Fab's Christmas Challenge is Back!

Last year my freind Fab ran his Big Christmas challenge all year and joining in as many challenges as I could certainly helped me to have a stock of cards ready for Christmas just past. If like me you have made a resolution to be ready in plenty of time for Christmas 2009 then why not visit Fab's new for 2009 Christmas Challenge blog and join in this year - there is a link on the right hand side of my blog right at the top where you can't miss it - just roll over that and click or click the link in this post. I certainly plan to join in again this year and here is my first card - well 2 actually! As the colour scheme is Red and Green and the whole card is based around a the stamped greeting these also fit the terms of the current challenge over on Christmas Cards All Year Round - a twofer!

The stamp is from The Artistic Stamper and was stamped and heat embossed onto ivory pearlescent Moondust card using Green Sparkle EP on one card and Red Sparkle EP on the other. I painted in the text using gold Twinkling H2Os. These were then mounted onto foil card, using red foil card with the Green embossed stamped greeting and green foil card with the red embossed stamped greeting. I chose red card to mount these onto. For one I used a small left over piece of paper I had printed from the Artylicious Season's Greetings CD, and for the other I used Versamark and Perfect Pearls to create a background using the same stamp. I think the one with the printed paper background is my favorite, but both were really quite quick cards to make.

There's a moose loose aboot this hoose...

... um sorry, my Scottish genes were getting a bit carried away there! I have always rather liked the House Mouse stamps, such cute characters! I think this is such a sweet image of the little mice taking a shower under the spout of a watering can. This is a card I made for someone's birthday and as it has now been received I can post a piccy here.

The image was stamped with black Stazon because I planned to use a wet medium to colour the image. Once stamped I used Derwent Inktense Pencils to colour the image, these pencils are cool because unlike normal water colour pencils they dry permanent. You can use them like a regular watercolour while wet but once they are dry you don't have to worry about the colour bleeding if you want to add other wet stuff such as clear glaze or glitter glues. I did infact add some clear glaze from a Sakura Gelly Roll Glaze pen to the water coming from the spout of the watering can and to the puddle that has form around the feet of the mice to give it a shiney wet look. For some reason the photograph is not showing very clearly that there is a weak wash of blue over the puddle and this was the colour I did not want to have bleed into other areas.

The background paper was made using the 3D2 Card builder CD and Joanna Sheen's Pamela West Collection CD. On the Joanna Sheen CD there was a lovely image of some blackberries, but unfortunately the co-ordinating paper did not incorporate any of the berries so I used a graphics programme to cut a tile of the image out that did include the berries and some leaves. Then using the 3D2 CD I created my own a backing paper. I need to play some more with the 3D2 CD however as I could not figure out how to make the tile big enough that you can actually see the blackberries repeated across the page and I was running out of time to get my card into the mail, so I went with what I had made as the colours were just perfect to match those I had used when colouring the stamped image.

Easy Elegance and a Thank You

The challenge theme on My Time To Craft this week is "Easy Elegance" My interpretation of that is something elegant but simple to make - a nice way to ease back into making something after the rush of Christmas crafting! So my card is just one stamp, one ink pad, a gold pen and a few peel-offs - couldn't be simpler.

The stamp is from Clarity Stamp and one I have been lusting after for a long time! I finally treated myself to it and a couple of others at the NEC in November and this is it's first outing. I stamped the image using Tim Holtz' Distress Ink in Aged Mahogany then, using a water brush, pulled in colour from the stamped image. Using the same ink pad and Judikins Color Duster I stippled some of the ink round about the image to soften the background and added the gold edge with a Sakura Pentouch pen.

The image was mounted on some Basill cardstock and then onto white linen finish card. The greeting and corners are peel-offs.

I also need to say thank you to Smullis for passing on to me a Kreativ Blogger award - it's in my side bar. As I had received this award previously I hope I can be excused from passing it on again as I think most of the blogs I love to visit already have this one. Please take time to visit Smullis blog Dragonfly Dreams, she has some lovely work to share. Oh, and incase like me, you find yourself wondering what "letterboxing" is then you may find this wikipedia link useful.

Christmas Left Overs - Not More Turkey!

In the final run up to Christmas I made some cards using Joanna Sheen's Enchanted Christmas CD. As I was in a hurry at the last minute I didn't mess about printing only the bits I wanted, so this left me with some pages of partly used toppers and bits and bobs of co-ordinated backing papers piling up in my craft room. It seemed like a good idea to use them up and get a head start on my cards for 2009. In fact I have promised myself faithfully that for Christmas 2009 I will be ready with plenty of cards made well before any deadlines for mailing them out come around. That way it won't matter if my mojo does it's now annual trick of heading off to warmer climes for a December vacation leaving me stuck at home with no creativity! Anyhow here are a couple of cards made with my "leftovers".

For the first card I simply added red and green Stickles Glitter glue to the Poinsettia and also traced the sentiment with gold Stickles. The image and the co-ordinating backing papers were matted and layered onto gold foil card and I added a pretty bow as a finishing touch.

For the second I matted and layerd the image and backing paper onto dark blue card and, using my favorite Stardust Stickles, added lots of sparkle to the snowy scene in the main image and traced a fine line of glitter round the edges of the mats. The sentiment is a silver peel-off sticker. I still have more unused bits - seems a shame to waste them so if I find I am still in Christmas mode I may put together a few more cards in the next few days.

