Pink and Purple Snowflakes!

Hello again!  My second blog post in the same day - a Christmas card this time.

This is such a quick Christmas card and a technique I have seen everywhere and have never tried before.  I inked up one side of the Sheena Douglas Snowflake embossing folder with
Picked Raspberry and Wilted Violet Distress Oxide Inks, spritzed with water then pressed a piece of watercolour card into it then left it to dry.  It didn't come out perfect but gave a lovely watercolour effect.  I trimmed the piece then edged it with both of the oxide colours then glued to a 5 x 7 inch pink card base.  The Stamplorations sentiment was die cut in both white and pink card - the two glued together to give a drop shadow then attached to the snowflake panel.  For sparkle, I used a glue pen to add glitter to the snowflakes then Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen to the sentiment and finally a few white pearls for a bit of extra embellishment. There is lots of sparkle in real life!   I really like this technique so will be trying it again with more of my folders. 

I would like to enter the following challenges:

ScrappyMo's Rudolph Day's Challenge - Anything Christmas
Christmas Crafts All Year Round - Non Traditional Colours.
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes
Country View Challenges - The Written Word.

Thank you so very much for visiting me - I really appreciate it!  Enjoy your weekend!

Take care - Christine xxx

Columbo Dragonlies!

Hi there and thank you so much for visiting me today - I appreciate it loads and loads!  I am celebrating the fabulous Stamplorations 5th birthday celebrations by joining in with the CASE the STAMPgirls and link up

I am casing a fabulous card by Harriet - its the second one down on her blog post with the three dragonflies.  Although I have cased it - mine is totally different. ' Why is the blog post called Colombo Dragonflies?' you ask!  Well, its because the book pages I used for the dragonflies come from a very old and falling to bits edition of a Columbo novel.  I adore the shabby detective - I seem to remember the book was a Christmas one.

I used Stamplorations  largest of the Crazy Double Running Stitch Rectangle Nesting Dies for the white mat and cut my Kraft card base to suit.  The Stamplorations two part Dragonflies were cut with the book pages and Kraft card and the little flowers were cut using a die that came free with a magazine.  The sentiment is from a Kay Carling Paperartsy stamp set EKC06 and is embossed with Versamark and White detail powder on Kraft card.  Everything glued together and it was finished.  A very simple summer card with no summer colours just the Kraft and white and I love how it turned out!

I would like to enter the following additional challenges:

Country View Crafts - The Written Word.
Cuttlebugmania - Summer Is Magic - All my Diecutting is done using my Big Shot.
That's Crafty - A Summer's Day.
Stamplorations Anything Goes Challenge - Use Stamplorations products on your project.

Just to let you know that following Darren's visit to the consultant following the operation for his collapsed lung, the news is good and not so good!  Everything is healed fine and the consultant is pleased with his recovery from the operation.  Unfortunately, Darren is still getting lots of pain which should not be there.  The pain has absolutely no explanation so it is looking like it may be connected to his ongoing neurological problem where he has constant head pain and sensitivity to any sound along with lots of other symptoms.  We will be contacting his neurologist to see what he thinks!  Its fabulous his lung is all fixed though.

Thank you again for visiting and have a wonderful weekend!  I will be doing another blog post later this evening - don't be too shocked!  I had a sudden burst of inspiration today along with enough energy to make two cards to catch some challenges - I am very pleased with myself!!!

Take care - Christine! xxx

Twofer Card Challenge #6

Hello!  I am so glad and appreciative that you have visited me today, thank you!  I haven't managed to join in with Darnell's fabulous Twofer challenge for a while so was determined to manage it this time.

The theme is 'trees' and I chose the Memory Box Twiggy Tree to use on both of my cards - one is a bright summery card (which luckily fits into a couple of summer challenges) and a Christmas card too - another one for my stash.

For the summery tree I began with a piece of yellow card which I embossed with a Crafts Too embossing folder.  I am so sorry I do not know the name of the folder.  I cut the Memory Box Twiggy Tree from a scrap of black card then cut all the little flowers from various left over scraps of inked card (I keep them all) using Impression Obsession Die DIE140-D.  I use this flower die lots - its one die that cuts lots of flowers all at once.  After cutting them out of several  pieces of inked card, I have oodles of little flowers left for other projects.  The sentiment by Clarity Stamp is stamped on another scrap of previously inked card in Black Versafine and embossed with clear powder then edged in black alcohol marker.  After I had glued everything down and attached to a black card base I added a dot of gold pen to the centre of each flower.

I would like to enter my summery card into the following challenges:

That's Crafty - A Summers Day.
Country View Challenges - The Written Word - Add Text In Some Form.
CuttlebugMania - Summer is Magic - All die cutting and embossing was done using my Big Shot.
Pixie's Snippets Playground - Use Snippets - Tree, flowers and sentiment are snippets.

The Christmas card was much more straight forward to make.  The Memory Box Twiggy Tree is cut in white card then I covered with glue using a glue pen and sprinkled with glitter and glued to the square card base.  The sentiment is from the Spellbinders Holiday Sentiments die set and the little bird is from a Penny Black die set The Gathering.  I made a couple of these and I think I will be making more.

Thank you again for visiting me and also for your lovely comments following my husband's operation and recovery and my health too, you are all so lovely!  Darren is still recovering well from the operation following his collapsed lung and we see the consultant on Wednesday for a follow up appointment.

I hope your weekend was good and you have a fabulous week.  Take care.  Christine xxx

Have A Wheelie Happy Birthday!

Hello. Thank you so much for visiting me!  I have been away for some time due a bad time with my ME/CFS along with my poor husband being in hospital for two weeks after a rush by ambulance to hospital with a collapsed lung!  It was very, very scary and he had to have an operation from which he is still recovering, bless him!  The only crafting I have done for a long while is the card I am blogging today which I made for my son Michael's birthday last week.

