Christmas Card Club - Card 04/2020

Hello Everyone,

I completely forgot that it was time for another Christmas Card Club Sunday yesterday. I blame Storm Dennis, myself. He came in and created quite a stir these last few days. Yesterday was the first day that was dry enough for me to step outside my door, and even then it was too windy for anything more than a mad dash in and out again. Today is no better - worse, in fact! No matter. Back to CCC and the theme, chosen this time by Christine. is for either a Christmas Carol or Song.

Not sure this qualifies but the embossing folder (Darice) used does give it a music theme, of sorts.

The inside is decorated with an embossed topper (Cuttlebug's Cindy Loo folder) and several leftover scraps, all found in the snippet box.

I used several punches to decorate the card - X-Cut's scallop border punch and Woodware's tiny leaf and flower punches.

That's my very late submission for the CCC challenge today.. This one brings my total for the year, so far, to ten!

As I managed to use quite a useful number of snippets on this card, I'm also submitting it to Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #371.

I hope you will pop over to see what my teammates have created this week. You'll find a list of their names and links on my right sidebar - as always they are so much more creative than I will ever be.

Christmas Card Club - Cards 02/2020

Hello Everyone,

It was my turn to choose a theme for today's Christmas Card Club challenge - a difficult task but after much inner debate, not to mention more than a little help from Margaret, I opted for 'holly and/or ivy'.

And because my goal for this week is to concentrate on stash busting all the supplies for today's cards are not new - check out my post for Wednesday to see the boxes I'm working from.  I managed to make four altogether, two with holly and two with ivy.

The bottom panel on this one is a leftover piece from a masterboard I created autumn last year using lots of paint, leaf stamps, ink, stencils and texture past. The matting for the holly sprays and greeting was cut from scraps of glitter card. I had to cheat and use two snippets, butted up together, for the greeting.

The topper for this one is the last scrap from another masterboard, created way back in 2018. The background is made up of sponged inks. It was overstamped with two of my favourite Penny Black stamps , Winter Bough and Winter Berries in shades of green and gold. The die-cut holly spray was made from snippets of green and red cardstock.

The background piece, if I remember correctly, was made using a technique that involved embossing wax paper which was then ironed on to a white card base to create a resist for ink. The backgrounds on the next two cards were created in the same way.

The backgrounds were almost pretty enough to leave as is but, of course, the challenge called for some ivy so I stamped up some narrow scraps of white cardstock with trails of ivy. For the blue one I used a stamp from the Have a Holly Jolly Christmas set - the same one used for the green card above - and Memento Danube Blue ink. And I used my very first stamp - bought in 1995 - for the red one. This time I embossed the ivy trails with gold powder. In truth, there's not a lot of difference between the two stamped images - I just have a special fondness for the old wood-mounted one. The edges of  the panel are embossed in gold too. The ivy trails on both cards are decorated with tiny gems.

That's it from me for today's CCC challenge. This brings my total for this year to five already - not bad!

I'm also submitting one of these cards to Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #369 - I'm not sure which one yet as I've used a bunch of snippets in the making of them.

I hope you will pop over to see what my teammates have created for today's theme. You'll find a list of their names and links on my right sidebar - as always they are so much more creative than I will ever be.

Christmas Eve Snippet Card

Hello and Happy Christmas Eve Everyone,

I hope you've finished with all the festive preparations and ready to have a fabulous Christmas Eve, stress-free if possible, and a wonderful day tomorrow. I've only just found a few minutes to take the weight of my feet after prepping the Brussels sprouts - one of my most unfavourite vegetables - and share this card with you and Di over at Pixie's Snippet Playground.

I dipped into my boxes of bits and bobs to make this card. The base was made from a scrap of smooth white card left over from layering photos for a scrapbook page. Many months ago, could even be more than a year, I had an embossing session using all the scraps of card I had accumulated - created quite a stack in fact - and that's where I found this gold topper. The folder is from the Winter Botanicals set by Sizzix. The black matting layer was from packaging and the patterned background is one of the many prints I've made when experimenting with my Gelli Plate. I don't remember what went into creating the colour of the paint - most probably various shades of brown/orange inks mixed into white acrylic paint - but I can tell you the stencil was 'Fretwork' from That Special Touch.

I am now feeling quite virtuous from having used up so many scraps and snippets. Hopefully, Father Christmas will think I've been good, 'for goodness sake'.

I'm also submitting this card to Hazel's CHNC Challenge #469.

That's me for this evening. Have a wonderful Christmas everyone.

