May Your Christmas Sparkle

Good morning and a very Merry Christmas! I hope that Santa has visited and that Rudolph has eaten his carrot!

 Today I'm over at the Lost Coast Portal To Creativity with my sparkly Christmas card for our Gnomes challenge.

I started by making my base. This is one piece of 12x12 card with the different coloured dots on either side.

And these are some of our fab new gnomes (though gnomes aren't just for Christmas!) I cut my Santa gnome twice as I wanted to layer him up.

Here he is, coming down the gnomey mushroom chimney

And all layered up and glittery.

Well would you believe it, the card fits perfectly into the envelope that I made last time lol.

For the card, I've used

Gnome Sleeping

Gnome Santa in Chimney

Mushroom House

and for the envelope

Mail Art

Christmas Lights (Carmen's Veranda)

That's me signing off for 2021, so have a very merry Christmas, and a happy and healthy new year. I'll see you all again in 2022 - PLEASE let it be a good one!

Keep Calm, It's Nearly Christmas!

 Good morning and a very happy Christmas Eve. Today I'm over across at the Ink Art Designs Stamping Playground with my Luigi The Llama Christmas card. 

This kind of fold is very popular at the moment, and my lovely blogging buddies Angela (Felix the Crafty Cat) and Annie  ( Aussie Annie) have been sharing lots of fab examples.

I'd like to say this is my first attempt, but it's actually my third! I totally cut up two cards before I realised that it was a top folding card! There were pieces falling off all around me before my lightbulb moment lol.

The base card has been covered with Crafty Individuals papers, and Luigi has been stamped onto an alcohol ink glossy background, and his gifts layered up.

These are my fun stamps, and both of these ranges can be found here in Dot's store.

This is my last project for Ink Art Designs, and I would like to thank Dot and my amazing teamies - I've had the best time here, and I hope we'll be cyberspace buddies forever!

Take care,  have a wonderful day whatever you are doing, and thanks so much for looking x

Christmas Mail Art

 Good morning and a very happy Wednesday. Today I'm over at the Lost Coast Portal To Creativity with my second Gnomes project.

This time I've decided to make an envelope for one of my gnomey Christmas cards.

I started by stamping my corner images, then I did a bit of masking (unheard of for me) and stamped my Christmas lights. All of the images have been coloured with my Prisma pencils as envelopes aren't as sturdy as card.

These are my lovely stamps, I've used

Gnome Sleeping

Gnome Santa In Chimney

Mail Art

Snowflakes Border and

Christmas Lights (Carmen's Veranda)

I hope you like it, and that you join in with our fun challenge. Please remember the golden rule - real stamps only, no digis!

Take care, and have a very happy week x

Merry Christmoose!

 Good morning and a very happy Thursday. Today I'm over at Country View Crafts with the second of my Christmas projects. 

In real life I'm actually in Spain with Neil and my Mum and Dad chasing some sunshine! Today will be spent looking into clinics so that we can come home next week. We had a frantic week before we came out arranging Covid tests, and then the guidelines changed again on our first day out here. Oh what fun!

You may remember that my first card was a snowy night scene, well today's are the daytime versions!

Once again I've used some of my newest, and some of my oldest Tim Holtz stamps and dies. I can't believe how old some of these are, and I love that they fit in so well with the new ones.

I'm not sure why the Merry Moose isn't in the photo as he lives permanently on my desk every Christmas. When you have a son called Chris you can guess who's on his card every year lol.

Susan has a wonderful range of all things Tim Holtz here in the store.

Have a very happy day whatever you are doing, and thanks so much for looking x 

From Our Gnome To Yours

 Good morning and a very happy Monday. Our new challenge at Lost Coast Designs is 'Gnomes', so I've made a gnomey Christmas card.

This is a huge card, about 11 inches long (luckily it came with its own envelope)

I started by adding a piece of Craft Consortium to my card blank.

Then I stamped, coloured, and cut out my gnomes and houses. The sentiment has been printed from my computer onto vellum.

Then it was just a case of assembling my gnome village and adding some snow!

These are my lovely stamps. They are

Sunglasses Gnome

Three Gnomes and

Stone House

I hope you join in with our fun challenge and stamp out your gnomes!

Take care and have a very happy December x

The Angels Want To Wear My Red Shoes

Good morning and a very happy Friday. Today I'm over at the Ink Art Designs Stamping Playground with some quite (very) old Dylusion stamps. Dot has recently added to her Dylusion range so I thought it was a good time to blow the dust off some of my stamps.

This is quite a big piece, it's a 10x10 inch hardboard Bind It All cover.

I started by painting it black. My reasoning was that it was a lot easier to then stencil in white.  If I went wrong, black can cover up white, but it's much harder to cover up black with white.

