Anything But A Christmas Card!

Good evening,

I've had a VERY lazy Sunday, so I thought that I had better remedy that and make something to share with you. I am (trying) to get all my Christmas prep done early this year,  I have around a quarter of my Christmas cards already made this year, so I am quite proud of myself, still a long way to go, but far better than my efforts at this point every other year.

I can't take all the credit for my early Christmas prep this year though it's largely done to a Christmas challenge I found at the beginning of the year, 52 Christmas card throwdown a weekly Christmas challenge blog that has been inspiring me to pull my finger out and get my butt in gear. I don't get my cards finished in time every week to enter the challenge, but I tend to start something and finish it off later.

This week the ladies are challenging us to make anything but a card, tag or ATC, now a first I thought eeek! Talk about throwing a spanner in the getting the cards done early this year, but then I remembered that I had great fun making Christmas pudding gift bags with yummy homemade choc fudge inside to give to friends that had helped me out through the year, see the post here.

I want to do the same thing this year, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to make something cute to put a little something in!

Here's what I came up with

It's a sweet little Christmas cup made from Crumb Cake CS, decorated in Old Olive and Cherry Cobbler using my new favourite stamps Watercolour Winter. I also added edging with my scallop trim punch and stamped Merry from Tiny Tags, I also added two Tiny Tags using the Jewellery Tag Punch in each of the festive colours!

I have also discovered that I can enter this Chrsitmas 3d project for Dynamic duos as the challenge this week is Cherry Cobbler and our choice of another colour and as my Cardstock cup is Cherry Cobbler and Old Olive I fit right in! Don't you love it when that happens?!


I'm thinking of doing a tutorial of how to make these little CS cups so If you'd like to know howto make your own them leave me a comment and I'll take step by step photos as I make up a few more of these cuties!

Hope you've enjoyed visiting my little crafty corner, xx

Simply Stampin' Sketch Week

Good morning,

It's Saturday, and it's time for another challenge at Simply Stampin' this week it's back to the good old sketch, and as always we have a great one for you!

I've stuck to the sketch, using a circular stamp repeated and inked in the different colours, Lucky Limeade, Rich Razzleberry and Night of Navy. I was still on a stitch high when I made this card so I decided to hand stitch grid lines around the circular elements. I added a sentiment from Up, up and away, and a clear button tied with linen thread.

I'm excited to see how you get on with this layout! Happy stampin' xx

Simply Stampin Challenge Theme Week!

Good morning stampers,

This week over at Simply Stampin' it's time for another theme week challenge so we are challenging you to

Faux or Sew! 

That's right we want to see stitching on your projects so whether you want to faux sew, hand sew or get your sewing machine out it's up to you!

For my card I decided to combine faux sewing with hand sewing, here's it is, 

It's another Christmas offering from me, I started with a Night of navy base, and layered with Soft Suede, and Marina Mist, I like to paper pierce holes when I faux stitch I always think this gives you a more real stitched look, so around the edge is my faux stitching with my Night of Navy marker pen. I stamped the background with my Serene snowflakes, in Soft suede, then wrapped some retiring satin Marina mist ribbon around before cutting a Top Note with my Big shot machine and embossing with the new Lacy Brocade embossing folder, I inked the edges with Night of navy, next I stamped the mug, steam and gingerbread man from Scentsational Season, I hand stitched over the snowflake design on the mugs, if you look closely hopefully you'll be able to see it!!
And finished the whole thing off with a sentiment from the Contempo Christmas set.

I hope you'll enjoy stitching along with us this week and don't forget to check out the rest of the DT's offerings for even more inspiration!

Happy stampin', xx

Watercolour Winter

Good morning,

I'm sharing another of my Christmas cards with you today, this one features the brand new Watercolour Winter stamp set which I am just in LOVE with!!

This card has a distressed feel to it,

As you can see I've using another of the gorgeous Candlelight Christmas DSP's for this card this one is my favourite in the whole pack in fact I would have been happy with just 12 of this one, the large snowflakes are so beautiful!

I started I started with the central layer, and sponged a layer of Sahara Sand to begin with, followed by More Mustard, next Pumpkin Pie (Very sparingly with this colour!) staying closer to the egdes with each sponged colour layer and lastly finished the edges with Early Espresso. I then stamped the sentiment from Delightful Dozen in Early Espresso before edging it with the fabulous holly branch from the Watercolour Christmas set. I glittered each holly berry with dazzling diamonds to give it a frosted look.