Sunday Snippets - December Tag

Evening Everyone,

Two posts in one day!!! Just got to take the opportunity when I find I have the time! Especially as, today, I have a snippet make for Di's challenge - Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #366.

This tag was inspired by Karen Letchworth, of 'My Cup Runneth Over', currently guest designer on Pixie's Crafty Workshop. It's a lovely way of using up scraps of paper leftover from other projects.

Scraps like these leftover from two scrapbook pages I made recently. Of course, any scraps left over would be ideal for Karen's tag design.

In this photo you can see most of the other supplies used in the making of the tag. The sheet of month rub-ons I've had quite a few years and yet the December still worked a treat. The square shaped punch makes creating the fish tails on the pennants easier than other ways I battled with in the past. You can see how it's done on this previous post here.

This was a really fun little make and one that I intend to repeat every time I'm down to just a handful of scraps leftover from other bigger projects. Hope you've been as inspired by Karen as I have. She's a very talented crafter and her blog is full of inspiration, especially on how to use our leftover scraps and snippets.

Take care and have a great week ahead.

Cold Hands, Warm Heart - A Snippet Card

Hello Everyone

I have a wee Christmas card to share with you and Di's challenge over at Pixie's Snippet Playground today.  It's been a while since I last participated but I've still been enjoying popping in whenever possible just to see what all you Snippeteers have been doing with your snippets.

All the cardstock used was leftovers from scrapbook pages and I dug out some very old tools too. The embossing folder is an old Cuttlebug one but so useful. Unfortunately, it's no longer available, that is, unless you want to pay an astronomical price!! Sadly, the same seems to be true of the Die'sire Snowflakes dies too. Happily, after checking online, it is still possible to find the Spiro Circle nesting die set, used to create the base layer of the topper, and the Snowman Embossing Die is also available and at a very much reduced price too.

That's it for me today. Take care everyone and, if you are in the frozen north as we are here, keep warm.

Sunday Snippet Card - Autumn Birthday

Hello Everyone,

And happy Sunday to you too. I hope you are having a wonderful day. It's been perfect crafting weather here, dull, miserable and rainy, and I've been happily creating another layout for my son's 50th album. It's getting nearer completion but still a way to go. In the meantime, I have a little birthday card to share with you.

It's made from scraps from the bits and bobs box - I swear that box is really a Tardis!

Supplies used:
- a white card base measuring 5x7 inches
- scraps of white and green cardstock for topper and greeting
- a scrap of green ink spritzed masterboard - a leftover from an earlier project
- stamps: 'Variostamp Leaves' from Folia Bringmann; 'Autum Harvest' stamp set from For the Love of Stamps by Hunkydory
- inks: various green ink pads from my stash including Versafine 'Olympia Green' and Memento 'Tuxedo Black'
- pens; Promarkers in greens, browns, orange and yellow for colouring the autumn harvest image
- glitter glue: yellow, cinnamon and platinum Stickles to decorate the pumpkin and cones in the image

The 'Birthday wishes' stamp was originally all one stamp but, as I wanted the words to be separate, I snipped it in half, then stamped the two words on two very tiny scraps of white cardstock. They can still be stamped together if needed - no irreparable damage done.

That's it for this Sunday. Take care everyone and enjoy the rest of the day.

Snippet Sunday - Cards for Men

Hello everyone,

Recently, two men in my life celebrated birthdays. They're both in their eighties so the usual themes of football, fast cars, beer and hill-climbing no longer apply. Here's what I came up with.

Card #1

Card #2

The backgrounds were found in the bits and bobs box - leftovers from a couple of previous makes. The bright blue one was quite obviously made from spray inks but, if I remember correctly, the more subtle colours of the second were made by using the technique of squishing garden flowers onto card using a die-cutting machine. Not that I can remember the flowers used - I tried out the technique a good few years ago.

Supplies used:
- white A6 card bases
- the found background pieces
- scraps of hessian and turquoise glitter paper from the  American Crafts' mixed media pad from the 'Dear Lizzy New Day' collection for card #1
- Kraft cardstock for card #2
- scraps of white card for the toppers and greeting circles - both cards
- stamps; wading birds from 'Wetlands' by Stampin' Up! - card #1; ears of corn from 'Autumn Harvest' by Hunkydory - card #2; greeting from 'Special Occasion Stamps' - a gift from a 2013 issue of Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine - both cards
- inks - Ranger's Archival 'Jet Black' - both cards
- pens - Memento Dual Markers in 'Cantaloupe', 'Dandelion', 'Rich Cocoa' & 'Potter's Clay' for card #2

- tools - die-cutting machine and a set of Docrafts' Spiro Circles dies for matting toppers on both cards

As you can see, the design is super simple, using very little in the way of supplies - and most of them from the snippet box too.

