Christmas Greetings .....

I've had no time for card making over the last couple of weeks.  I blame it on Christmas and the need to get everything sorted and wrapped.  It's all done now which is probably as well as the shops are now closed anything I've forgotten we'll just have to manage without!!

Thanks for all the kind comments that you have left on my blog this year and for joining me.  I would like to wish you all:

A very Merry Christmas

and a 

Happy New Year!

Diamond Anniversary ...

I've had a very, very hectic weekend - no time for card making.  I was busy on Saturday selling my crafts at a school Christmas Fair which was really successful.  It doesn't mean that I can give up my day job but it does mean that I can keep crafting!!!  Sunday I had a great day out in London with my daughter - great fun but exhausting.

This week we will be celebrating my parents Diamond Wedding Anniversary (that's 60 years of marriage!) a real achievement for all!  The whole family will be gathering for dinner on Saturday evening and hopefully it will be fun for all!

Every celebration requires a card and this is no exception.  It's a card that I've been thinking about for quite sometime - I knew I wanted to incorporate a photograph but I wasn't sure how.  I also wanted to keep it clean and simple in design....... this is the finished card.

Cake cutting in December 1953

My mum's bouquet was deep red roses hence my choice of accent colour.

I'm hoping that the card fits this weeks challenge at "Less is More" for Metallic (the gold sentiment) and one colour (the red accent).  I'm not sure if it qualifies because of the black - apologies if it doesn't!

Enjoy!

Cushion love ...

Tonight has been all about textiles!  I have a stall at a craft fair this Saturday and I needed some more stock.  

Here's what I've made tonight:

The pictures are not brilliant as the colours have come out very dark - they are a lot brighter in real life.  I hope they prove popular!

I've also knitted 20 small snowmen, stitched 15 Father Christmas and 15 reindeer - not just tonight though!!

Enjoy!

A little bit of sparkle ....

It's been another busy week - not much time for card making!

Great week on my blog lots for visitors, some wonderful comments on my cards and some new followers.  Thank you, thank you and thank you.  All your wonderful comments inspire me to continue to craft!

This is my entry into this week's challenge at "Less is More" where the theme is SPARKLE.  I'm not too good with things that sparkle so I heat embossed some card with silver embossing powder from which I then die cut 3 snowflakes, used some sparkling ribbon down the side and a silver sentiment sticker.  Having embossed the front of the card with my snowflake embossing folder I then put the whole card together.

Here it is:

It's difficult to show sparkle in a photograph but hopefully you get the idea!!

The photographs are taken with my mobile phone as my camera is currently on a weekend break in Belgium with my daughter!!

Enjoy!

Parcel Post ......

I had an idea just before going to sleep last night but it was too late to do anything about however much to my surprise I remembered when I woke up this morning!  I was convinced that I had a sentiment stamp that was laid out like a name and address on a parcel or envelope.  To my delight I do have such a stamp so I was able to try out my idea - now it is down to you all to decide whether the idea was worth it.   I'm not going to try to explain where I was coming from but will let you see:

This really is a card and not a parcel!

I'm quite happy with the card - it does look exactly as I thought it would!

As the stamp features a robin I think I will enter it into the "Less is More" challenge to feature a bird on a Christmas card.  Hopefully the design is clean and simple to fit the rest of the criteria.

Thanks again to all that visit and leave a comment - I really appreciate all the feedback.

Enjoy!

Postage stamp card ....

I've had a hectic 10 days with no time to make cards and no time to post on my blog.  I've had stalls at two craft fairs - one last weekend with my Mum in Welton (just north of Lincoln) and one today in Hagbourne (just south of Didcot) - in between I've been trying to make sure that I have enough stock.  I've a couple more coming up early in December so the sewing machine and knitting needles are going to be busy!

Tonight I had an idea for a card that I wanted to try that will also fit the criteria for this week's challenge at "Less is More"  - the challenge is to create a Christmas card that features a bird.  It is possibly the most simple card that I have made.  The design is simple and the card is tiny (approximately 10cm square about 4").

First class stamp and not a lot more!!

My brother is an avid stamp collector and always saves the Christmas ones for me - they are a pain to get off the envelopes but I think they are so pretty it is worth the effort. 

I made a second one - same design different postage stamp!

If you are very lucky the postmark can be useful!

Enjoy

My Dad's birthday ....

It's my Dad's 85th Birthday this week so I just had to make a card!  I had a bit of crafter's block as I didn't really know where to start.  However I began with the numbers and decided to zentangle them - you'd think it couldn't be that difficult but after five or six goes I actually ended up with an 8 and a 5 that I was quite happy with.  But the card was going to be a little boring with just a number on it!!  So here's what I did:

The papers are from Stampin Up, the sentiment stamp is from Clearly Besotted and the ribbon is from who knows where.

I am entering this in the Seize the Birthday Challenge and the anything goes challenge at Make it Monday.

Enjoy.