Anything but a card ...

Well, that's Christmas done and dusted for another year!  New Year is looming - resolutions to be made and the past year to reflect on!

My post this evening is a little different as it does not involve a card although I have used many of the techniques I use when card making.  This is the Christmas present I made for my crafty mum, she chose the pen holder at a crafting event at Doncaster Dome and suggested I buy it and decorate it for her Christmas present.

I painted the whole thing with Chalk paint from PaperArtsy and used a crackle glaze between the base layer (Dolly Mix pink) and the top layer (Chalk).  I stamped the JoFY flowers on to tissue paper and coloured them with Inktense pencils I then adhered them using Matte Multi Medium - this was a technique that I had never used before.  I used beeswax to seal the paint and to protect the surface.  I'm pleased with how it turned out and my mum was delighted with it - in the same way that all mum's are delighted with gifts their children make!

I'm going to enter the December challenge on the PaperArtsy blog.  Gabby Price showcased the technique of stamping and painting on tissue paper on the PaperArtsy blog.

I used the following:

Mdf pen holder - by MDFMan
PaperArtsy Paints -Dolly Mix, Chalk and Crackle Glaze
JoFY Stamps
Derwent Inktense Pencils
Ranger Multi Medium Matte

Enjoy!

Snow family ...

Happy Christmas!  Shopping is all done, presents are wrapped, cake is iced, menus planned all with a little time left for crafting!!

I made this card for the challenge at "Less is More" where the theme for the week is Family - I wanted to come up with something more imaginative than this but sometimes the ideas are just too well hidden to find!  So here is my take on Family:

This card means that I have achieved one of my 2014 Resolutions to enter weekly "Less is More" challenge every week!!

Simple stamping water coloured using distress inks and Inktense pencils.  Hopefully I will have time next week for more crafting before the New Year arrives.  In the meantime I wish you all a very Happy Christmas!

Enjoy!

Snow ...

Eleven sleeps until Christmas, are you all sorted and ready for the off?  I just have cards to write and post, presents to buy and wrap, food to plan and order, tree to buy and decorate ... and the list goes on! I'm sure it will all be alright on the day!  As ever with so much to do I've taken time out to do some crafting!!

This card continues my obsession with non-traditional Christmas colours - for all my blog followers it will not be a surprise to see me using shades of blue and turquoise for another card.  Taking the theme of Snow from this week's challenge at "Less is More" and remembering to make it a One Layer Card, this is it:

I first stamped the snowflakes and sentiment, I then embossed a snowflake in the centre using a snowflake die and finally used some clear Wink of Stella to add a little sparkle to the centre snowflake.

Enjoy!

Snowflake Joy ...

It's a quick post to share a card I made this afternoon - well I put it together today but it is made with pieces of leftover inked and distressed card stock. This week's challenge at "Less is More" is a colour challenge and how lucky am I? it just happens to be my go to colours for this year's Christmas cards - turquoises, ice blue, teal - see below for the details.

Here is the card, simple in design with just a little colour.

It is not the most exciting or imaginative card that I've ever created but ideas are in short supply at the moment.  I've been busy making stock for a couple of craft fairs as well working on some Christmas presents and my brain can nly concentrate on a limited number of things at once!

This is the Design Seeds picture showing the colours for the challenge:


As well as the "Less is More" challenge I am going to enter this month's challenge over at Virginia's View Challenge where the theme is "Distressed".

I used the following:

Distress Inks - tumbled glass, peacock feathers, evergreen bough
Impressions Holographic embossing powder
Sizzix snowflake die

Enjoy!

Stars to celebrate too ...

A quick post with a second card.  This time layers, textures, inks as well as die cuts! Still clean and simple with lots of white space but not one layer - the idea and layout is the same as the earlier card I posted here.

This time I started with a piece of water colour card which I blended with distress inks and then spritzed with water.  Once dry I stamped over the top, with the same inks, using the Gorgeous Grunge set to create some texture.  I then used a star mask and some clear texture paste to add some shine but like clear embossing it is difficult to see in photographs. I used the stars mask and some texture paste coloured with distress inks to add a layer of stars in the background.

This is the card:

Too late to photograph in the sunshine!

I should have taken this photograph before die cutting the stars!
You can see the detail created by the stamps.

I'm entering this in the "Less is More" challenge.

I used:

Golden Gel Light Molding Paste
Cosmic Shimmer Texture Paste, Clear
Distress Inks - Peacock Feathers, Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean
Stampin Up - Not Quite Navy INk
Stampin Up - Gorgeous Grunge Stamp Set,  Stars decorative mask
Clearly Besotted - Many Messages Stamp Set
Sizzix Framelits - Star dies

Enjoy!

Stars to Celebrate ...

Good afternoon, the sun's shining, the leaves are falling and it's not raining!!   A beautiful Autumn day in the UK (at least in the South of England!)

After completing the weekly ironing I've been crafting!  

My first post is all about "Less is More" they are celebrating their 200th challenge - congratulations to Chrissie and the design team.  This is one of the first challenges that I entered and this year I have tried to enter each week (so far, so good!).  To celebrate the them is "Celebration".  I decided to design a card as a tribute to a regular criteria on the blog - the One Layer Card.  I've grown to love the challenge of creating one layer cards - the results are not always great but they always involve a lot of thinking!

This is it:

The complete star has clear Wink of Stella for sparkle -
it doesn't show in the photograph

I used:

Distress Inks - tumbled glass, peacock feathers, salty ocean.

Stampin Up - Not Quite Navy ink

Stampin Up - Gorgeous grunge stamp set.

Clearly Besotted - Many Messages stamp set

The layout is based on the sketch challenge at STAMPlorations

I'm also going to enter the challenge at Addicted to CAS where the code word is Dots.

Enjoy!

Jingle all the way ...

This is the theme for this week's challenge at "Less is More" and it includes anything Christmassy!  Seems like another opportunity to add to the Christmas card stash.

I had some card already coloured with distress inks and embossed using a stencil and clear embossing paste, I used this to die cut a couple of baubles, I also die cut extra baubles in Bermuda Bay card and by layering these up I was able to give some body to the decorations.  I used the same technique with the 'Happy' sentiment and stamped and embossed 'Christmas'.

I'm going to enter the following challenges:

"Less is More" - Anything Christmassy

Inkspirational  


TIME OUT challenges - Embossing with the optional twist of sparkle

Enjoy!