Pine Trees

The challenge at CAS Christmas 

This month it's PINE!

I'm not really sure where the die for the trees came from but it's only about 1in across!

The background is a print from a Gelli plate background. I use dies from Presscut for the squares and the circle aperture. The pine tree die is just a frame die,  so I cut the circle aperture in the square just a tad smaller so I could attach it.

I think I must get out my Gelli plate again, this background has been sculling away in a drawer for a while!

Christmas WISHES

I was having a little fun with embossing powders for this card. It's a background stamp by Kaisercraft, which I embossed with a mix of Gold and Silver embossing powders. The WISHES is part of an extremely old die whose origin has long since escaped me, the rest of the dies are by Alexandra Renke. I stacked the words three times, but on looking at it I think that I should have used black instead of white card for the lower layers.

I made it with the challenge at CAS Christmas in mind as it requests Silver and Gold!

 

 

Another Merry Christmas

This die by Alexandra Renke is called a snow globe but to me it looks more like a bell, so I added some thread and a bow to suspend it. The scene inside this time uses a freebie tree line die-cut and a couple of Memory Box deer. The sentiment is a new acquisition this week also from Memory Box. The embossed snowflakes in the background are from The Creative-Depot. 

I began by making this card all white but it looked decidedly lack lustre, mainly I think, because it is a very flat, matt finish cardstock, so I added the kraft layers to the deer and the Merry Christmas. 

I didn't really check the size of this sentiment die before I bought it and was a little surprised by how big it is, but I got it on sale so I'm happy and looking at it now I think it's rather splendid!

CAS Christmas - Christmas Critters

 

Merry Christmas

I think that Christmas cards are my very favourite to make as I know that each one will find a home and none will be wasted. By making them year round, I can enjoy the process with each one and not be having a mad rush as Christmas posting deadlines approach.

Here are a couple of cute polar bears from MFT popping by with a Christmas Greeting. There's just a little shading with alcohol pens and an embossed, snowy backdrop. Simples!

The challenge at CAS Christmas this time is Christmas Critters, so this is for that!

 

Let it snow

I had a fancy for using this tiny reindeer for my card for CAS Christmas this time. The challenge is to use the colours Grey and Red.

I dug out two shades of grey paper and a scrap of red. This little Memory Box deer doesn't actually have a nose per se so I used one from the waste of a holey border die cut. The trees I believe are from SSS or maybe Memory Box, sometimes there seems to be a bit of a cross over of the same dies from different companies. Rudolph is stacked a couple of times and the snow was embossed with a Sheena Douglass EF which is sadly no longer available!

The sentiment is from Stamplorations.

In fact the card started out with a different sentiment, but I looked at it and looked at it and decided it had to go... I really didn't like it. This was the original version.

The big old sentiment takes too much attention away from the little image...IMHO!

Would you agree?

CASology - View

 

Happy Christmas

Here is a final contribution for the challenge at CAS Christmas.

 

I had got rid of most of the papers that I had accumulated over the years, as I was finding little use for them in my current style of card making, however I did keep back a few and this  is from a freebie book which came with a magazine. I used this sketch for a card a couple of days ago and really liked how it turned out and so used it again!

It's from Freshly Made Sketches and my card is practically identical to the first one is layout and lettering etc.

It also has 1 Christmas Tree so it's for the challenge at CASology 

This coming week I will be going to Bath to look after my grandchildren as my daughter is taking a well deserved holiday. I will be venturing there in our new all electric car... we haven't used it for any distance as yet and so finding charging points is going to be fun!

Wish me luck!

 

JOY

Here is another card for the challenge at CAS Christmas, where the prerequisite this time is PLAID!

I found this scrap of digital paper in my scraps drawers and simply used some dies to make the focal point and the sentiment. One thing which surprised me somewhat was how 'off' the design looked when the dies were not placed appropriately on the paper. By that I mean that the smidge of pattern looked dreadful if it wasn't centralised and aligned in the two cuts. Maybe I have a touch of OCD! This was the third try with the word JOY, but I'm satisfied with this placement. Bothe the tree and the sentiment are popped into dimensional strips to add a little dimension.

Merry Little Christmas  - Anything goes

 

Happy Christmas

I recently got a shipment from Creative-Depot in Germany, which included this thing which looks like a die but is in fact an embossing gizmo. It made the snowflake impressions for the backdrop to this card. The pass for the second impression flattened the first impression, so I ran the piece of card through the machine again without the 'die', to get both impressions looking similar!

I made this card for the challenge at CAS Christmas which this time is calling for plaid! 

This particular piece is from Pink Petticoat, called Little Check. I'm  not sure if they are still in business, but their printable papers suit me as they are monochromatic and snippets fit well into the CAS genre. I made a tag from a couple of star dies, adding an eyelet, something I haven't used for years and had to look up how to use my Crop O dile on the internet. I added a little gold twine and wasn't quite sure how to stop the ends of it from fraying, so I just dipped them in a little white school glue and let them dry. I guess time will tell whether or not that will work!

