Snowy White

This is the rather challenging card I've done for this week for Cupcake Crafts, their theme is "It'll be All White on the Night"

I found it harder than I thought I would to do an all white card, without it looking bland and I felt the way to go was with different textures and layering, it's not totally clear on the picture, but I've ripped around the edges of the sentiment band, which has been attached with foam pads, as has the snowflake.  I've added a splash of silver, which I hope is acceptable, with some sewn on snowflakes.  I bought a new toy today from We Are Memory Keepers, it's a little handheld gadget with interchangeable heads to punch small holes in your card ready for sewing.  There are different styles and I bought a running stitch one, a snowflake one and a diamond one, it's quite clever, took me a couple of goes to get the holes through the card properly but then just a few minutes to sew with a bit of silver sparkly thread.  I finished the card, but wasn't quite happy with it, the snowflake didn't look right and by chance I came across a bottle of frosted stickles, which when added to the snowflake did the trick.

I think I like this card, but not totally sure, I'm not sure if it needs something else (like a big bold splash of colour lol).  Anyway, here's the details:

Cuttlebug Embossing folder
Cuttlebug Snowflake die
Sentiment - The Little Paper Shop

Thanks for popping in!

Jan x

Metallic Christmas Trees

Busy, busy week so it was nice to get some time to craft yesterday and add another Christmas card to the stash.

I used the colour challenge set by Dynamic Duos - Navy & Silver, and have kept it fairly simple.  The trees have been cut from a coke can, using a Cuttlebug folder, it's a great way to add metal to your cards, but a word of warning I have in the past broken a good sturdy punch trying to do this, and so would only recommend you do it on a Big Shot or other die-cutting machine. I've added some stickles glitter to the snow line as they also wanted "Bling" - so hope it's blingy enough!

Here's the details:

Cardstock - SU Night of Navy; Whisper White
Ink - SU Night of Navy
Sentiment - don't know sorry, an old clear stamp from my stash

I'm also entering this card into the challenge at Less is More, which this week is Glamour & Glitz.

Thanks for popping in

Jan x

A Christmas Card in Turquoise and Red

My latest Christmas Card is done in a less traditional colour combo of turquoise & red, I used a fab free digi being given away by Fresh Squeezed Stamps to enter their challenge, there was a choice of three colours but I really liked the turquoise with the red one & used that for the rest of the card too. I followed a sketch from The Sweet Stop for their challenge, so having the layout & the colours decided the card came together quite quickly.  I stamped on the four panels and rounded the corners, added a sentiment and the digi and was just about done.  I then took an age trying to decide on an embellishment, I punched out some snowflakes, but they didn't look right and whilst I'm sure I have a small holly punch somewhere, I couldn't find it but then remembered I've got a Cricut cartridge with holly on it, so dug that out & finished off the card with some holly. I've got a friend who loves Cross Stitch so I've earmarked this card for her.

Products used:
Stamp Sets (all Stampin' Up!) - Confetti; Serene Snowflakes; Silent Night; Sparkly & Bright
Card Stock (all SU!) - Tempting Turquoise; Real Red; Very Vanilla
Cricut cartridge - Winter Wonderland

Challenges:
The Sweet Stop - Sketch
Fresh Squeezed Stamps - Christmas (must use an FSS image) 

Thanks for popping in

 Jan x

A Birthday Card & a Tattoo

I've had a busy few days, managed to get some crafting in on Saturday, which I really enjoyed as up until recently I worked on a Sat and since changing my days nearly every Saturday we've been out & about (my daughter goes to Uni next year, so we've had quite a few Uni visits to do) and so this weekend, nothing was planned and I had a free day to craft, which was great - I really enjoyed it.  I now work on a Sunday, Monday & Tuesday & yesterday was sort of laid up with a sore foot (due to tattoo - read on for more details!!) so I'm glad I did get all that crafting in as it had to last me quite a few days!

I had an order from a friend for some of my polymer clay earrings so I finished off her order and made some quick & easy boxes to put them in, using an SU die, which I stamped (SU stamps & ink):

I then made a birthday card for a (male) friend as I was seeing him that evening, I belong to an Amateur Dramatic Group & we had a get together at Jenko's Mongolian BBQ, which is very yummy and a good night out was had by all.  I always find male cards hard to do, even though I do fairly clean & simple cards, and am not one for lots of embellishments I still find cards for men challenging, so dug out one of my favourite SU punches, the owl punch and made a card with him:

Once I'd done the owl, the rest came together quite easily (all SU except the papers - the name of which escapes me at the moment, but was some scraps I had left) and I added a couple of googly eyes. I'm entering this card into the challenge over at Addicted to Stamps & More, which is a Clean & Simple challenge.

