September Rudolph day Challenge

Goodness; is it really the 25th already?! Rudolph nearly caught me out this month but fortunately I still had four of my little LOTV digi images ready to make into cards.

I printed the image four times and coloured them all in the same way with copic markers, just changing the colour for the little bird house.

I have been making a lot of 17 x 11.5 cm cards, which is sort of the European version of A6. They have just a little bit more space to work in and I really like them. (Plus they are exactly one half of a sheet card from the blocks I buy at Lidl's!).

However I have run out of the matching envelopes, and the shop where I buy them had restocked with the ones for A6 cards, so I have gone back to the smaller size for these.

The image includes a narrow, slightly rough edged border, so I decided to make white base cards and use my pens to colour the image border, and then distress the edges of my backing paper to match them, rather than cutting a mat for it.

So I started with two red ones. I was looking for some backing paper and found a small piece left over from an old papermania 6 x6 block, that I have mostly used up now. It was just right for these cards so I cut a tile from my snippet, and used a graphics programme to seamlessly cover an A4 sheet of paper, and printed it out.

I then did the same for the other two using green for the border.

The snowflake border is cut with a Joanna Sheen signature die, using some pretty, glitter card. This is lovely and sparkly IRL, but quite soft and smooth to touch and it die cuts beautifully. I can buy it in about eight different colours from our local 'Chinese bazaar'. It comes in huge sheets, possibly A2 for just 45 cents a sheet, so I thought I had better try to use some. The sentiment is one that turned up when I was sorting my stamps out recently and I am sorry, it had lost its packaging so I don't know the manufacturer.

So that is another four cards for my stash, which is coming along quite nicely. I have another two weeks out with visitors and visiting, so I still need to do one big run of something simple. The rate this year is flying by, I'll soon be posting the overseas ones.

But for now I will pop over to Scraps of Life by scrappymo, and enter this in the September Rudolph Day Challenge.

More Lili of the Valley - DL style

A few weeks ago I said I had printed out a selection of images bought from the new Lili of the Valley Christmas range of digistamps. I was slowed down because we had several lovely visits from our family in UK, but I have finally managed to colour them, and most of them are now cards.

I am trying to use up some very old items of stash, and among these I found a pack of pastel coloured DL cards which were just perfect for these images. There are three sets so here goes.

1). Christmas feasting.

I thought this was such a cute image. I printed three of them and coloured them with copic markers. Then I chose three base cards and routed around in my Christmas snippets to find oddments of paper and trims to go with each one. So they are basically the same with different colours for their scarves and base cards, and different embellishments.

2). Nativity

These little images were sold as a Nativity trio, but I will let you into a little secret. I didn't like the centre one because the stable was empty. Now for me the whole point of the Christmas story is that there was a very special baby in the stable, so I put one in. I don't normally adapt digistamps, but I felt I had to do this. Here are the before and after pictures.

I again coloured the images with copic markers except for one. Can you spot the difference in my photo? My sister does beautiful colouring with coloursoft pencils, and as I have a lovely set of these, I thought I should try them again, so I used them for my first set. But I was not happy with the result. My arthritic hands struggle to hold a pen for long enough for me to sign my name, so I really struggled with this. Copic markers are my go-to colouring tools and they only need such a light touch, that I find them much easier to handle. 

I made backing papers using ink dusters and distressed inks, and die cut gold mirri-card mats for the images. The sentiments were printed on the computer. I made a set of five all the same

3).Angels from the realms of glory!

Another cute image. LOTV does them so well. Aren't they truly angelic? I found I could get four of these on an A4 sheet of paper, so that's what I did. I used - you guessed it - copic markers to colour them -  and for speed I used the same pens for each one. I added some Leonie Pujol glitter ink to the wings and halos.

The image was a bit too small for the DL cards, but I was determined to use them up so I chose two pale yellow ones, and two peach ones, and found some lilac off-cuts that went well with both colours. I cut a mat for each image, and from the bit that is hidden behind the picture, I cut the sentiments using Joanna Sheen dies. I also used a Joanna Sheen Signature die - starry border - along the lower edge of each mat, and used the cut out stars to fill in between the words.

So there I have it; another ten cards to add to my collection. According to my plan, I am about where I hoped to be by the end of June! But that is still an improvement on my total a few weeks ago.

I am entering the first two  in the ABC Christmas Challenge where the criteria is S for sketch/T for trio. I didn't manage to match them to a sketch but they both show a trio.

All three cards are going over to Pixie's Snippets Playground and also to 

The Merry Christmas Challenge #33 where Anything Goes as long as it is Christmas.

More robins for Rudolph Day.

I see it is a month since I posted on here, but it has been a lovely month of visits by family, so there was not much time for crafting. But last month I mentioned I was way behind my target for Christmas cards, so the next day I printed off several sheets of  LOTV digi images that I had just bought from their new Christmas release.  Most of them have now been coloured, and when my last visitors leave I will have one month to make cards with them, before I am off to visit UK myself!

But yesterday I did manage to put the first six together ready for this challenge. They all use a funny little, fat robin which I had printed and coloured in the same way, six times.

I cut them out with my largest plain oval die (Go Kreate I think), and then searched through my snippet boxes and found enough to cut six mats, three red and three green, using a die from the Nestabilities Floral Ovals set.

For the red ones I made white 17.5x11cm base cards, and used an old Personal Impressions stamp across two corners. The sentiment is from the Inkylicious clear stamp set - Season's greetings. I had already put quite a lot of stickles glitter glue on the branches of the image, so I finished them off with red perfect pearl drops for the berries on the stamp. I made three the same with slightly different shades of red for the frames.

