Christmas cards....

Whew – at long last I’ve finally got time & energy to put something onto this blog – it’s been a truly hectic season for me this year as I got badly behind on my Christmas orders through making so many “Specials” and then got a couple of unexpected orders at the outset of the month which took me every spare hour I had.  Others who don’t have health issues might have rattled them off in a day, but for me, everything takes hours & hours longer than it would have even a few years ago, as my arthritis worsens & pain levels increase making sitting painful too.

But anyway, enough of all that.  Since I can’t type much either now, I’m not going to put up all of my latest cards – these are just a couple of standout ones that I enjoyed making – once Christmas is over I’ll put up some of those given to family who visit this blog as I don’t want to spoil their surprise in advance :).

The first card was my 2^nd boxed one which again took ages to make and for which I’ve yet to get the tutorial put together, but there are plenty of others out there to use if you search hard enough.  This card has gone to my primary school teacher who’s now the grand age of 95 and still writes as beautifully as she has throughout her life, despite her arthritis.   Apologies for the photo – was rushing on the day to photograph it & it shows.  It was another fairly simple card to make using Craft Creations papers along with a Thomas Kinkade Christmas image which I put plenty of glitter glue onto.   Embellished with the usual bow & charm, WOC flowers, punched border, & foil, diecut sentiment blocks (think these are Kanban from a few years ago).

And then this one I created for my prayer partner’s best friend’s young daughter.  Just for a nice change I used a lovely Morehead decoupage image.  It was just perfect for Rachel and the colours worked in wonderfully too.  Background papers are from the HOTP Forever Christmas paper stack.  The purple one under the image was an offcut from a very old HOTP paper pad.  Flowers from WOC.  Charm & teddy bear from my stash.

Hopefully get some more up shortly, but that’s me for now.   I’m taking a whole week off from making cards next week as everything hurts too much not to.

Have a wonderful, peaceful & blessed Christmas.

Enjoy.

New LOTV Challenge Blog

LOTV have changed the format of their weekly challenge blog - same web address but a new name & a host of new DTs working hard to inspire us all.  And to get everyone in the mood, they've LOTS of wonderful prizes up for grabs including repeats of some recent candy's.

Check it out at LOTV Challenge Blog :).

Another winner :)

Oh WOW and WOW again - think that's become my catchphrase since I discovered I won top prize on the LOTV challenge blog.   And on top of that to have such an awesome prize of a stash of Wild Orchid Flowers is doubly wonderful.   I'm too shocked & overwhelmed to write much other than to thank all the gals on the Ideas to Inspire blog for setting the challenges & for WOC providing such a wonderful prize, but also to thank all of those others who've created cards & shown them on the blog as it's been my #1 place to go to get inspiration and I'm endlessly in awe of those who've been making cards a lot longer than me & who produce such incredible work.   You're ALL amazing & I'm proud to be a part of this incredible card making community!   THANKS.

Another LOTV challenge card

Another wonderful  LOTV challenge for me to get my teeth into, although if truth be told, my ability to make any cards is declining between the colder days & my arthritic hands, so fortunate to get anything made at all for this particular challenge.  Apologies in advance both for the lateness of the entry & also the photos as they were almost photographed in the dark given the weather and I had to use a lot of contrast to lighten them up.  Being disabled sure slows you down when you least need it to :(.

And the challenge in question this time is “Anything Goes” – perfect for me, as at least I can stick with tried & tested layouts & ideas although suspect to have any hope of winning I’d need to produce something different to my tired format.

Anyway – having just got 3 new stamps at the weekend  I figured it was a good opportunity to roadtest one of them & chose this beauty – “Feathered Friends” as I think it just encapsulates Christmas in the traditional sense wonderfully – reminds me of my childhood in the wonderful village of Belleek where I often put out bird feeders for the multitudes of birds we had visiting the garden all year round.

The design is as always, coloured with Coipcs & finished off with some peel off snow drops & Stickles Glitter Glue for a nice sparkly finish.   The background paper has come from the wonderful Making Cards magazine (their Christmas Special), although there’s also a mat of Southfield Red paper (totally hidden by the image/flowers – duhhh!!).

I added a nice red ribbon border  along with some lace trim, a double red bow, large brad & snowflake charm.    All finished off with a circle sentiment matted onto a green scallop with some more white glitter peel off snow drops and another sentiment as a Stop.  Finally some green adhesive gems for the corners & a complementary tag make for a nice card I think.

The flowers & lace come as ever from the awesome Wild Orchid Crafts while everything else comes from my stash.

Enjoy!

Purple Christmas

Today’s card is for another new challenge this time from Charmed Cards & Crafts and an even easier challenge in that all it requires is a stamped card, so good for me to continue learning my new skills in this area.   And my what a giveaway they're giving away lol - has to be, without doubt, one of the largest that's been provided, of late, on any blog.  Check it out in the sidebar.

My card uses a Tilda image just for a change and is based on a sketch from My Sweet Stop Challenge site which helped me a lot in organising the card, as I'm often lost for how best to present an image.  Sketches also let me digress from my usual "flat" background - some habits truly do die hard!!!

