Merry Christmas

Hi, I'd like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. 

Thank you so much for your support, encouragement, and friendship during my first year of

blogging. I have learnt so much from so many talented and generous people, about design, new techniques, and about compassion and caring for life's joys and sadness. 

Thank you :) 

I hope 2014 finds us all safe and happy.

A friend wanted a special Christmas card to give to his wife. I hope she likes sparkle and bling!

I used a new die set, Spellbinders min-n-match ornaments with glitter paper. The sentiment and chains are stickers.

I'm linking up to a few challenges.

Scrapbook Boutique has the theme of A Traditional Christmas with this gorgeous picture for inspiration.

At Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge the theme is Bling it On.

I used snippets of glitter paper for the tree and the snowflake so I'm also visiting the playground at Pixie's Crafty Workshop. The playground is one of the first challenges I ever entered. Di and the playmates are so welcoming and full of fun.

There is lots of inspiration for all of these challenges, so take a break from the busyness of christmas preparation and join in if you can.

Thanks for visiting :)

Sparkly Baubles

Hi, I'm finally getting close to the end of the christmas cards I need to make!

I've used these Memory Box dies a lot in the last couple of years, I just change the colours and the layout. 

The bauble base was coloured using distress inks, then sprayed with perfect Pearls. Every bauble looks a bit different as the colours dilute with the mist.

I'm entering the Anything Goes challenge at Addicted to Stamps & More, it's their last one for the year and there's still a few days left to join in.

I cut my silver tops and bows using snippets of silver paper. It became a challenge in itself to see how many I could get out of a scrap! So I'm visiting the playground over at Pixie's Crafty Workshop, there's always lots of fun (and mischief) happening there!

At Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge the theme is bling it on! I've used sparkly spray and gems on my baubles.

Materials used: Memory Box snowflake & classic ornament and crisp bow dies; distress inks; Perfect Pearls mist; Stately embossing folder for the card border; watercolor and silver paper; sentiment sticker and bling from stash.

Thanks for visiting :)

Thank you Flourish

Hi, I've used a lot of silver ink and powder lately, so when I was out meandering around pinterest recently and saw this card by Kez at KB Papercraft blog I was struck by the beautiful blues and gold embossing. Thanks again for the inspiration Kez.

I inked up Darkroom Door's flourish background stamp with gold Versa color and used gold detail embossing powder. The powder seemed to take ages to melt and I thought I was going to scorch the card!

I cut a panel and coloured with a few blue distress inks.

The butterfly stamp is also Darkroom Door (thanks for the birthday pressie Mo!)

I stamped one on vellum but some of the embossing on the body started to crack. So I stamped another on white card distressed with tumbled glass and popped it under the vellum one.

I'm going to link up to a few challenges:

At Less is More the challenge is to use a metallic element and one other colour. I've used gold embossing

 and snippets of gold paper.

At the Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge, the theme is to create with a flourish.

At Freshly Made Sketches there's still some time to join in with this sketch.

At Flutterby Wednesdays the theme is to use any winged creature on your project.

I'm also going to enter the clean and simple themed challenge over at Addicted to Stamps & More.

Materials used: Hammer card base: Darkroom Door stamps; gold ink and embossing powder; Distress inks; vellum; gold paper; Memory Box Butterfly Delights die; sentiment sticker and bling from stash.

Thanks for visiting :)

Star Ornaments

Hi, when my boys were young I made a heap of these stars with them to decorate our christmas tree. They did the colouring with the kindy glitz. Back then I used a lot of chipboard from the backs of notepads and any dark card scraps I could get hold of. We needed to make quite a lot!

 I thought I'd make some new ones and enter the challenge at Crafting with Dragonflies. The theme is to create a christmas ornament for the tree or wall.

I'm also linking up to Holly Jolly Christmas challenge where there's a challenge and a blog hop. The theme is anything goes christmas card or project. 

For each ornament I stamped four stars in silver Versacolor and used super fine silver embossing powder. I used  kindy glitz to colour them then taped some silver cord between the inside 2 stars. Finally, glued the outside 2 stars on. They look great on the tree with the christmas lights making them sparkle.

I popped a couple of brads into this sheet of black card to hang the ornaments on. If I was organized and had my tree up I could've photographed them there! It's on the list  for this weekend.

Materials used: PSX stamp, the date on it says 1992!! silver ink and ep; kindy glitz; glue and silver cord from stash.

Thanks for visiting :)

Metallic Christmas Trees

Hi, I found another stash of christmas tree brads that I've had for ages.

The challenge at Less is More is to use a metallic element plus one other colour.  The brads are my metallic element and the sentiment sticker adds a pop of red.

At CASual Fridays the theme is out on a limb, to feature a tree or trees in your project.

Materials used: Metal brads; MFT sentiment die; Swiss dots embossing folder; ribbon and sentiment sticker from stash.

Thanks for visiting :)

Christmas tree brads

Hi, I was inspired to make another card for the ribbon challenge at CASology.

I've had these brads for ages and never used them. Using the swiss dots embossing folder and a paper piercer made lining up the holes for positioning really quick and easy.

The label was cut from a snippet of white using a small Spellbinders rectangle and trimming it to suit. So, I'm popping into the playground again at Pixie's Crafty Workshop.
I'll add another entry to Addicted to Stamps & More where the theme is Clean & Simple.

Here's another version with a dotty ribbon!

Thanks for visiting :)

Blingy Christmas Trees

Hi, it's so busy everywhere at the moment. There's only 2 more weeks of school left and such a lot to do! I'm looking forward to some quiet time at the weekend to escape into my craft room.

The stamp is an Outlines brand. It has a border of holly around it but I decided just to fussy cut the trees out, and place them on a plain square. The ribbon is really sparkly in real life.

I'm going to link up to the challenges at CASology, where the theme is ribbons, and Addicted to Stamps & More where the theme is Clean & Simple.

The green squares are diecut from a scrap of green card stock, so I'm also visiting the playground at Pixie's Crafty Workshop.

Edited to add: I'm also going to link up to Less is More where the theme is Sparkle, thanks for the suggestion Sue :)

Materials used: Outlines christmas tree stamp: silver ink & embossing powder; Spellbinders square die; ribbon, bling and sentiment sticker from stash.

Thanks for visiting :)

Christmas sparkle

Hi, I stamped this image while I was at my sisters recently, it may be a Lucys brand stamp. I've coloured it with my Sakura sparkle pens and mounted the images on pearl cardstock.

My apologies if this photo is a little blurry, my internet problems have been joined by camera problems! The bottom of the battery compartment keeps popping open! I'll have to learn how to use hubby's camera.

I'm going to link up to the challenges at:  Less is More where the theme is Sparkle,

 Inkspirational where the theme is Anything Goes,  Addicted to Stamps & More,where the theme is Holidays and Simon Says Stamp & Show Wednesday Challenge where is's also anything goes.

Thanks for visiting.