I stencilled the edges first, trying my best to keep the pattern going, then I did the insides with some nice bright colours.

These are the stamps and stencils that I used. Lulu (the cat) doesn't have any legs, so I borrowed some from Little Lulu! She does seem to be giving Winston a bit of a look, so I thought the sentiment went well!

As I was choosing the ink for her shoe colour I was thinking of the Elvis Costello song, hence my post title.
Dot has a fab range of Dylusion products here in the store - don't worry, they're not all as old as mine! I have to admit I love the quilting ones, so I can feel an update coming over me.

Have a lovely day whatever you are doing, take care, and thanks so much for looking x

It's Begining To Look A Lot Like Christmas

 Good morning and a very happy Wednesday. So, 1st of December, choccie calendar at the ready, Christmas is on it's way! All this AND the start of a new challenge at Country View Crafts. I don't think that it will come as too much of a surprise to hear that this month it's 'Christmas - Anything Goes'

Every Christmas I turn to my new Tim Holtz dies, and this year I've dug down deep to find some really old ones too!

I've added lots of mountains that came with my snowman set, and Christmas isn't Christmas with the Merry Moose.

And this is a real combo of old and new! This is Tim's latest stars die, but the sentiment is from a set that I've had for years (and years, and....)

These are my die sets. The one in the middle with the sentiment I got when my second Vagabond die cutting machine blew up and Sizzix kindly sent me a big shot and some dies as a replacement. All are still working perfectly!

Everything Tim Holtz can be found here in the store. 

Please join in with our challenge, we all must have something left to make for Christmas, I know I do.

Take care,  have a very happy December, and thanks so much for looking  xx

It's A Wrap!

Good morning and a very happy Thursday - it's nearly the weekend yay!

Today I'm over at the Lost Coast Portal To Creativity, and for my second project for our 'It's A Wrap' project I made another gift bag. (In fact, I made this one first ) but this time I've stamped directly onto the bag.

 I started with a regular craft bag (these are so strong so perfect for presents) 

I began by splattering with watered down acrylic, then stamped the lovely Megans's Christmas Bird and Christmas Lights. The lights have been coloured with Posca pens, and the bird with Prisma pencils. I did get a bit carried away with the red pencil, but a Christmas Robin needs to be red right?

I'd be lost without my Misc Words, these two just finish off my bag perfectly.

These are the stamps that I used (I told you that I splattered paint)

Megan's Christmas Bird

Misc Words  and Carmen's Veranda

Christmas Lights

I hope you like it, and that you join in with our challenge this month. 

Take care and have a very happy day x

A Toadally Happy Birthday

 Good morning and a very happy Wednesday. Today I'm over at the Ink Art Designs Stamping Playground with my second project for this month, and it's a fun Katzelkraft birthday card.

This is quite an unusual one for me in that the base card is the only real layer and the background is stamped directly onto it. Usually, I have lots of layers, so if anything goes wrong I've not lost everything.

Also, I've added the sentiment right at the beginning, 'cos last time I made a card like this I didn't leave enough room for it!

So, the base card has been stamped and put aside to dry. I just love the water drops stamps, they look so dimensional just stamped in black.

Then I coloured the torn paper outline and water drops with my weapon of choice, which was Prisma pencils. I then cut out the holes, and added a layer of acetate to the card to stiffen it up.

I coloured my lovely frogs with Prisma pens and pencils.

This is Lord of the Frogs sat on his lily pad just waiting for a tasty morsel to fly by. His froggy bodyguard doesn't look too impressed!

I like how the images look just sitting on the acetate!

And here they are sitting amongst the foliage.

These are the stamps that I've used, and Dot has an amazing selection of Katzelkraft stamps here in the store.

I hope you have a lovely day whatever you are doing, take care, and thanks so much for looking x

Bagged and Tagged for Lost Coast Designs

 Good morning and a very happy Monday! It's the start of a new challenge today at Lost Coast Designs, which is 'It's A Wrap' I've made a gift bag and tag (eventually)

I started with just short of an A3 piece of tea-bag paper and added some brushos. At this point I wanted to make a sheet of wrapping paper.

Then I stamped the lovely Mistletoe Goth. I tried to place her face in the lighter areas - it didn't always work lol.

Then I stamped some Christmas words from my favourite Misc Words stamp. I coloured her with my Prisma pencils and added touches of glitter.

Very icy, brrrrrr. 

At this point I decided that I probably wouldn't use it as wrapping paper, so I added a piece to a gift bag and made a matching tag.

These are the Lost Coast stamps that I used;

Mistletoe Goth

Misc Words

I hope that you like it, and that you join in with our challenge - please remember that we are a stamping challenge so no digi images!

Have a very happy week, and thanks so much for looking x