Graphic45 Christmas cards

I am disciplining myself to use my stash as much as possible rather than keep buying stuff, although I admit it 's hard to resist sometimes.  I had one sheet of this paper and made about eight cards with it, along with stuff from my stash.

The flowers were made using Heartfelt Creations poinsettia stamps and dies, stamped in white ep and coloured with distress inks.  The labels are die cut with Spellbinders and stamped with Kaisercraft Mistletoe stamp set and embossed to match. Matching ribbon and  Card Candy from Craftwork Cards finishes them nicely.

I was pleased to get so many cards out of the one sheet of 12 x 12.  

Thanks for looking, and any comments gratefully received.

Anne :)

Warmest Christmas Wishes

I love making Christmas cards after I don't actually need any more because then I can just enjoy the process with no pressure.  This card uses pretty Christmas papers I bought last year from Create and Craft and they were an amazing bargain price.  They are gorgeous colours and the set includes printed vellum and die cuts, plus they are still available in their sale.
I used a Craftwork Cards 6 x 6 blank and distressed the edges of the papers using my distressing tool from Making Memories, but you can just use scissors.  I added a piece of translucent vellum from my stash and sewed it on with my sewing machine using a zig zag stitch .  I also sewed the stripy strip using a straight stitch.

The image is a Pink Petticoat digi from last year coloured with pencils.  I used distress ink around the edge whilst it was still in the spellbinders die.  This is mounted onto a nestie scalloped circle in one of the background papers.  The snowflake is a Marianne die and the buttons were clear ones that I coloured to match using copics.  The ribbon is from a local haberdashers and is tied along with the buttons with crochet cotton.  I added some fluffy stuff on the main image to finish it off.

Thanks for coming by and any comments very welcome and appreciated :).

Stampendous Christmas postcard cards

This is my favourite stamp this Christmas and have used it loads in different ways.  One way is these cards below using distress ink to stamp the image and  frantage embossing around the edges (great fun!).  Dabbing  alcohol ink on shiny card backgrounds (even more fun!).  I used another new favourite Spellbinders die set to do the labels which I absolutely love.
I didn't have any red poinsettias so I used alcohol ink over an Imagination Crafts stencil/mask and cut them out, and used card candy as centres. I also used card candy on the labels.  Some of the largest snowflakes were die cuts from my stash, originally from Craftwork Cards a few years ago which are  no longer available unfortunately, the rest I cut from Marianne snowflake dies.
The sentiments are Hero Arts ancient wooden stamp set that I unmounted and a clear stamp set that I have since lost the packaging for and can't now say which ones they are.  I wish they would all put their names on the backing sheets.
 I am trying to get all my Christmas cards blogged before Christmas but as I am still having a great time making more, I'll probably end up posting in January lol!

Thanks for looking and I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.  Any comments very appreciated :)

Christmas cards with Margaret Sherry digis.

Here are some cards I made recently using Margaret Sherry digi images.  I mounted the images onto mats or die cuts and used the waste from the die cuts as a frame for some too.  The backgrounds are from the same set and also some Pink Petticoat digis.  The sentiments are also from the same set and I used shaped Craftwork Cards card blanks. I used Glitter Magic and ribbon from my stash.   It certainly saves time using digis when you have a lots of cards to make.  My first love is stamping but I did have fun glittering and glazing these fab images.  On the snowballs I used fluffy stuff which puffs up when heated to resemble snow, it's great fun.

I hope you're still here!  Thanks for looking and any comments very welcome :)

Pink and Purple Tortoises!

This card uses a tortoise stamp from a set I bought a while ago and have hardly used, so thought I should have a play.  The tortoises are coloured using my copics and cut with a spellbinders oval die.  The pink piece behind is a piece of handmade (by me!) paper made a very long time ago and has been sitting in my stash waiting for the day.  These pieces are mounted over a lovely Cheery Lynn fancy oval which is one of my favourite dies.

The background pieces are a gorgeous pink flower paper that I have been saving (lol) for ages as I love it, but today's the day it's got the chop!  The other piece is a pink petticoat polka dot digi paper.  Both of these mounted onto white card and stitched on the sewing machine.  The ribbon is  lovely glittery striped sheer pink gorgeousness.

This lot mounted onto a folded A4 purple pearlescent card.  Not forgetting (almost!) the sentiment from Craftwork Cards which is a white pearlescent flower shape which I have edged with one of the pink copics I used on the tortoises.

It was such fun to make this card, pink and purple tortoises, why not?!  I hope you like it :)

(Sorry about the picture quality I am having a problem with my camera and have used my phone again )

K&Co more Susan Winget

 I got totally absorbed making this bunch of cards.  I love these papers from K&Co and also used the accessories/die cuts etc to complete the set.

This first one also has a string of pearls and doily coloured with  glimmer mist & cosmic shimmer spray. My favourite grosgrain ribbon, stickles and nesties are in there too.  The glare and the glitter make it hard to see inside the dome.