ABC Christmas T for Two (Snowflake impressions)

Merry Little Christmas - Anything Christmas Goes

Just Us Girls - 6 of Anything  (5 white stars + 1 plaid star.

Also 6 Pearls

 

Joy to the World

A card for a few challenges. I began with the sketch from Christmas Card Throwdown

Just realised that I put the sentiment in the wrong place... can we put it down to a little artistic licence?

I used the colours from Color Throwdown

 the theme of decorations from CAS Christmas

and the hanging decorations from the photo  inspiration at Christmas Kickstart

Starting with the sketch I cut the front panel together with the little Christmas dies in the arrangement of the sketch... if I had thought things through a little more I would have altered the placement slightly so as to accommodate a) hangers for the two top shapes and b) threads to hang them up with... maybe another card will emerge for that. It's always fine to be wise after the event!

I believe that the dies are a bit of a mix and match, I just raided my box of Christmas dies!
I think I may have to have another go at this one!

 

Merry Christmas

I have been away for a short break in West Wales and had a lovely time... we were really fortunate with the weather and the scenery was fabulous, but I'm always glad to get home again. On our return I was eager to get a card made but had no inspiration, so I looked for a challenge to enter!

The challenge at CAS Christmas is Decorations.

My first thought was to do something with baubles, but I couldn't work up any enthusiasm for that, so I thought I would do a wreath instead. I have made a wreath to decorate our front door at Christmastime, but not for a year or so. This one has Christmas Roses in it (Hellebores) at least they look like them to me!

After I had cut the pieces  (Craft & You Dies), I coloured them with 3 shades of green alcohol inks and a little Blending Solution. I merely flapped them up and down into a puddle of colour on my craft mat!

The sentiment was a freebie from a mag, which I heat embossed in gold onto a torn strip of vellum.

At Time Out   it's Word inspiration

 

You are my Sunshine

Recently I discovered that my usual supplier of cardstock, Paper Mill Direct, had ceased producing their hopsack and hemp textured cardstock in white, so I have been searching for a replacement. This particular card by Papermania has a reasonable texture, but there my love for it ends.  It's rather a stark white, not easy in the eyes, (I prefer a softer white) and it is very flimsy. I think I was caught up in the look of the texture online without noticing what the gsm was. SO for this card, the square panel is double stacked and the sun and the sentiment label triple stacked.

The rainbow is by Taylored Expressions, although I lost the heart from that die cut so this one is just another heart (the TE die has the rainbow and the heart in one and I didn't want to cut out another rainbow! 

The sentiment is computer generated in 'Are you serious' font.

Global Design Project

This is rather unenterprising in that it's the same layout as my last card for CAS Christmas, but I just fancied trying a poinsettia in white! I used a really deep green for the back panel and some tiny sprigs of holly as garnishes. The 'joy' on this card was considerably easier to stack, as the letters are all in one piece!

JOY

Here's a card for the challenge at CAS Christmas.

I've had this poinsettia die for a very long time and I don't actually remember the make. At some point there may have been some little dots for the centre of the flower, but I couldn't find the die, so I used the waste from a border die with holes in as the stamens etc. The flower is coloured with a couple of shades of red and a couple of shades of green alcohol pens. The die itself is a trio of petals/leaves in one piece so I cut three for the flower and two for the leaves.

The sentiment was not exactly a 'joy' to make as I got it into my head that I wanted a certain size and a certain type of font, which I didn't have in my die stash, so I did this with my Silhouette Portrait.  Cutting something this fiddly from 250gsm card is quite tricky. The bits are tiny and I stacked the letters three times ... it was a real tweezer job! I was however satisfied with the overall look at the end.

Addicted to CAS - Christmas

My Time to Craft Christmas - CAS

Merry Little Christmas - Anything Goes

Happy Little Stampers Christmas - Anything Goes

Be Merry

I have been meaning to get around to making a card for the challenge at CAS Christmas for ages, but my supply of snowmen stamps seems to be limited to two... which is all that I could find this time. I used one of the images for last month's challenge and this is the other. I may have others squirreled away somewhere, but I can neither remember if I have any, nor find any that I've forgotten about.

This one is a really old wood mounted stamp from Hampton Arts. I simply gently coloured him with alcohol pens. 

I knew that I wanted to make an aperture for him to peep through but couldn't decide on the size of the square it should go into. I wanted to choose a stamp for the sentiment whose font matched the lines of the stamp for weight and style and the first one I tried, seemed perfect apart from the fact that I couldn't get a decent impression from it. I tried it about three or four times and in the end decided that it was because it was a freebie  stamp from a mag it wasn't quite the quality I like. This one, from Penny Black, stamped perfectly first time! 

