Sing for Joy

Well life has a way of tossing you around and upsetting even the best laid plans, and that is what has happened to me. My planned visit to UK for late October/November has been brought forward by six weeks or so, to enable me to attend a family funeral. However this will also enable me to get a much sooner than expected visit in with my new Great-grandson. Isaac Michael Edward made his appearance on Sunday morning, weighing in at a bonny 8lbs 2ozs. Did I make a card for this event?....Of course I did. Did I take a photo of it?....I thought I had but cannot trace it anywhere on my computer! So when I visit him I will take one then and blog about it later.

I now fly out next Thursday so one thing that won't be finished is my son's scrapbook. However there are only half a dozen pages to go so I will take him what I have done and add a few empty pockets at the end. Then I can post the final pages to him as soon as they are done. I don't return here until 26th September so my blog will be very quiet for nearly a month.For that reason I thought I would try to squeeze in a couple more Christmas cards but was a bit dismayed to find the Bah! Humbug! theme was 'Here come the girls'. Now I don't usually do 'girly' or even 'cute', but as Hazel's challenge over on CHNC was Build it up - lots of layers, I had a browse through my Christmas decoupage. At the bottom of the pile was a very ancient book of images, that I think I bought in Percy Thrower's garden centre at least ten years ago! I quite liked it at the time but I found the images were very intricate so I was lazy about using them. But looking through the book I came across these rather sweet little angels and thought they were probably girly enough. I emphasised their 'girlyness' by using a pink base card and layers rather than red, as the red of their dresses blended in with this quite well. They were very fiddly to cut but they actually layered up rather well. There are four layers which hardly show in the photo but as it is again very sunny this morning, you can see the shadows they cast. I mounted them on a left-over piece of scrapbook paper cut with a nestie label die, and cut a matching frame using a booklet of Christmas papers free with a magazine. They are not the sort of papers I would ever buy, so they have lurked in a box for several years, but I am making a real effort to use some of my 'past its sell by date' stash, and it fitted the bill here. The sentiment came from the same booklet. It still looked a bit stark so I used one more 'oldie' from my stash - a set of docraft peeloffs to add trees and parcels round the edge, and found a scrap of emerald satin ribbon to make a bow.

I hope my little angels are singing for joy, just as I am over our new little arrival.

I do apologise to all my fellow challenge-takers and followers that I haven't managed to comment very much just lately. After a busy fortnight with my visitors I then had to try to change my flights to UK and concentrate on things I need to finish off before my visit. But I will try to get to some of you before I go, and once I get back, normal service will quickly return!

I am entering this card in:
Bah! Humbug! Challenge 34: Here come the girls..
Craft Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge 35: Build it up.
ABC Christmas Challenge: Q is for quote - use a quote or sentiment.
Crafts for Eternity Recipe Challenge 34: Recipe, Anything with a Christmas theme.
Christmas Crafting Challenge 2: Cute Christmas.

And I will link it to Shirley Anne's blog Stamping for Joy.

Away in a manger

ATCs done and dusted, (see previous post), I wondered whether I still had time to enter this week's Christmas card Challenges, but for most of them I decided to wait for the new themes. But ABC Christmas Challenge runs fortnightly so I can do that one and this time the challenge is Q is for quote. I noticed some of the design team members had made lovely cards quoting the words of Christmas carols and songs and it reminded me of a project I did a few years back. I had just bought my first pack of mold'n'pour and went looking for things to try it out with. One thing I used was a very old decoration that has hung on my tree for many years. It shows a folk-art style nativity scene so I mixed up the two mold'n'pour elements and pressed my decoration into the resulting compound. Within a few minutes I had a flexible 'silicone' mould which I went on to use with air-drying clay. I was surprised at how much detail the compound had picked up. Once my decoration was dry, I painted it with a mixture of acrylics and permanent markers, and glazed it with diluted PVA glue. I made several of these and mounted them onto cards. Last Christmas I dug out the mould and made another dozen or so for my new friends in Spain. I knew I had one left over that must be lurking in a drawer somewhere, so I had a root around and found it, and used it for today's card.

I chose a royal blue base card, layered with pearlescent blue paper and then some shaded blue starry paper that I cut with a scalloped edge. (The bright sunshine has accentuated the shading in my photo). To mount the decoration I made a sort of rounded triangle with a scalloped edge using craft robo design master software, and cut it out of the same blue pearlescent paper. I typed the words of 'Away in a manger', cut them out, and used a matching blue mat cut with a nestie die. A tiny off cut of fused film made a bright star and I used shiny star peel-of strips down each side. I also have a Lavinia stamp of more words from this carol so I stamped that on an otherwise plain white, edged in blue, insert.

