All packed up for Christmas

We've finally finished all of the Christmas making, baking and packaging.  I had help from the family, Alan made port and stilton chocolate truffles with the help of Jasmine, Chloe (AKA Cookie) helped me bake the shortbread cookes then we iced them.  All of the little holly and candy cane embellishments were Cookies own work:) 

All packaged up

What would I have done without my spellbinders?  The boxes were made with centura pearl card which I inked with the christmas red distress ink from Tim Holtz.

Chocolate truffles with port and stilton, Liqueur soaked cherries dipped in chocolate, and marzipan logs with apricot conserve



A gift wallet for those awkward people
 who want money for Christmas!

Peppermint creams made by Chloe and myself.







And finally, it took me a long time to make this cushion, the knitting with pom pom yarn wasn't too difficult to learn but then I was stumped as to how I was to sew it together, onto a black backing fabric etc. In the end I made a black 'pillow case' style liner which I put onto the insert. I then laced the pompom fabric around the cushion. To ensure the outer cover doesn't move I sewed the tapes onto the corners of the liner before lacing them up. I just hope the recipient likes it.



Christmas crafting

How is everyone else getting on with their seasonal preparations?  I've not much to show here yet, but I've been busy making preserves, and making packaging for some food gifts.  My Cake is done to a Jane Asher design, I'm afraid i'm not proud enough of it to show it off, my Christmas roses don''t look like hers and my Ivy is a mess!

Christmas crackers

I've been making these for the last few weeks and finally finished 10!  The basic crackers are pinflair and the embellishments made from spellbinders and beads I had in my stash

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new job card

Update - I've redone the card after getting some good advice so here it is

I spent the best part of today playing with the MCS Important Date cd.  There are some fantastic papers and images and I had the idea to make a masculine card first.  I thought the basic card was a little unbalanced so I spent half an hour or more failing to find my 'coathanger' paperclips to make an embellishment before resorting to cutting out the spellbinder borders.  I was still not happy as at this point the message was not in the right place so I moved that.  I think it's still unbalanced!  As I went to photograph it I discovered that despite several checks I've stuck everything on the wrong way round and the card opens from the bottom!  Still I am posting it here as a record and hoping to get a few constructive comments on how to make the next one better.

Christmas cards posted

I've just posted a selection of Christmas cards in the section on the right.  We've been working on some projects suitable for Guides to do and have come up with the holly wreath made up from leaves punched from various green papers, some of them embossed.  Apologies for the slightly blurred image, there is a new lense on the camera and I don't think I'm used to it yet.

Card made with revitalised paper and Spellbinders

Crafty Tip - Revitalising old or uninspiring papers

Like all Crafters I have a number of old and dog eared papers that I really don't think I'm going to use.  This is not really my idea, I wonder how many ideas are really new, but I was pleased to win a competition recently by mentioning it and am going to pass it on here,  A long time ago I saw someone using cosmic shimmer sprays to change the look of paper and have done it many times to create original papers for card making, scrapbooking and book covers.  Check out the mini book page for more ideas.

First protect your table and any nearby walls with plastic bin bags, this really gets messy!
Choose your papers, you can use quite lightweight ones.  Spritz them lightly with mica sprays of your choice, at the first stage I just used one colour.

Screw the papers into tight
balls then smooth out and spritz with plain water, respray with mica spray adding a second colour if you like and scrunch and again. By this time the paper will be quite damp so unravel carefully.

Lay out to dry and voila, some nice new crunchy papers with a fantastic sheen.  You might want to iron them before use but I like the rumpled texture,  I think running them through a die cutting machine or embossing folders will be fun.

Autumn

Autumn is finally here and today we harvested the last from the allotment in time for Halloween.  Hopefully I'll be posting some of our halloween crafting soon but in the meantime here are a few cards I've made this week.

The dress is from a kanban steampunk stamp, the floral paper is the last from one of my favourite stacks and the roses made with Tim Holtz glassine papers.  There is a second hatpin but it seems to be hidden by the bow.

Hopefully the first of many Polkadoodles cards, the papers and images are scrummy.

The Wedding card below was made with one of my new U Mount stamps that I won in a recent competition.  As the comp was crafty tips I think my next one will have to incorporate the tip that won me the prize.

Special Christmas cards

I love the Creative Expressions Christmas stamps and wanted to make something special with them.  I made one background using Alcohol inks on mirror card, for the the other I used the pointsettia stamp and distress inks.

Mixing it up

I wanted to play with so many things this week.  I've made this card using spellbinders, vintage ribbon, a new KanBan steampunk stamp, Tim Holtz Glassine paper.  There is still space for a sentiment but I'll leave that untill I know who the recipient will be.  Unfortunately the picture doesn't show the areas highlighted with my lovely new bronze mica flakes.

