2016 Christmas Cards #2

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog, hope you are all enjoying your day.

Seems like the weather in Adelaide is definitely heading into winter mode .. has been a little chilly of late.  Have to say, I much prefer that to the heat of summer.  It is so much easier to just rug up and get yourself warm than it is to strip off and cool yourself down.  Besides, I think my stripping off days are way, way behind me.  LOL!!

So, I am here to share a Christmas card with you.  Yep, you read that right .. a Christmas card.  After last Christmas I decided I was going to make at least two Christmas cards each month so that, by the time Christmas did arrive, I would have at least some of my cards done.  Well, you know what happened to that idea don't you?? .. totally went out the window.  I made one in January and that was it.  Now, we are already into April, and I thought it was about time to get some more done.

The papers used are the left-overs from last years cards and are from Kaisercraft's Holy Night 12 x 12 Paper Pad.  I love the traditional colours for Christmas so these papers are perfect for me.

The large bloom is the Azalea from Green Tara and is available at Megs Garden HERE.
The different berry sprays and the twine are from my stash and the leaves were cut on my Silouette.

I created a small banner from the papers, added the gold sticker and then mounted it onto the card with some dimensional adhesive dots.

Popped some Art Extravaganza White Crackle Texture Paste (boy, that's a mouthful) through a Prima Dots & Stripes stencil and was going to add a bit of glitter here and there but, unfortunately, I used it all up and forgot to get some more.  Duhh!!!

So, when it was all done, I splooshed around some gesso and also added a few prills here and there.

The inside ready for a quote and message.

So, I now have two Christmas cards for this year and hopefully there will be some more to share soon.  Hopefully!!!!  LOL!!

I am entering this into the challenge over at Christmas Card Challenges HERE

Thank you so much for visiting and do enjoy the rest of your day.

Take care and God Bless.

(Just a quick update .. I won!!  I am so thrilled that my card was chosen from all the lovely entries.  Thank you to everyone at Christmas Card Challenges.  I feel very honoured.)

A Tag .. and Planner Update!

Hello all my crafty friends.  So pleased you dropped by and hope you are having a wonderful day.

I'm here to share a little tag I created.  I watched a tutorial by Tammy Tuterow and, although the basic technique wasn't something new that I hadn't tried before, it was something I hadn't done in a while so I decided to have a little play.  HERE is the link to the tutorial and ..
this is my tag.

I used a slightly different colour combo to the one Tammy used and she used clear texture paste whereas mine is slightly transparent.  Tammy also added micro beads and glitter while the paste was still wet but, unfortunately, I got called away just after I stenciled this and by the time I got back, it was too late to do that.  Ah well, such is life.  Maybe next time.

I did some stamping on the background with my two fave stamps.  'Arty' and  a Script stamp .. both from Kaisercraft.

The two white blooms are the 'Puffy Paper Flower' and the 'Azalea' which are both available from Megs Garden.  The Azalea was all white , I simply coloured the center with some watered down acrylic paint.  The other flower was part of a crafty gift from my dear friend Heather Jacob.  

The chippie is from 2Crafty Chipboard and I added a little 'Rust' to the Tim Holtz Word Band.  The Word Band is available from Megs Garden.

I didn't follow the whole Tute from Tammy  .. just the basic background .. and then it just grew from there.  Not sure yet what I will do with this tag.  I may even turn it into my next Christmas card .. that should be interesting,  LOL!!

Now, about my Planner.  In my last post I mentioned that I wasn't really happy with the dividers I made.  I was even thinking of perhaps making some mixed media style ones, although that was going to be a lot of work.  Well, I did decide to change them.  Luckily, I had only done January and February so there wasn't a lot to change.

This is the original January divider ..

.. and this is the new one.

I am so much happier with the new ones.  I had downloaded some Katy Pertiet  free printables (HERE is the link) which I was going to use as small labels inside my planner.  I  resized them using Photo Shop and then also changed the colour balance on some of them to match in with the coloured monthly tabs and now they are my dividers .. and I love them!!!  The best part is .. they took hardly any effort at all.