I finished the card off with some more of that yummy Tulle ribbon this time in Crumb Cake with an Antique Brad to add some more glamour!

Hope you like this one, xx

Christmas Shopping!

Good morning,

I'm trying to get a few Christmas cards done a week so that I'm not panicking at the last minute like every other year so I thought what better place to start than the 52CCT?! the challenge for this week is Gifts of the Season. I had an idea to make little gift bags, you know what you buy things in those big dept stores and they wrap them all nicely in brightly coloured tissue paper so they look all fancy? well that's how I wanted my gift bags to look, and I think I've managed it.

I started the card with a white base and added a small Cherry Cobbler layer followed by another White layer, I stamped my greeting in Cherry Cobbler from the Contempo Christmas set, for the gift bags I used some of the brand new Candlelight Christmas DSP, I pierced holes near the top and threaded Linen thread through for the handles and added some of the gorgeous Cherry  Cobbler Tulle ribbon to get the fancy tissue paper effect I was after.

I hope you like them, I'm quite pleased with how they turned out, xx

Simply Stampin Colour Challenge

Good morning stampers,

It's time for another challenge over at Simply Stampin' and this week we have a colour challenge for you, combining a few of the in-colours that will be leaving us very very soon, so why not join us this week, it's a great chance to use up any of the in-colour CS or DSP you have that needs to be used!!

Here's the colours

I would never have thought of putting these colours together, but that's what's so good about joining in these challenges!!

Here's my take

I have used one of the many retiring sets for this card, called Cottage garden, I stamped the colour panels with the cluster of small flower in Whisper white ink, and then set to work using the colours and the rock and roll technique with one of the larger flowers, I used glossy accents and glitter on the flowers to add extra sparkle, and some in-colour glimmer brads for the centres.

I'm not sure if you can see the paper piercing I did in each corner of the centre white panel which is mounted on Concord Crush CS.

I'd love to come visit you and see how you take on this weeks colours!!!

Happy craftin'

Simply Stampin Sketch Week

Good morning!

I can't believe it's been a who;e week since I lasted posted, that has just flown by!!! Thank you for all the messages I had last week about my baby news, it's so exciting to finally share it with everyone!

So onto this weeks challenge, which is a sketch

I am trying to use up some of my DSP stash before everything retires, I don't know about you but I buy all the new DSP each year, stroke it for months not wanting to use too much of it up then find myself using it like mad in September, please tell me I'm not alone in this DSP fetish, next year I will have to use it up all year instead of saving it, I still have paper from the previous years that I didn't want to use all of!

Anyway getting back to this weeks card, I had an idea to make a sort of envelope pocket out of the Top Note now I'm sure many other people have probably already done this but I was quite proud of myself with how this baby turned out.

Here's my card

I decided not to add the greeting to the bottom corner of my card instead I've hidden it inside the top note pocket!

You can really see the whole Top note shape when it's opened out like this, Hope you like my card and that maybe I've inspired you to give the challenge a go this week! Can't wait to see what you come up with!!

Happy Stampin'

Simply Stampin' Baby Baby!

Good morning,

Yes that's right I'm back in action (I think!!) and my crafty conservatory is all sorted out!

This week's challenge over at Simply Stampin' is a theme challenge, and the theme is Baby Baby!

I had no idea when me and Kirei came up with these challenges at the beginning of the year that by the time this one came arouind I would be 5 months pregnant expecting mine and my boyfriends first baby, this may explain why I have been dipping in and out of challenges for a while!

I had my scan just over a week ago and we found out that we are having a little girl so I had to make my card in pinks!

I didn't want to go over board on the pink so I have kept my card pretty CAS, hope you like it!

I started with a Crumb Cake base, matted with Pretty in Pink with Whisper White over the top, I spritzed the left hand side of my card with my Pretty in Pink marker pen, and ruffled some Crumb Cake seam binding to go over the top, then I die cut the scalloped heart in Crumb Cake using the heart embosslit, and punched a Whisper white heart with my full heart punch, stamped with A to Z in Pretty in Pink, I wanted to add a splash of bright pink so I topped this off with a bright button. The congratulations greeting also stamped in Pretty in Pink is from the Delightful Dozen set, oh so useful!

Well I hope this has inspired you to get making baby crafts!! Don't forget to check out the rest of the design teams projects!

Happy stampin'