Cricut Christmas card.

Hello everyone,

I hope you are having a good weekend. In Manchester we have bright, cold and crisp weather but we have avoided the snow that is affecting so many parts of the country. We wrapped up yesterday and went for a lovely walk in Styal woods and it was great to crunch through all the autumn leaves, but today we are staying home and keeping warm.

I am going to try and get down to some more Christmas card making over the next couple of weeks, and I started this morning with a card made on my Cricut machine after making it at a workshop at the wonderful Crab Apple Crafts.

I used Sandylion 'Snowy Night' background paper and placed it on an A5 card. The city skyline is from Plantin Schoolbook, the Santa sleigh and moon from Christmas Noel and the sentiment was from Wild Card. I put some yellow card behind the windows and was tempted to add ribbon and bling but I decided that it would be going over the top like Santa's sleigh, and I left it at that.

Thanks for looking in, and for all the kind comments about my wishing on a star tree.

Hugs

Carol

Waltzing Mouse sketch challenge

Hello everyone,

Happy Thanksgiving to any visitors from the US - have a great day! Having a day to think about all the things you have to be grateful for seems like a very good idea to me.

Whilst joining in the Blog Waltz at Waltzing Mouse stamps, I noticed that they have a regular challenge and decided to do my first try at a sketch challenge. This is the sketch you had to use:-

I decided to make a winter birthday card and turned the sketch on its side for my design ( I hope this is allowed).

click to enlarge

 I used the Cuttlebug Swiss Dot folder to emboss the card and left a central area in the card for the sentiment. I used the WM Holiday Labels stamp and Nesties Labels 14 to mat and frame the winter tree from Inkylicious. I added glamour dust for a little frost on the tree, although this doesn't show up very well on the photo, and a couple of stars for bling. The black dotty ribbon finished it off. 

Thanks for looking.

Christmas Cards

Hello everyone,

Things are a bit hectic at our house today. It is my turn to host our book group tomorrow night and not only have I not finished the book yet, but I haven't decided what to cook for the 10 - 14 women who will be coming. I'm trying not to get stressed about it so I thought I'd pop online and do a quick post before I start looking at cookery books.

This is a Christmas card I made with a stamp I bought in a sale after Christmas last year so haven't used yet. I stamped it and coloured it with Copic markers and added some white Flowersoft as snow. The background paper was from my stash and the sentiments is from the  PTI Snowfall set. I love the little robin on the cup!

Here's the card in another colourway - I really like the snowfall background paper on this one.

Oh well, I better get onto the cook books, although nobody will mind about the food once we have had a glass or two of wine and started chatting.

Thanks for looking and for all the lovely comments you leave. It really makes my day.

Hugs

Carol x

Waltzing Mouse Blog Waltz

Hello everyone,

I was blog hopping last night and came across the Waltzing Mouse blog which is having their monthly Blog Waltz right now. I have never tried a blog hop before but I do have a few of the gorgeous Waltzing Mouse stamps so I decided to have a go. The problem was that the theme is Christmas, and I don't (yet) have any WM stamps that are specifically Christmas, but I found a Christmas sentiment on the Frame-It set, so here is a simple card that can be (and was)  created very quickly. As this is my first time and the rules said to use WM stamps, I wasn't sure if other makes of stamp could also be used, so I played safe and just used some poinsettia flowers which I curled to give them some dimension. I used the same size label die for the mat and the raised focal point mat, I just trimmed round the image to make it a tad smaller than the mat because the next size die was too large for the card. A couple of stars on the mat added the slightest touch of bling because it is for Christmas!

Recipe

White base card and red textured card

Holly embossed vellum

Poinsettia flowers from Craftwork cards

Stamps WM Holiday Labels and Frame It

Nesties Labels 14

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs

Carol x

Lily of the Valley wedding card

Hello everyone,

 I hope you had a good weekend and are ready for another week. We went to a wedding on Saturday and the weather was sunny and bright even though it was a touch chilly when the photos were being taken. The venue was lovely and during the ceremony we all had an amazing surprise. When the time came for the Best Man to pass the wedding rings on to the Groom, he seemed to have difficulty finding them and then stretched out his left arm and a beautiful barn owl flew from behind us, landed on his arm, and the rings were found in a little red bag attached to its leg We could have been in a Harry Potter scene. Here is a picture of the owl resting in the garden after his labours - its a bit blurry, but I was excited and didn't hold the camera very steady.

I made a card for the happy couple using the cute Lily of the Valley bridal pair. I used some Stampin Up Mellow Moss card as the base of the gate fold card and some Hot of the Press patterned paper.



