Rudolf Day - Winter Berries

Hello Everyone,


Once again it's time for the Rudolph Day Challenge, hosted by our lovely ScrappyMo over on Scraps of Life. The whole idea of this challenge is to make Christmas cards/projects throughout the year thereby taking the pressure away from finding time to make them at the last minute. That being so here's my entry for February.

This card was made with old and new stash, The paper used being the old and the stamp being the new ... the postie just delivered it this week. Here's a list of supplies used:

• base - a black 5" square card
• patterned paper & sentiment topper - The Nancy Watt Collection,Decorative Christmas Trees from Making Cards December 2010
• cardstock - silver, for matting, and white for the topper
• stamp - Penny Black Winter Berries
• ink - Stazon Jet Black
• decoration - Nuvo Crystal Drops Navy Blue

Only one card this month ... there goes my goal of making one Christmas card a week. Once again I have kept the card as flat as possible to save on postage. The only cards that will have a lot of dimension on them will be those that can be hand delivered. 

Hope you are all enjoying a wonderful weekend wherever you are.

Cardmaking - Botanical Thank You

Afternoon Everyone,

I have a quick share today. I've been sorting through my stash of made cards and noted that it's low on quite a few categories - most notably birthday (male & female), sympathy and thank you cards. 'Thank you' cards being particularly needed at this time I sat down to make some. This is the first.

I was able to use lots of materials that I've been hanging on to for far too long and a beautiful new die too - the Tuscany Strip makes a very effective band.

Materials used:

• white base card measuring 5¾"x 4" 
• cardstock - coral pearlescent cardstock - used for base layer and die-cut circle and flowers; scraps of white and beige cardstock for die-cut strip and flowers, circle on topper and sentiment tag
• patterned paper from Prima Botanical collection - from my stash and very old, 2011
• dies - Spellbinders Renaissance Tuscany Strip; Nestabilities Splendid Circles; Marianne Collectables Flower Set
• stamp - 'Thank you' from Summer In The Garden set that came free with a magazine
• ink - Memento Tuxedo Black
• other items - flower printed peach coloured ribbon; an oval diecut from Stix2 - used as base for flower topper; Marianne Designs pearl swirls; Nuvo Crystal Drops, Bubblegum Blush on flower centres.

For inspiration I used the photo on the Spellbinder packaging. It was a good starting point but I now have a few more ideas of how it could be used.

Apologies, yet again, for not having been around much this week. It's been another sad one for us. My sister-in-law died Thursday afternoon. It wasn't totally unexpected, she'd been ill with Alzheimer's for some time, but her health took a turn for the worse recently. What makes it doubly hard is that it is only five weeks since her youngest son died.

I see from the news that many of you are experiencing the worst of weathers. We only had a smattering of snow a couple of days ago but since then it has brightened up and today we have sunshine, blue skies and fluffy white clouds but it is FREEZING! I don't want to wish my life away but I so look forward to the time when we have warmer temperatures.

Keep warm and stay safe.

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 381 - and Nuvo Crystal Drops

Hello Everyone,

So sorry to be so late joining in the fun, and sharing my desk, at Julia's What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday but the weather has been warm and sunny today so I spent much of it working away in the garden. My excuse! It's the equinox tomorrow which probably means that there will be fewer and fewer lovely hours to spend pottering among the flowers. Oh, and, of course, it's raining now!

Well, a bit of change on my desk today. The bits and bobs have been put away, for now, because I'm planning a little sewing project.

I need a knitting bag. Not for knitting, I don't knit, but for crochet. A bag will be perfect for carrying some yarn and a hook to the craft club I go to on Thursday afternoons. And much classier than the bag-for-life I've been using up till now. The fabric I've chosen has great retro sewing images on it - sort of appropriate. The postcard above the navy fabric is of The Kelpies at The Helix, in Falkirk where we spent the weekend, all lit up at night. Under it is the paper bag it was wrapped in beautifully illustrated with a drawing of the Kelpies - too nice to throw though I have no idea what I'll do with it. Maybe it will appear on a scrapbook page some time in the future. Finally, that's a new flower-patterned mug, bought by the EM to replace the one he dropped on the kitchen floor ... it's a hard floor so it much didn't stand a chance!!!

In last week's WOYWW post I mentioned these Nuvo Crystal Drops (a Tonic product) I had sitting on my desk and said that if any of you were interested I'd do a wee post on how I got on with them. During the weeks and months that was my blogging break much of my rest and recuperation was taken up with watching YouTube videos - well, it's crafting, sort of . At the time it seemed that millions of scrappers, okay, I exaggerate but it was a lot, were raving about them as a very suitable, and cheaper, alternative to enamel dots. So, of course, I just had to order a few bottles to try for myself. The colours are, from left to right, Wedgewood Blue, Red Berry, Navy Blue, Bubblegum Blush.

The way to use the crystal drops is to squeeze drops out on to a non-stick surface and leave to dry for 24 hours when they will have dried to a hard dot. I squeezed different amounts to get different sizes of dots.

They are similar in a way to Liquid Pearls, however, the one advantage with the crystal drops is that they don't drop to a point so no need to tap the back to create a rounded shape. I believe it is possible to squeeze the drops directly on to a project but I wouldn't trust myself to get them uniform enough to even attempt it.

Here are my first attempts, dried and ready to use. Although all four colours were called Crystal Drops only two, Wedgewood Blue and Navy Blue had an opalescent finish. The Berry Red and Bubbegum Blush were a solid colour but no less lovely for that.

And here they are dried and ready to use.

To see how I used some of them pop back to my Sunday Snippets post - I've used them as embellishments on three of the cards featured. I think they look rather nice too.

They are a bit fiddly to use so they may not be for everyone but I liked the finished dots and, yes, they do make a great substitute for enamel dots. I may even have to acquire a few lot more colours very soon.

I hope I've managed to clarify what Nuvo Crystal Drops are for those of you who had never heard of them.

Belated Happy WOYWW to you,