Christmas Cards 2018 - #2

Hello dear friends, and welcome to my blog.

 So nice of you to stop by at this busy time of year.  Hope you are having a fabulous day.

I am back to share a few more of my Christmas cards with you today. 

Card 1

As I mentioned in my previous Christmas posts, the papers are all from older Kaisercraft paper pads.

The flowers are ones I found in my stash and, regardless of their original colour, I simply sprayed them all with Dylusions Cherry Pie Spray Ink.  I have not purchased anything new to make these cards as I have so much left over from previous years that needs to be used up.

Card 2

On some cards the top paper layer is torn and on others they have been cut to size.

Most of them have a little gold heat embossing in random places ..

.. and all the branches have also been gold embossed on the ends.

Card 3

  The clusters are all pretty much the same with gauze underneath the flowers and foliage.

Card 4

There are tiny pine cones and a small bunch of berries in each cluster ..

.. and all the sentiments are also edged in gold.

This is probably my last post for this year so I would like to thank each and every one of my visitors for stopping by to take a peek at my little creations this past year.  A very special thanks to those of you who left me a sweet comment.  I so appreciate you taking the time and leaving me such lovely words to read.  Thank you one and all.

Wishing you a wonderful, Blessed Christmas spent with family and loved ones and all the very best for 2019.
 
Stay safe and see you in the New Year!!
God Bless.

Christmas Cards for 2018 #1

Hello dear friends!!  

Thank you for stopping by, I know how busy you all must be getting ready to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour.  Hope all your Christmas preparations are humming along nicely.

I'm back to just quickly share a couple more of my Christmas cards.  As I stated in my last post, here, all my cards are very similar.  Same paper collections, same embellies, just different combinations and a couple of slightly different designs.

Some cards have a vertical aspect and some are horizontal.

Card 1

Most of the sentiments I've used are taken from the paper collections.  I simply trimmed them to size where necessary and then heat embossed the edges with gold.

The flower clusters are all similar with real little pine cones (found in a Homewares Store at the very beginning of the year) and little bunches of berries.

The ends of the diecut branches have also been heat embossed in gold. 

Card 2

The flowers are different but they have all been sprayed with Cherry Pie Dylusions Ink Spray. 

I know I've mentioned it previously, but I do love the traditional colours for my Christmas cards.  I also love the touches of gold.  Adds something a bit special to them, I think.

Thank you so much for your visit I truly do appreciate it.  In a few days I will share a few more of my cards.  Hope to see you then!!

Have fun with your preparations for Christmas!  Mine are well under way but I do still have quite a bit to do.   Mostly the food though and, this year, that is not going to be too complicated.  Keeping it simple but hope it will still be enjoyable for everyone.

Have a wonderful day!
Take care and God Bless.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge # 224

Hello everyone!!  Thank you for stopping by.  I hope you are having a fabulous day!

The new Challenge is live at Crafty Cardmakers.  This will be our last Challenge this year (can you believe it??)  and I am happy to say I will be staying on the Team for another year!  Yayy!!
Mary is our host for this Challenge and the Theme, of course, is Christmas.
As always, you may create anything you like as long as it fits the Theme.

This is the perfect time to start showing you the Christmas cards I have created for my family and close friends this year.

Usually, the cards I make for Christmas are quite similar  to each other and, this year, I have made them even more alike.  All of the papers and the embellishments are the same, I have simply changed the combinations slightly for each card. 

I made a decision earlier this year that I wouldn't buy any more Christmas card supplies.  This year, I would make all of them with whatever I had left in my stash from previous years.  Well, that turned out to be quite a lot.  I probably have enough left still to last me for the next couple of years at least!

The papers are all from previous Kaisercraft collections.  Some from a 6 x 6 pad and some from a 12 x 12 pad and the sentiments are also, mostly, from those pads.

I will be sharing my cards over the next few days (or weeks) and I will then explain more about the embellies used.