 This is the original February divider ..

.. and this is the new one.

Covered the back of the last weekly January page, and created a pocket to hold my stickers.   A lot neater than doing it the other way,

I do realise that February is not the start of Autumn but I really love this page and it matched in well with the monthly tab.  So March, eat your heart out!!  LOL!!

So, that's my new look Planner.  Every once in a while I will show you more of my pages.  I'm really enjoying putting this together.  I don't have to worry about inking or stamping (unless I want to of course LOL!!)   all I'm really doing is adding stickers and washi (or my facsimile) and then just journaling about the things that are happening in my life.  I love it!!  No stress, no hassles, I only do what I want to do .. like I said "I love it!!"

That's all for today sweet friends.  Thank you so much for visiting and do enjoy the rest of your day.
Take care and God Bless.

 

Happy New Year and some Sneak Peeks!!

Hello everyone!!  

A very warm welcome to my blog and a very Happy New Year to you all!!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that 2016 will bring you everything you ever wished for.
  

I took a little break after Christmas so it's been a while since I posted last.  Have to admit, I really haven't done very much in the way of crafting so I haven't got much to show you.    I can, however, give you a little taste of what is to come shortly.
I've been bitten by the planner bug.  Shock, horror!!!

Have haunted Pinterest and You Tube getting as much info as I can and have started making my own planner with the help of some free printables.  I still have a lot of bits and pieces to get though .. things like page flags and sticky notes and pretty stickers, etc. so, at the moment there is not much to show you yet but here's a few sneaks.

  Some of the stickers and printable quote cards I have already got for myself.  
 

 Full month on two pages .. this will be for appointments  and reminders.

 A week on two pages for more detailed notes.
As you can see, although I have started using it, there is not much going on as yet.  It's looking very bland and uninteresting but, as soon as I get the rest of the stickers I'm after  .. look out people .. it will be very colourful and awesome  (I hope,  LOL!!)

So, as well as the planner, I have also started another little Mini Album.  This one is my next
 Megs Garden DT project and I am using their new 'Chantilly Cream' Collection.  Love these papers  .. neutral colours with lots of yummy vintage ephemera, perfect for my vintage/shabby chic Mini  Album.

Some sneaks ..

 

So, you can see, I will actually be adding some vintage photos to this album.  The photo above is of my mother and was taken in 1935.  Unfortunately it is damaged but still, a lovely photo.

Well, there you have it folks.  Hopefully I will get these projects finished soon and then I can share the full reveal.  In the meantime, among other things, I am also going to be creating some Christmas cards .. yep!!  you read that right .. some Christmas cards.  There is a great challenge site called 'Christmas Card Challenges'.  They have a challenge every week and, although I may not join in each week, I do want to make at least two Chrissy cards per month so that, by the time Christmas does arrive again, I will have made a really great start on my cards.   Looking forward to sharing those with you as well.

Thank you so much for popping in and do enjoy the rest of your day.

Take care and God Bless.

Variations on a Christmas Theme & Some Happy News!!

Hello my lovely visitors and welcome to my blog.  Thank you for dropping by.

I have some more Christmas cards to share.  Once again, these are different variations on the same theme.  Yes, I know, you're probably getting a bit bored with these but, this is what I do at Christmas time.  I find a couple of designs I like and then create my cards using different colours with slightly different elements.

In my previous post I showed Design No. 1 and this is design No. 2.  This time around I'm sharing three cards and all of them have a little pocket to hold a gift voucher.

Card 1

The papers used are, once again, from Megs Garden and from Kaisercraft. 

The flowers also came from Megs Garden and the bauble spray is from a cheap Christmas decoration.   The pine bough die is from Impression Obsession Dies.

The small label is from Kaisercraft.

The inside with the Gift Voucher pocket at the bottom and I added a verse to the top section before it was posted (mailed that is!! he! he!)

