Rudolph Day - January 2015

Afternoon Folks

After a weekend of doing nothing much at all I think it's time I did some more catching up. Yesterday was the 25th, and that means Rudolph Day over at Scraps of Life by ScrappyMo. You may recall that our lovely Sarn stepped down from presenting Rudolph Day at the end of last year and we now have the equally lovely Mo to encourage us to create Christmas cards right through the year. Do check out her blog for details of how you can play along each month together with inspiration from Mo and her Design Team.

Once again I have a card, actually a batch of cards, made in the run up to last Christmas that until now I haven't managed to post. The design is based on one designed by Heather Telford at Bits & Pieces. I've long been a great admirer of Heather's work so when I saw this card just thought it was a perfect design to CASE. Needless to say, I didn't have the same supplies as Heather so I substituted with what I had in my stash.

The topper which was very simply made has a tree and star embossed in white on to a blue watercoloured sky -  the original had a die-cut tree and star. The tent shaped base card had a half circle punch out of each side of the front (I used Stamping Up's word label punch) before narrow blue ribbon was wrapped round it - it's fastened at the front under the topper. Heather used embroidery thread instead of ribbon.

To get the half circles in exactly the right place I used a piece of card as a template - you can see the card, with my various attempts to get it just right, in the photo above.

Here's a shot of the entire batch set out on the EM's pool table - the largest surface I could find :) I don't really like making the same card over and over again, easily bored, but as the watercoloured skies are all a little different I quite enjoyed making these.

As well as Rudolph Day, I'm submitting this card to the following:

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 161- all the toppers were made from snippets of white card trimmed down to size. Not one to miss an opportunity to see his big brother, Parsnip, Snippety Bailey is skipping over to the playground too :)
Hazel's CHNC Challenge 213 - Joy to the world
and
CHNC Extra Challenge for January 2015 - where anything goes as long as it's Christmas themed

Many thanks to you all and to all the lovely comments received. I say it often, but it's worth reiterating, your support is very much appreciated. Without hearing from you I'd think I was just be chatting to myself :)

Finally, I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and that Monday hasn't been so bad thus far. The EM took me for a trip out yesterday to cheer me up some. I hadn't been out anywhere for so long, in fact, since I came out of hospital, I was beginning to feel a bit fed up so he took me to the book shop at Culzean. I had a lovely browse round and came away a few pounds lighter, several books heavier and feeling a lot perkier :)

Take care all.

Happy Crafting,

Friday Smile

Afternoon folks

Just this one cartoon for Annie's Friday Smile this week but it did make me smile :)

I haven't reached this stage yet but when/if I do I'll be removing those stray eyebrows :)

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. If you're down south keep warm and stay safe.

Hugs,

Upcycled Christmas Card

Evening Everyone,

I've made my first card of the year! I'm quite chuffed with myself for getting down to a bit of crafting at last :) Once you've seen it you will think this was a quick and easy card to make! Not so, it took me the better part of a day to make?!?!  I've never been the fastest of crafters but that's just plain ridiculous!!!!

Over at CHNC Challenge 212 Hazel is asking that we upcycle, recycle, re-purpose or use something free so I've recycled a card received this Christmas. I liked this cute image of hedgehogs in a car spilling over with gifts, especially as it is decidedly glittery.

To make it I did the following:

 - first I folded an A4 sheet of Papermania textured cardstock in a light grey shade to create an A5 tent shape card base.

- then I trimmed both the left side of the insert, the red piece, and the image from the front of the card I was recycling to fit on to the front of the card base. 

- the greeting was computer generated and printed on to white cardstock, trimmed and edged with a grey Promarker - Ice Grey 1 - to create faux matting.

- the inside is decorated with a leftover strip of the red and an image trimmed from the insert too.

You'll notice that it's a fairly flat card. I've set a target to make as many embellishment light cards as possible after almost mortgaging my soul to Royal Mail to send out our 2014 Christmas cards. I'll be saving the pretty ribbons, charms and gems for cards that will be delivered by hand. Unless, of course, RM drops the cost of postage ... no, I don't think that's very likely either!

I'm also submitting this card to Hazel's other challenge - CHNC challenge extra for January 2015 

I'm off now to concentrate on finishing some scrap layouts started about two months ago. That's another target for this year - create more scrap layouts. It's not as though I don't have plenty of pretty patterned paper just crying out to be used.

Hope you are all having a good week so far. Many thanks to everyone who takes the time to visit and maybe leave a comment ... all very much appreciated.

Take care.

Happy Crafting,