Snowdrops and Designer Papers

 Hello My Crafty Blog Friends and Visitors

How is your week going? We had a walk yesterday and we discovered a woodland walk that is not far from where we live. When our daughter and son-in-law come to visit with their dog we will be able to take them there. 

My friend asked me to make a birthday card for one of our mutual friends. When I had finished I had some nice bits of card and Designer papers that I just had to use. Here is the result.

This Designer paper is from the Rainbow River 12" x 12" paper pad from Claritystamp. 

This the Art Nouveau Snowdrops Aperture Freshcut die. I cut the die from a piece of black card that I put onto some Designer paper that had been covered with a double sided sticky sheet. I cut the die again in white and green and put the pieces I needed into place. The residual stickiness was covered with a transparent glitter. 

This will be another card that will be going to the Hampshire Open Studios event at the end of August. I have found that cards without sentiments do well at this event. 

Enjoy the rest of the week

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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Up-Cycled Christmas cards

Hello My Crafty Blog Friends and Visitors

I hope you had a good weekend and the start of your week has been good too. I probably ought to start with a bit of an explanation. I have been a bit quiet on my blog lately. The death of my friend hit me quite hard and I have found it hard to focus, not helped by me getting a cold. I have a lot to get ready in the next couple of months my husband is 60 this year. I am still crafting but mostly it is things that I can't share just yet. Thank you to those who haven't given up on me. I am still around.

I am  trying to keep up with  my Christmas card makes. At the end of a craft session I try to fit in a couple.

This is one of my up-cycled Christmas cards. I liked the image on the old card. I trimmed it to fit so I could in some mats and layers. 

I do like to see robins on Christmas card. 

I used the Ivy Spray die from the John Next Door range. I added glitter for some extra sparkle. 

This is a small sentiment die from the John Next Door range. 

I had time to make another simple card from another card. 

That's another two for my stash. 

I would like to enter the following challenges: 

The June Rudolph Days Challenge

Challenge 443 at Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge 

Challenge 187 at the Crimbo Crackers Challenge blog

Challenge 52 at the Holly and the Ivy Challenge blog

Challenge 11 at the Merry Little Christmas Challenge blog

Challenge 445 at the Fab 'N' Funky Challenge blog

The L and M Challenge at the ABC Christmas Challenge blog L for Little Robin

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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First Play with Fresh Cut dies from Claritystamps

Hello My Crafty Blog Friends and Visitors

I hope you had a great weekend. My shoulder finally seems to be on the mend which is brilliant. I don't want to over do things as I don't want to hurt it again, which I think would be far too easy.

I have a lovely crafty friend who lives near by. Recently she has been poorly and for one reason or another we have not seen each other since  just before Christmas. Last week I went round to her house for lunch.  Being a big Claritystamp fan and she has many of their products. Very kindly she let me have a play with some  and bring away what I had made. When I got home I decorated a card and a canvas.

For the card I picked up the colours for the mats and layers from the paper I had used from the gorgeous Shenandoah paper pad. 

This is the  Birds in a Tree Aperture die. I found some paper in made stash that I thought would make a good background. I cut a piece to go under the die cut and I covered it with a double sided sticky sheet. Then I covered it with a translucent glitter. 

 My plan had been to make the canvas all inky and try to match the beautiful papers. When I made the card I decided that I rather liked the clean and simple look. 

This is the centre panel of the canvas and this is what we actually made first. The die cut for the card was carefully removed from the die leaving the waste in place. The die was covered with a sticky sheet and it was rubbed all over to make sure the bits stuck. The sticky sheet was removed slowly so you could make sure all the bits were attached. Once it was fully removed the  whole thing was dusted with talcum powder to stop in being sticky. It was then stuck to a small canvas board. It did look rather like a coaster. Isn't it just amazing that you can do this with the waste. 

Here are my two makes together. I think I am going to have to gift them to someone as a set. 

I would like to enter the following challenges: 

Challenge 237 at the Crafting from the Heart Challenge blog

Challenge 13 at the Creative Crafter's Challenge blog

Have a great week. 

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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MDF Bauble

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

How is your week going? I am into the last week at school before the Christmas holiday. There is a lot to remember to do. All our cards are posted but I did find that I didn't have enough cards for the people at work this is because the team I am in has expanded. So I have been frantically making some quick cards. I can't quite bring myself to buy some from a shop.

When we went to the Portsmouth Craft show, back in October,  I was rather taken by some MDF baubles that came with lights. I bought two but I have only decorated one so far.

The bauble has four layers and I painted each layer separatley with arylic paint.  The nice thing about the layers is that they give dimension and you can change the order and the way round they are. 

To add some interest I put glue over the snowflakes and added some clear glitter. 

I added a bow and some holly to the bottom of the bauble. 

Here you can see the lights. 

Here are the lights in the dark. This bauble is now hanging up in our dining room and it looks very nice there too. 

I would like to enter challenge 35 at A Snowflakes Promise Challenge blog. 

Enjoy the rest of the week

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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Unicorn Challenge - Add Some Glitter

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

How is your week going? Christmas preparations have really notched up a step. There is so much to do.  I hope your plans are going well. Yesterday I sorted out all the presents that need posting so they can go in the post today. Every little helps.

The new challenge on the Unicorn Challenge blog starts today the theme is Add Some Glitter.

