Paper pieced Christmas

I find paper cutting relaxing (!) and made some paper pieced Christmas cards using this robin stamp. The papers were a 6 x 6 Memory Box pad 'Yuletide' which I stamped with Archival and cut out, then mixed them up and put the Robin back together.  This stamp is perfect for cutting as the lines are clear and easy to cut, a die cut snowflake, vellum & peel off greeting and a few card candy finishes it off.

Clean and simple and easy to do, thanks for looking.

Anne :)

Crackle Paste cards

This is a large Dreamweaver stencil first pasted in matt black paste and when dry pasted with Crackle Paste.    
Once dry it is coloured with Brilliance inks through the stencil using a brushes.  It is very sheeny and is mounted onto miri card.  The background is Brilliance ink pads direct to paper, dried and put through the Spellbinders Garden Lattice folder.  This also has Treasure Silver wax gilt over the top.  The sentiment is from Art Stamps by Paula Pascual and is on a nestie circle. The middle die is part of a set which I cannot find the name of anywhere (sorry) this is coloured with Brilliance to match the background.  I have used the Spellbinders Stately Circle again on this one too.

The background for this one is the same folder as before and just has a few colours of Brilliance ink pad swiped over the top.  The peacock is yet another Dreamweaver stencil (no, surprisingly I don't have all of them!) done in the same way as the first card along with the sentiment.

This stencil is by Imagination Crafts and is plastic.  I have used the same technique for this one as in the 2 previous cards.  The die cut is a Sizzix cut to fit and the sentiment is Hero Arts which I have done in gold flakes.

Thanks for looking and any comments gratefully appreciated.

Anne :)

I am entering the Imagination Crafts stencilled card into their challenge. http://imagination-craftschallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/imagination-crafts-challenge-1-anything.html

Shabby Chic Altered Jam Jar

I made this recently for a swap on Chic Swaps made from the Heart on Facebook.  I actually used a peanut butter jar as I liked the shape.

 This is not a great pic but I can't retake this shot as I have already sent the jar to the recipient.  Some of the other views are clearer and also there is a video here on my youTube channel.   I started by covering the glass jar with torn pieces of white mulberry paper using matt medium, and then adding torn pieces of a white handmade very fine Japanese paper which has gold and silver flecks again using matt medium.  When this was dry I applied the white rose fabric heart which  is the background for the main image and flowers etc.

I used a spellbinders matt and also cut out a matt using some gold fabric thread paper which was stuck onto paper so it could go through the grand caliber.  These are the next layer onto which the fairy/angel girl image is matted.  She is an image from Astrid's Artistic Efforts here.  I have used 2 pieces and some glue gel to give a bit of definition and she is covered with Glossy Accents. The believe is from a book of Tim Holtz word stickers.   The roses were next and they have been sprayed with Perfect Pearls mist and some have distress ink on them.

The leaves are plastic but look like frosted glass luckily.

The words around the jar are stamped in black archival onto Paper Artsy Crackly tissue paper and glued on using matt medium, and the gold birds are stamped and embossed in Gold EP onto the tissue paper and applied in the same way.  If you tear the paper you can hardly see the join.  The wings are stamped onto tissue as well and another card layer of wings is on top.  They are embossed in cosmic shimmer EP.  The gold lock and key were silver so I used a gold rub on cream to change them slightly.

There is a gold metal birdcage with flowers on the side and a pair of charms I made hanging on the pink and white ribbon.  I added 2 stickpins I made to match.

The lid was gessoed and painted pink using Paper Artsy Fresco Finish acrylic paint and a flower shape cut out from a lacy tablecloth is on top of that.  The braid was stuck on using my glue gun to keep it all secure.

More roses are sitting on the centre and a handmade lacy butterfly made using Fiona Jennings technique here  on youTube. 

Underneath the lid I stuck 2 pretty spellbinder circles and butterfly with a tiny bling gem in the middle.

It is fun to make something other than a card!  I hope you like it and any comments always very appreciated.

Anne :)

this is link to the you tube video of this project

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 :)

Alice for Anis

This is the Alice in Wonderland birthday card I made recently for my daughter Anis, who loves Alice.  It's more of a mini book as it has some pages.  I used 3 scalloped 6 by 6 card blanks and stuck them together after I had finished all the pages. 

As you can see I did a lot of die cutting in silver miri and white card to make the mounts.  Good old distress ink, my favourite,  was used to graduate the colour.  The backgrounds were done using the resist technique and distress inks over the top..  All the stamps were from the Alice set by Clear Art Stamps.

The black stamping is Archival black and embossed in clear ink, you have to be quick to do this but it does give a really deep black and is my favourite.

As you can see I used different shapes of die cuts for the mounts for each two pages.  I used the out of the box technique to die cut the Mad March Hare as his ear was sticking out.

I really enjoyed making these and would have made more pages but as usual I was in a rush as we were due to go on holiday in a few days.  I hope you like it and thanks for looking.  All comments wonderfully appreciated  :)