As ever, I've used WOC flowers - lilac, deep lilac & pink roses along with some Christmas roses along with the usual pearl sprigs from my stash.  I used a lovely gold edged deep purple ribbon from my local craft shop in behind the image which sets it off beautifully.  Also placed some tiny purple gems around the scallop frame behind the image which are actually darker in reality than they're looking in the image.  

All finished off with a circular sentiment, a clear glitter peel-off corner and clear glitter sentiment.  And once again, I've finished off the inside to complement the outside.

Enjoy

LOTV Christmas Challenge card

Today’s card is based on a wonderful perfect Christmas Theme of “Red, Green & White”.  Well how much more Christmassy can you get than that!!   And perfect for the first inking of my new LOTV stamp – “Carol Singing” which I think has worked out quite well.

The background paper came from my stash but I’ve a vague notion it might originally have come from either Craft Creations or Making Cards magazine, but how perfect is it for the purpose having all the colours in it.

You can’t see them too well but I put 2 strips of beautiful bright gold bordered red ribbon under the image which I matted onto a scallop frame.

As ever the image was coloured in with Copics – primarily R29, R27 & R20 along with G29, G14 & G02.  Browns were E59, E51, E50, E29, & E00.  Greys/blacks & yellow were done with watercolour pencils. Crystal Stickles glitter glue looks wonderful on the hats.

Finished off with the usual Wild Orchid Crafts roses, diecut leaves & snowflake, red ribbon, & adhesive pearls.   Snowflake charm courtesy of my recent win from Bev’s site.

Enjoy

Sweet Stop Challenge

Woohoo – my 2^nd challenge card and a chance to take part in my 1^st Sweet Stop challenge which is great.  I’m such a novice at both stamping & challenges I’ve no idea whether I’m doing things right in any sense, but regardless, am enjoying using the sketches as a means to designing a card a bit differently, as I do get stuck in a same old, same old routine at times.

 

SO, this is one of my first Christmas cards for the season too – a LOTV stamp “Christmas Candle” which I think is such a beautiful image I suspect many friends will find it on their card this year :).  Excuse the look of the edges of the card - just my poor attempts with PSP to select it properly - it's honestly not thin in parts & thick in others - duhhh!!

Better image of the front.

Close up of charm

Inside decorated to match the outside.

Recipe:

Papers:  The main backing paper is from Craft Creations while the green holly one is off one of the Cute Companions Christmas CDs – if anyone really wants to know the details just email me.

Diecut – Nestabilities Labels 4

Ribbon – locally bought

Flowers – Wild Orchid Crafts

Snowflake charm – won off Bev Rochester’s blog but freely available on Ebay also.

Sentiment, corner p/o & gold stems – from my stash

Enjoy

Another Morehead lassie

Back to my usual Morehead images for this card & this is one of the most beautiful ones I think they’ve done.  Some day I'll take the time to find out the proper names for these images LOL! The girl just reminds me both of my youngest stepdaughter when she was about 5 or 6 and also of a close neighbour’s daughter when she was younger.    It also lends itself so well to the dark green colouring I think. 

 

I once again used the wonderful papers I’d got in the sale at Cutting Edge Crafts as I really love their colours & styles.  Used some stock white ribbon over which I put 2 punched border strips (punched with my trusty MS scroll lace punch)  The image was then decoupaged onto a scallop circle diecut.

Flowers as always from Wild Orchid Crafts – a mixture of sizes & colours to complement the image although I’ve no idea why I used reds in their but they do work for all that.  Used a couple of those wonderful pearl “sticks” I found in my stash to just add some more depth to the flowers.   All finished off with some adhesive pearls.

 

As always the inside is decorated to match. 

Really MUST get stuck into ye olde Christmas cards now so that's me for today :)

Enjoy

Tilda & bike

This is my first ever attempt at putting together a stamped card over my usual decoupage.  I’ve been busy practising for weeks now to try and get the colouring right but even in this it’s nowhere near as precise as I’d like.   However, everyone has to start somewhere and despite it not being close to what I want, perfection doesn’t come in a day, especially when your hands hurt like hell and every other bit as well some days.

The image is “Tilda with bike” and is coloured using Copics – afraid I’ve not yet got into the habit of taking note of which ones I’ve used, but that will come.  I also used a couple of watercolour pencils to blend in the pink & blues a bit better, which helped to soften down any shading lines. 