So yesterday was tattoo day, I've been wanting another tattoo for ages, had one done on my hip about 8 years ago and have always said I'd get another but never seemed to get around to it.  I started on a weight loss journey in August and am a firm believer in rewards for effort (of course LOL) so had promised myself that for my second stone lost I'd get a tattoo done on my foot, and here's a pic taken yesterday evening:

My foot is still a bit swollen in the pic so please do ignore the puffyness, but I'm really pleased with the result.  I have to say though it hurt so, so much, I'd forgotten how much it hurt having a tattoo and I'm sure this was worse than the small one on my hip.  It took longer, well over an hour and was really painful! I drove home, put my foot up, took some painkillers and pretty much stayed put for the rest of the day.  It's still sore today, and I suspect will be for another day or two but it's not as bad as yesterday, thank gawd! I had to go out this morning to take the dog to the vet and it does hurt more when I'm wearing shoes, so I just hope it's a lot better by Sunday as I'm working and will be in shoes all day - ouch!  But I am pleased I had it done - good job really as it's now a permanent part of me lol.

Thanks for popping in

Jan x

Blog Candy

Sylvia is giving away some lovely candy over on her blog, you need to be a follower but she has such a fabulous blog, that's no hardship.

Butterflies and Snowflakes

Here's two cards I made last night, I don't really have a decent light source in the house to take photos so any cards made after about 3pm have to wait until the following day to be photographed in my porch as the natural light is good in there, but it's freezing so I can't hang about!

The first card is another using the Memory Box die, I really, really love this die and think it will be featuring on quite a few Christmas cards this year.  I've added some sparkly snowflakes, which I've cut out using a Martha Stewart punch and added sparkly embossing powder, which you can't really see in the photo, and the sentiment is cut out on my Cricut (with two teeny embossed snowflakes - a bit fiddly but I felt worth it and I liked the end result).  The cardstock is SU Night of Navy

My second card was a small thank you note, which I think are worth stocking up on in at this time of the year (in the hope of lots of pressies to come!!).  This one's all SU and was quite quick to do as I had the base already stamped and the embossed panel done too.  I have lots of half-done or prepped cards from when I used to run SU classes just waiting to be finished off or added to, so all I had to do was cut out the butterflies on the Big Shot, stamp & punch out the sentiment & flowers and add the ribbon.

The colours used are Sahara Sand, Marina Mist cardstock with Soft Suede ink on the card, and the butterflies are Tangerine Tango, Melon Mambo & Daffodil Delight.

I'm going to enter this card into the Flutter by Wednesday Challenge which this week is Thank You cards with butterflies or fairies on

A Quick Christmas Card

So it's a start, first Christmas Card made, just a few more to go then!

I bought the gorgeous die used to make the frosty bit at the top from Memory Box and was very keen to give a try out so sort of threw this card together very quickly, but then quick cards at Christmas is always a good idea I think!  Stamped out the bauble from & sentiment using SU stamps with a bit of glittery embossing powder, a couple of embossed lines and done.

Forgive the slightly wonky photo, need a better editor on my phone it would seem!

I'm going to enter my card in the following challenges:

Let's Craft & Create - "Getting Ready for Christmas"
Addicted to CAS for their first challenge - "Snow".
Addicted To Stamps - "Red & White" Challenge

There's a new blog in town

So here I am, back in the land of Blog, but with a new one.  My poor old blog had been very neglected, I've just opened up a Shop on Etsy and so it seemed like a good time to get back into blogging again.

I've had such a busy year as I started working again (now that was a shock to the system) and my crafting got lost along the way.  I gave up Stampin' Up! and my classes earlier in the year and hadn't done much of anything, and then along came my daughter's 18th birthday in September and for the first time in ages I was bursting with ideas and just wanted to create some lovely things for her, it was just so nice to be back in my craft room.

My main focus at the moment is polymer clay, I'm back into that in and that was the reason for setting up an Etsy shop - I'd been making fun, food earrings for my daughter, which led to requests from her friends and I thought it would be interesting to see if I could sell any online.  So whilst I'll always be cardmaking & papercrafting, for the time being (apart from the huge pile of Christmas Cards I need to make) I'll be concentrating on my polymer clay & making more foodie-style charms & earrings and see how that goes.

Here are the polymer clay items I've got in my Etsy shop