I am entering this in:
ABC Christmas Challenge ; Q is for Quote.
Make it Monday 51: Any papercraft project.
Stampavie and more: Christmas in Summer.
Totally Papercrafts Challenge 80: Christmas in August.
The Crazy Challenge, Christmas: Anything Christmas Goes.
And I am also linking it to Shirley Anne's blog Stamping for Joy, to add to my collection of Christmas cards.

A few ATCs

Hello my friends. Thank you for looking in on my blog which has been strangely quiet for a couple of weeks while I enjoyed some family time with my son, his wife and my three grandchildren. They survived the heat, just, and we had a great time together. Now they have gone home and it is my house that seems strangely quiet, so I am using my time to catch up on all the challenges that I have missed.

My first task was to make four sets of ATCs for August swaps, all of which need to be at their destinations in UK by the end of the month. I usually play safe and allow ten days for this, but these only have 6-7 days so I hope Mr Postman is on the ball. I had some disappointments with last month's swaps when two sets failed to get back to me. I am hoping they were in just one batch of mail that went astray, as others arrived just fine. But this was tempered with some good news when one of my Vintage ATCs was a winner for the July swap at the Stampman. (See my post for 11th July). So, of course I wanted to take part again and their theme for this month was The Ocean. Here is what I made.I started by spraying two pieces of glossy white card with glimmer mists and pressing them together. I have seen this done on Youtube with memory mists and it gave a lovely variegated finish. But they use a different kind of pigment which stays in droplets, and I found the glimmer mists and sticky fingers mists just mingled together, leaving me with a pretty, but even, blue-green coating. I tried to add some texture with a squirt of Making memories silver but this was only partly successful as the nozzel had blocked and no amount of soaking and scrubbing would release it. So finally I got out my trusty cuttlebug and passed the cards through the swirls embossing folder, after which I felt they were ready to use. For the first one I made a seahorse ( Just for fun stamps)and fish (freebie stamp with magazine) with mother of pearl and blue nile fantasy film, and glued them to the background. I then stamped strands of seaweed onto acetate and fixed this over them with 1mm sticky pads and blue brads. For the second one I wrapped blue and green fibres around the card and between the lines I made wavy lines of glossy accents and covered them with a blue/green mix of seed beads. (While doing this I stupidly opened my box containing seven compartments of different seed beads, upside down, resulting in --a mess! I spent the rest of the evening patiently sorting them into their colours again. I am sure some of you think I must be mad, but it was quite theraputic, and I was pleased to see my neat little box back as it should be!). I still had a bare strip down the side of my ATC, so I cut some tiny fish from a sheet of decoupage backing paper and glued them on, highlighting them with a clear sakura glitter gel pen. The whole thing is backed onto a piece of card from a publication from a well known bank, which happened to be just the right colour. The third one is quite different because I looked above the ocean surface and saw a tall ship, sails billowing in the wind. I used blue card for the sky and cut around the swirls on all the offcuts of my base cards, layering them up to make the waves. I stamped a Crafters Companion ship stamp onto cream card twice, and added some shading with copic markers. I cut one out, decoupaged the sails from the other, and tucked it between the waves. There was quite an expanse of waves at the front, so I added three more of the fish as in the previous one, and stamped a Crafty Individuals seagull in the sky.

The Chocolate Baroque theme this month was The seaside and for this I used some more of the blue embossed card as a base and added a CB seagull stamp, and squares cut from Crafty Individuals backing paper. Some sand and a few tiny shells in the corner finished it off. For the second one I used a different sheet of the CI paper for the sand, and some oddments of painted paper from my snippits box for the sea. The main image is Crafty Individuals as is the bunting spelling BEACH across the top.

Angie Foxcroft of Crazicards craft supplies also runs a monthy swap and her theme was Words. So for the first one I stayed with the sea idea and used a lovely words stamp from Great Impressions. The photo in the background is my footsteps taken very early one morning on a beach in Thailand. The tiny shells I used as an embellishments were collected from the same beach. For the second one I did something completely different. This time I did make the backing card with memory mists on glossy card. I think you will be able to see the different effect of using these. I chose some words from a plate of sentiments by Chocolate Baroque, and at first I stamped them on the background in black. But they didn't pop out as I wanted them to so I coloured some white card with my palest copics, and used a variety of memento ink pads to stamp the words on this. Then I cut them out and mounted them over the black ones. I added coloured beads on a spiral of wire across the top. Next I cut out lots of tiny flowers with a special punch, using tiny oddments from my snippits box, and glued them in small groups, randomly over the card. A couple of colourful butterfly stickers finished this one off.