Card 2

 All of the cards have a bit of 'snow'  treatment.  In other words, some splashes of white ink, a bit of gritty texture paste in different places and then sprinkled with glitter.

 All of the red flowers were originally a different colour.  They have all been sprayed with Cherrie Pie Dylusion Spray. 

Another small label from Kaisercraft.  I mounted them on some thick card for extra dimension.

The insides were all decorated the same, just with different papers.

 Card 3

 As you can see, more of the same!

Some cards have stenciling.  This one was done with translucent texture paste.

Most of them have a piece of the metallic mesh behind the cluster .. some with red and some with gold.

 

So, three more cards done and dusted!!

Thanks so much for dropping by but, before you go, I have some happy news to share.
I entered the Feeling Sketchy Challenge with one of my Christmas cards (you can see it HERE) .. and I WON!!  I actually won the random draw and was also TOP PICK!!  So thrilled!!  Huge thanks to the team at FEELING SKETCHY .. I am totally chuffed .. Thank you ladies, you are wonderful!!!

But there's more folks!!!  The lovely Bev Code from TURTLE SOUP CREATIVITY & MAGAZINE, got in touch and asked me to submit some of my cards, etc. for the Christmas Issue of their on-line Magazine!!  Woo!! Hoo!!  I actually have a double page spread as well as one of my cards in their card section!!  Once again, totally chuffed.  It is a gorgeous mag and there are so many talented artist's work in there, I'm still pinching myself that I was included.  If you'd like to take a look you will find it HERE.  Thank you so much Bev for including me, I am over the moon.

Once again, thank you for visiting and enjoy the rest of your day.
Take care and God Bless.

Christmas Cards - Variations on a Theme #1

Hello everyone and welcome to my little  blog!!

A very special welcome to my new followers and a big thank you for joining me, I'm so pleased to have you come along on my creative journey. 

Well, it is December and another year has almost finished.  Where does the time go??  Is it just me, or does it really go by faster each year!  Getting scary!!

So, I'm back to share some more Christmas Cards.  Should have posted these a few days ago but better late than never!!  I don't have a huge amount of Christmas cards to make each year.  I really only make them for family and very close friends.  Everyone else gets the store bought kind.  Even so, it can get a bit hard to get them all done so, to make things easier on myself, I find a design or two that I like and then I just make variations on those designs (hence, the title on this post!!  LOL!!).

I have already shown the two designs I'm using this year in previous posts and here I am sharing two variations of one of those designs.

They are very similar as you can see, I simply use different papers and different elements.
The papers are mostly from Megs Garden's 'Tis Christmas Time' and 'A Musical Christmas' Mini paper packs,  although the base layer is from Kaisercraft.

This design has a wider back section so there is an extra piece on the side which is separate from, and yet still part of, the front view.  Means I can clutter up the front of it without having to worry where the heck I'm going to fit the greeting.  LOL!!

I gather a selection of flowers and also decide on which other embellies I want to use such as leaves, tickets, berries, etc.  All of these usually end up in a pile on my work bench ..

.. and then I simply pick out whatever I wish to use on the particular card I'm working on.

The insides of my card are pretty much the same.

So, that is card No. 1 and
here is No. 2

No lace on this one, just some strips of paper and I've used a half doily on the side.

The die cut pine boughs are the same, just cut from different paper.

Used some tickets again on this card but, used slightly different ones ..

.. and a different flower and bauble spray. 

Same greeting ..

.. and same inside.

Normally, I do use gesso quite a lot on my finished cards but here I've used a gritty texture paste and then, while it is still wet, I have sprinkled it with glitter.  It sparkles so prettily in real life.  Thank you again to Pamelia Johnson from whom I got this idea.  She has a great tutorial on the 'snowy' look HERE.

Well, there you are, two cards made practically the same, just with different colours and slightly different elements.

Thank you so much for stopping by and thank you so much to those of you who leave me such lovely comments.  I read them all and really appreciate them.  Enjoy the rest of your day.
Take care and God Bless.