For some reason the colour looks grey rather that the green it looked in reality but if you click to enlarge it looks a bit better.

 The matted elements open on different sides of the card and I finished off the main image with a little bow tied from sheer Swiss dot ribbon.

I hope you have good week. Thanks for looking and for all the kind comments you leave. They make my day and I really do appreciate them.

Carol x

Wishing on a star tree

Edited on 25th November.

Hello everyone,
I just found out that it is Papertrey Ink Blog Hop today and they are doing tags. Although I made these tags last week, they seem to fit with the spirit of the Blog Hop and as I have always wanted to participate, I hope it is ok to join in.

At our house, when the children got too old to write to Santa any more (a very sad milestone that I think), we went through various methods of each person being asked what they would like as gifts (if they had been very good of course). A lot of the methods were not successful until I had the idea of a Wishing Tree. We had a small tree that came out every year to go on the hall table and I decided that instead of decorating it in the usual manner, I would die cut baubles for it and everyone could write what they would like on the back and the rest of us could look and decide what to get. The girls over at Passion for Papertrey have a challenge for making anything but a card, so I decided to play along and make some new shapes to hang on the tree. I used the PTI star die cuts and layered them together, then added a matted stamped tag from the 2009 Holiday Tag collection.

                                                                                                                 



For some reason this is not a very good picture but if you click to enlarge it, you get a better view.

                                                                                                                             

 I used the largest star die for the main shape and layered the medium star behind it to add more points to the star. I then added a white scalloped circle to the back so that everyone could write their wishes on,  punched holes in the top and added bakers twine to hang the stars on the tree.

I'm quite pleased with the result which is both decorative and useful, and it will have pride of place in the hall from the first day  of  Advent.Thanks for looking.
Hugs
Carol x
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

box of cards

Hello everyone,

I hope you had a good weekend and have wrapped up warmly now that the weather has turned decidedly chilly. We had a lovely few days away and I feel inspired to get on with my crafty sessions and start preparing for Christmas. I love Christmas.

I went to Hobbycrafts at the NEC while we were away and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I had stopped going because the last time I went it was far too crowded and it was impossible to see the demonstrators on the stalls. This time I was able to see all I wanted to see and there were some fantastic demonstrators who were so enthusiastic about what they were doing, that I want to try some new things too. Of course I had to buy some new goodies because Lily of the Valley had a stall and I saw a Penny Johnson stamp that I have been looking for. I also bought some tree stamps from Inkylicious, a company I hadn't come across before. I even managed to get a couple of Christmas presents at the Christmas Crafts stall. Some of the exhibitors are so talented that I wish I had a bottomless purse.

Anyway, I want to share a box of cards that I have made for my daughter to sell at her school fayre. I got the idea for the box from Stamp tv and the video instructions can be found by following the link.

The ribbon slips off without being undone and inside are 5 cards that I have made rather flat so that they fit in the box, but also so that postage will not be a problem. I thought it would make a nice gift along with postage stamps, perhaps for an elderly person who cannot get out very much. I included a variety of occasions - birthday, new baby, get well, anniversary and thank you. These are the cards that are in it:-

Thanks for looking. I really appreciate that you take the time to visit and comment.

Hugs

Carol x

PTI thank you card

Hello everyone,

I just got some new PTI goodies to play with, but I won't have time to get them inky until Sunday because I'm seeing friends today and then I'm going away for a few days with my lovely husband. He has been decorating the cloakroom now that the builder has finished, and decorating is his least favourite job. Nevertheless, he hasn't complained once and he deserves a few days away to look at some gardens in all their autumnal glory. As we are going to the Midlands, I am going to have day at the Hobbycrafts show at the NEC. I haven't been there for about 6 or 7 years because the last time I went it was very crowded and tiring, but I'm ready to give it another try. It also has a gift fair, so I might be able to get a start on the Christmas shopping.

Today I'd like to share a Thank you card :-

I used the PTI beautiful blooms and delightful dahlia dies and some Making Memories cardstock with some Rustic Cream Twine for the button. For the hanging circle, I used PTI Round and Round stamps. The sentiment was made up of different stamps from PTI and Hero Arts. The rectangular frame was from an old wooden stamp that I left a gap on when I inked it up. It doesn't give a very even line but I actually think I like it, and it is just the right size for this type of card. I wanted some clear frame stamps and recently got the Waltzing Mouse set but like the PTI set, the images are a little small for many of the cards I make, so I think I'll be hanging on to my old wooden stamp!

Thanks for looking.

Hugs

Carol x