I'm submitting a card to Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #361. It makes a change for Di for it not to be a Christmas card, which is what I seem to be making most of the time these days.

I trust you have had a lovely weekend. We certainly have had a sunny one here. Well, it was until today - it's been dreich and  damp from overnight rain, but the garden needed it so I'm not complaining.

Take care and enjoy what's left of today.

Sunday Snippet Card - Joy, Peace, Love

Evening Everyone,

I hope you have had a lovely Sunday and a great weekend. The weather has cheered up over the last few days and yesterday was so lovely we had a trip out - probably one of the last before winter sets in. No sun today but it's been nice enough for me to get into the garden for a bit of pottering early on, then it got a bit chilly so I came indoors, and to my desk to make this card.

I don't like to throw out anything - indeed, snippets leftover from making scrap pages is what got me into cardmaking in the first place - so it's no surprise that the background for this card was made with the texture paste leftover from another project.

Supplies used:
- white A6 card blank
- scrap of black cardstock, Dusty Attic's 'Starry Night' stencil and the leftover opaque texture past which had been lightly tinted with yellow ink, for base of topper
- white vellum trimmed and shaped into the band that's wrapped around the black base
- Penny Black's 'Wonder Collection' stamp set, VersaMark ink pad and gold embossing powder for the sentiment
- green and red card snippets, QuicKutz 'Holly & Berry' die set and 'Xmas Red' Stickles to create the holly embellishment. 

I'm submitting this card to the following challenges:

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #360 - anything goes as long as there's snippets used

Hazel's CHNC challenge 454 - anything goes as long as it's Christmas themed

Merry little Christmas 14: anything Christmas goes

Sparkles Christmas 104: winter wishes

Crimbo crackers 192: anything goes

Winter wonderland September: use your favourite embellishments - die-cut holly & berries & Stickles

That's my card for today. Thanks for popping in.  Hope you have a lovely evening and a great week to come. 

Christmas Card Club - Card 18/2019 - Snowman

Hello and Happy Sunday Everyone,

I'm having to schedule this post as I'm going to be at an all-day crop tomorrow. A whole day of making scrap pages - bliss! And, as time has been short, I've only managed to make one card for the Christmas Card Club. The theme, chosen by Valery, is snowman or snowmen.

As you can see, I've chosen to do just the one snowman - but he's a cute one. The bits and bobs box came in handy once more - it's where I found the piece of blue embossed card for the background for the topper. The card supplies for the snowman came out of the box of scraps, leftovers and snippets - I really could do with some sort of abbreviated name for those two boxes. Both the topper and the greeting are layered on to a very shiny silver card that hasn't photographed very well.

Here's a list of supplies used:

- a white card base
- the blue embossed card - the card has a special satin finish, very pretty, and the folder used was 'Stars Frame' from Crafts-Too
- scraps of white card and the silver card for the topper and greeting 
- stamps: 'Snowman' from Kars and two - the 'Merry & Bright' greeting and the 'snow flakes' - from the 'Forest Magic' stamp set - a magazine gift from a couple of years ago.
- inks: Ranger's Archival Ink in 'Jet Black' and Adirondack 'Stonewashed'
- markers in shades of grey, brown, blue, red and orange for colouring the snowman
- 'Fluffy Puffy Stuff' from Inkylicious for the fake snow

That's it for CCC today but I hope you will pop over to see what my teammates have created for Valery's theme - you'll find a list of their names and links on my right sidebar - as always they are so much more creative than me.

Rudolph Day Challenge - August 2019 - Using Leftover Scraps

Hello Everyone,

I've been so busy making scrapbook pages for the MTS summer challenge that I almost missed Maureen's Rudolph Day Challenge for August. And I don't like to miss it - it's the best excuse to add to my little, but growing, pile of Christmas cards - so today had me delving into the box of scraps, leftovers and snippets and this is the card I made.

Not the best photo but I hope you can see that the sentiment is embossed in gold powder.

Here's a close-up which is a lot clearer. The stamp set is made up of the large 'It's Christmastime' with several smaller stamps that can be combined to create a variety of greetings - all very usable.

