Papertrey Ink Blog hop

Hello everyone,

Today is the Papertrey Ink Blog hop



and we were given a gorgeous Christmas picture for inspiration.



There were so many pretty things in the picture but I decided to use the red and white colours and the ice skates hanging on the stairs. I have been really busy lately and the time available for crafting has been limited so I decided I wanted to forgo trying to make a 'tasteful' card and just have a play making a Christmas card for a child. I wanted to use a snowman theme and rather than stamp a snowman or cut one on my Cricut I challenged myself to think outside the box and looked at my PTI dies to see if anything would be useful. This  is what I came up with

I had some textured card that had a snowy appearance and I thought that the Tag it 4 die looked like the body of a snowman whilst the plain circle from Limitless Layers Circles could be his head.

A triangle from the Triangles Die collection could be his hat

and as I didn't have the ice skate die, I made my own version from the little sock on the Hanging Out die by cutting an extra piece from silver card and gluing it to the bottom of the red one and drawing on some laces.

When I was a child I had mittens that were tied together and passed through my coat sleeves so I wouldn't lose them and I copied this idea by freehand cutting a couple of mittens and tying them together with twine.

A snowy background was made on some blue card by stamping and embossing the gorgeous snowflake stamp from Snowfall and I made snowdrifts by using the hill from Wonderfully Whimsical and gluing some Polar White Flowersoft to it to give more texture.

 I cut and stamped the straight cane from Candy Cane Christmas along with a piece made from the Double Ended Banner die to make a sign post.

It all came together like this

I drew a face, added some chalk and Copic shading, and finished it off with a little cotton ball on the hat.

I think you can tell I really had fun with this card. Thanks for looking in and enjoy the blog hop.

Hugs

Carol

Papertrey Ink Christmas card.

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all having a good weekend. Better late than never, I just want to post a card for the PTI Make it Monday challenge, which this week was to use a glue pad to add flock, perfect pearls or glitter to a card. Its a long time since I got my perfect pearls out so I chose to use them with with some of Dawn McVeys gorgeous stamps. I used the round candy from Candy Cane Christmas to make some baubles and stamped it onto sweet blush card before brushing the pearls on. Its a very grey day today in Manchester, so I've found it quite hard to get good photographs but this shows some of the shine that is quite marked in real life

I cut the baubles out with a1.75 inch circle punch and layered them onto white card cut with a scallop punch. I used some lovely organza ribbon to hang the baubles on and it really pops on the pure poppy card.

I was really pleased with how Dawn's Signature Christmas sentiment stamped and embossed so well on the textured card base I chose.

A little inking and rounding of edges along with some red pearls for the centres of the baubles finished everything off.

Sorry again for the poor light in my photos and thanks for looking.

Hugs
Carol x

Christmas card for Waltzingmouse Blog Waltz

Hello everyone,

The 17th of the month means it is time for another Waltzingmouse Blog Waltz



and this time the theme is winter/Christmas. I was lucky enough to win a stamp set this month and I asked for the Nordic Winter set which is absolutely gorgeous and I couldn't wait to open it. Thank you very much Claire, I love it.

I decided to use this weeks WMS Sketch













which I flipped to one side to come up with this interpretation

I love the clear lines of this stamp set and the little tree stamp embosses beautifully.

I put a little light (gem) on the top of the tree and will enter it into Crafty Hazels challenge this week, also the Christmas Stampin all year's challenge which is to use a stamp (new or old) that has never seen ink, and Speedy the Cat challenge to use your favourite technique which for me is heat embossing. I won't keep you any longer because I know you will want to dance off and visit all of the other blogs today. Happy waltzing and thanks for stopping by.

Hugs

Carol x

Mug Hugs

Hello everyone,

I'd like to welcome Katie who is a new follower this week. I hope you all had a good weekend and are ready for another week. I have never been a knitter. I tried to knit a scarf when I was a teenager but my tension (good word for it) varied according to whatever mood I was in when I was knitting so some bits were tight and some loose, and I never really got the knack. When we were in the Lake District recently, I found a book on knitting Mug Hugs and as you only knit a small strip to go round a mug, I thought 'you can do this' and gave it a go.

I cut a couple of felt hearts and tied it on with a button and twine to decorate this one.

it just fastens around the back with a button.

For this one I just stitched  on some snowflake buttons.

More cute buttons

Some felt flowers and birds.

These were quite quick to make and will make a good stocking filler wrapped around a nice mug to keep a mug of soup or coffee warm.

Thanks for looking (but don't look too closely at my knitting stitches!)

Hugs

Carol x

Cricut Snowman tag and Use Old Stash Challenge

Hello everyone,

Thank you to everyone who has left a comment on my posts recently, I really appreciate that you take time to leave a message.

Today I'd like to share a little snowman tag I made using my favourite snowman stamp - Scribble Snowman from Funstamps. I've had this stamp for years but it comes out every Christmas and this time I've paired it with a let it snow stamp from Inkadinkadoo.

I cut the tag, shadow tag and a rounded tag from Cricut TBBM and stitched around the edge with my sewing machine. I also stitched on a pretty white ruffle ribbon along the bottom to be reminiscent of snow and embossed the wording and snowflakes with white embossing powder. I re- stamped the snowman and fussy cut the hat and scarf and decoupaged them after colouring with Sakura glitter pens. Although my photograph hasn't fully captured it, the sparkle is pretty in real life. The background paper is from Hot off the Press and as all this loveliness has been knocking around my craft space for yonks, this qualifies for my November Use Old Stash Challenge.

I'm going to enter this into the  current Bah Humbug challenge which is to use a snowman, the Crazy Hazel challenge which is to use bright colours and sparkle, and the Two Sisters challenge which is to use ribbon.

Thanks for looking and have a great week.

Hugs

Carol x