I made this card after watching a demonstration by Sue Wilson on Hochanda. For the background layer I took a piece of white card and I stamped some poinsettias in black archival around the edge. Once the ink was dry I  stamped the same poinsettias with Perfect Medium, over the black ones, these were then heat embossed with some gold embossing powder. Finally I inked over the edges of the card with Black Soot Distress ink.  

I took a piece of black card and I stamped the poinsettias with Perfect Medium over the surface. Then I dusted them with two shades of mica powder. Then from the center of the black  I cut last years festive angel by Sue Wilson. Behind the black sheet I put a double sided sticky sheet. I cut a gold angel which this time I embossed to get all of the detail. The angel was placed in the aperture of the black sheet and stuck to the sticky sheet. I used some fine glitter to cover the exposed sticky sheet. 

Peace was cut from some glitter card. Around the edge of the black I added some dries clear glue and I sprinkled it with a course glitter. I added gold dazzlers to the corners and ribbon across the center. 

I have been asked to make two more of these cards for a friend. So now I have three black angels to use, I think I can feel a design coming on. I have lost count of how many Christmas cards I have made this year but I am getting worried that I don't have enough. Time is running out and there is wedding prep to do as well. 

I would like to enter the Celebrate Challenge at the Try it on a Tuesday Challenge Blog , challenge 33 at A bit more time to Craft Challenge Blog , Shine Challenge at the Cuttlebug Mania Challenge blog , frame it challenge at the Winterwonderland Challenge blog ,Challenge 34 at A Snowflakes Challenge Blog and Week 258 at Pixie's Snippets Playground. 

I hope that the rest of the week is kind to you. 

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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Sparkly Santa

Hi My Crafty Blog Friends

How is your week going? There is a lot going on at work and there is a lot going on at home. We are very busy at the moment. There is wedding prep, Christmas prep and preparing for the rabbits to go home at the weekend.

I haven't posted for a while how many Christmas cards I have made so far. In fact I haven't been counting much lately but I did the other day and there were 105 that should be plenty and I know our daughter wants some and that should be fine too.

I started with some white glitter card and some blue card and ribbon. 

The image was from an old Christmas card this Santa is covered in glitter. I love the cute robin in his hat. 

This is the Sue Wilson Happy Christmas die cut in red mirror card. That die has been so useful this year. 

Well this is another one for the box. Not long and we will be writing and posting them. 

I would like to enter Challenge 86 at Sparkles Monthly Challenges and Challenge 32 at A Bit More Time to Craft Challenge blog. 

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

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My First Christmas Card of 2016

Hi My Crafty blog Friends

How is your week going? It was certainly nice to see some sun today even if it was a bit cold.

I do have to apologise that I have made a Christmas card. I did promise myself that I would start making them in January and up until today I hadn't made one. Also I was rather naughty and I had bought quite a lot of Sue Wilson's Festive dies from the last release and I hadn't got round to using some of them. This made me feel a bit guilty so I decided today was the day to make an effort. After all if I only make one Christmas card a month I will only have 12 when we get to Christmas.

This card was made entirely with Sue Wilson dies. I am loving the double pierced squares and rectangles sets a and b. When I was at Newbury John Lockwood showed me how to use them in a different way. I cut a wide frame with two of the dies from the double pierced rectangles set then I cut an inner frame in a contrasting colour and stuck it over the top of the first frame. I cut the snowflake background die in white to go behind the frame. On a piece of dark blue card with a double sided sticky sheet cut to size. I stuck the background to the sticky sheet and then covered the whole thing with Diamond Sprinkles.

I cut lots poinsettias with the Classic Poinsettia dies in a pale blue and I inked the edges I did shape them with a ball tool. 

I added the sentiment to the centre of the design. 

I was very pleased with how this card turned out. I now have an idea for a 50th birthday day card that I need to make.  Enjoy the last day of the week the weekend is nearly here. 

I would like to enter Challenge 15 at A Snowflake's Promise ,Challenge 289 at the Fab'n'Funky Challenge Blog,  Pixie's Snippets Playground Week 213 and Christmas Cards Challenges 8.

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie

In the Pink for Mother's Day

Hi My Blog Friends

I hope you are all set for a  great weekend and have survived the earth tremors and the snow.  We are going to Brighton for the weekend, I am posting this just before we set off, I hope the weather is kind to us. Of course I will be checking out all the craft shops in the area as today is pay day.

This is another project in my quest to keep ahead of my card making - a Mother's Day card. I saw a card on Sue Wilson's Blog  where she had used a border die to create a background and I decided that I would have a go.

I cut the border six time making sure that I embossed them each time so that the die cuts had all the gorgeous detail. I cut all the mats I wanted and the final one was some patterned paper from my stash.

The patterned sheet was covered with a double sided sticky sheet cut to fit. Then after some juggling I arranged the border die cuts down the sheet over lapping them slightly.They did overlap the sheet and needed trimming. Once they were stuck down I covered the whole thing with CS Glitter Jewels Diamond Sprinkles and rubbed it into the exposed sticky sheet so no stickiness was left.

I made the tag by cutting some matching paper and cutting up a sentiment cut with a Signature die.

I made the flower with some more of my Sue Wilson dies, they do make pretty flowers. A flat backed pearl was added to the centre of each flower. 

 It really does sparkle when it catches the light. I will be working on the Save the Date cards soon that's if I ever get round to ordering the card.

I hope you have a great weekend.

Happy Crafting

Hugs Jackie