Art Deco Christmas Card

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

How is your week going. Today is the last day my husband has before he goes back to work tomorrow. We have had a good holiday and we have had some time to work on wedding bits and pieces this has helped me not to go insane. There does seem to be a lot to do.

As you know I have been making some headway with my Christmas cards. I have also been using lots of images from old Christmas cards.

I have a friend who likes these 1920s ladies. I teamed the image with an older A4 embossing folder from Creative Expressions. I always thought this one had an Art Deco feel to it. 

She is beautiful and deserved to be made into a pretty card. 

When we were in Norway one of the ports we stopped at was Alesund. The town there was completely destroyed by fire and was rebuilt in the Art Nouveau style. We looked round the museum  it was a fascinating story. This is just some of the artefacts in the museum. I did love the organic feel of the cupboard. The Art Nouveau period  came just before the Art Deco period. I think that is why they stick together in my mind together.  

I think my friend with love this card. 

Enjoy the rest of the week. 

Happy Crafting.

Hugs Jackie

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Isobel Craft Collection - Garden Delights stamp set

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

I hope you are enjoying this Bank Holiday Weekend. We are back from our Holibobs it was brilliant. I love cruising. Norway is beautiful and I want to go back some time. Yesterday we had a trip to Bristol to have a look at accommodation for the wedding but this didn't work out which is a shame.

Before we went away I had a play and I made some tags with the dragonfly stamp from the Garden Delights stamp set from The Isobel Craft Collection.

I made three tags I was itching to try out my Pixie Powders. I used my Tattered Lace dies to make the tags. 

For this tag I used a sticky embossing powder and then gilding flakes to make the dragonflies shine. To create the background I used Pixie Powders and water. 

For this tag I used a clear embossing powder for the dragonflies and more Pixie Powders for the background. 

Finally blue embossing powder and another shade of Pixie Powder. 

Here I am with a Norwegian Troll they love their Trolls. None of them came home with us they were rather expensive.  

This is the Azura looking enormous in port. When we were in one of the Fjords the captain did an amazing thing he turned the ship round 360 degrees on the spot. I have never seen anything like that before. 

We did see a lot of waterfalls. 

I did enjoy making these tags. This is a good way to practice different techniques for your card making. 

Enjoy the rest of the week. 

Happy Crafting 

Hugs Jackie

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Fantasy Stampers - Sunshine Colours

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

When this post goes live we will be just getting off the cruise ship and heading home to prepare for our daughter's rabbits to be dropped off  after lunch.

It is time for the new challenge on the Fantasy Stampers Challenge blog the theme this time is Sunshine Colours.

I love sunflowers they just say Summer to me. I also wanted to try some masking. 

The stamp set I used is the Do-crafts Build a Sunflower set ( I don't think it is available anymore I have had the set for a long time). I made three masks from Post-it notes so that I could get the layered effect with the stamping. I coloured the images with my Spectrum Noir Sparkle pens. I use them so often now I really like the results I get with them and a bit of water on a brush. 

This bow was created with a Sue Wilson die set. 

The sentiment is from one of John Lockwood's sets. 

I will catch up with all I have missed this evening when things should be a bit quieter. 

If you check back on the Fantasy Stamper Challenge blog tomorrow the winners will be announced.

Enjoy the weekend.  

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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Alphabet Challenge - Letter M for Mythical

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

Happy Friday. Well tomorrow we go on holiday for just a week. We are taking a cruise to Norway I am very excited to see a country I have never been to before. Cruising is so easy when you live near Southampton the boat is just a short taxi ride away. As soon as you board your holiday starts.

The new challenge starts today on the Alphabet Challenge blog the letter is M and the theme is Mythical.

I spotted these Unicorns in a Hobbycraft store and they were such a good price I couldn't resist. Especially because I couldn't get unicorns out of my head when I was thinking of the theme Mythical.

This is how they look before they are decorated. I kept dropping one of them on the floor so it's horn became a little weak. 

