Z is for Zero Degrees or Zipping Through the Snow

Good morning, on this cold and frosty one, to you all,

Yippee! The last card in the Alphabet series is done. Z proved to be, by far, the most difficult letter to design a card around. However, I had to design a card for our 11 year old grandson, Alun, who loves anything to do with speed -  in particular, Formula One racing cars. I couldn't fit racing cars into the Christmas/winter theme somehow but I discovered this racing tobogganer design in the My Craft Studio CD, The Finishing Line, and the idea for this card was born - Z for Zero Degrees or even Z for Zipping Through the Snow!

Materials used: My Craft Studio, The Finishing Line CD, Design 4; white cardstock for base; Gold mirror cardstock; blue pearlescent cardstock; glitter; embellishments - snowflakes; diamante stars, peel-off gold/silver stars.

I printed off the design sheet, re-jigged the background to make an insert large enough for the A5 sized card and using the digital punch created an area for the greeting which was inserted using the text feature. Otherwise, it was simply a case of cutting out, matting, glittering and embellishing.

I thought the greeting that comes on the design sheet most appropriate for the front of the card because one of Alun's favourite words is 'cool' - everything that he approves off is 'cool'.

That's it - the series is over at last. What should have taken only 26 days took far longer for me. I've discovered that I'm a lot slower than many cardmakers, that it takes a lot of time for me to think up a design, gather all the materials together and make the project. I'm never going to be able to whizz through a project but that's okay - I'm not really in a hurry.

Nevertheless, it was a great challenge which had me trying out lots of new equipment, techniques and crafty stuff which I will be able to use in future projects and I can't wait to try other new things in the coming year.

In the meantime, a planned visit to my daughter and her family has had to be postponed due to the snow - she lives further inland and it's worse where she is - so I'm going to amuse myself with a few last minute projects. There are a couple of ideas buzzing around in my head that I'd like to try out and I think, if I have to stay at home, I should seize the day.

DH is on his laptop doing a bit of research into the dates, times and costs for a trip on the Fort William to Mallaig steam train (the Hogwarts's Express I believe). It's one of the items on our 'bucket list', which we are progressively working our way through, and this one is going to be scheduled for late Spring/early Summer.

Hope you are all keeping as warm as you can and enjoying your day.

Bye for now,
Elizabeth