My finally for the Shillington swap the theme was 'Silhouettes'. When my sister said she wasn't sure she liked the theme, I had to confess that it was one of my suggestions! But as I was running out of time, and I knew today was really my last chance to post them, I didn't use some of my lovely silhouette stamps as I had intended, but instead I cut out black card silhouettes using my craft robe. The templates for these had been prepared previously for pages in my sons' scrapbooks, so it was easy to reduce them down to ATC size. For one I used a photo of a skateboard park as the background and added words on the computer, and two skateboarding poses. The background for the handstand was brayered using Big and juicy pad, Spice. I printed the music notes which were a part of the original image as they were too small and fiddly to cut easily, and the word 'Joy' is a Crafty Individuals stamp. This image was used on a scrapbook page along side my son in the same pose! For the third one I again brayered a background using Big and Juicy pad, Gumdrop, and masking the heart to give a contrasting colour. The words in it are a stamp I made ages ago using imagepac, and come from a fabric sticker I found in what must have been one of my 'lucky-dip' buys at the QVC surplus store. The family group silhouette came from the internet.

Wow. that was a bit of a marathon. Thank you for staying with me. Now I look forward to seeing what little pieces of art I receive in place of them. Hopefully all four sets will come this time.

WOYWW 113?

My friend Di from Pixie's Crafty Workshop, has been encouraging me to join you so here I am. The main reason I haven't done this before is that there is usually the same thing on my work desk everyweek - Nothing! - except for one or two fat and furry cats. Baggins and Arwen consider my craft room to be their territory and view me as an intruder. So everytime I leave the room I have to put everything away, or they will ruin it. However, when I am busy in there I physically shove them over to give me enough space to work in, as I did last night when I was working on a welcome card for my first great-grandson due in around three weeks time. My visitors arrive on Monday and go home the day he is due so I am hoping they will take my card with them and post it in UK. Here is the rest of my space.

To the right of my desk is my paper store, now all sorted into design types and stored in the shelves hubby bought for me last Christmas. So nice not to have it all dog-eared (or should I say cat-eared). The fan is another reason why I put everything away. It is always on, and it lifts my bits and pieces and deposits them in the most obscure places! Along side that is a tall bookcase. All the big files contain my stamp collection. I have taken just about all the mounted ones off their wood blocks and put them on EZmount. Then I can store them on laminated sheets in plastic pockets with a stamped image for quick reference, and file them according to their image. The yellow tray just peeping out on top of some of the files, is where I put my current work when I have to leave it before it is finished. Every week or so I clear it off and start again.

Next to the bookshelf is my tall filing cabinet with all my plain card and paper in, along with boxes of embellishments, all sorted and labelled. It actually gave me great pleasure to achieve this, and it is now so much easier to find things. Mind you, there are a lot of long-forgotten items nestled at the bottom of each box, but it is fun to have a root now and then and use some of them up. And on the wall behind me I have also moved into the shelves section of the built in wardrobe. In here I store my Christmas stash, ribbons and flowers, prefolded cards and envelopes, smaller pads of paper and card, and anything else that hasn't got a home.

To the left of my desk there is a box of 'sticking mediums', my copic markers because they are in constant use, and small drawers holding some of my ink pads, fancy scissors, oddments of stationery etc, and underneath I have embossing powders, glitter, and everything for my cuttlebug.

And finally, in front of my workspace (which this morning has the white cat on it!) is my computer desk, with printer and craftrobo always connected, and few other drawers containing pens, pencils, paints etc.

So now you have been all around my room. I am so lucky to have my own space, with almost continuous blue skies and sun shine outside, and my furry friends to keep me company while I work.

Now I shall link this to Julia's blog, Stamping Ground, and see what everyone else has on their workspace this week.