Variations on a Theme and a Green Challenge

I needed a last minute Christmas card on Christmas Eve and as luck would have it I had one already partially made. As I had been rather pleased at how dimentional the first folded Tea Bag Tree card I had made looked I had made a few more in other colours - red, blue and green. For the first one, which I previoiusly posted about, I had used golden yellow papers. By Christmas Eve however the green tree was still not mounted on a card and wasn't really destined for anyone, so when I realised that I did need one more card and pretty quickly too, it was the obvious solution as the tree was all ready, the backing paper printed and it just needed to be assembled into a finished card. As the challenge on My Time To Craft is the colour green I guess my green tea bag tree fits the bill for that too!






Anyhow here is my little paper forest, green card first - all the trees and backing papers are from the Artylicious Season's Greetings CD, the variations are mainly in colours and card the way the card is folded, oriented and embellished. The blue card was made with a male recipient in mind - seemed a more appropriate colour for a man. The golden yellow one can be seen in an earlier post.

Poinsettia

This card was made for a swap and as it's now in the possession of the recipient I can share a pic here. Unfortunately my camera was not behaving - someone had left the auto focus function off but I didn't realise it so the picture is not as clear as it could be.

I used a stamp from Elusive Images to create my poinsettia, it's from the Poinsettia Script themeplate. First I created a background by blending Ranger's Distress Inks in Shabby Shutters and Peeled paint with some Cut N Dry Foam. This was edged it with some Aged Mahogany Distress Ink. Next I used some more of the Peeled Paint to stamp the image onto the background. I then stamped the image 2 more times onto white card using Versamark and embossed them with gold EP. The embossed images of the Poinsettia were painted with Twinkling H2O's and a tiny amount of gold Stickles glitter used on the centre of the flower, then cut out and decoupaged onto the background. This was mounted onto mats of green and red foiled card. For the main card I used some red card stock and covered it with some lovely paper I had printed from the Artylicious Season's Greetings CD. I edged my paper with a gold Sakura Pentouch pen. Finally I added a the red ribbon bow and some red cabochon gems.

Christmas Mouse

I love those House Mouse stamps and invested in a couple recently. This is a Christmas card I made with one of them - isn't that lil' mouse sweet! Due to unforeseen events that kept me from stamping much for about 3 weeks the last week has been pretty hectic trying to finish off cards for Christmas and this card was really quite simple and fast to make - just what I needed!

I cut a label shape from some white card with a Nestabilities die then stamped the image with gray Versafine ink and coloured it with Twinkling H20s. This was then layerd onto the next size up of lable in the Nestabilities set which had been cut from red foiled card. Finally I attached some ribbon with a brad. The card itself is just some red card stock to which I applied a white panel which I had embossed in the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder and then stamped a little greeting on the bottom edge which I had deliberatly left unembossed to take the greeting. I added a border of red Stickles Glitter where the white panel meets the red card and then adhered my mouse tag with foam pads.

Simply Santa

I guess we all have our own ideas about how Santa should look, well for me this stamp from Rubber Stampede is more or less my "perfect santa", wrinkled and weather-beaten from riding that sleigh throught the night in the dead of winter, but with a twinkle in his eyes and the hint of magic surrounding him!

The image was stamped with Adirondack Dye Ink (Red Pepper) onto white card. I trimmed away all white edges from the image then mounted it onto red foiled card, layered that onto more white card that had been embossed through the Cuttlebug and then on to silver foiled card. I added just a little more sparkle with some stickles glitter and then applied the whole thing to some red card stock.

Tea Bag Tree and a beautiful swap.

I got the idea for this Tea Bag Folding Christmas Tree from Shirley's Blog - I know she got the idea from an online tutorial and there is a link on her blog if you want some instructions for how to make this folded tree.

For my version I used papers from the Artylicious Season's Greetings CD. I used the same design from the CD to cut my squares for the Tea Bag folding and for the background. I added a tiny peel off star to the top of my tree and some sparkle with gold Stickles Glitter. This is actually quite an easy card to make but gives a lovely dimentional effect.









The second card I wan't to share is a beautiful Christmas Swap I received from a fellow Graphicus Guild Member. Thank you Val, the card is gorgeous. The stamp is, if my memory serves me correctly, the very first Graphicus Guild Members' Limited Edition stamp. Val has not only embossed the stamp with gold EP as her main image, but has also used it to create a gorgeous background by overstamping it onto colour washed paper in red, magenta and metallic gold.

Holly Swirl

Well I forced myself to break the block and finish one of my "bits". I have loads of Christmas "bits" that need to be turned into card but couldn't decide on what to do with them. This one is a lovely Holly Flourish stamp by Elusive Images. It can be found on the Christmas Flourish themeplate.

I made the background with Distress Inks, blending Shabby Shutters and Worn Lipstick then spritzing this with water and letting it dry. Once dry I stamped over it with a script stamp from The Artistic Stamper and more of the Shabby Shutters Distress ink then blended a little Aged Mahogany Distress ink round the edges. Next I stamped the holly flourish with Versmark and heat embossed it with Gold EP and then ran the edge of of the card round the Versmark pad and edged it with more gold EP. I can't resist sparkle so some Burgundy Stickles Glitter glue added a touch of sparkle to the holly berries. This was matted onto red foiled card and adhered to some pale green pearlescent card with foam pads. Some gold peel-off corners and a greeting finished off the card.