The dies I used for the front panel are from Presscut and are really skinny, meaning that they make the cut edge the same  (without any embossed edge) whether it's on the outside of a panel or the inside of an aperture.

Merry Little Christmas - Anything goes

Addicted to stamps and More - Christmas

Ellibelle's Crafty Wednesday CAS

Fezziwig's Festive Frolics - Cold and Frosty

 

...and one more

The simplest of simple cards. A sprig of die-cut foliage and berries, triple stacked, with adhesive flat back pearls added for the berries and with the leaves twinkled with Glamour Dust. 

The sentiment is from a set by Hero Arts.

This is my final contribution to the challenge at CAS Christmas

Recently I have spotted crafters like Gina K and Jennifer McGuire using a 'chuckie' to press down on their stamping platforms, to get even pressure on their stamps. I decided to look around the house to see what I could find to use for this purpose. After a brief search I came across this  quartz or alabaster (or whatever stone) tealight holder. I die-cut the appropriate sized circle from a sheet of self adhesive furniture protector felt and stuck this on the bottom. It slides around on my stamping platform beautifully and has a really good weight to it too. It's also great that it protects my wooden furniture surfaces when I want to use it for its original purpose!

 

Foliage & Berries

Out of nowhere this morning, came the idea to make a card with an embossed tile as the focal image. I haven't made one of these for quite some time, and I must admit that it was fun!

I used an old stamp from Artemio, which I stamped with Versafine Black Onyx ink and coloured with Copics, adding a few highlights with a Gelly Roll pen. I then over stamped with a bunch of background stamps, music from Kaisercraft, splatters, script and postal mark from SU. Following this I added a couple of layers or UTEE.

I did toy with the idea of adding a sentiment and in fact made a couple, but decided in the end that I preferred it as is!

It's for the challenge at CAS Christmas.

I was lucky enough to win a Penny Black foliage & berries stamp from CAS Mix Up, but so far I haven't managed to make a card that I'm satisfied with... I have messed up so many, but no doubt I'll get there sometime! Watch this space!

 

Merry Christmas

This is rather an unusual colour choice for a Christmas card, but I am rather partial to lots of shades of kraft card and so when I saw that the challenge at Christmas Card Throwdown was to use this colour, this is the card I came up with. 

In fact I decided to combine it with the challenge at CAS Christmas , where the theme this time is Foliage and Berries.

The Holly & Ivy Christmas Challenge - Anything Goes

Merry Little Christmas - Anything Goes

I  used an ivory base to complement the kraft die cuts. The foliage is from a die called Silverdale from Memory Box. It is stacked 3 times and mounted over a frame cut with Framelit and Presscut dies. I stamped this in Versamark using a wood plank stamp from IO. I lightly brushed a little Empire Gold Gilding Wax from Pebeo onto some edges of the leaves and the sentiment panel and added some Nuvo Crystal drops to the berries. The sentiment is from Memory Box.

I just discovered that Amazon Music has compiled my own personal playlist from tracks that I have chosen to play frequently... it's brilliant... all my favourites without having to keep selecting! I'm obviously not too old to keep learning new things!

 

Warmest Wishes

Here is a little card that I have been trying to make for days... but lots seemed to get in the way, fortunately I think I still have a couple of days before the challenge at CAS Christmas closes!

Trina set quite a challenge for this one, as rainbow colours are not usually associated with Christmas greetings,  but I think that this little chap (a stamp from Little Claire) seemed to lend himself to having a jolly scarf!

I added a little twinkle to his hat and the snow on the ground, and used Copics to colour in his scarf. The sentiment is from Memory Box.

Merry Little Christmas - Anything Goes

Some of you may know that we have been waiting to have a new kitchen for quite some time, experiencing delay after delay due to problems with Covid 19 restrictions and limitations. However it is now all completed so I thought you might like to have a gander at the end result. It is fairly similar in layout to the previous one, but with several innovations, the main one being making space for a big old American fridge... which I love!

To do this, the point where the internet cable entered the kitchen had to be re-sited, which led to variety of problems of one sort or another, but now all is well. We had a little cabinet constructed to house all the various hubs for internet, tv, security, heating etc which we were told should be in an open aspect and not in a cupboard because of signal etc, however, once in situ I couldn't cope with the look of all the wires etc, so my kitchen provider had a framed door made for me, which would normally have had glass in, but instead I fitted a piece of navy mesh into the glass space, to obscure the wires and hubs etc and yet didn't impede the signal.

Here are some pics.

In this pic you can see the little cupboard under the tv where all the wires are semi-concealed! After the kitchen had been rewired and re-plastered, I did a count of all the sockets (outlets) ... there are 23! Six of them are in that little cupboard... 2 above it and one behind the tv. SO I have plenty left for the cookers, the toaster, kettle, coffee maker, Instant Pot, food mixer etc etc!

We are due to have our second vaccine tomorrow, so that will be another milestone!

Stay safe everyone!