Santa Claus

Hello

Last week I received my Debbi Moore Santa Claus cds and have to say the Inspirational cd is fantastic in every way

I love the new layout

The artwork is amazing

And the colour schemes make vintage card making easy!

After all not all Santa’s are dressed in red, so it was nice to see blue, green, white and more colour ways.

I printed off just one of the design sheets, 4 different backing sheets and chose one sheet of gold mirri card

I had no idea as to what I would be doing with them until I sat and cut out all the images from the design sheet – then the ideas came flooding in

I did this as a class project and offered them 2 a4 sheets of white card, an 8x8 scalloped card and a 4x4 card as well as all the same sheets I had printed out

I ended up using all but 2 of the images; one was a sentiment and the other a small round design.

The 8x8 card has a background made up of the odd pieces of left over backing paper and oddments of gold card

I did use a few small dies to cut mats for a couple of images

And finished off with gems and glitter

So what do you think to my 4 cards from one design sheet?

Isn’t the image adorable to start with?

Hope you like my efforts

Catch up again soon

x

Anniversary Bunnies

Hello

I thought I should take a few minutes to share a card that I made as an order a while ago

I was simply asked for a cute wedding anniversary card and instantly thought of this image

I used the lovely Holly Pond Hill by Joanna Sheen for the images...normally I do decoupage for everything so not really inside that comfort zone just using a topper but I think it worked ok this time.

I started with an 8x8 card blank, I covered it with a sheet of backing paper that matched the topper it was a lovely peach colour and had the same topper printed as a thumbnail in the bottom right hand corner.

I matted the main image onto matt silver mirri card, then on to a pale blue card that was left wider to the right hand side so I could use my Martha Stewart multi heart border punch, then added a length of sparkly blue with silver edge ribbon between the punched edge and the topper.

This panel was then matted onto a piece of dark blue card which worked really well behind the heart border.

I used a sheet of white pearlescent card and embossed it with an embossing folder from Crafters Companion

I cut the embossed card into a square to fit at an angle on the card front, punched each corner with the heart punch that matched the border I had used and stuck this at an angle which left the design at the bottom right corner clear...

The mat and layered topper was then stuck in place – I decided to stick it straight as this worked well with the backing and embossing.

To finish I added the white hearts that were left from the punched corners to the blue sparkle ribbon and printed out a personalised Happy Anniversary greeting that I matted and layered then placed in the top left of the card!

As I had a little paper left and had printed the bookmark together with a personal message on the back, as in their names and wedding anniversary date, I made up the bookmark and also made a small folder for it to slot into, decorated it with the hearts and ribbons in the corner of the bookmark.

An insert was added to finish – and the card was well received!

Thank you for popping in

Malham Craft Retreat 2013

Hello

As a lot of you know I organise a craft retreat every year – we go to Malham and it has to be the highlight of the year for everyone who goes

In fact I just know that once someone goes for the 1^st time they will be talking about saving a place for them for the following year

So I thought I would add some of the photos that I took and some that Caz took for you all to see what a great time we had!!!

x

Shopaholic!!!

Hello

I really feel I must apologise as its been quite a while since I last posted

I don’t want to go into any details but I haven’t been in a good place for around a month or so n0w but hopefully I am now back on the up...with a lot of help from my friends – you know who you are – thank you!

You may well recognise this as I did one some time ago as an Easter challenge swap, I loved it so much I asked for another egg blank and re-created the egg to send to a friend but I just couldn’t bear to part with it!

So I used an mdf egg used the sheet as a backing to cover the front. I printed the dress decoupage sheet as well as the hat & shoe decoupage sheets from Katy Sue/House Of Zandra cd Fabulous Fashion –the sheets were on cd1 and took them into psp where I managed to add text then printed them out

It took a little time positioning the design so it fit snugly on the egg shape but once it looked ok I stuck it in place using Cosmic Shimmer PVA glue.

The decoupage was cut out and added to the design using Pinflare gel so I could shape the pieces and give the dress a true shape.

On the reverse I printed a sheet of lightly patterned backing paper from Kanban Seasons cd rom that had also been personalised in psp. Once printed I stuck it to the egg and then cut out the bag and hat, positioned them where I was happy with them then built the decoupage up again shaping as I went.

As I make lots of the handbag charms I had one in shades of orange in my box so simply added shopping themed charms to it and added to the hanging hole of the egg to finish!

The last thing to do was use a bright orange craft paint and wide brush to colour the edges of the egg -  I wasn’t so careful doing this as I thought the odd slip of the brush gave it more character – do you agree?

Have to admit this is one of the best altered items I have made – I think it’s all down to the colours as well as the fab dress, shoes and bag!!!

Hope to be here again tomorrow