These scraps have been around for a year or two. I can't remember how I got the mottled finished on the red scrap. It looks as though I might have splattered it with a bleach/water solution to get that effect.

The painty scraps, die-cut to make the poinsettias, are the trimmings from a larger mixed media piece that was used for another card at some time.

I used:
Crafter's Companion 'It's Christmastime' stamp set
VersaMark ink pad
Red and Gold embossing powders
Spellbinders Poinsettia die set
Gold adhesive pearls

I'm also submitting this card to Hazel's CHNC challenge 452

Have a great Tuesday evening.

Christmas Card Club - Card 17/2019 - Patterned Papers

Hello and happy Sunday to you all.

It's another Christmas Card Club Challenge Sunday and it's the turn of  Margaret (aka: Granmargaret) to set the theme - to use two or more patterned papers on our cards. 

It's a while since I used any patterned paper at all, let alone two or more, but I'm always up for a challenge so here's what I came up with.

I had this very nice pack of 6x6 papers, 'Winter Wonder' that I'd picked up, fairly recently, at The Works that I liked very much but hardly used. The paper is a lovely thickness, 200gsm, the small patterns are perfect for card-making and I like the colour mix of teal, red, cream and white - it's different. It would have been great for our last theme of non-traditional colours had I thought of it at the time! 

- the base is a 5½" square, made from cream cardstock. I used three different papers for the topper, one for the base, one for the poinsettias and there's another, a narrow strip, that's just peaking out from under the flowers. 

- I used a very old set of Spellbinder dies to cut out the poinsettias, there's four layers altogether for each flower. All the edges of the papers were inked with a teal ink pad. 

- To make the greeting, I stamped and embossed the word 'Joy' from Die'sire's Sentimentals stamp set, on a scrap of cream cardstock using crimson red Heat It Up! embossing powder before cutting it out using yet another old Spellbinder die set - I think they are from the Shapeabilities range. 

 - the turquoise mat was cut using the largest die in the set and, again, I was able to use up a scrap of card. These small die sets are ideal for using up leftover scraps of card and paper. 

- I found three enamel dots in just the right shade of red for the flower centres and also a set of cream coloured ones for the corners. 

And because there's a couple of snippets/scraps been used I'm submitting this to Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #359. I've not had anything to share in the playground for some time but, happily, today I have. 

That's it for CCC today but I hope you will pop over to see what my teammates have created for Margaret's theme - you'll find a list of their names and links on my right sidebar - as always they are so much more creative than me.

Rudolph Day Card for May - Little Robin

Happy Rudolph Day

And happy Saturday to you all. It's raining here so no gardening for me today. Instead, it's been the perfect day for staying in and making this month's Rudolph Day card for Maureen's challenge over on Scraps of Life by Scrappymo.

This entire card is made from snippets and leftovers - my self-imposed challenge for this year is to use up as many scraps as possible. A few weeks ago I test stamped the  robin on a branch on to a tiny off-cut of white cardstock but then it didn't get used. Now it's been water-coloured and cut out - painstakingly, I should add - and it's made a lovely little topper for this card. The greeting was cut twice from scraps of red card and layered up to create more dimension.

That's all from me today - short and sweet.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Christmas Card Club - Card 10/2019 - Children at Christmas

Morning Everyone

It was Kate's turn to pick the theme for the Christmas card club this fortnight and she picked Children at Christmas. After yet another rummage through old stash I discovered a pack of unused Cute Squares from Lili of the Valley. The images in the set are of very pretty little 'Christmas Girls' - the one I've used for this challenge is my favourite and, as there was three copies left, I've used them all and made three cards - all slightly different.

For this version I've used a Gelli plate print background, trimmed and edged with red (Fired Brick) distress ink. The image and dark green cardstock mat were cut with dyes from a stitched square set from The Works. The poinsettia and the greeting were made from leftover scraps of the background and green cardstock using Spellbinders Poinsettia set and Tonic Studios Mini Moments Modern Merry Christmas.

The robin patterned paper for the background in this version is from 'Festive Frolics' by Papermania (more old stash) trimmed and matted on to a layer of dark green cardstock. The image is also matted onto the green card, as is the red ribbon which provides the greeting. The holly leaves were cut with a Tattered Lace mini die - I've used a red glass gem for embellishment.

And finally this version is made almost entirely from snippets of patterned paper and cardstock - the exceptions are the image and the Kraft card base. The patterned papers are scraps from a Holly Hobby patterned paper pack - a magazine freebie - and the star patterned  ribbon was just long enough to adhere to the card and have a bit left for the bow. The greeting is another Tattered Lace mini die. I cut it three times from snippets of red card and glued them together to give the greeting more dimension. 