Cards for ladies who shop

My Spellbinders dies have arrived, whoopee! 

I had begun these two cards within cards before the dies arrived but being able to use them to embellish the cards made so much difference, I have not yet put in inserts as these will be personalised to suit the recipients. 

Boy cards

making boy cards always seems more difficult so having a few kit pieces to call on makes the job much less stressful.  Adding my own embellishments and card embossed with a creative expressions folder  makes this one more individual.  Below I've used masks and scrunched and spritzed papers to get different effects

Woodland card

A selection of Kan-Ban kit cards

Tim Holtz tissue tape lampshades

I purchased two new lamps last week but decided I didnt like the stark white and plain striped glass shades.  Out came the Tim Hotz tissue tape and 20 minutes later they were transformed:)

The plasterer left me a present!

I found a roll of self adhesive plasterers scrim after the builders left yesterday and knew I'd be able to do something crafty with it.  One problem, it wasn't the nice fabric sort but a plastic variety.  Immediately I thought of colouring it with alcohol inks and they did work brilliantly but I wondered what would happen if I stuck it to mirror board and used it as a mask as I was colouring it.  The effect is great and I now have a piece of unique reflective cardstock for my crafting as well as an unusual 'ribbon' ideal for man cards.  The scrim is easily stored on a piece of acetate, its adhesive side is not too sticky, just enough to hold it in place.

Wildflower Card - Composition

Aren't  digital cameras the best thing ever invented?  I am playing with the composition of this card and it was so easy to try out various options without fear of forgetting which one I tried first!  I'm still torn between 2 ideas so I thought I'd post the project unfinished and see what feedback it got :)

here is a pic of all the items I used, in addition I used a little coordinating paper, plain cardstock, raffia and two Ideaology fragments.  I would have used round glass glintz as they would have  magnified the little moths/butterflies beautifully but I couldnt find them!  All of the inks are a coordinating green colour.  The finished card measures 8" x 8" and the main image  is 4" x 4".

 Stamping - I stamped the main image by daubing the Ranger distress stain onto the stamp.  Using the Versamark pad I stamped images onto the background.  The rectangular green paper started out as smooth white cardstock, I stamped images with Versamark and then brayered lettuce Adirondack over it.  Still using the lettuce I stamped two butterfly images and a sentiment onto white card and set them aside for later.

Spritzing - Both the background and the main image were spritzed with Cosmic Shimmer mist - golden mint.  I cut an oversized mat for behind the main image from coordinating cardstock, scrunched it up and spritzed it with the cosmic shimmer, scrunched it when wet, spritzed again then smoothed it out and left it to dry.  For the intermediate layer I tore some plain white paper and dyed it with the distress stain.  I matted and layered the green paper with coordinating card

Finishing - I glued the two fragments on top of the butterfly images using glossy accents, the ink bled a teensy bit but that added to the charm.  I trimmed the edges when dry.  I tore out the stamped sentiment and then gently distressed the edges with lettuce ink.  Using perfect medium and clear embossing powder I double embossed the sentiment piece.  I tied a bow using shredded raffia and put a few dots of stickles on the seedheads.  Now all I have to do is decide the final layout.  All suggestions are welcome.

Tasseled Cushion

Just finished another cushion.  The knitted piece turned out too wide for the pad I wanted to use but no worries, I undid a few rows and wrapped it around a smaller rectangular pad.  It's hard to work out what size the end piece is going to be when using  6 or 8 different yarns on jumbo needles!  The tassels on the corners were so easy.  I have made a few tassels in the past, I love making small ones with silks but they take much longer than when using big yarns.

Random Art

I thought I'd post up some random things that I've played with in the last couple of years.  I dont consider myself an artist, but I think everyone can have fun at least trying.  If we make mistakes its only paint and paper we are wasting so go on give it  a go!  This first piece is d.one in watercolour.  I was thinking about a petal from a flower and it sort of evolved from that.  I was really happy with how it looks as if its curling up from the page

The pic on the left is also watercolour, I've never been happy with the background but I like the shape, influeced by a bunc of tulips.

The pic on the right was done using wet on wet watercolour and splashing in salt.

I did the landscape at an art workshop.  The idea was we tore up pieces of paper and painted those  and used them to 'stamp' the different areas.  We then used different brush strokes to finish it off.  My daughter in law is an artist and she actually asked if she could have  it.  I was amazed as again I was never happy with how it turned out!

The last one is simply a pencil still life/