The inside has then been decorated to match the front.  I also used Copics to colour the normally white pearl strips placed in amongst the flowers which just add a bit of extra depth to the card overall and the yellow colour is quite striking, and a quick way to change the colour to match the card.   I really appreciate the huge versatility of these pens!  Since finishing this one I've also done a slightly different one with the same image but in pink - but that's going to be held for a close friend's birthday next year as she's a pink fanatic :)

Papers are from K&Co – Daffodil pad which is now well out of date and rarely available except on Ebay if you're lucky.  The sentiment is a diecut from my stash.  Flowers as always are from Wild Orchid Crafts, as is the lace, & the pink ribbon from my local craft shop.  I used a nice new Nellie's Multi-Frame Die Set - Incire Flower #2 die for the scallops (already had the white circles).  This was my very 1^st foray into die-cutting as well, and it proved hugely enjoyable.   It’ll be a while before I can afford to buy Nestabilities to any great degree so in the meantime these cheaper dies work perfectly well.   I still have quite a lot of bought diecut scallops left to play with anyway so no real rush to invest in yet more “pruck” as my late hubby would call my overflowing craft stash :)  

Enjoy

40th Wedding Anniversary card

This card was made for my sister-in-law’s 40^th Wedding Anniversary on the 17^th.  It proved a bit of a challenge as I had to increase the size of everything – didn’t feel the smaller 5” square card really worked .   So I moved up to the 8” square card size instead and once again used the beautiful Kinkade red roses image as a focal point.   The background was my 1^st foray into the Nitwits range with the LuvBugsToo set which was perfect for the purpose.

Once again, the lace & flowers are from Wild Orchid Flowers.  The stop is a computer generated sentiment and the name plate I got off Ebay in a set of white plus colours and overprinted it with their names.   I added a nice little heart charm bought locally for a ridiculously low £1 for 6.   Gems and gold heart diecuts from my stash.

This was a slow card for me to make as I wanted it to be perfect for the occasion, and hopefully they agree that it looks the part.   It cost a lot more to make than the others too as on top of the larger card size which I had to buy because I couldn’t create it myself, I also then had to buy a box to go with it, and they were another challenge to put together, but in the end it also looked lovely as I covered it in red pearlescent paper.

 Enjoy

Black & white birthday box

Finally getting around to updating this blog – you’d never think I wasn’t working would you given how little time I seem to ever have for the purpose of updating this part of my life online :(

Today’s card is one of the last of my general cards for this year and is another easel card but this time with the addition of a box underneath.   This particular card is for my prayer partner Norma’s birthday tomorrow and she’s already got it and loves it, so is quite happy for it to be unveiled online for all to enjoy.

I used papers from a wonderful set one of my daughters  got me (thanks Caro) a while ago.   Norma loves black cards so this filled the bill quite nicely.   I used another Thomas Kinkade image for the purpose too – this one is called “Hour of Prayer”  and goes perfectly with the overall colour concept as it just enhances it with the muted colours in it.

The box was a torture to make and I doubt I’d want to make a number of them until I managed to get measurements more down pat – needless to say I did my usual and did guestimates which inevitably ended up in the bin – and once I got it done, stupidly didn’t take a note of what measurements I had used or how I actually made it, as it wasn’t as simple as one might think.   But a success for all that.   And I suspect with Christmas fast approaching (Yikes!) I wouldn’t be surprised if I have another go in the not too distant future – if I do I’ll try and put up some info for those of you who might be interested in having a go for yourselves.

Flowers and lace as always are from Wild Orchid Crafts and all the rest from my stash.   Thanks to Bev & Dena for showing how to create perfect bows – something I’ve long wanted to be able to do and marvelled at how others had – now I know :)).

Enjoy

Woweee - a winner for once :)

First time for everything, & this is my first win on anything craft related online.  I won one of the awesome candy's from Wild Orchid Crafts & LOTV's Christmas in July promotion.  SO chuffed as this was the best prize I was after - a selection of WOC's awesome produce which will get put to good use for future cards no doubt.

I'm on the slow side somewhat in not being on card blogs regularly nor making a card (or more) a day as many others appear to do, so I don't always manage to abide by some of the rules around promoting such events but am doing so now in retrospect by way of thanks to all involved and to highlight the awesome work undertaken by the Design Teams involved & other card makers.

If you want to check them out - head to firstly Wild Orchid Crafts Blog and then Bev's site again, and also LOTV's awesome site.   All are superb for stampers in particular!!

Thanks again to Bev's hubby for choosing my number for the win :))

Another Kinkade Church

I’ve been quite busy of late trying to make as many of these Specials as possible before I hit my end point for making general cards (usually sometime around mid August) when I then switch to those cards everyone needs to have maybe 40+ of – not even going to say the word LOL!

One of the nicest ones I’ve made of late though is for my prayer partner Norma who just adores black/white cards for all sorts of occasions, so I figured I’d make her one  of these just to bless her as she’s going through a bit of a tough time of late.

 

This one again features a Thomas Kinkade image  - another lovely church image which I’ve used on other cards but this is the lilac form.  The image is called Forest Chapel and I have matted it onto magenta mirri paper to highlight some of the colours within the image.

Background paper on the top is from a magazine so a one-off, bottom one from my stash, & lace and paper roses as always from Wild Orchid Crafts, with green leaf punchies.

The Stop is a Hunkydory one from one of their topper sets.  And as usual I've provided a coordinating tag.  All finished off with a silver border peeloff and purple gems.

This card is available on my Ebay Shop now.