A Fun Trio

Yesterday I set out to make a card featuring something we eat at Christmas, and I settled on this cheeky trio of chicks with their candy canes.They are a digistamp from pink cat studio, which I printed out and coloured in plain, bold colours using some promarkers. I then cut them out with deckle-edge scissors and coloured the edges with my distress ink pad, barn door. For the base card I chose a yellow DL because I have a huge stack of pre-folded cards that I am determined to work my way through, and this was one of them. Rooting through my Christmas paper box I came up with these two pieces which I joined to make a background, and I thought I would cover the join with some lace. Another root through some boxes brought up this short piece of very grubby, screwed up broidery-anglais, which I rubbed with distress ink in antique linen and mustard seed. I then washed it out to encourage the inks to spread and blend, and ironed it dry with my craft iron. I threaded some red satin ribbon through the top. There was about a quarter of an inch lace to spare on either side so I was able to tidy up the ends and then I attached it across the card with double sided tape. I used some more of the ribbon to make a matching bow but I wanted something else small to finish it off, so on the spur of the moment I dug out my box of fimo. I haven't used this since I came to Spain almost three years ago, and I can't remember how long before that, so I was surprised to find it was still very pliable. I quickly made up a set of tiny candy canes which I baked first thing this morning. (I couldn't do it last night as I already had the aircon on cooling down our bedroom before we go in there, and the dishwasher was on, so I couldn't risk turning on the oven as well. Too many appliances at one time and everything fuses. Our electricity supply in the village is a bit suspect, but you learn to live with it!) once cooled, I varnished them with glossy accents and used some more to stick them down the side of the card. For the greeting I used another forgotten find that I unearthed on my root through my boxes, another of my spur of the moment QVC shop buys I suspect, and that is a set of very large metal brads with a matching set of rub-ons to go with them. I chose a yellow brad and a plain greetings and added these to the top corner of my panel. It is nice to make a card that has used so many odds and ends from my stash!

I am entering this card in:
Crazy Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge 31: Feature some Festive Food.
Bah! Humbug! Challenge 30: Use Lace.
Christmas Cards all Year Round August Challenge:Choose 4 items from a list. (Inking, ribbon, metal embellishment, rub-on greeting).
Sketch and Stash Challenge 67: I've used lots of stash and followed the sketch, (more or less).
Stamping Sisters in Christ Challenge 100: Any Creature, Great or Small.

I am also linking this to Shirley-Anne's blog , Stamping for Joy, towards my target of 50 cards.

There's a tear in my eye...

'Yes', there's a tear in my eye, but 'No', it's not because I'm sad. It is the direct result of inhaling a powerful mix of garlic, chilli and ginger. I tossed up which of my blogs to do this on but I thought that cooking is a craft in it's own right, so I decided to go with this one. It makes a change from Christmas cards doesn't it?

Now I am a visual learner and I have really enjoyed following some of my friends' photographic recipes so I thought I'd have a go at doing one too. Those of you who follow my other blog will know that earlier this week I found myself with a supply of beautiful fresh ripe tomatoes, (see here if you missed it), so that was the cue for me to make some 'Hot Chilli and Ginger Jam'. Although this is sweet enough to deserve the name 'jam', it is really more of a pickle, and it does something quite amazing for a humble cheese sandwich, (especially if you are going to toast it), and it also goes well with cold meats etc. I should add that the original recipe came from the internet a very long time ago, and I cannot attribute it to anyone. I have changed it a little to suit what I have readily available here.

So here is what you need: 2Kg ripe tomatoes. 1Kg sugar.
100g garlic cloves. 400g fresh root ginger.
5g dried chillies. 100ml malt vinegar.

In these photos I am using 1½ times these quantities.

Start by peeling the tomatoes. (Stand them in a bowl of boiling water for a few minutes and then rinse under the cold tap and they will skin easily).

Halve the tomatoes and rinse under running water to remove the pips. I am not too fussy about this as I use the chillies whole, pips and all, so a few stray tomato ones are not a disaster.

Place in a large pan with the sugar (no added water) and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. I use my preserving pan because it is less likely to burn, or to spit and burn my hands!

While they are cooking, peel and chop the garlic, (this is four smallish bulbs),
and the ginger, (a potato peeler can be helpful if the ginger is fresh enough to still be firm),

and chop the chillies. (The large ones are some I dried myself and the tiny ones were bought in the market). Fresh ones work just as well but you will have to guess the quantity!

Measure the vinegar. Add a little of each to blender and blend to form a fairly smooth paste, adding more of each until they are all used. I have a powerful hand-held 'blitzer' which is perfect for this, but any blender or liquidiser would do. This is the point at which the tears start to flow. It is pretty powerful stuff!

Add the paste to the cooked tomatoes, stir well, and simmer for a further 30 minutes.Blend the mixture until there are no large peices of tomato left. Again my hand-held mixer means I can do this in the pan which makes it easier.

