web site. 

I started by printing the three papers I wanted and the sheet of sentiments. Then trimmed the papers to fit a 5" square card. I die cut the frame from Gina K Master Layouts #12 and some American Crafts glitter paper.  I used the same die to cut out the centre from the stiped paper.  I cut out the hat for Santa from red glitter paper and the fur around the hat, the eyebrows, beard and mustache from white card.  The face was cut from an off white card and I added a little pink Copic for the checks and a little fawn for his nose and mouth.  Used green and red glitter to add the Holly and Berries to his hat.  The sentiment was printed and trimmed and layered with red card.

My next two cards use some of the papers I printed and both use some rub-ons from 49th and Market's 2023 Christmas Spectacular Classic rub-ons.  

First one is another Santa 

s

I trimmed the printed paper with Gina K Master Layouts #1 and it's layer die in red.  I took some white card and used the Santa rub-on and then used some Spellbinders Nestibilities ovals and scallop ovals dies.  The sentiment was from the rub-ons as well.   A few red gems finished this one.   

and the third one used a Poinsettia rub-on

Again used the printed paper and some off white card to add the Poinsettia and the sentiment rub-ones.  A few gold pearls from Pinkfresh Studios.  A quick card using these gorgeous rub-ons.  

Tomorrow is another day off for me... It's a national holiday here in NZ to celebrate Labour Day - which commemorates when the 8 hour working day was legislated over 100 years ago.   A sleep in day for me... and then some crafting!   Plus booking my flights to Perth for April next year!

Hope you had a crafty weekend.

Stress Free Cardmaking Summit -Part 2

 Hi there... I'm back to share three more cards I've made this week inspired by more of the presentations I've watched from the Stress Free Cardmaking Summit...  so a warning that this post is long!

First up I was inspired by Mary Polanco - I actually made two for this one... but simply did not like the first one.... The blues were too green and I found I don't have a medium sized snowflake stamp!  I tried to make on with some fun foam and a die... but my fun foam was too thin and the die too intricate - so that panel ended up in the bin... so back to the drawing board - or should I say the painting board!

For this one, I took some Fabrico Mixed Media paper and masked around the edge.  My first attempt used Catherine Pooler inks to paint, this time I used some Distress Oxides in blues... one little corner seeped under the mask - but that was ok.   I took the snowflake die (a freebie from a magazine) and some silvery shimmery paper and die cut three snowflakes.  I used Altenew's Charcoal Suit grey ink to stamp the Waffle Flower sentiment.   Added some Stampendous Dot Sparkles in silver.  They really are iridescent.  This time my heart was singing.  It was just how I wanted it to look!

Card two was inspired by the presentation by Jess Crafts - her sessions was all about take 12x12 papers and cut them up to make 6 cards.   Well I don't have many Christmas 12x12 papers but do have some 6x6 ones.  So I did just one card - but have enough stripes for at least one more card.  The papers she used had some pages of toppers - I found a topper in my stash... not sure where it came from but I put it to use. 

A nice and quick card to put together as I had cut up my 6x6 at the time I watched the presentation and put it together this afternoon.  Added some Wink of Stella shimmer pen to his hat and finished with some Altenew red enamel dots.  This design will be used a few more times I'm sure - I think I'll make some topper with my stamps, stencils etc. 

And the final one for today - inspired Crafty Al.  Her presentation was all about using Ephemera to make a quick card - using a lovely design.  I found a pack of Christmas ephemera by Kaisercraft - got it when I bought a kit from Uniquely Creative in Australia 2 years ago.  I hadn't even opened it!  And I have two more packs of Nature and Floral ephemera so will be trying out the design and the stepped up versions that Crafty Al provided as an add on to her presentation.   Today's card was the basic design,

The main design element was the soft ink blending behind the ephemera and sentiment.  I used Altenew Firefly green ink for my glow behind the cute Nutcracker which I added with dimensional tape.  Al used small printed sentiments, I decided to stamp a sentiment directly to the card panel.   I used a gold shimmer pen to add some splatter.  

Thanks for stopping by and I appreciate if you made it all the way through.   It's World Card Making Day tomorrow - my time so for me - it's like WCMD weekend as I love trying out some of the challenge in the US - which will be my Sunday!

Woodblock Wednesday

 It's that time of the month.... time for Amy Tsuruta's Woodblock Wednesday Challenge.  I'm loving pulling out my older stamps and using them. 

Three woodblock stamps for this one.   Can you see where I did some masking on my post card stamp?   I masked the stamp prior to stamping it.  It's an old favourite from Hero Arts.  I added a stamp from a washi strip from 49 and Market.  They are just gorgeous stamps on a washi roll.    The Merry Christmas and poinsettia stamps are both from a now defunct NZ company called Kiwi Spoinsetamping.    I stamped the poinsettia onto a scrap of white and used some cheap watercolour pens to add the colour.  The red is the pen directly onto the card and then I scribbled some onto my mat and used water and a paint brush to add the lighter colour.    

