Oh Baubles !!!!!

 

 

Being of a stubborn and contrary disposition I do not like to be defeated by a rubber stamp but these baubles seem to defy me at every turn !  I got this stamp a few years ago after seeing someone demonstrating it at a show using black card and pearl ex paints, stunning cards!  when I got it home and played with I realised I did not want to make Christmas cards with black backgrounds and it seems whatever I do with this stamp it never really works for me. This time I stamped and embossed the baubles in gold,masked them off and stamped the Christmas text over them and then coloured them in with copics and lots of glitter and stickles.Background panel stamped with versamark and coloured with pan pastels.The twirly swag at the top is also embossed and copic coloured. I really don't understand why the baubles look pink on here as they are coloured with Ruby copic pen which is certainly not pink,. Embossed at the bottom with a sizzex border folder and the bits of holly are from a memory box die.  Anyhow after all that I'm entering in a few challenges:

 

Winter Wonderland - Oh Baubles

 

Christmas card challenges - double embossing

 

Pan Pastels - Red and Green 

 



 

 

 

 



Santa's sleigh

Been playing with the Memory box dies again, just love them and I want more !  On this card I've used winter village and frostyville border,the little stars are the bits out of the border stamp.Santa and sleigh are from Inkylicious and the moon and sky are coloured with pan pastels.  I thought I could enter this on a new challenge blog  - addicted to c.a.s , now this might not be c.a.s to some but it is for me ! I was going to matt and layer it but instead decided just to ink round the edges of the panel, I was itching to add something else but thought I would get it posted on here before I got carried away.
Just watched Simply Come Dancing, it gets better and better,  I don't want anyone to leave !

Addicted To CAS - Snow

CAS ual Fridays - Winter blues

Moving along with the times - seeing stars

Thomas Kinkade

While I love the Thomas Kinkade stamps, I find them really hard to work with, no problem stamping the image but then what to do with it?  I almost gave up on this one but finally decided on a bit of lacy stuff to lighten it up a bit, I do love the frostyville border but what a faff to glue it on ( I just realised it would probably go through my mini xyron !)  The stamp is Cornish Heritage Stonehearth Hutch and I'm entering it on their challenge

Cornish Heritage - Thomas Kinkade Stamps

Baubles

This is the die cut that broke my cuttlebug! Romantic rectangle (thats it's proper name,not what I called it at the time !)  Its obviously a faulty die as it wouldn't cut in my friends bug and it still won't cut in my new one , this is one of the few I managed to force through with extra shims until I bust the bug.  I really wanted to get a Bigshot but I just don't have anywhere to put one, I don't have a proper craftroom and everything has to be put away each night.  The ornament die is another nestabilities stamped with Justrite bauble stamps.The main stamp is Lily Of The Valley. Entering it on these challenges

The Pink Elephant -  Punches/dies

Penny Black and More - Any die will do

Crafty Cardmakers - more than one punch or die cut

memories

I thought I would try and get away from my usual pinks and lilacs that I always seem to go for in doing this kind of card but I'm not too sure I'm happy with the greens and browns. Whenever I pick up this stamp I think about my sisters, I think my younger sister bought me this stamp a long while ago, but this card is really about my older sister who got married and went to live in California when I was 19 years old, I never stopped missing her. In the early years we kept in touch by letter and she was so good at writing to all the family, later when the phone calls became a little less expensive we managed a few calls, then of course we got the internet and could write every day if we wanted to.She did visit home regularly until her husband became ill and the visits were harder to arrange and we did manage a few trips over there.  She is no longer with us and I still miss her every day. Although I covered most of it up one paper has postcards and postage stamps etc on it and the script one is to represent a letter. She was a happy, bubbly person and this is about my happy memories of her.

Try It On Tuesday - Memories

Live Life

I thought I was going to actually do two posts in one day, something I haven't done for ages but looking at the clock its going to be into Monday a.m by the time I get it done. This is just a collage type card,something I do enjoy doing although I usually have some stamping on them somewhere but not on this one. I don't know where the image came from, I am trying to be better at keeping a note of where they are from but don't always remember to do it, the papers are all Graphic 45 and the wording is a Kaisercraft stamp.

Sugarcreek Hollow - One For The  Boys

My Time To Craft - Vintage

Not a Christmas card !

Change from making Chrsitmas cards today. Its been a lovely day here so spent a couple of hours in the garden cutting back the herbaceous plants and cleaning up the soggy leaves from the lawn. Fashionable stamping challenge this time is Music so dug out this Cornish Heritage stamp and the wording from a Stampman set. The music piece is a Just Rite background stamp. The Background paper is done with a Stampin up jumbo wheel, versamark ink and pan pastels so I think that could count as a make your own background paper ? I have just got the music die and I think it will be very useful.

Fashionable Stamping - Music
Our Creative Corner - make your own background

Silly me ! I had not posted my card on to the challenges, not the first time I've forgotten to do it either,must be a senior moment thing.