Its quite a simple card to get me back into the creative mindset.  I used watercolour card and a couple of colours of Distress Oxide inks and water for the background then stamped randomly with a stamp from AAL and Create border set #33. The wheels which are from a stamp set free with a magazine are stamped randomly with black Versafine.  I used snippets of white card coloured with the same inks to stamp the words from various Stamplorations stamp sets except for  'Wheelie' which is made up of letters from a Clarity alphabet set.  The words are edged with dark blue ink then, when attached, I drew black lines around them to draw attention to them.  I have had the penny farthing charm for ages and it was perfect.  Michael really liked the card and said that one day, he would like to have a penny farthing in his garden as an ornament - a real one of course!  Slightly older than the cool bikes he normally rides - I think he has four.

I would like to enter the following challenges:

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Use Snippets.
Country View Challenges - The Written Word (Add Text In Some Form).
Simon Say's Stamp Monday Challenge - Masculine.
Simon Say's Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.
Artistic Stamper - Colour it Blue.

Thank you again for coming back to visit me after my absence, I am so grateful! You are the best!  I am trying to start commenting again.  I haven't managed that for ages either - I am so very sorry!

Have a wonderful weekend.  Take care.  xxx

Sorry!

Hello and thank you for visiting me - I really appreciate it!  I just want to say 'sorry' for a lack of posts and for limited comments on your lovely blogs.  I am not doing too well at the moment, nothing to worry about - my ME/CFS is very bad so my energy levels are at rock bottom along with other symptoms too.  My Doctor is helping all he can but all I can really do is rest until I feel better, so crafting, blogging, along with being on the Ipad and computer all have to be very limited.

I don't usually like to blog about health issues, so I am sorry if I sound like I am complaining, I don't mean to, and I know there are a lot of people a million times worse off than me, but I just wanted you to know that I am still around and will comment and blog along with joining in challenges when I can.  Unfortunately I have already got behind in sending people birthday cards - how bad is that!  For me it is unheard of!

Anyway - I have my feet up and a nice cuppa is next to me so its not all bad!  I have House of Elliott recording, I loved that series when it was first on our screens so I might watch that later.

I won't rattle on anymore.  Thank you for reading this and have a fabulous weekend!

Take care.  Christine xxxxxxxxxxxx 

March Rudolph Day's Challenge!

Hello and welcome to my blog - thank you so much for visiting me, I appreciate it so much!  I hope you are having a lovely Easter weekend!

A Christmas card today:

There is lots of gold shine on the lovely (free with a magazine) backing paper but you can't see it in the photo.  The poinsettia is made using a Creative Expressions die set cut from snippets of white card then while still in the die, I inked through with red Distress Ink and glued the layers together then to the panel.  The sentiment was free with a magazine and stamped with red Versafine.  I added gold Stickles to the centre of the poinsettia and to the sentiment for some sparkle and also some Sakura Clear Stardust pen to the red veins on the poinsettia and the letters of the sentiment for added glimmer.  I wish it showed up better in the photo, sorry.  I made two of these cards and two in a slightly different colourway but didn't finish in time to blog the different colour option.

I would like to enter the following challenges:

Scrappy Mo's March Rudolph Day's Challenge - Anything Christmas.
Christmas Crafts All Year Round - Christmas and Use Flowers.
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.

Thank you again for visiting me and have a fabulous weekend.  Take care.  Christine xxx

Twofer Challenge No. 3!

Hello and thank you for visiting me, I appreciate it so much!
Its Darnell's Twofer Challenge No, 3.  Its so much fun.  This time it is Blossoms - I chose to use wildflowers - they are blossoms too!

I used three of the dies from Tim Holtz Sizzix Wildflower thinlets which I cut using my Sizzix Big Shot - the same dies on each card but two different designs and occasions.

I went for a bright and sparkly birthday card and a more subdued thinking of you card.  I will put separate pictures below so the detail shows better and give a rundown on how I made each card.  The first one (the birthday card) I am also entering into some other challenges so I will pop those below the picture too.

I used watercolour card for this one and inked it with Picked Raspberry, Ripe Persimmon and Wilted Violet Distress Inks then spritzed with water and dried.  I used French Script and Cross Hatching stamps from IndigoBlu to stamp the same inks to add further interest to the background.  The three flowers were glued on then the sentiment from Woodware Annie stamp set, stamped on inked card using black Versafine, cut out, edged with black pen and also the little dashes, then glued on too.  The little butterfly is actually a sticker but it fitted perfectly!  I used different colour Stickles to add lots of bling and sparkle then squeezed my Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen and added splashes across the whole panel to add even more bling.  Glued the panel onto a black card base to really bring out the colours. 

This card I would like to enter into the following extra challenges.

Allsorts - Bring on the Bling
Time Out Challenges - its their 4th Birthday and the inspiration words are 'Birthdays Are Full Of Sunshine, Love and Laughter. 
CuttlebugMania - Spring and you must use a manual die cutting maching. - I used my Sizzix Big Shot and Wildflowers start coming in Spring!
That;s Crafty - Spring into Action - again Wildlowers bloom in Spring!

The second Twofer card is the Thinking of You card.

The same dies again but this time on a brayered background on gloss card using a very old Big and Juicy ink pad. Its spritzed with a little water to give it texture. The sentiment is from HobbyArt and is stamped with Majestic Blue Versafine.  Very simple but that is what I feel a thinking of you card should be.

The Twofer Challenge really makes you think although I haven't been very inventive with my two cards this time.  Some of the entries are always amazing using stamps or dies in ways you really wouldn't expect.  I hope these cards are different enough to qualify!

Thank you again for visiting me and I hope you are having a lovely week.

Take care.  Christine. xxx