Thanks for stopping by.  It's going to be a full on weekend as I'd the Stress Free Card Summit.   So I'm going to have a head full of ideas - just hope I find some time to watch all the video's and get some cards made. 

Snowflake Christmas card

 Hi there,  Time for a share at Die Cut Divas

 This month's theme is "Anything Goes".  

The Prize: $25 gift card  

Thank you to Elizabeth Craft Designs 

for your sponsorship and support.

I was lucky that my team mate Arlene gifted me some ECD dies and one of them was a set of amazing BIG snowflake dies.    I used one of the smaller ones to make this card 

 The snowflake was die cut from Altenew Dazzling Diamond Glitter cardstock and cut in half and but behind the Waffle Flower sentiment cut with a Gina K Master Layouts banner.  The background panel was cut with a square die from the same Master Layouts set and run through my machine with a freebie embossing folder from a few years ago.  Lots of Pinkfresh Metallic pearls were added to give that extra bling.  

Daylight Savings time started yesterday... darker mornings but lovely long evenings.   Spring is throwing us all sorts of weather... Hot and sunny one day, cold and wet the next!  Here's hoping for a better summer than last year.  

Time for a tag at Sweet Stampin' Challenge

 Time for another challenge at Sweet Stampin' Challenge.   Our challenge is Tags...

I've been on roll with my Penny Black Snowy stamp.  And had one left from my watercolouring the other week.  So I decided to use it to make my tag for the challenge.  

The Cuttlebug Snowflake embossing folder makes the perfect pairing for this stamp.  I had Snowy coloured with Altenew watercolour paint.  Before doing the embossing, I stamped the sentiment onto the tag.  The tag was die cut from a Catherine Pooler set.  The background was lightly smeared with Nuvo Glimmer paste and once Snowy was added, a few Nuvo iridescent flat sequins.  

I am entering this one into the Penny Black Saturday Challenge - for September. 

Do come and join us at Sweet Stampin' Challenge. 

Christmas Elves.

Recently I was catching up on some You-tube videos and watched one from Natasha Foote where she  used a great layout design for her background.  You can see it here.

I chose to take some Christmas papers -two that worked well together and a page of toppers.

A great card using with patterned paper and no stamping!   This is a layout design that I'm sure I'll use again,  

Chillin' with my Snowmies....

 It's time for the latest challenge at Christmas Kickstart Challenge and it's right up my alley... Chillin' with my Snowmies.... 

Perfect timing as I still have a couple of Penny Black Snowy's painted up waiting to be used.   

Today I used the one I had stamped onto some Mixed Media paper and painted with Orange Cream from the Altenew 36 pan watercolour set. 

I decided to use the Cuttlebug Snowflakes embossing folder for my background.  I inked it up with some Catherine Pooler Orange Twist ink and ran it through my machine.   Love how it turned out.  I found some gorgeous burnt orange paper in my stash and used my new Gina K Master Layout 12 set to die cut the fancy circle frame.   It cuts the circle out of the frame but I just laid in it back in.  I pop up Snowy on the frame.   I stamped a sentiment from Rosie's Studio Hearth and Home set with the Orange Twist ink and fussy cut it out.   I am so pleased how this non-traditional coloured card turn out. 

Elfing around at Christmas Kickstart Challenge.

I'm back home now.... brought a cold back with me... so no work today as I've been coughing a lot. Spend the morning in bed - didn't get a lot of sleep over night Saturday and into Sunday... so caught up with an extra 2 and a half hours sleep this morning and a quiet afternoon.   I decided to make a card for Christmas Kickstart Challenge where the theme this month is "Just Elfing Around"

I have a digital image from Mo's Digital Pencils that I've had for a long time.   It's called Little Elf Mim and is adorable.   I printed it onto some Canson XL watercolour paper- re colouring to a grey colour.   While I was away I was watching all of the Penny Black & Jill Foster 12 days of Christmas You Tube videos.   Jill is amazing colourist using Distress Ink re-inkers as paints.   I also watched her video about how she colours.  As I don't have reinkers I smooshed some DI onto a stamp block and used a paintbrush to colour my image 

I was quite pleased with the results.   I mostly used Distress Inks but for the grey/silver and the brown blending.  For the grey/silver I used Altenew Siver Lake ink and for the blending I used Altenew Sand Dunes ink.  For the sentiment I used Spellbinder's Yana's Christmas Sentiments.  I used some of the Canson XL watercolour paper and gold foil and die cut the sentiment with the dies.  Added some of the ink blending.  

And here is one final photo of me and the boys before I left on Saturday 

Missing them already!

Christmas Trees

 Myt lovely friend , Kim, gifted me a Stampin' Up set of  Christmas Trees when I was visiting her and I just had to ink one of them up.   Kim as almost a full set of Gina K inks - (and I don't have any!)  so I thought the Medium Spruce would be perfect to use

I made myself a mask from light weight card by cutting out a master layout die and then used whatever ink was on a green and blue brush.  I stamped once with the full strength Medium Spruce and once second generation.  Did this three times - added a sentiment from the set and my CAS Christmas card was done. 

