Deck the Halls...

Now I like a little bit of bling on my cards, especially at Christmas, but I don't usually go for lots of glitter, but this week our theme at Humbug Hall was to use Glitz and Glitter, so I have done my best to rise to the challenge.

Yesterday afternoon, (after a big lunch and lovely walk along the beach, which you can read about here), I could have done with a bit of a siesta, but my village art group - manualidades, where I go to meet with some of the local Spanish ladies, reopened after the summer break. So I hastily collected together my latest Sheena Douglas stamps and some acrylic paints and off I went. One and a half hours later I came home with one holly branch painted. The rest of my time had been spent showing some of the ladies how I use stamping to get an image, and chatting about their work.

Anyway, in the evening I decided to make use of the little I had done, and as I sat looking at it I thought that somewhere I had a stamp of the opening lines of the song 'Deck the halls with boughs of holly' so maybe I could put them together. And that is what I did.I didn't want to hide all my painting under a lot of glitter so I just 'frosted' it with a clear stickles glitter glue. I then used a set of nesties labels and my cuttlebug to cut a mount out of starburst card. I have two types of this so I chose the rougher one as it has more sparkle. I was going to layer this on red, but it was already quite large, so instead I edged it with a red permanent marker. Using a smaller label die I cut a second piece and edged it in the same way, and on it I stamped the line from the song which turned out to be a Crafter's Companion stamp. It didn't stamp very well on the rough glitter card but I enhanced it with a black marker, and it is readable now. For the base card I used some plain green card which I stamped randomly with a holly sprig stamp by Clarity.

This card is for:
Bah Humbug Challenge 40: Glitz and Glitter.
Crafty Ann's Challenge 51: Inspired by a Christmas song.
Simon Says...:Sparkle and Bling.
Just Some Lines Challenge: Reminds me of a song.
Fab's Big Christmas Card October Challenge: Something Shiny and/or Snowflakes.

Of course, I am also linking it to Stamping for Joy so Shirley-Anne can add it to my total.

And now there is a set of 'Tinies'.

Thank you for the kind comments you have left on yesterday's post when I showed a set of four tiny Christmas cards I had made for the ABC Christmas Challenge, T is for Tiny. Following on from there I have now, as planned, made a whole set of them. That's sixteen of them to be exact. Using the original set of small images, decorated using copics, ink pads, glitter glue, and die cut frames, I managed to get four cards out of each sheet of backing paper I had made with glimmer mists and a large background stamp. Every card has some of it on, though in some cases it is only a very small piece. I incorporated some ribbons and a few gems to bling them up where needed. Now all I have to do is make sixteen inserts and sixteen 4" square envelopes! (I think my new Hougie board could come in useful here). At least these will be a good size for posting to UK.
I am linking them to the Make it Monday linky party 57 and to Shirley-Anne's blog, Stamping for Joy, where they will make a substantial difference to my card total.

T is for Tiny

T is for Tiny and the challenge from ABC is to make a set of four tiny Christmas cards. I was looking forward to this as I much prefer small cards to great big ones, especially at Christmas. I am not sure how small they need to be to count as tiny but I have gone with 10cm square (4") as this seems to have been the choice for several other challenge takers, and it's a nice size to work with. I wanted an excuse to use a new stamp I bought at Ally Pally called 'Cover the page-flourishes' by Impression-Obsession. This is one of a set of 6 x 6 stamps designed to make backing papers. It was mounted on foam, but I know these big stamps can be difficult to get a good impression from, especially in the centre, and I couldn't afford the big rocker block that was available to use with them, so I made do with my big flat block and put a purple foam, stamping mat under my paper. And I needn't have worried; I got a perfect print every time. So first I raided my white off-cuts box and found several larger pieces of card. I sprayed them with a variety of mica mists and then stamped them with the flourishes in a coordinating colour ink. I think I shall be using this stamp a lot!

