Saturday Catch-Up - the one instead of the missed WOYYW & Friday Smile posts

Hello Everyone,

And a happy Saturday to you all too. So far, this week has gone by in a blur with so much stuff going on - none of it craft related - that there's been no chance of blogging, or scrapping even. Regretfully, despite my best intentions, I had to miss the last WOYWW and Friday Smile posts before Christmas. I suspect it's been the same for many of you.

I did, however, manage an hour or so in the craft room late yesterday afternoon to make these cards using the 'one-sheet wonder' technique which I shared in this post here.

Not that I needed any more cards for this Christmas. The last post has gone and the address book has been put away for now. I don't think I've missed anyone but if I have, I can only apologise. No, what I really wanted was to create a new Christmas header for this blog and it seemed a good idea at the time to combine it with cardmaking. So - like I needed to challenge myself more at this time - it had to be a 'one-sheet wonder' - of course!

To begin, because I intended creating a street scene, I drew a line across the middle of an A4 sheet of smooth white card to show what direction I should be placing the house and tree stamps. I could have made it easier for myself in so many ways but where's the fun in that!  The masks were made from large post-its. The houses, from Pinkfresh Studio's 'Christmas Florals', were stamped with Jet Black Archival Ink and the pine trees, from Cardmaking & Papercraft's  'Have a Holly Jolly Christmas' stamp set, with Letterpress green ink pad.

The next bit, filling in the winter sky, was so much easier to do. Using a selection of snowflake filler stamps - from the 'Forest Magic' and 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town' stamp sets and two Distress Oxide ink pads, Evergreen Bough and Tumbled Glass, and Adirondack Stonewashed dye pad.

Bearing in mind I was creating a Christmas blog header, Father Christmas had to feature. The image, stamped in black, of Santa on his sleigh with the reindeer is again from the 'Forest Magic' stamp set.

I remembered, just in time, to take a shot of the page before adding the fourth repeat of the sleigh so that it could be cropped down to size for the header.

Once that was all done, the sheet was cut into four to create the card toppers. I then embossed some Stamp-n-Stuff Crystal powder on the rooftops and round the base of the trees using a VersaMarker pen. The sparkle is subtle and doesn't show up well in the photo but recipients will be able to appreciate it. The greeting, another stamp from the 'Christmas Florals' set, was stamped on each topper using Versafine in Crimson Red. The final touch was a dot of Xmas Red' Stickles on the wreaths on the doors of the houses.

And finally, an oops! moment.

This was the first topper that I tried to finish off with the sparkly embossing powder. Unfortunately, I opted to use a new American Craft's embossing pen. Unlike my old, and trusty, VersaMarker pen, the AC pen is not clear - it's pink and the colour doesn't disappear on heating! Pink roof tiles! Disaster!!! To rescue it, I embossed over the pink with Papermania 'Seafoam White' embossing powder and used puffy stuff to create snow around the base of the trees.

Blunder. What blunder? Lesson learned.

If you've read all the way down to here, you have real staying power so thank you, it's appreciated.

That's me done for now. Hopefully, I'll post again before the Big Day, but if I don't make it, I wish you a very happy Christmas - may your day be wonderful and as perfect as you want it to be.