Mucha Influence on Rudolph Day

The 25th of the month soon came round again, so once again I have been putting last minute touches to my Christmas card for the Rudolph Day challenge on Sandra's blog, Stamping for Pleasure.

This time I have used a digistamp from The Paper Shelter called "Mucha Influence". I bought it to use last Christmas but I forgot about it. I'm not sure I've ever seen such a cute little face on any Mucha artwork, but the colours, and muted swirls are there. The background came in the file with the stamp so I printed it onto kraft card and cut it out. I then used the same card to make the base and used a dreamweaver metal stencil to sponge distress ink through the holly leaves for the background. (I don't like it all that much, but very little of it shows!).

I printed the outline of the main image on white heavy paper and coloured it with copic markers. Then I fussy-cut it out, and glued it onto the printed background. I found a See-D greeting stamp that just fitted below her. I used 1mm sticky pads to layer this onto the base card and added a strip of very ancient papermania ribbon across the lower section.

So now I'm off to link this to Sandra's blog and get some inspiration from other folks' Christmas cards. With the snow that's covering half of UK, you should all be in the mood for making Christmas cards so why not join in too.

I am a bit lazy about adding my card to challenges, and I don't have much time to visit other entries for comments which is only fair, but with this being Easter week, some of my usual activities are not happening so I should have a little extra time. So this month I am entering this card in ;
Gingerloft Challenge   ; Use kraft paper.
One Stitch at a Time: Use a digistamp.

Last minute Easter cards

I guess this isn't too last minute for most of you, but as I am posting from Spain to UK I should have had them done and dusted last week. The chances are they will now get lost at the bottom of a pile of mail until the snow has all melted, but at least the family will know I was thinking of them around the right time.

Full of good intentions, I finally wrote my annual new-letter that didn't make it into Christmas cards this year (!), and I decided to make Easter cards to send out with them. A few weeks ago I made the first set of three, which were posted last week. But I needed another four so I simplified the design a little so I could make them a bit quicker, and made two of each.

Instead of stamping and die-cutting lace to go below the main image, I used a simple spring image from a plate by Chocolate Baroque, and a greeting from the same set of Just-rite stamps as the main image, and added a little colour with pencils. The topper is coloured with copic markers, and I used some toning snippets for the frames. There is a spellbinders frame die to go with this stamp which makes it very easy to cut. The paper behind the topper is embossed with one of my new A4 double sided eBosser folders. This one is so useful and I have used it a lot already. A strip of sticky ribbon makes a tidy join between the two sections.

They are now all written and addressed and will be in the post tomorrow morning. You never know. They may just get there in time. These days UK keeps going right up to Easter Saturday. Out here Semana Santa (Holy week) is taken very seriously and there certainly won't be any post on Friday and Saturday, and probably not Thursday either, though we won't have a holiday on Easter Monday.

I actually needed five more cards but I am not showing the last one as it is for my sister Jean who follows this blog. She has both sets of stamps that I use for these cards so I wanted to do something different for her, but I will try to remember to post about it when I know she has received it.

WOYWW 198

I am determined to make it to the Wednesday blogfest this week, having missed a couple this month, so I am writing this late on Tuesday evening. If you visit Julia at her Stamping Ground, you will see what this is all about.

I was out at a choir practice all morning but this afternoon I actually sat at my desk and did something constructive. So here is my desk in full swing. The little green and blue note book has small daubs of each of my ink-pads, and it is very useful when I am choosing the best colour to use for a project. There is one completed card on my mini-easel, and some printed digistamps. One is for a repeat of the finished card, and one for a Christmas card ready for Rudolph Day next  Monday. My cuttlebug is out to make the lace for the bottom of the cards, and the large plastic shoe-box on the left is full of sticky ribbon, printed borders, paper lace, etc.

To the right of this is the latest in my continuous supple of cups of tea, essential for a good crafting session. The folder is how I store all my stamps. I took any that were wood mounted, off their wooden blocks, and put them on Ezmount, and now I mainly buy clear stamps, or unmounted rubber ones. I laminate A4 sheets of paper to put them on, with a stamped example and record of the company on the back, and store them in plastic slips. This folder is all word stamps, but I have sixteen folders altogether, each one with a different theme - florals, flourishes, butterflies and bugs etc. It's a system that works for me, and it is easier to store the folders than all the wood stamps that I used to have.

