The first Christmas card this year

I'm a bit behind this year. Usually I have a few Christmas cards in the bank by now. I was prompted to make my first one by Daring Cardmakers. Latest challenge is linked to World Cardmaking Day and Papercraft Inspirations' Christmas blog party.

Here is my entry. Snowman stamp from Trimcraft, glittery paper by Dovecraft and fluffy snowflakes by Craft Planet. Snowman coloured with Copics.

Christmas holiday creations

Theme Thursday wants to see our Christmas creations. Here's a card which has a background of alcohol inks and some tiny jingly bells attached. The reindeer stamp is by Woodware. You may have seen very similar cards in Craft Stamper. I had to try it!

Russian

An interesting challenge over at Daring Cardmakers . Rein has a Russian student staying with her, and the challenge is to use the Russian dolls - matryoshka - or other elements from Russia - into a card.

I found these cute matryoshka Christmas dolls and made a Christmas card - hey, it's never too early to start! I used the Cuttlebug to emboss gold card, and found a great Christmas font. There is plenty of texture with the decoupaged matryoshka and the gorgeous K&Co layered poinsettia.

10 minute card

Daring Cardmakers is challenging us to make quick and easy Christmas cards, to see how many we can make in an hour. I'm definitely going to be making a few cards this weekend, so it's a great challenge.

For the last couple of years I have made lots of cards, every one different, and for some reason I felt obliged to try to make them complicated with stamping and embossing. This year I was easier on myself because people really don't even know if you've used Twinkling H2Os to laboriously hand paint everything. I found a formula with my new (and much prized) Cuttlebug for some simple and effective cards.

I've bought quite a few cards this year because I haven't made that many. But this weekend I decided to create a card for each member of my team -- so will be basing them on the design of these two cards.

Snowmen

Rainbow Lady's challenge is Snowmen, which for me was quite a challenge because I didn't have a snowman stamp or any die cuts.

There was nothing for it but to make a trip to the nearby Range where I picked up some cute Dovecraft and Crafty Bitz die cuts.

I ended up making three cards. The top one was J's favourite. The swirls are a Hampton Arts stamp and the letters by Doodlebug. It's a gatefold card, so when you open it there is another wintry scene to view.





In the other two I put the Cuttlebug to good use with the snowflakes embossing folder. I also used my wood cut ivy wheel stamp (Stampin' Up)for the first time. That's going to be great for scrapbook pages.

Paint the Town

Daring Cardmakers is challenging us to use paint in our creations.

Back at the Christmas card conveyor belt, I used old-fashioned stamps by Joanna Sheen and painted them with Twinkling H2Os, using some glitter glue for emphasis. I used an aperture card blank and put red metallic paper behind the cut out images. I attached some acetate to the church window to give a glazed effect.

It's a traditional card suitable for an older person.

The Christmas Countdown

I've been cranking out Christmas cards at every opportunity I get. I've now taken to travelling with a watercolour paper pad, a few stamps, a Staz On pad and my Twinkling H2Os so that I can stamp and paint when I'm bored in a hotel room.

This card was very simply made using free papers from a magazine (I think it was Simply Cards and Papercraft) and paper piecing some of the baubles and highlighting them with Stickles.

More to follow during the next few weeks!

Christmas cards

Last year I made all my Christmas cards. A mammoth undertaking, particularly as I was quite new to card making. Well, I've decided this year I will make just 10 cards and buy the rest.


I remade the "Christmas by the hearth" card at the weekend. It took a long time to make, but this is the card I will send my mum so has to be a special one. I stamped the image three times (from Elusive Images), painted it with Twinkling H2Os and watercolours, and layered it up on gold mirri card using a Craft Creations card blank. The sentiment, from the same theme plate, was stamped onto a tag and attached with gold organza ribbon.

This card (below) took just a few minutes to make and used up some paper that was free with a magazine, with snowflake punch cut-outs and snowflake embellishments from Jolee's.

Sourcing stash in Devon

Well I'm back from a week of sightseeing with my mum down in Plymouth. And during our day trips, a few craft shops were visited and some stash purchased (it would be churlish not to).

The photo shows the stash in all its glory. Didn't realise it was so much!

In Exmouth I went to Japonica in The Parade and was well impressed by the quality of the stash (gorgeous K&Co papers and albums, for example.) There I bought some Woodware red velvet paper, which I thought would be excellent for Christmas cards, a tag punch and a gold acrylic paint dabber.

Plymouth has several craft shops and in CDS/The Range (very large range indeed!) I treated myself to a new lilac scrapbook album, Papermania chipboard Christmas embellishments, shrink plastic, Papermania gold embellishments, parchment paper, card blanks, micro beads, a sea horse rubber stamp, something similar to magic mesh and some silver glitter letters. Finally, in Endsleigh garden centre on the A38 near Ivybridge, I bought two Sakura gelly roll pens and some tiny shells.

When I got home, I found I had a stash delivery from BG Payne - some silver and cream double gatefold aperture cards, a pink Ink It Up pad and pink embossing powder.

Most of the stuff I bought was on my list and intended for various projects. With the seashells and sea horse I can now start my long awaited canvas. It's going to be seaside themed in shades of turquoise and mauve. With the tag punch, magic mesh and some UTEE I bought before the holiday, I can create a gorgeous golden wedding anniversary card I've been visualising. The aperture gatefold cards are for some special birthday cards for next year. The parchment paper is to try dry embossing. I recently used the Fiskars ScrapBoss and embossed the edges of a scrapbook layout. I was quite impressed with the results and have numerous embossing boards that were free with magazines, so I thought I would try it on cards. The various Christmas embellishments will be used making cards and for scrapbook layouts.

Cards on my mind

At this time of year my spare time is devoted to card making, big time! I have several birthdays in October and this year they include a 50th and a 40th, plus John's, one of my brothers and my nephew: plus I have a golden wedding anniversary card to make for Dec.

Last year was my first Christmas as a cardmaker and I was determined to make a card for virtually everyone. This year, I'm only going to make a few cards for people close to me. The reason is two-fold. Now I scrapbook as well, so I have less time; and secondly, I'm unfortunately not the sort who can knock up a quick card and replicate it for everyone. Each card is a bit of a labour of love and takes time.

I've only made one so far this year, the one you can see here, and it took at least two hours. I'm not all that happy with it - the scale is wrong, the card blank needs to be smaller. Also it needs more layering. I used a stamp by Elusive Images, stamped it three times on watercolour paper and then coloured it with Twinkling H2Os, Marvy Le Plume and Sakura Gelly Roll pens. I layered some of it, the cat and presents, but it isn't 3D enough. The red background was red paper with gold swirls stamped and embossed. I used Art Impressions' Serpentine stamp, one of my favourite background stamps. I will make this card again but using the lessons learned. It's for my mum.

I love it when magazines fire me with enthusiasm. There was a fantastic card ideal for the golden wedding in one of the recent magazines. On Sunday I ordered some goodies from a site I've never used before, That's Crafty. The stash arrived today so well pleased with a one-day turnaround. I ordered some gold UTEE, which I've never used before,a key ingredient in the golden anniversary card. I also ordered self adhesive vellum in pastel colours (removes the worry about adhesives showing.

Another card that I instantly fell in love with was in October's Craft Stamper. It's perfect for my mother's birthday next June. It uses an Elusive Images stamp, rose script, which again I received from That's Crafty.