Next I went through my Christmas stamps and pulled out a few smaller images. These I stamped several times on smaller offcuts of white card. My aim is to make a whole batch of tiny cards, each one using some of the flourishes backing paper and one of the images. The stamps I used are, angel square - Stampendous, star - Anita's, candle - Crafters' Companion, holly swirl - Denami, robin - Kars, and Joy bauble - Great Impressions. I then used a variety of card offcuts, dies and punches, pens and peel-offs, and a few bits of bling, and here are the four I have done so far. I am entering these in ABC Christmas Challenge ; T is for Tiny. Christmas Cards All Year Round October Challenge; Orange, green purple or black with a punch or diecut. (The orange card, top left, meets these criteria).
Paper Sundaes Challenge 89; Lots of layers. (Orange 5, blue and red 4, green 3).
Inspire me Fridays 26; Anything goes.
I am also linking them to Shirley-Anne's blog, Stamping for Joy, to add four more to my total. I hope to be back later with the rest of these Shirley.

Nativity

It's good to be back making cards again after my little break with the family in UK. I am eager to progress with my Christmas cards. Time is rushing by and I want them 'done and dusted' in plenty of time, so I was pleased to see that this week's challenge at Bah! Humbug! is to feature the Nativity. I have loads of nativity related stamps so this was an easy one for me. But I have still almost run out of time so I went for the simplest of cards.

First I used a Big and Juicy pad (gumdrop) to brayer a background on smooth, matt cream card. I then stamped the scene using a set of tiny silhouette stamps by Stampendous, perfectly clear stamps. I have had them for years and have used them so much. The words across the top are from a set of Hero Arts sentiment border stamps.

Now with just an hour or so to spare, I am linking this card to Bah! Humbug! Christmas Challenge 39; Nativity

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Hello again fellow crafters. Where did that week go? My desk looks a bit more useable this week. Most of my new stash has found a home and now I am making use of some of it.
At the Ally Pally show I spent a fair bit of time at the Serendipity stall, looking at all the scenescape stamps. I love this technique of using lots of small element stamps to build up a picture. I already have a good collection of Art Impressions stamps which I use in this way, so of course I had to buy some scenescape ones as well. So surrounded by memento ink pads, that I find work very well on glossy card, a selection of acrylic blocks, a few pens, and other stamps from my collection, I set about making a night time scene (in blue). I was quite pleased with that so I double mounted that and let it stand alone on a card. Next I tried to make the same scene in daylight, (in green), which I don't like quite so well, but it is OK. Then I started to make a card front using another set of element stamps, this time by Hobby Art, which I also bought at Ally Pally. This design is a courtyard with an archway that I have cut away and hopefully it will eventually have the day scene behind it. So now I need to finish that off and clear everything away again before my cats come and sit on top of it all. (If you have any trouble keeping your workspace clear, invite a cat in. You'll soon learn to put things away!) But first I will link this to Julia's blog, and pop over to see what everyone else is getting up to this week.

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Hi blogland friends. Thanks for calling by. I am now home in Spain again after two and a half weeks in England, where I have to say I was blessed with lovely weather. Everywhere looked so lush and green, and the autumn colours in the trees were beautiful, but I am still glad to be back here now. You can find out what I got up to on my other blog, Kate's Adventures.

I am pleased to say that the scrapbook featured in my previous post was finished just in time (including what turned out to be six drumming pages!), delivered to my son, and greatly appreciated. Now I hope to get back to some card and ATC making. I am not starting the scrapbook for son number three until after Christmas.

So, what is on my workdesk this Wednesday? Well basically it is all the lovely new stash I bought in UK. I visited a couple of craft shops with my sister Jean, and another with my son Ben, and also spent a day at the stamp and scrapbook show at Alexandra Palace, so of course I bought quite a lot! Everything is now unpacked so today I started by sorting everything into types of materials, and here is the result. The next job will be to find a home for everything, so I have some space to actually use some of it. It's hard to make any sense of all that muddle so here is the breakdown.

First there are a few tools, a couple of masks and embossing folders, and several packets of charms. Next there are some 'different' 3D stickers, that I just can't get out here, some acrylic paints and other mediums, and baker's twine. Then come several sets of dies, sticky ribbons, and rubber stamps. I bought a gorgeous selection of beads and bright, metallic threads for my lace making projects, plus some Christmas ribbons and pretty trimmings. Lower middle are some more stamps, just a couple of ink pads, and some paper. I'd love to have brought more, and I saw so many that I liked, but it's weight made it impractical, so I settled for the DCWV 12"x12" pad, linen closet that I have had my eye on for ages, and a couple of smaller pads, plus two pads of long strips of self adhesive card that are so useful for die cut letters and other tiny items. And lastly I replaced my favourite green water base marker, and bought just one set of the new promarker flex pens to try. I use copic markers solely because I prefer the brush nib, but these are a bit cheaper and easier to get hold of, so they may be a better option when they expand the colour range. And of course I had to try one set of TH tissue tape. So that's it. It's a bit like my birthday and Christmas all rolled into one. Now I can't wait to try it all out.

