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

Viva La Throwdown

Good evening,

I really wanted to get another of this months Viva La Verve sketches done, the end of the month is fast approaching and I still have another to get finished before Thursday!

 I needed a great colour combo to go with it so headed over to Color Throwdown where they have a gorgeously girly one.



I have swapped the large tag for three small ones, and do you spy new product?? Yes the punch is a brand spanking new one, it's also great for threading ribbon threw!

Are you ready for Monday? Coz it's just around the corner, see you then. xx

Engaged!!

Good Morning Crafters,

No, it's not me. My little sister Nikki, and her partner got engaged at the weekend, so I just had to whip up a card for them, and of course offer my crafting services for her wedding stationary! They should have received it yesterday so I can safely share it with you now.

I went for a DL card to show off as much of the 2 embossing folders as possible, If the green layer looks familiar, I am guilty of using this embossing folder on practically every card I've made recently, but it's only because it's so pretty, and elegant. It was the first outing for the Manhattan Flower folder, but I really like this one too. I'm hoping that Nikki will like it and ask me to make wedding invites with it!

Hope you have a good week, xx

Distressed Anniversary

Good Morning,

I quite often get asked to make cards by people at work, some are a breeze to make, and others quite tricky. This card, even though it involved quite a lot of input with the distressing techniques was so much fun to make. My style is normally quite clean and straight lines, so it was fun to get messy, and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

If you click on the image, you can see all the details better, but I randomly stamped a piece of Vanilla CS with stamps from, Tiny Tags, Vintage Vogue and All a Flutter, in Pretty in Pink, Sahara Sand (fast becoming one of my fav colours to stamp with, Don't know how I got on without it!), Chocolate Chip, and Baja Breeze, I then used my distressing kit to stain the edges, and the tiny tags. Distressed the edges of all the layers of CS, and curled the top left corner. Bfore adding In-colour ribbon and a popped up butterfly.

I hope you like my efforts, I will definitely be using this technique more often!

Happy stampin, xx

Happy Birthday Amanda!

Good Morning, all you crafty people!

I made this card for my fabulous up-line Amanda, happy birthday!! I made it earlier this week and have been dying to show it, but I didn't want to spoil the surprise just incase she wondered over to my blog before hand.

Those of you who know Amanda will know that she always says that envelopes have a be decorated so I couldn't very well leave it blank, so I carried on the theme to the envelope. I really liked the look, I may have to start decorating all my envelopes this way!

I have used the gorgeous Sweet and Sour speciality papers for this card and envelope. You may have guessed by now that I LOVE challenges (I'm officially addicted to them) So I took the opportunity to combine a few for this card.

The sketch is from Mojo Monday, I have missed out the bow (very unlike me) as I wanted the Daisies die to have more of a focal point and I have swapped the large tag for three small ones (aren't these Tiny Tags just the cutest).

Next I wanted to use a great colour combo, colour challenges are fast becoming my favourite, they really push me out of my safety zone. So I just had to head over to Color Throwdown for my colour inspiration. This week there is an added twisted with the addition of 'pick your own' guest colour. I chose to add Rose Red, which is the colour of the DSP.

Lastly I thought that I would also add in the theme featured on SU-only which was May Flowers, and as I'm loving my Daisies die, that was no problem what so ever!

I do hope that Amanda likes her card, I'm sure she will get tons of them! Enjoy your surprises, birthday girl!

See you soon - xx