Home again and catching up on the Christmas Cards - Week 29

Hi Everyone,

I'm back from my trip to the Highlands - bet you didn't even miss me! We had a fabulous time despite discovering on arrival that there was no room at the inn - quite literally - due to a double booking! What happened next is a long story and not one I want to waste too much time on but, suffice to say, we left the inn without a bed for the night and had to drive around looking for a vacancy sign ... in Fort William, in the Highlands, in July!!! All ended well, however, when we were lucky enough to find a comfortable room in a very nice guest house owned by a lovely lady, Lesley and her husband, Ian, and the rest of the holiday went without a hitch. I'll show some of the many photographs taken on a later post ... I still have to sort them all out and choose the best - and with 166 to choose from, I think that's going to be a difficult task. In the meantime, here's the latest Christmas card - No. 29.

Another first for me went into the making of this card - the stars are cut from a foil tape sheet, embossed and given the Tim Holtz alcohol ink treatment with a combination of Red Pepper and Gold Mixative. Loved the effect, it's easier to do than I expected, and I might just have to treat myself to a few more different colours in the alcohol inks now.

I'm on a mission to use up some of the many freebie paper stacks I have tucked away and this BoBunny paper with matching 'ribbon' strip and topper seemed ideal for this card - green's my favourite colour... and love this shade of green.  I traced the stars using a template from a Memories Forever pack I have had for a long time - it has two shapes of stars in a variety of sizes, so very useful. There was enough left over to decorate the inside ...

 and back of the card too.

 
Materials Used:

• A4 white card folded to make an A5 card base
• Papermania textured card, green & red
• BoBunny DP, ribbon trim & topper, Believe
• Inkssentials Foil tape sheet
• Cuttlebug embossing folder, Snowflakes
• Tim Holtz Adirondack Alcohol Ink Red Pepper, Gold Mixative, Blending Solutions
• Tim Holtz ink pad, Black Soot
• Anna Griffin 1" wide velvet ribbon from Blythe & Dorothy collection
• Card candy, red from Vintage Berries pack

Submitted to the following challenges:

Fun with Shapes and More – Challenge 88 – must include die cut/punch - Christmas in July

Crafty Catz - 1E - no pink or blue allowed

Joyful Stamper's Inspire Me Fridays 16 - Show Us!- always anything goes

Paper Cutz Challenge #101 is Anything Goes!


I hope you are all well and enjoying the summer sunshine. Those of you with children will be busy keeping them, or arranging for them to be kept, amused, entertained and safe for the next few weeks ... I remember that time when my kids were young so well. Oh, the nightmare of trying to find a childminder who was willing to take on my two little dears for the several weeks I couldn't take off work, while 'superwoman' me went out and earned the money to pay for it, stays with me still :(  Aaah, happy days!!!

Right, I have a ton of things to do, the list is enormous, and yet, since coming home, I seem to be treading water somewhat ... the mojo has gone AWOL. So, I'm off to visit a few blogs and hopefully I'll be inspired to do something other than a Christmas card.

Happy crafting,