The only item on my desk that has any claim to being actually crafted by me is the little blue box with a butterfly on it. My sister Jean has three friends over every Wednesday for a craft session, and the week I was there she showed them how to cover a little chipboard box with a pretty tissue serviette using modge podge, so I joined in and this is my effort. I shall finish it off with a 3D butterfly and perhaps some flowers.

So now I am going to link this to Julia's blog and see what everyone else is getting up to this week. Why not join me, and then share what's on your workdesk too.

Special Moments

I am supposed to be having a short while off card challenges specifically to complete the scrapbook I am making for my son, before I fly to UK next Thursday, when I hope to give it to him. So I thought I would just share with you the pages I have just completed.

Some of you will know that I have five sons. Two are older from my first marriage, and after a ten year gap I had three more, in fairly quick succession. When you are the middle one of a group of three little boys with only four and a half years between you, you have to fight for your share of attention, so I designed these pages to remind Jonathan of some special moments that we shared with him. (I have done similar pages for each of the boys and I think they are important memories to hold). For Jonathan, who since his teens has a had a preference for 'grungy' colours, I chose some grey paper, but as I find 'grunge' really hard to do, I ended up with red for the highlights! The large circle and it's scalloped frame, the script frame, and the letters for the title were all designed and cut with craftrobo, using the Design master software. The script about a mother was a template that I bought from craftsuprint. It was A4 size so I had to resize it, and then cut it, again with craftrobo. Unfortunately shrinking it down meant some letter strokes were very fine, and all my black paper had too many firbes in them and wouldn't cut cleanly. After three futile attempts I was about to give up when I remembered that I have a pack of mixed printed papers that always cut perfectly. So I chose one that wasn't really to my liking, and I swiped the reverse side with a versafine black onxy ink pad until it was completely black. Once it was dry, I had one more go at my cutting file and it worked! It's not perfect, but it is good enough.

My son is now twenty-six so I was working with really old photos which I scanned in, and then used a photo editor to crop them to squares. I decided to soften them by giving them all rounded corners to go with the scalloped frames.

My final job was to cut the two small scripts in red, using the trimmings from the photo mounts. For these I used my cuttlebug and a QuicKutz skinni-minis alphabet die set called Frankie. These are very fiddly to use, but you can cut just the letters you need. I decided to glue them in place with glue pen, and added a few dots cut with a hole punch. It was very hot this afternoon so picture me trying to pick up these tiny pieces with a ceiling fan going just above me at top speed and an even stronger floor-standing fan across my desk. Added to that I help from Baggins (See my previous post). It was a bit of a paper chase, but I got there in the end.

Now I am going to make some quote clouds to go on the two inside covers, and the summing-up page for the end of the book. If I get that done before I give it to him I will be pleased. I will still have two double spreads to do about his drumming and the groups he has played in, and posters from some of his gigs, but I can post those to him. What sort of music does he play? ... Heavy metal, and in particular 'Grunge' of course!!

I shall link this to Make it Monday 52: Any papercraft project.
And Inspire me Fridays Linky Party.

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There's not a great deal on my workdesk this Wednesday, but what there is, shows that I have had a very successful couple of days and have just about completed another double layout for my son's scrapbook. All that is left for me to do is add a few more words, and you can see I am sorting through some tiny Sizzlit mini-dies to find the letters I need. I have just enough bits of red paper left over after mounting the photos with it, to cut these letters, so I shall get them done now and maybe do a separate blog on the completed pages. I have a range of sticking mediums out. The tiny letters are a right fiddle and I can never be sure what will be best to use with them, but I expect I'll settle for a glue pen. Needless to say the rest of the space is occupied by Baggins, who is under threat of death if he moves onto my pages while my back is turned. I'm off to feed the dogs but it is such a nuisance to have to put everything away when you want to use it again in half an hour or so, so today I have risked leaving it out. (Just five more pages to do now, hopefully before I fly to UK next Thursday, when I want to give the completed book to him).

Now why not pop over to Julia's blog and see what everyone else is up to today.