Merry Christmas

From my house to yours!

I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Creative New Year.

Here is my Christmas tree, out for its 35th outing. I didn't think I  liked artificial trees until one day in 1976 when my husband arrived home from work in Virginia, where we were living at the time, with a very large box on the roof of the car, which contained this tree. It has graced our living rooms each year since that time and I love it. I was amazed to see that today real trees cost about £55, so apart from doing its bit for ecology, it has also saved us a lot of money over the intervening years.

The final challenge for this year from "Less is More" is the recipe of  

Just one word

and  it will run for 2 weeks.

Here are my contributions.

I've had this stamp out on my desk to use for a Christmas card for weeks, but this is the first time I've managed to use it this year. I love these Penny Black ducks, they have such great expressions on their faces.
This one was coloured with Copics and a touch of Glamour Dust was added to the letters. The edging was cut with a Spellbinders die.

You probably recognise the style of this one as I've used it many times before. Fab Artemio trees in a masked and sponged strip where I used the Natural range of inks from SU EArly Espresso, Soft Suede, Crumb Cake and Sahara Sand ... with white of course. The birds are Hobby Arts and the sentiment is part of a SU one which I masked with Selotape before inking so as to get just one word!

This is a retired SU stamp which has the word 'Hello' as part of the design. I think it's a really pretty stamp. It has been coloured with Promarkers.

This one is another SU stamp... a heart this time, mounted on a Nestie with a backdrop from Pink Petticoat... I think, but I wouldn't  like to swear to that!









We will be sharing our Christmas celebrations with our daughter and her family and are so looking forward to being with them all. Daisy is really excited! I hope that you have a Wonderful Christmas wherever you you may be!

Pocket and Floss

Back in the summer, I saw a pair of rabbits like this on someone's blog and thought that they looked terrific. I managed to get the pattern for them and my daughter thought that they were super too. When she was staying with us we went to get the necessary fabric and notions which have been sitting in the bag since then. I thought I'd try to get them made to give to Daisy and Seb (my grandchildren) for Christmas.

Well... here they are!

Last year at my daughter's request, I made a knitted Miss Mouse for Daisy and she was somewhat underwhelmed with it... it will be interesting to see their reactions to these little guys!

I think they're cute anyway!

Music at "Less is More"

At "Less is More" this time we have a challenge which involves using something Music related. This is right up my street as I sell most of my cards through my choir and of course members often like to have cards with this theme.

I think that music manuscript is particularly useful as a background, to add a little interest to a card and I have many stamps in varying sizes and styles. This one is from a Penny Black set. The square was cut with a Nestie Deckle rectangle adapted to make it square. (There's a tutorial for this type of thing on the LIM blog) The butterfly is made with a SU/Sizzix  embosslits die.

Here I used an Artemio background stamp for the mount, to co-ordinate with the manuscript design on the Hero Arts Christmas tree.

The sentiment is from Penny Black.

For this card I used an acrylic block stamped with Distress ink and sprinkled with Perfect Pearls before being spritzed with water.After stamping,  I masked it and overstamped with the same manuscript stamp as the previous card.

Then I added the stylised flowers using a stamp from Personal Impressions  and a sentiment from Hero Arts.

I used a Nestie rectangle to cut out the image, this time lengthening it slightly to accommodate the entire image.

Finally, a card using the Stampin' Up Notes wheel and a stamp from Magenta which has been stamped, coloured, cut out and embossed before being added to the card. The sentiment is from SU Plane and Simple.

Today I must get to the Post Office as I came home last night with my grandson's bedtime comfort bunny in my handbag... it must be returned.... and quickly!

Less is More One Layer Card -Let it Snow

The challenge this week at Less is More is for a One Layer Card with the title 

Let it Snow!

I simply love making cards using the emboss resist technique.

I die-cut some Nestie squares from Post it Notes to make the mask and then stamped and inked into the squares.

 The stamps are Artemio and Rollagraph used with Versamark ink and embossed with Wow Sparkling snow and semi-dull embossing powders. The colour was added with sponge daubers using Bashful Blue and Night of Navy inks. The sentiment is from My Sentiments Entirely.

Here is another card which is just a variation on the same theme!
I used the same stamps and inks but simply varied the area for decoration.

More heat embossing.

 This card uses a bunch of snowflake images from Inkadinkado and Just Rite Stamps.

The sentiment is part of the MSE stamp which I used on the first card, masked with Selotape before inking which was removed before stamping.

The card looks very dark... it is in fact navy blue!

This next week is going to be really busy for me. Tonight we have a Carol Concert with my choir, followed by a party. Tomorrow we will be singing carols at a local Victorian Farm's Christmas Market and I cook lunch for all the singers afterwards.  

We'll also be singing at a Rest Home on Tuesday, and at the Farmyard Nativities on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday I'll be driving to Bath to see my granddaughter in her pre-school  play.

Busy, busy, busy!

WOYWW 131

Yesterday I bought this carousel gizmo from a local craft shop. I had been thinking about one for ages but thought that they would be too large for my small working space. When I saw it I was surprised at  how compact it actually is. The other surprise was that nearly all the little drawers contained little bits and bobs... brads, gems, ribbons etc.
Also on my desk this week is a bunch of craft magazines... mainly Craft Stamper it must be said, but I have cards or projects published in all of them. The really exciting thing is that I have been invited to join the Design Team at Craft Stamper. The disappointment is that my copy for this month hasn't yet arrived, so I can't see my Cut & Create prism box or the card for this month's gallery in print.
I hope I manage to get around to a few more desks this week, but I seem to be running around my own tail at the moment.
I've woken with thick head this morning, I hope it clears soon as we have lots of singing commitments between now and Christmas.
Join in the fun snoop around the world courtesy of Julia, whose WOYWW link is on my sidebar.
Additional info!
I originally saw this on the Personal Impressions website, but they sell only to retailers. They gave me a list of stockists of their products and my local craft store ordered one in for me. It cost £29.99 and measures 30cms across the widest part of the hexagonal shape.

Less is More colour challenge - Green

This little stamp from Dovecraft (it also says Studio G on the block, has been part of my stash for quite some time. Although rarely used, I really like it and think that maybe it will be used for a few more cards in the next few days.

This one is for our colour challenge this week at "Less is More" where the choice is GREEN!

I tend to keep coming back to the simple design of a band of something or other stretching across the card horizontally.

Yesterday I went to Bath once more to see my daughter and family. Daisy was doing a ballet class that parents were allowed to watch and so I looked after the baby whilst my daughter watched the class. She was almost in tears to see how wonderfully Daisy responded to the ballet teacher. She had expected that she might be a little like a fairy elephant, but was delighted to see that this was far from the truth.

This weekend we're staying at a hotel called Terravina in the New Forest, to attend a Black tie, Vintage Champagne Wine tasting, which was instigated by a gift from our son and his wife for our respective birthdays. They were back in the summer, but we decided to use the voucher towards this special couple of days.

I have bought a new LBD and am so glad that I have shed 21 pounds but I also bought some special tights to grab in a few more!

Here are a few more cards with green!

All a little predictable at this time of year, but it's what we need isn't it!

Have a great week and do join in our green challenge!