Now I do like to paint these types of figures with white Gesso. I don't think it is entirely necessary I just find it makes the colours in the tissue paper more vibrant. It is all down to personal choice. 

I covered the unicorn in small pieces of tissue paper with a specialist Decoupage glue and a brush, As I was doing this I was able to reinforce the horn that had been damaged. 

A punch was used to make the flowers for the mane. The centres to the flowers were created with Cosmic Shimmer White Pearl PVA glue. I used Rangers Stickles glitter glue on the horn to make it sparkly. 

I wanted the other unicorn to look different. I used a more delicately patterned tissue paper. 

This time I used a punch to punch out the butterflies. 

I quite enjoyed making these. I have no idea what I am going to do with them now though. 

At the beginning of the week I set myself a challenge to have made 50 Christmas cards by the time we go away. I am very happy to report that I have made 53 altogether. In the last couple of days I have made 19. I am not so worried about finishing them now they will have to be done in batches. 

Enjoy the weekend. 

Happy Crafting 

Hugs Jackie

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Christmas cards numbers 35 - 40

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

Just a quick post from me today. I am now working towards us going on holiday and fitting a bit of crafting in as well. I had a lovely time yesterday with my friend at Gun Wharf Quays in Portsmouth. We did lots of shopping and we had a very civilised lunch in Loch Fyne.

After putting on two lots of washing. I decided to make some Christmas cards. I am much more familiar with the bits in my Christmas stash now and I remembered a box of Kanban toppers. I had a look in the box and found this sheet of toppers to make 6 cards.

I made some 5" x 5" card blanks and added an insert. I went through my scraps to find bits of black and gold card I could use for the mats. For the backing paper I used  two 12" x 12" matching sheets. The sentiments came from  another sheet in my stash, 

Here are all six cards together. 

Here is the detail on one of the toppers. 

This came from a sheet of sentiments. 

I am hoping to have made 50 Christmas cards before I go on holiday. If I have another look in the box I am sure there will be things I can use. I do like to set myself challenges. 

Enjoy the rest of the day. 

Happy Crafting. 

Hugs Jackie

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Christmas Card number 34

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

I hope your week is off to a good start. We are now well into prep for our holiday it is another cruise this time to Norway. Today I am going out with a friend for a girly day shopping and having lunch.

Yesterday I did a bit of Design Team work and then I set about making a Christmas card. Now I have a bit of a confession last year I bought a lot of Sue Wilson's Festive dies and I didn't get to use most of them. So this year I have promised myself that I am going to try and use all of them at least once.

So I made a start on using them yesterday. I used the Poinsettia mini striplet. Now I discovered something rather cool the outer die from the Happy Perspective die set cuts a perfect mat for the mini striplet. 

I cut the Deboss snowflake die in gold. I used the outer die to cut two black mats to create a black surround. The Seasons Greetings was cut in red.

I am going to try something similar to this design with my other striplet dies. 

I would like to enter challenge 36 at Christmas Card Challenges , challenge 26 at A Bit More Time to Craft Challenge Blog and Pixie's Snippets Playground week 242.

I had better get ready to go out. Enjoy your day. 

Happy Crafting.

Hugs Jackie

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Masculine Birthday Card

Hi My Blog Friends

I hope you had a wonderful weekend. We had an amazing time. The Retro Festival was fantastic. I kept seeing things that I remembered from my childhood. There was clothes, cars, music and food. We did steer clear of the carousel being like the one my husband fell off and broke his wrist last November. That seems so long ago now and he has made such a fantastic recovery.

After the festival went back to our daughter's fiance's parent's house for a BBQ to celebrate the dad's birthday. So I needed a masculine birthday card and I knew he was very interested in cars. In fact he had one on show at the Retro Festival.

I decided to make a clean and simple card. The embossed background I found in my bag of bits. 

I used my favourite Sue Wilson sentiment die. I think this one is so good for masculine cards.