I'm submitting the last card to Pixie's Snippets Playground Challenge #352 - Di's challenge is always for any subject as long as snippets are used so I hope she will forgive that it's yet another Christmas card. 

That's it for CCC today but I hope you will pop over to see what my teammates have created for Kate's challenge today - you'll find a list of their names and links on my right sidebar - they are always so much more creative than mine. 

Hope the weather has been kind to you and you're enjoying your weekend.

Sunday Snippets & The Last of the Christmas Cards for 2018

Hello Everyone,

Well, that's Christmas 2018 over and done with and I hope that it was a good one for you. We enjoyed a quiet day together, cooking a very tasty lunch, exchanging presents, messaging/telephoning distant family and friends, and watching TV. A perfect day and, after the EM's most recent hospital episode, one for which I'm eternally grateful.

Needless to say there's been nothing done in the craft space for several days, but I do have a few last minute cards to share - the last for this year. Because it doesn't matter how organised I think I am, or how carefully I put together the list of cards to be made, there's always a few short. I try! Every year I try!

Anyway, here they are.

This is a real snippet make - definitely one for Pixie's Snippet Playground Challenge 342. The topper was made from a scrap of gold card embossed with a folder from the Winter Botanicals set by Sizzix and decorated with tiny green gems. It's backed on to a snippet of bright green card to create an insert for the dark green pre-cut card base. Gold sequins decorate two corners.

The next two were made from decoupage kits bought many moons ago - several years ago actually - from Docrafts Henbury Lane Poinsettia Collection Pack. 

It's amazing how much there is in one of these packs - and it's not finished yet! The gorgeous poinsettia patterned paper in the background was one I'd been treasuring but I finally let go. Well, it was just too perfect with those delightful toppers.

One of the reasons - goodness, the only reason - why I was making cards up to the last minute this year is because I left it too late to start! But all should be well for Christmas 2019 because I intend making at least one card a week from the first week in January. Not exactly a resolution, I don't make resolutions, more a challenge! I've done it in years past. I can do it again!

That's it for now. I'm off to give my desk a bit of a tidy up before starting on the next project.

Take care everyone and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Silver Leaves - A Snippet Card

Evening Everyone,

It's taken me all day but I've finally finished this card, the makings of which were on yesterday's desk post.

The topper is made entirely from snippets of card, including the beautiful piece embossed with silver leaves - making it perfect for Di's challenge 341 over on Pixie's Snippets Playground.

Supplies used:

• a white card base measuring 5¼" square
• Versamark Watermark stamp pad, silver embossing powder and a leaf stamp from Variostamp Leaves set by Folia Variostempel Blatter for the background
• the embossing powder, scraps of white and black card, greeting stamp and dies from Sweet Sentiments set, a magazine freebie, and the square of embossed card for the topper

I'm sad because that's the last scrap of that silver embossed card. It's gorgeous and I have no idea where I got it from now so no chance of replacing it. Sigh.

Have an enjoyable evening.

Scrappy Sunday - December Stag

Hello Everyone,

Hope you've had a good week. It's been an eventful one for us. Wednesday morning brought an unexpected call from the hospital asking if the EM could make it in that afternoon. He was being admitted to have his pacemaker fitted the following day, Thursday. He's been on the waiting list for some time now so he was there on time as requested. All went fine and he came home Friday morning. Although he is a bit bruised and sore and he has to behave himself for a few weeks I can see a difference already ... three days and he's zipping around like Speedy Gonzales - soon there will be no stopping him now!

Given the above, I've not been crafting but, in true Blue Peter fashion, I do have this card I made earlier.

Apart from the 5" square white card base everything else used was from these leftovers from making scrap pages.

One of the pieces of striped patterned paper was trimmed to create the banner and the two squares were cut from the red and brown papers.

The scalloped circle, the antler's head and the month were cut out using these dies. The circle is from a set from The Works and the stag's head is a Tattered Lace die.

The design was inspired by this sketch from Julee Tilman on Mojo Monday Card Sketch Challenge. Sadly, Julee is no longer running the challenge but the blog is still accessible ... it's so worth checking out for the many sketches and inspiration there.

I'm submitting the card to Di's challenge over at Pixie's Snippet Playground where we can now follow the adventures of the playground's newest playmate, Dudley. Seems he is giving Parsnip a run for his money! 

Have a wonderful week everyone,