Another Christmas card

I decided to count up the Christmas cards I have been making and stacking in a box and shock,horror found I have made more cards than I have people to send them to .  I was so determined I wasn't going to be a last minute Annie that I have become a bit obsessed with making them, trouble is I still want to keep making them and I have stuff I haven't used yet!   I didn't really need this stamp, I have been looking at it in our local craft shop and thinking it was rather nice, I had already bought the bird one in the same series and made paper pieced cards with it, after resisting for so long (about 2 weeks!) I saw a lovely card made with it on flowersparkles blog, the next time I went in the shop it fell into my basket. These Woodware stamps are amazing value, I think this one was £3.75 or near enough.The strip of Christmas trees is a paperchain strip, don't think I'll ever make paperchains with them but thought they were rather nice.
Crafts and Me Challenge - Reds
Crafty Bloggers - Christmas- anything goes

We Three Kings

I "had" to have this stamp set after Christmas last year as I had a beautiful card sent to me using it and it has layed unused since then so thought I had better give it an airing.  The background is pan pastels (love them for easy backgrounds) The star was a craft stamper freebie,cut out and embossed with razzle dazzle ep, as is the edges of the main piece, I had the EP everywhere,seemed to just fly off onto everything, in fact a friend who came today ended up with a glittery face after sitting at my table and I have supposedly cleaned up since I did the card! A few challenges to enter

Winter Wonderland - We three kings
Our Creative Challenge - Silhoutte
Joanna Sheen - Silhoutte
Sir Stampalot - Traditional Christmas

O Tannenbaum

Having one of those days where I don't seem to have done anything but I've been busy all day ! Well thats not quite tru as I spent ages watching Barbara Grey on Create and Craft,  I have never had much success with a brayer although I do like to mess about with one, I just get frustrated when I see how she makes it look so easy ! Just played about with these Justrite stamps, I'm sure there is so much more I could do with them, just need to play about more. The background paper was a free download.I was going to put this on Vintage Stamping but although I've seen a couple of blogs where people mention the challenge I can't find it when I go to the challenge site ? (Found it now!) Anyhow found a few other challenges
Holly Jolly Christmas - O Christmas tree
Ooh La La - Christmas
ABC Christmas challenge - V is for vibrant colours
Vintage Stamping - Red and Green

what to do ?

Oh dear I've had a dis arrrster darlings and broken my cuttlebug !  OH took it to bits this afternoon and I've actually smashed a metal piece in half, thats what you get with over shimming !! Its been an amazing piece of kit, my sister bought it for me in the very early days of cuttlebugs and its really had some hammer over the years. Now my real dilemma is :- do I buy another bug which was my first thought or should it be a Big shot ?  I've seen Big shots for sale cheaper or as cheap as the bug but I've never used a Big Shot, do they do everything a cuttlebug does ?  I almost went for a Grand Caliber but saw somewhere that you cannot use Sizzex dies with them, as I have quite a lot of them that rules the Caliber out, any helpful comments gratefully received !

French Femme

Taken a little break from Christmas cards again,  can't get my head round making anything else at the moment , its only the end of October and I'm well ahead of myself this year, the only problem with doing them early is when it gets closer to Christmas and I start seeing all the gorgeous cards other people have done I feel like starting all over again!. 

Used another piece of craftwork cards French paper, it was green so altered it a bit with pink and lilac pan pastels so it blended in a bit better, this time I did manage to leave some of the Eiffel  Tower showing. The lady .dog ,palm and wording are from an old non sequeteur set, stamped tower is Clarity stamp and of course the background text is Tim Holtz

Make My Monday - French theme -feminine or romantic

Sugar Creek Hollow - Text

The Pink Elephant Challenge- Vintage or shabby chic

something wicked

Almost Halloween again. Its not something I'm really into and I don't have much in the way of stamps but I thought this Off the Wall girl stamp looks a bit hallow'eeny with her top hat and bird.The witch stamp is from last year and the background is a  crafter's workshop stencil. Tonight the central heating boiler has decided to stop working so no heating and no hot water, typical,  just as they have forecast cold weather this week, tomorrow I will have to try to find someone to look at it, the man who used to do it has retired, I hate having to find someone new ! We are fortunate that we have family members who are joiners/builders/mechanics etc but no plumbers or electricians, wonder if we can talk any of the grandsons into taking up a trade ? mind you by the time they qualified it would probably be too late for us .........

Fashionable Stamping - halloween
Gingerloft challenge - halloween or fall
Opus Gluei - Leaf it up to you - leaves or halloween
Atcs and cards with attitudes - halloween
Fat pages with attitude- halloween

Fleur-de lys

A bit late in the week for Make my Monday challenge but I'm having a hard job putting my mind to anything but Christmas cards at the moment plus I'm struggling with this horrible cough that's keeping me awake all night so the old brain is feeling a bit fuzzy ! I had another stamp in mind for this challenge but someone pipped me to the post with it, anyhow I found this Diva languishing in a box of oldish stamps so gave her an airing, after I had almost finished the card I realised I had not got any Fleur-De-Lys which was what its all about, so stamped some down the side of the card on a bit of paper which unfortunately covered up the Eiffel tower, ever get the feeling some cards are really not meant to be ?  Oh well back to the Santas, reindeers and glitter !!

Do You Stack Up - Vintage
Make It Monday - anything goes

The Old and the new

Last night I thought I would try stamping this little wren who is another new stamp from Harrogate show, I was a tad disappointed with it as it looked so dull so I used a bit of artistic licence and added a bit of red to liven him up, a lot of the challenges last week were for autumnal themes so thought I would go with that, well the first couple of attempts ended in the bin and so I went off to bed and lay there awake most of the night coughing, some kind person has passed on their germs to me ( I know the culprit ,wait until I see her !)  Anyhow this afternoon I had another play,  the background stamp I used here is ancient, its a Carolines texture mat and I've had it for ever, I also used some very,very old bronze embossing powder which still works fine even though it smells 'orrible !!!  the leaf stamp is also old, I think it might have been an old Craft Stamper one ? coloured it all with distress inks. Although I've put it on a card here its actually a 4x4 piece and I will probably take it off the card and put it into my fat book as I don't think I would send it to anyone I know. Anyhow putting it on these challenges

Fashionable Stamping - shades of autumn
Fat Pages with Attitude - yellow/red/orange
Crazy Amigos - Falling leaves
Artful Times - Fur or feathers