Simmer for a further 60 minutes on a low heat, stirring occasionally. The resulting jam should be fairly thick so it is spreadable when cold. I had to boil mine a little longer this time as the tomatoes were so juicy.

Bottle, cover and label. Enjoy!

The original recipe used 4 x 500g cans of peeled plum tomatoes. Surprisongly enough, seeing as fresh ones are so readily available, or maybe because of that, canned tomatoes are quite expensive out here, and though I keep a tin at the back of the cupboard for emergencies, I rarely use them, but they work just as well. Strain them and discard the juice, and proceed as above.

The last lot I made was quite brown but this batch is a lovely bright red. It can only be down to the freshness of the tomatoes.

A word of warning; The first time I made this I used only my own dried chillies and we loved it. Last time I used only locally bought dried ones and it nearly blew our heads off! I mixed the two this time so we shall see ... I suggest you err on the side of caution, taste after you have blended them into the tomatoes and adjust the strength then. You can always add more, but you can't take them out again!

Throughout this process my fruit eating cat, Baggins, sat at my feet meowing, literally begging for some tomato. I eventually gave in and offered him this tiny titbit which he wolfed down. He then stayed there until I had finished, so when I went on to prepare chicken livers for our lunch I gave him some of them as a reward for his patience and he turned his nose up at them and walked away!

I am going to link this post to Inspire me Fridays, where Anything goes, but it will have to wait until next week as this week's collection has just closed.

Acrylics-A quick post for Hannah

Hannah is my eleven (soon to be twelve) year old grand daughter, who is about to visit me with her family, and she is soooo excited. Every day she sends me the countdown to Spain, and we are at one week and five days now aren't we Hannah? Hannah has just left her primary school the proud winner of the Creative Arts trophy. She follows my blog and enjoys experimenting with paint and paper. Today she asked me if I have used acrylic paint, and what I have done with it. So here is my answer.

Now, while I may be a quite competent crafter, an artist I am not. I went to a grammar school where art was something they were obliged to make a small space on the timetable for, but it was not important, and the teacher was not interested in my frustration at not being able to make something look how I wanted it to, and gave me no encouragement to try something different instead. Because of this I steered clear of paints but I loved having a new set of pens, and happily coloured in other peoples art work!

Many years later, when I had abondonned my work as a secondary school maths teacher, and almost by accident found myself helping out at, and eventually training to manage a large pre-school, I made sure all the children had lots of opportunities to play and experiment with paints, clay, plaster, and anything else messy I could find. I encouraged the parents to buy them a simple polo shirt and sweat shirt as 'uniform' and to let them get it messy without fear of a telling off when they got home, and we had so much fun!

Now I am retired I have finally expanded my own range of materials to include acrylic paint amongst other things. I haven't yet managed to do a representational painting, but I am learning about form, and shading. As part of my efforts to integrate with the local people in the Spanish village where I live, I attend a weekly group called 'Manualidades' which does literally translate at handicrafts, but the room is let to us for a painting session, so that is what we are supposed to do. We are not given any tuition, but we give and receive advice from one another. There are a couple of very talented artists there, and a lot of ladies who just enjoy the company and consider it a part of their tradition to have hand painted cloths, glass and pottery ware in their homes. So I bought some very cheap acrylic paints and canvasses and here are my first efforts.

The shapes all originate from rubber stamps or printed images, which I have used for an outline, resized according to the canvas, and for now I am happy to just try to improve my shading. It is not easy here as it is so hot and the paint dries before you have time to do much with it. But it is a start. I am hoping to try an on-line painting course next winter, if I ever find the time!

Another time that I used acrylics was when I was asked to contribute some pages for a collaborated art journal for a friend to use with her students at school. For this I covered thick watercolour card with gesso and then with a layer of Buff titanium acrylic paint. When it was dry I used distress ink to colour the edges, and then, with more paint and an array of bottle tops and cardboard tubes, I stamped circles all over it. The centre image and swirl of writing was printed onto tissue paper taped to copy paper so I could put it through my printer, and then it was fixed to the page with a thin layer of diluted PVA glue.

And finally, here is a piece I made when I wanted a bright, colourful background recently. This was an absolute favourite at my nursery though we used squeezy bottles of poster paint rather than acrylic. I simply squeezed paint from my tubes onto a piece of sturdy white card, and pressed a second piece of card over it. I used my fingers to move the paint around between the cards until it started to ooze out at the sides, and then I just eased them apart to see what pattern I had made. The acrylic paint was thick enough to give this a great texture. This picture was taken as soon as I separated the two layers. When I have anything that needs a few minutes to dry, I use magnets to attach it to my metal filing cabinet, well away from my inqisitive cats. They could have had some real fun with this!