I am still enjoying my time here in Perth.  Today was a bit of a wet one.  Emma and I (plus Finn) went to the outlet stores and I got some really good bargains - walking shoes more then 50% off, a $40 bra for $12.00 and a few other bits and bobs.   All in all, a good way to spend some time on a rainy day.  Home for lunch and then got my Finn cuddles as I held him while he slept - not as long as yesterday when he slept on my for more than 2 hours.  

We enjoyed sitting on the couch with the sun streaming in.    Only a few more days - heading home on Saturday evening.  

Christmas in July at Sweet Stampin' Challenge.

 Hi.   It's time for me to share my Christmas in July card for Sweet Stampin' Challenge blog.   Yes, the challenge for the next fortnight is "Christmas in July"

Here is another card using my new Waffleflower Postage Collage die and stencil set.   This is one i inspired by a design by Vicki  Papaioannou 

The leafy background was made by using a chipboard panel of leaves through my Sizzix Platinum 6 with an embossing tan mat.  I used some green ink to rub over the raised leaves.   I added distress ink - Walnut Stain around the edges of my card stock and the panels as well as my sentiment (from a Rosie's Studio stamp set) that was matted on to some of the same embossed background that had some white ink rubbed over it.  Finished with some iridescent confetti from Nuvo.   

Do come and join us at Sweet Stampin' Challenge with your Christmas in July projects. 

Season's Greetings - Christmas in July

 One of my purchases at the recent Craft Fair was new die from Waffleflower last weekend, together with several matching stencils and a stamp set.   One of the stencils was Postage Collage Christmas.... It's an awesome die that cuts one panel of stamps shaped pieces... you can keep it whole or cut it up. 

I die cut for white card and used the stencil to add colour - then I cut the individual panels giving me a number of stamps. 

For this one, I took one of the individual stamp panels and made this card

 I used dark navy card and matted it with some red card.   Stamped the sentiment from a Rosie's Studio set was embossed with Gold powder.  One of my other purchases was a Spellbinders die - Layer Cherry Blossoms.  I used a mahogany card to make one of the blossoms - to give the idea of a poinsettia.    Finished with some gold bauble gems.  

I've got another card using one of the stamp panels schedule for tomorrow evening... my sample for Sweet Stampin' Challenge so do pop back to see how I finished that one. 

I'm entering this into the NBUS challenge as this is the first outing for the stamp/stencil die and also the Layering Cherry Blossoms die.    And also into the Christmas in July challenge at Craft Rocket Challenges 

Festive Fun Fold Snowflake card

 I got lots of play time over the weekend and got a few cards done.   Today I'm sharing the card I made for the Christmas Kickstart Challenge.  

I found this beautiful greeny-teal cardstock and used a Sizzix thinlits Flip-it die set.  I found some patterned paper in a Reflections pad called Northern Lights, that was the perfect match and contrast.  The stunning snowflake was in my stash.  I don't have the die so must have been gifted to me... so thanks to whoever gifted it.  I also had some beautiful blue-green foil so used Spellbinder's - Yana's Christmas Sentiments hot foil stamps and die set.  A few Stampendous Spraklers sticker dots to finish the card.  

My daughter and the baby made it back home on Sunday... just two nights in the hospital.  

Archie and Finn on Saturday - Archie gave him the little monkey - exactly the same as his favourite cuddly toy.   Archie's is called Trip and Finn's is called Chip!  Archie is besotted with his little brother.  Finn is the spitting image of Archie at the same age.

Festive Fancy Folds at Christmas Kickstart Challenge.

My second parcel has now arrived!  And other cold wintery day so what better to do than play with my stamps, inks, pencils, dies and having fun.    Hubby was helping a friend move this morning and I headed off to look for knitting patterns.  Well.... it's been years since I bought patterns and boy are they hard to find... mostly books of patterns at around the $30-35 range... so instead I look in the crafting section.  Picked up a new lightbox - was around $70 - down to $30 and only $18 at checkout!   Has three different light tones and up to 10 different strengths.   

Anyhoo.. decided that I wanted to try out the Bridge card design that Jennifer McGuire did a couple of weeks ago.   And as the challenge at Christmas Kickstart Challenge this month is Festive Fancy Folds...thought I make a Christmas card. 

I used my new Altenew Dotty Circles 3D embossing folder and some blue and white card to make the panels to add to the card.   I decided on using a die cut panel for the bridge.  This is the largest of the Spellbinder Labels Four set.  I keep the panel in the die and used whatever blue was on my Altenew blending brush to add some colour.  Love how this gives a little white border.   I had the stamped Couture Creations Ringing Bells and the Spellbinder's Yana's Christmas Sentiments (hot foiled in red) in my baggie of Christmas bits and bobs.... so a quick colouring with Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol and it was done!  

You can see the dimension here....

I also got to use one the new stamps from the latest parcel for my swap card....Here's a sneak peek

Once my partner gets it... I'll share.

Been a good day!