After watching the videos about using intricate dies on the Cheery Lynn website I finally got the hang of it. I used glimmer mist and cosmic shimmer spray to get the right shade of purple to match the paper.  The sentiment is from Craftwork Cards cut out with a nestie.

 The papers are so pretty just by themselves, of course that doesn't stop me from adding more stuff!

I love the birdies!  The little ones I cut out of the packaging - can't waste them, too cute!  Some card candy, stickles, a nestie and a sentiment stamp finish this one.

I cut out the flower and butterfly from the paper to give more dimension.  The picket fence die is one of my favourites.  Stickles around the edge of the paper a la Julie Hickey.

My first love is stamping but playing with these gorgeous papers is such fun.  Thanks for looking.  I really appreciate any comments :)

Marvelous Monochrome

It's been soooooo long since I blogged, I am a bad blogger :(  I've been spending ages unmounting my wood mounted rubber stamps, and I have a ton of them.  So of course, I've been doing reorganising and that takes ages.  I managed to make a few simple cards last week and thought I should post em.

I've promised myself that I will use some older stamps, and some never used (!!!).  So this first one is one of my oldest from  psx ,'May all your dreams come true'  (hope they do ).  It is just white embossed on   DCWV La Creme stack.  I have put Rock Candy Distress Stickles on the flowers but you cant see in the pic.

Corners are cut, black satin ribbon tied, and then mounted onto some silver embossed card that I've had for at least 5 years!  So many papers and cards are too nice to use!!  The time came for the chop.  Newsprint card candy from Craftwork Cards in the corners and whole thing mounted onto white A5 size card.

Next one is a virgin stamp I must have had for an aeon, it's by Wordsworth and is a fab sentiment and so true. If you cant see it, it says, 'What lies before us and what lies behind us are tiny compared to what lies within us'  ooo very deep!    This is stamped and black embossed onto more of the stack from above.  It has velvet on the pattern and is very touchy feely.  All the layers are from the same stack and just edged with Black Soot Distress ink.  The swirl is from my stash of K&Co lovely stuff..  Its tied with a cream grosgrain ribbon and mounted onto a lovely dark cream card base.

I am going to get a decent camera soon!  Sorry about poor quality pics.  Still, thanks for looking and I hope you like them.

Blue Valentine

Unbelievably I almost finished this post and my finger slipped and I lost the whole thing!!!!!  so here goes again ...

I wanted to do a blue valentine rather than my usual red.    I actually love this card and only just finished it about half an hour ago (fortunately I wont see Alex until tonight so it's not too late!).  It is my first 8" x 8" card and I will definitely make more cards this size.

I must say the picture doesn't show up how shimmery it is as I have once again used cosmic shimmer and glimmer mist in huge amounts!  I will ask for a decent camera for my birthday this year as I am using my camera phone which is not great, obviously.

Here goes (again!!!!) ...

The main focal point heart on the front is a free svg cutting file from the internet done on my cricut expression (which I was so lucky to win a few years ago from Craftwork Cards).  The paper behind is actually the paper on my desk when I sprayed some flowers for another project.  It has so much cosmic shimmer and glimmer mist on it that it's stiff!  This and the white card mount are die cut using a spellbinders label die.  Onto this the flower is a Sizzix/Tim Holtz Tattered Florals which has again been saturated with cosmic shimmer and glimmer mists and assembled using a large turquoise brad.

The card underneath is stamped with an elusive images heart which is embossed in cosmic shimmer ep and colour tinted with faded jeans distress ink using a blending tool.  The back of this piece is also stamped with the same stamp but using faded jeans distress ink which is then blended with  a water brush.

The background piece of the bottom card is again paper generously sprayed with cosmic shimmer and glimmer mists with cling film put on top until dry. When peeled off it leaves this fantastic weird and wonderful look.  The same heart stamp was used again here onto the same paper but embossed with detail white ep, then mounted onto white card and cut out leaving a small border.  They have been mounted using foam pads.  The lacy heart strip of white cardstock is cut out using a spellbinder's border die (part of the set I got when I bought my Grand Calibur recently).    The pearlescent white scalloped oval is another free svg cutting file onto which I have stamped the I love you and embossed in cosmic shimmer ep.

I hope you like it and thanks for coming by, hope you have a great Valentine's Day :)

Thank You cards

My mum needed a load of Thank You cards after her 90th Birthday party.  I needed to do them real quick so I used my Craftwork Cards papers and cards.  They are all different, some more than others, but basically made from the same materials.  I used 2 Martha Stewart punches for the butterflies and 2 for the lacy edges, I love these as unlike a lot of other punches they will go through pretty thick card stock.  I used some Tim Holtz tissue tape on a few of them and a thank you stamp from PSX and one from All Night Media.