Hannah tells me she has just drawn a flower, painted it with white acrylic paint and then gone over it with a soft blue felt tip pen, and it looks really nice. I think we are going to have some fun together. See you soon Hannah.

Two more Christmas cards.

When I saw that CrazyHazelnuts challenge this week was to use a reindeer I knew exactly what I would do, because last week I bought two of the latest Marianne dies of a reindeer and a sleigh.

I cut the deer twice from tiny off-cuts of brown pearlescent paper. Then I looked for a piece of card for the sleigh and found a little rectangle of an alcohol background I must have made at some time for another project. It was just big enough so I used that. I decided I didn't like the empty sleigh so I searched clipart until I found a picture of Santa that I could use. I had to mirror image him and trim him up quite a bit, but I did manage to cobble something together. (If I made this again I would print him on different paper to make him stand out more). I then stamped a couple of SeeD's parcels to fill the space at the front of the sleigh and mounted it all on to some starry scrapbook paper that I also bought last week. I mounted this panel on to a white DL base card and it was sort of finished, but I wasn't very happy with it. It was all rather dull, so I drew a rough frame with diamond black stickles glitter glue - it's slightly smudged as it is very hot here and I was working with both my ceiling fan and a floor standing one on, and they suddenly lifted my card and flipped it over! But I salvaged it as best I could. I also added ice crystal stickles to the main stars, and after a rummage through my Christmas peel-offs I found this one that says 'Santa's on his way'. It's not a sentiment that I would normally use but it fitted this card quite well and filled the empty corner of sky.

So I am entering this card in:
CraftyHazelnuts Christmas Challenge 30: Reindeer.
Die Cut Dreams Challenge 94: Animal Antics.
Gingerloft Challenge 22: Make it Sparkle.
Creative Inspirations Challenge 64: Christmas in July.
Craft Us Crazy Challenge 13: Anything Goes.

And now for my second card. This one was for the Bah!Humbug! challenge which was to use some beads. I love beads but am not particulalry good at using them on cards. I get frustrated trying to thread them onto bits of ribbon or fibre to make a 'dangly' embellishment. However I remembered one of my bargain buys from many years ago, and sure enough, right at the bottom of my Christmas stash, I found a whole heap of peel-offs with pricking patterns on for stitching. I don't remember where they came from but whenever I find I have a lot of something, it is usually from a bulk buy pack at the QVC seconds shop in Shrewsbury, near to where I used to live. They sell items that have been returned, split packs, and some that have been opened to use a bit for a demonstration. Sometimes they bundle a whole lot of oddments together and sell them really cheaply, and I have found myself the owner of lots of things that I might not otherwise have bought, and they can come in very handy sometimes. Anyway, I chose a Christmas tree image and stuck the peel-off onto little scraps of green and red card. At that stage it looked like the picture on the left. Then I raided my lace-making boxes and found some metallic thread and beads, and before long it looked like the picture on the right. Then I just needed to make it into a card.

I decided to follow the sketch given for SFYTT July challenge which you can see over on I love to stamp , because it was a fairly simple one which suited my tree. I covered a white base card with some pale green paper and made a mat for the tree from vellum printed with holly. Then I cut a strip of darker green paper to go down the left side. All three papers were from a very ancient book of Christmas card kits which I think is Dutch. It's time I used some of them! The band across the bottom of the panel is Woodware paper lace coloured with copic markers. For the three top motifs I chose three different sized bauble peel-offs, stuck them to the left-over piece of pale green paper and also coloured them with copics. Then I cut them out and glued them to the card. To finish it off I added a silver star to the top of the tree and stamped a Crafty Individuals greeting at the base of the card in Memento cottage ivy. So here is the finished card. Sorry there are such deep shadows on todays photos. It was very sunny, but I still get better photos outside than indoors. I only took them out for a few seconds but the sun immediately made the corner of the vellum layer curl up. But I shouldn't complain. If I could bottle a bit of our sunshine and send it to you all I would!I am entering this in:

Bah! Humbug! Challenge 29: Beads.
Christmas Inspirations Challenge 29: Free Christmas project.
Delightful Challenges: Christmas in July.
A Sketch For You To Try: July Sketch.
Make it Monday Challenge 47: Any Craft project.

And I am linking this to Shirley Anne's blog, Stamping for Joy to add two more cards to my collection please.