As you can see in the top photo, Arwen is in her usual place, but today I have another little friend in with me.

The two pups I have been fostering, went back to the vet yesterday, to get them ready for sending to Holland. (I have no idea why, but Holland finds homes for a lot of our abandoned puppies). So I took them back, but while there, I saw this little fellow and it was 'Love at first sight'. He is around three months old and of unknown heritage, but he was also dumped, in someone's garden, when he was very small. He has been fostered but I brought him home for a few days trial, and if he fits in with the family, we will give him a permanent home.

So, introducing Kim. Chris chose his name because when he was a boy he had a big German Shepherd dog called Kim.  I don't think this one will grow that big, but he has fairly big paws, so we will have to wait and see. He is fluffy and his fur is as soft as silk. Apart from cutting his teeth on anything and everything, including his favourite - my toes!, he is very good. Our big girls are not impressed, but they are tolerating him, and allowing him closer than they did the two tiny ones. Arwen definitely isn't keen to share her room, but she is not getting the choice. Kim is not house-trained yet, so I am keeping him close by me. But he is very beautiful.  Don't you agree?

And finally, here is a close up of the card I made. the second one is almost finished. It is the same but I reversed most of the colours - lilac base card and yellow flowers.

Do visit our hostess Julia and join in the fun. See what everyone else is getting creative with this week, and I will try to do the same.

WOYWW196

I didn't make it to the Wednesday blog hop last week; busy, busy, busy. But I have managed to do some crafting since then, so here I am to show my messy work-desk once again.

Last Friday I posted a happy card on Annie's Friday smiles post, that I had received from a blogger friend, Shirley-Anne from Australia. Every week she features a Christmas card on her blog, and this week she chose to feature my Rudolph day scene, which was a nice surprise.

So to my desk. As you can see I have several of my really useful boxes open again, Arwen is as usual on her throne just keeping an eye on the proceedings, and just look at that overflowing waste-bin under the table. How disgraceful!

If we come in closer you will see the very necessary cup of tea which really shouldn't be resting on my new Splodge Away mat, even if it is on a mini-tray (I've eaten the biscuits!). I was actually having a session to try out the new mat but the jury is still out. I did make a better job than usual of brayering a background onto some plain card, but on glossy card I still had too many streaks. I haven't yet used it with distress inks and a sponge applicator, which is supposed to work really well and be economical with the ink.

I also wanted to try out a mask I bought some months ago, but I couldn't brayer enough ink through it for the effect I wanted, so I resorted to using a sponge and ink direct from the pad. You can see a tiny section of this peaking out from under the white paper. Under that is my box of Adirondak ink pads. To the back of the desk are three dylusions sprays that arrived this week, along with my jumbo roll of household paper, and the box that I still manage to keep my brayer in. The empty square is the back of a frame which I have just covered in 1mm sticky pads, ready to add it to my card.

As I later went on to finish the card I might as well show it on here too. The basic idea came from a card I saw on Glenda Waterworth's blog many months ago, though I have put my own twist on it. I was a bit taken aback when I realised how big the mask is. The smallest I could make my card was 8" x 8", far larger than I normally make. I shall have to make an envelope for it, but fortunately it will be hand-delivered to friend from the village, so Antonia won't throw a fit at the post office again!

The mask was inked with Adirondak cranberry, red pepper, and butterscotch inks, and the crane is from a clear plate of stamps by Chocolate Baroque. I felt it needed something to set it off, so I made the frame, inked the edges with a black permanent marker and stamped the cherry blossom from the same plate of stamps as the crane. The sentiment is an old one from Elusive Images.

Well that is quite enough waffle from me for this week. I shall link this up to Julia's blog at the Stamping Ground in the morning, and later I will be back to see what everyone else is busy making this week. Why not click on the link to follow me there and join in the fun.