Christmas Cards Two Ways

Hello again its Julie here.  I think we are all probably in the midst of getting ourselves ready for the festive season and I thought I would show you a couple of Christmas card ideas I've been working on.
Firstly I've used my wonderful Tim Holtz Distress inks as watercolours to create a fun background for this jolly little card and I also coloured in the gorgeous new Shimelle Santa stamp with the distress inks to create a soft vintage effect.  Let me go through what I used for this card.

I "smooshed" Mowed Lawn, Festive Berries and Evergreen Bough onto an acrylic stamp block to use them as "paints".  I then used a water brush as my paintbrush to paint the colours on a piece of watercolour paper to create a background.

You don't have to be precise and you can choose whichever colours you like.  Whilst waiting for this to dry I then used Festive Berries, Tattered Rose, Tumbled Glass and Pumice Stone to colour in the adorable Shimelle stamp.  All I did was stamp the stamp on a piece of watercolour paper in Memento London Fog, I found this created a softer outline and then again used my water brush to "paint" the colours onto Santa.  Tattered Rose is a gorgeous skin tone and even though Santa's beard is white, a light wash of Pumice Stone added a bit of depth.  When the background was dry, I cut out several snowflakes and a Christmas tree using my Sizzix Big shot machine, there are so many to choose from a visit to the Papermaze website is your best place to start.  I put the snowflakes in the background, then the Christmas tree and added Santa as a centrepiece popped up using adhesive foam dots.  I also used some Holiday Divine Twine to create a little banner to put my words "JOY" onto.  I created these letters by using double sided sticky paper that I created by running it through my Xyron sticker maker twice and then I added Cosmic Shimmer Polished Silk Glitter which leaves a smooth silky glitter surface which is almost completely flat.

For the second card I used the gorgeous new Creative Expressions Frosty Swirls embossing folder and my Big shot to emboss the card base.  I inked the edges using Tumbled Glass distress ink to add a little pop to the embossing.  I then cut out three Christmas trees and adhered them together to create a 3D tree and cut another tree in a contrasting colour to outline the smaller trees.  The 3d tree presses flat to go into an envelope but pops back out when the card is opened.  I used a penant die to create a little tag to which I added a Merry and Bright sentiment from the Crafters Companion Die'sire collection, it is so detailed and cuts out beautifully.  For the papers on this card I used the beautiful Bo Bunny Candy Cane Lane collection as I wanted to use slightly less traditional festive colours.  As a final touch I added two small holly leaves from the Shimelle collection.

I hope you enjoyed seeing these two Christmas cards and thanks for looking xxxx

Friends

For this layout I'm using My Minds Eye stunning My Story patterned papers and journal cards.

I began with my white sheet of card stock and decided I wanted to use circular theme around my photo. so I grabbed a dinning plate and started drawing around it to create interlocking circles and used a kasiercraft background stamp. To make the circles stand out I used bright pink thread and my sewing machine, and stitched the circles, I left the pencil marks on the page as it added more to the layout. I simply matted my photo onto some light pink card.

 

 Using patterned paper, heirloom roses I fussy cut out the flowers to create a cluster. The gold chevrons, the tag, butterfly, glasses and small words were cut from the 3x4 journaling cards, what I loved about these cards is that they also give you the punched out elements from the cards and they are also great for cutting up. Don't just think that if there 3x4 you can't use them on your 12x12 layouts.

Once I had finished creating my cluster, adhering my chevrons and sequins. I also added touches of gold ink splats and took a chipboard word that a good friend had given me and embossed it with frantage embossing powder.
Totally love these papers just need to find another suitable photo so I can have another play with them.

                                   

November crop

Lesley has talked of putting together a double-page layout for the crop kit for a while now, and here it is!  Beautiful colours from the Simple Stories So Fancy range, and a great way to put lots of photos on one layout :)  

So tomorrow we're at Otley Village Hall from 10am until 5pm, with our usual array of biscuits and cakes!  If you'd like to join us just drop us an email :)

December Daily Album

Hello its Julie here to remind you that December is coming!  I have made a start early this year and made up my December daily album ready to be filled with lovely festive pictures.

To make my album I used the gorgeous Simple Stories Holiday Binder as a base and then went to work personalising it for my version of a December daily album for our Elf on the Shelf who visits every year.  This gorgeous album comes with 14 Simple Stories page protectors in a variety of styles to get you started for your December daily pictures.

To start I sprayed the front and back cover with gold spray and then used some Cosmic Shimmer Texture paste to create a "snowy" type border around the edges of the red binding.  I used a pallet knife to put the paste generously, spread it around the binding and let it dry.  I then used the same texture paste with the Creative Expressions Swiss Cheese border mask and Creative Expressions Small Polka mask to create a background and some texture on the covers.  I also used some gold texture paste on the back cover to compliment the gold spray on the covers.

I then went to work using Claus and Co 4x6 Horizontal Journal cards as the main piece of my front cover and added pieces from the Claus and Co Bits and Pieces and Fundamental Cardstock Stickers to add accents around the journal card.  I also used a Naughty/Nice card from and old Project Life kit which I will complete for my children once I've finished the album.  I also used stickers from Echo Park The Story of Christmas Element Stickers and the Alpha stickers to complete this album cover as the colours complimented the Claus and Co collection so well.

I hope this inspires you to start your own December daily album.  Thanks for looking xxxx

Graphics 45

Hi, Carol with you today…. with Hallowe'en and Guy Fawkes night out of the way, its now time for all us card makers for us to turn our attention to Christmas…. Vanessa has got some fantastic Christmas papers, embellishments, washi tapes and flowers in the store and a special section on the shop website… here

So, for this, my first Christmas post of 2015, there will be many more to follow! - I have used the new Graphics 45 Christmas Carol papers.. to make:-

A matching card and tag…

My card blank is a 5" square, I adhered various patterned papers, cutting out some elements, and added some doodling and gilding wax around the edges.

my tag was die cut out of white cardstock, I embossed a piece of gold cardstock and used this as a mat for an image cut from the paperback… gold gilding wax was added to the edges to finish it off.

TFL xx

Pebbles ~ Fun in the Sun...

Hello all, it's Anna here to share with you a layout that I have made using the Pebbles 'fun in the sun' collection. 

This is defiantly my kind of collection, I really like bright, fun, happy papers and they were perfect to use with some holiday pictures. Take a look at the whole range here.

My favourite item in this collection is this sticker sheet. 

I started by using this sheet as my base and then cut out some of the 'sunny days' paper. I added my photos with three of the journaling cards and lined them together making a grid. 

Around the edge of my grid, I added some of those lovely stickers, washi tape and punched out a couple of circles. I also used some of these wood veneers.

Thanks for looking! 

Anna 

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