I hope you will pop over to the CCM blog and take a peek at what the rest of the Team have created.  Lots of inspiration there to inspire you to join in with the Challenge.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #224 - Christmas

Thank you so much for your visit, I really appreciate you taking the time.  I know how busy everyone is at this time of year.

Enjoy the rest of your day!!

Take care and God Bless.

Masculine Flip Fold Album

Hello everyone.  Welcome to my crafty place.
Hope you are having a wonderful day.

I'm here to share with you the Masculine Mini Album I created for my Guest Design spot over at Mini Album Makers Challenge blog.  I had been wanting to create a masculine style mini album for a while and thought that this would be the perfect project for this post.
On the MAMC post, I shared the first half of the album and also shared how it was created.  In this post, I will show you the completed Album.  If you'd like to see the tutorial as well, HERE is the link.
This will be quite a long post so you might want to grab yourself a cuppa.

The outside of this album measures 5.5 x 6.5" and the inside pages are 4.5" x 6".  The spine is 2" wide.

The papers I've used are a mix from Studio Light's Industrial 2.0 paper pad and Kaisercraft's Factory 42 paper pad.

 The inside cover and the first page set.
I haven't done much embellishing in this album but I have added  a few cogs here and there and a little bit of washi tape as well.  I have also stamped some splatters and coffee stains, added a little stenciling and inked the edges of all the papers with Ground Espresso Distress Ink.

I created two sets each in two different styles of  pages.  So, there are 4 page sets in this book but, as you will see, there are a lot of places for photos, etc.
This page set opens up firstly to the left as seen above ..

.. and then the page on the right lifts up to reveal a folded card ..

 .. which is tucked into a side opening pocket attached at the back.

You may notice that I've added a few of Tim Holtz's Snarky Small Talk Stickers to this book.  If you'd like to see them properly, simply click on the pictures to get a larger view.

This is the back page of the first set and the first page of the second.
I have used a stacked hinge to bind my pages to the spine and have left a gap of about .25" in between each set so that the pages will sit nice and flat when opened.

The back page of the first set has a double belly band which is held down by some magnets ..

.. and opens up to reveal another photo mat.  All of the above mats and pages are attached to, and held by, a single hinge.

The second page set opens out to the right, and there is another underneath which opens out to the left.  It also has a folded card tucked into a pocket which is attached at the back of the set but this pocket is open at the top..

The back of the second set and first page of the next.

   This little flip up opens to reveal a double photo mat (or journaling spot).

The next two page sets are the same design as the first two but, of course, I have used different papers (from the same paper pads) to decorate.

  

The little flip up here is the same as the one from the second page set but I have changed it a little in that it opens up first and then flips up.  The first one flips up first and then opens.  I'd like to say that it was deliberate but I didn't realise that I actually put the papers on the wrong sides .. LOL!!

I can actually still flip it the right way but I wanted the dark grey papers showing on the outside of it as it is a nice contrast to the papers underneath.

The cover is made of chipboard.  As you can see I used a piece of hessian style material to cover the spine and, although the material is glued down, I added the brads for some extra interest and strength.  After all, this is a man's book and is going to get some rough handling!  LOL!!

I used a piece of corrugated board under a chippie frame by Little Birdie and a word strip by Scrapmats, to decorate the front of the book.  The frame was heat embossed with a mix of black and bronze embossing powder and the word strip was edged with Ground Espresso Distress Ink.

The chippie decorating the spine is also by Little Birdie and was heat embossed similarly to the frame on the front.

This book is fairly plain but I really enjoyed working it all out and creating it.  Between this book and the Junk Journal I created a while ago (you can see that here) I rediscovered my love for making books and I am itching to go and make another.  Hopefully, soon.

Sorry that this is such a long post but I hope you managed to stick it out to the end and that you enjoyed seeing my little album.  If you need some inspiration for your own Album making, pop on over and pay a visit to the Mini Album Makers Challenge blog.  The DT ladies create the most amazing books and I'm sure you will find plenty of inspo there and, if you enter the Challenge, you will have the chance of doing a Guest spot as I did.

Happy album crafting everyone!
Take care and God Bless