I used the classic car stamp from Visible Image. I coloured it with my Promarkers. 

Here are our daughter's fiance's parents by their car in the show. It is a replica Cobra and he restored it himself. Doesn't it look like the car in the stamp?

This was one of the stalls at the Retro Festival it was just full of things my husband and I remembered from our youth. There was even a telephone table like one we replaced in our second house.  

He seemed pleased with card. We even had some time to talk about the wedding which was nice. It is so good that we are all talking and planning together. 

Enjoy your week.

Take care. 

Hugs Jackie

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Fantasy Stampers - At the Beach

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

Well here we are at the weekend. Do you have plans? We are meeting our daughter, her fiance and his parents at The Retro Festival at Newbury Showground. It is a first for us after we are going back to have a BBQ and talk about wedding plans. We don't really seem to do anything else these days. It is always at the back of my mind.

It is a Saturday and that means it is time for the new challenge on the Fantasy Stampers Challenge Blog the theme is At the Beach.

The stamp set I used is called Beach Huts by Personal Impressions. I created the background with my brushes and some distress ink. 

I stamped the huts with black archival ink onto water colour card and they were coloured with my Spectrum Noir Sparkle pens. They were cut out by hand. 

I used a Tattered Lace die to create the bunting. 

There are a few different sentiments in the set that can be added to the ring. 

The deck chair and the seagulls were stamped straight on to the background. To remove the colour of the background from the seagulls I used water from a brush and I lifted the colour off with a piece of paper towel. 

We really have had the weather for going to the beach this year. It makes such a difference having nice warm weather to enjoy the outside. I will let you know about Retro Festival. 

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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Perspective Dies by Sue Wilson

Hi  My Crafty Blog Friends

How has your week been? At the start of the week I had a migraine and then headaches. I also hurt my back. I am feeling a lot better now. I dind't get as much done this week as I was hoping to. That is just how it goes sometimes.

Some of you know that I am friends with John Lockwood. We had arranged to meet up after one of his local (to me) workshops but his plans changed (they often do). Anyway he is in the process of moving and he asked if I would make some samples with the Perspective dies by Sue Wilson for his show on Hochanda. I agreed,  though I did need to buy some. The shows showcasing these die start tonight and carry on tomorrow.

These are the samples that I sent to John. I did enjoy working with these die they were fun to use and I love how you can use the negative and the positive of the die. Sue Wilson has lots of tutorials using these dies. The dies I have are the ones I thought would be most useful. 

This is the first card I made it was going to be a shaker card but I didn't leave enough space, for the foam tape between the Happy and the Birthday. I do like the clean simple lines of this card. 

This is meant to be a shaker card. I did get the idea from watching one of Sue Wilson's videos. The trouble is I put too much confetti in the card so it doesn't shake but it does look rather pretty. I need to make a birthday card for our daughter's fiance and I had been struggling with an idea now I am going to make one of these cards for him. 

I did buy the stamp that matched the Happy and I used it to create the background. I used a sticky embossing powder and gilding flakes. It is a lot less messy using gilding flakes this way. Once I had done this I used Distress ink to colour the background. 

This card sees my first use of Pixie Powders. Now they are quite as bright as Brushos but they do sparkle. I love things that sparkle. So behind the Best Wishes background there is some water colour paper that I coloured with Pixie Powders. I cut the Best Wishes die three times. Then I cut the Happy Birthday Circle set several times in different colours and I played around until I was happy with a combination. 

I do like making boxes and I found the Circle Thank You die and the Circle Happy Birthday just right for the top of a box. 

I decided to make a card to match the box. 

Lastly this is the Circle Happy Birthday set used to decorate a box. 

I did enjoy using these dies and I have lots of ideas of how to use them in the future. I feel like I have made a good investment. 

I hope you get to watch some of John's show on Hochanda he is always full of good tips and ideas. I am hoping to watch the launch show at least. We are rather busy tomorrow. 

Have a great weekend. 

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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