For the green ones I used very pale green base cards. A long time ago I was given some very big sheets of card that had been roughly folded, and were difficult to store, so I cut each sheet into as many standard size blank cards as I could. I've been looking for an opportunity to use some of them. With offcuts from the green mats I cut strips of a holly border (Joanna Sheen signature dies), and I found some oddments of holly paper left from a do-craft set from several years ago. I covered the base card with the BP and mounted the matted image as high as possible. Then I stamped a sentiment under it from a hero Arts Christmas sentiment stamp set, and just managed to add the border below this. Again I used red perfect pearl drops for the holly berries.

One green base card was slightly smaller so I used the border a little differently.

Now they are all done and I have six more cards for my stash. Now I must get on and use the rest of my prepared images. But for now I will link these to the August Rudolph Day Challenge, and also Pixie's Snippets Playground.

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.

June Rudolph Day Challenge

Here we are at Rudolph Day again already. Because I have been busy finishing off items for our son's wedding next week, I needed a quick and easy card to make for this challenge, so I turned once again to my Silhouette cameo library of cutting files and I chose this picture of a shepherd. 

When I brought it up in my silhouette software I realised I didn't really like the way it was going to turn out. If I just cut it and adhered the pieces to a base card I would end up with black stars (and black everything else), on a white background. So I played around with it a bit and separated the elements and then just cut the wavy 'ground' lines to use as a template. From that I made a mask which I used to add some distress inks in blue above the mask for the sky. Then I used the other half of the mask to cover the sky and dusted on green inks for the ground.

Next I cut out the ground lines, shepherd, sheep, large star and script from black vinyl  and used transfer tape to move them all in one go, onto my background, trying to line up the black pieces with my sky-meets-earth background.

Then I used some silver holographic vinyl to cut the inner large star and all the small stars and again transferred them all together, making sure I fitted them around the black silhouettes. I neatened each side edge with holographic silver peel offs and that was my card finished.

While my software was set up to do this, I made four more cards the same so another five have gone into my Christmas stash box.

And that's all there is to it. So now I will link up with the June Rudolph Day Challenge, and I hope to see lots of your links there too.

Butterfly Challenge #79

Having just about recovered from having my lovely son and his partner here for twelve days, while also suffering with a virus that left me feeling like a wet dish-rag, I decided it was time to go looking for my mojo and get making again.

I needed a birthday card for one of my sisters later this month, so when I saw the Butterfly Challenge was open for four weeks this time, I thought I could combine the two.

My sister will be a magnificent 89 years old, so I wanted something  bright and bold for her and I chose some dark fuchsia-pink card, which is one that would normally be left as I came to the end of a mixed colour pad!

I used a cutting file that I think I bought from Craftuprint. It was for a tent-fold card with a circular, over the edge, centre piece, but it turned out to be a poor file because the two were welded together which meant cutting it would leave me with a folded card with a big hole in the centre, and lots of 'confetti'!! So I played around with it in my Silhouette Cameo design software for a while and managed to extract a file for the base and a second one for the centre overlay, which I made sure to save in my library so I can use it again sometime.

I cut the base from the pink card and the overlay from some pale cream card.

For the centre , I used a hero Arts stamp on the left over cream card, and sorted out some copic pens that toned with the pink card to colour it, adding some yellow Leonie Pujol sparkle ink to the flower centre. Then I cut them out with the matching Sizzix framelet die, and glued them to the cream mat.

For the butterfly I used  two matching Memory Box dies, one lacey and one solid, cutting the lacy one from some more of the cream card, and the solid one from a single layer of Fantasy film-watermelon, which has pink tints in it. I glued them together and then cut a second cream lacey layer and glued the filmy one to it just along the body. I cut a body from a snippet of the pink card and used it to attach the butterfly to the card. This gives the wings a lovely iridescent sheen which actually shows in the photo for once.

I wanted a bold sentiment but the one I had was just too big for the space. It should have looked like this. But I cut it from more cream card anyway and carefully trimmed away the 'swooshes' just leaving me with the two words. I moved them around until they fitted in my space and glued them on, and I am happy with the way this turned out.

So now I will Link up with The Butterfly Challenge #79 where the challenge this time is to use L is for layers,  the colour cream, and of course, a butterfly. And remember, you still have nearly two more weeks to add your own creations.

May Rudolph Day Challenge

Every month on 25th day, I try to make a Christmas card to enter in the Rudolph Day Challenge over at Scraps of Life by Scrappy Mo.

This month it has been a real challenge as we had my son and his partner out here for the last twelve days - they went home this morning - plus the throat virus I had in January has come back to haunt me, so I haven't felt up to doing much crafting. So I needed a quick and simple design and once again I turned to my Silhouette Cameo files to find one I haven't use so far. I settled on a simple skyline cut-out of Bethlehem, that makes an accordion fold card. As two copies fitted nicely on a sheet of 12 x 12 dark blue card, I cut it twice.

The file was just for the basic shape with the windows and doorways cut out, so I then made files for pieces of yellow paper to go behind all the apertures. I thought they made the back look a bit messy, so I also cut each section of the main card out again just a tiny bit smaller, this time in heavy white paper, and glued those to the back. It made the card a bit more stable, and much neater. 

Finally I opened a sentiment cutting file for the words "Joy to the world; the Lord is come", and divided it into four sections, rearranging and resizing them to fit between the windows on each section. I cut them from dull gold vinyl and transferred them onto the cards.

I was quite pleased with the end result and here it is. 

This was a very straightforward card to make so I saved all my files so I can make a run of them later. For now I have two completed to add to my collection.

I am linking this to the May Rudolph Day Challenge.