Variations on a Theme for Rudolph day.

Yes it it Rudolph Day once again - the 25th of the month when we all get to show our latest Christmas makes. I recently bought a NEW set of dies - It is a Creative Expressions set designed by Sue Wilson, called Festive Collection-Holly Lattice Frame. To be honest, the holly in the frame is so insignificant that I think you could get away with using it at any time, but I felt a set of Christmas cards would be a good way to try them out.

As well as the dies I bought a coordinating rubber stamp of a robin on winter foliage sitting on a frame, so I started by stamping it up three times. I cut a mask for the actual robin and sponged some ink on the frame, and then coloured in the image with copic markers. I used the largest die to cut one out, and the second size to cut the other two. Then I again used the largest die to cut three mats from pieces of red card from my snippet box. I put one of these aside and for the image cut with the large die, I coloured the inner and outer frames in dark green instead of using a mat. 

Then I chose the smallest frame die to cut out the centre behind the robin, leaving the lower part still attached so I could fussy cut around the little bird. When I put these onto the red mats I felt the robin was overpowered by the red background so I ran a snippet of white paper through my snowfall embossing folder (sorry no maker's name on it), and cut small pieces to go behind the cut out centres of my frames.

Then it was a case of adding each one to a background. I knew I had some offcuts from an OLD set of robin and holly BP bought  when shopping with my sister, probably at Hobbycraft. The robin one wasn't quite big enough so I used a piece of plain white paper below it and tried a technique I have been meaning to try for a long time. I used Adobe Photoshop to design a bold sentiment using two fonts, and printed it with my laser printer. Then I laid some red foil on it and passed it through my laminating machine and I was quite pleased with the way it turned out. You can just see the shine in my photo above.

For the image with the green coloured frame I used a green base card and a snippet of the holly paper from the same set as the robin one. I stamped a sentiment from a Hero Arts clear stamp set, and some Inkylicious festive berries in the corner.

For the last one I used a plain white base card and stamped it with my all time favourite holly flourish stamp, a very OLD one by Penny Black, and another sentiment from the Hero Arts set.

To finish them all off I added drops of red perfect pearls to all the holly berries on the frames and backgrounds.

And finally, for something completely different, I used the remaining red mat I had cut. The die set I had used got its name from the two remaining dies that I had not so far used, a lattice work centre piece, and a flourish fill-in for the main frame, so I cut both of these from gold mirri card and added them to my red mat. 

Not quite sure what to do with them then, I rummaged through my Christmas snippets box and came across half a sheet of Hunkydory card, and some loose poinsettia flowers which matched it. To allow enough of the flower corner to show, I cut a cream square base card and a piece of the Hunkydory poinsettia card to fit it. Then I used a craft knife to cut around some of the flower petals so I could slip my red and gold topper under them. Then I glued two of the loose flowers together and added them to the top right corner. The sentiment is a Creative Expressions die, cut from the same gold mirri card, and then I just added a few rhinestones to the centres of the flowers.

So that is four more cards to add to my collection. I counted them up today and I have made 45, which is approximately half of what I had planned to do by now, so I think I had better do a major production line one next!

In the meantime, I will link this to the July Rudolph Day Challenge, and also to Pixie's Snippets Playground,

Sparkle Creations Christmas Card Challenge #17 and 

ABC Christmas Challenge ; 'N' for New and 'O' for Old.

Butterfly Challenge #82

I was honoured to be asked to be Guest designer for the Butterfly Challenge #82, but I was a little less sure when I knew the chosen colour was Orange Peel. It is not a colour I would normally chose to craft with, but it is a bright happy colour and I wanted to send a cheerful card to one of my sisters who is going through a tough time, so this was perfect. The actual challenge was to use at least one Butterfly + M for matching pairs, and/or the colour Orange Peel. 

So I started off by making an orange base card. I had several new items that I wanted to try out, so next I chose some heavy white card and embossed it with one of the new Crafter's Companion 3D embossing folders - Country garden. To enhance the depth of the embossing I lightly swiped it with gold metallic paint that I bought at a recent Lidl's craft sale. I wiped the excess off so some of the design showed through white. It dried with a nice sheen to it.

I used some more of my orange card to cut one of my favourite oval frames. (I think it is a d'sire die but I had it before I kept account of the names so I am not sure). I have a plain oval die that fits the centre of this, so I cut it from white paper and used another almost new stamp - I think I have inked it once before. It is from the Altnew set, Persian Motifs. I chose orange and yellow copic markers to colour it and mounted it on the base. For the butterflies I used another new set (I have been spoiling myself lately!), also by Altnew, called Painted Butterflies. There were plenty to choose from but I wanted my Matching pair, so I chose just one. These are stamped in three layers using different shades, and my Misti comes in very handy to get them positioned correctly. There is a matching set of dies so I cut them out and adhered them to the frame. I used Momento Tangelo ink to stamp a simple sentiment and cut it as a banner with an orange mat.

Now I shall go over to Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge and see what lovely creations you have made.