Friday 28 December 2012

Second Stampin' up Christmas Class


This is the last Christmas related posting and is the Advent Calender we made with Carol at a class held during one of our Crafting Bees.  Carol had prepared all the pieces for us so it was just a case of putting together the pieces for each individual day and then attaching them to a 12"x12" sheet of cardstock.  Although it took part of an afternoon and evening to complete I think we were all delighted with the end result and Carol had sourced box frames for us to display it in which I think just finishes it off perfectly.

This project used a huge range of Stampin' up products and was ideal for using their windows die.




Here are also some Christmas cards which were make and takes from Stampin' up demonstrations.


This is a card we made with Carol and also the thank you tag she attached to our order bags when our goodies arrived.



This is a card we made with Ruth and her thank you tag.


Rhona had kits left over from her swaps box so she shared them with us at the Crafting Bee.  

All three cards made use of the Stampin' up stamp set Scentsational Season.

Thanks for reading today
Liz xx

Christmas Cards for 2012


These are three cards from a batch of twenty-two easy make cards that were put together for this Christmas and are from a Create and Craft kit I bought a few years ago.  After making the decoupage the front was cut from the kit base card and layered up to fit a rectangular scalloped card.  The small matching picture from the back of the card was die cut and layered using circle nestabilities dies and added to the back and after adding an insert the only other embellishments were either ribbon or gold elastic cord.  The matching sticker in the kit was used as a seal to the envelope. 

Here are most of the ninety-nine Christmas cards I made this year.







 I didn't manage to have them all finished before three went overseas and my Mum took some up to Orkney to deliver for me.  Here are the final makes.



My Spellbinders poinsettia dies have been well used this year and I had a fine system set up where they were cut using the Big Shot and embossed using the Grand Calibur which saved changing plates or adjusting the platform on the Big Shot.  However, with so many forward and backward handle turns on the Grand Calibur the screws holding the handle in place in the inside fell out and we had to open up the Calibur to put it together again.

Hope you've all had a lovely time over Christmas.

Thanks for reading
Liz xx

Monday 24 December 2012

Santa Claus


Just one more sleep and this jolly fellow should be making his way around the globe delivering his parcels to those of you who have been good.  This is another four square Christmas card I've made a batch of using Santa gift tags from Poundland as the main topper.  The tag was chopped down, layered up and the Santa character reattached using more foam pads.

The printed background papers for the small squares and the large background layers are from Kanban and the Papeterie.  Once again left over white card was decorated to make the small striped squares.  They were stamped with the Hero Arts canvas stripe stamp in majestic blue versafine ink and then over stamped using a Stampin' up snowflake cluster stamp using their riding hood red ink before being embossed using a random dot embossing folder.

   
Just a few extra embellishments for this one with thread wrapped around the small squares, crystal dot peel offs, a bow and the star corner spots are stamped using a small stamp from the Stampin' up Delightful Ornaments set and Stampendous red tinsel embossing powder.

Off to do some final preparations before tomorrow.  Everything may not be as organised and spic and span as I'd like it to be but we're warm, dry, have plenty to eat, with gifts under the tree and beautiful cards from friends and family on display. 

Hope you all have a lovely day tomorrow whatever you do and whoever you share it with.

Thanks for reading
Liz xxx

Sunday 23 December 2012

Baubles Squares


I made a batch of these cards using the Delightful Decorations stamp set from Stampin' up and also another bauble from one of their retired sets.  The red baubles were stamped with VersaMark ink and embossed using Stampendous red tinsel embossing powder and the green baubles were stamped with VersaMagic aloe vera chalk ink. Dazzling diamonds glitter was added to the green baubles without a patterned centre so that all the baubles had glitter on them.  They were attached to the card using foam pads.

The colour scsheme for this one was taken from the backing paper which is from a Papermania pad I bought a few years ago and works well with Stampin' up's old olive and certainly celery colours.  Nestabilitie dies were used to cut the large and small squares and the sentiment in the small squares is stamped from the Dawn Bibby stamp set Warm Wishes.


For embellishments pearls, gems, a ribbon and bows punched using a Martha Stewart punch were added.  Promarkers were used to colour clear gems and, although the white squares were embossed with a random dot embossing folder to add texture, thread was wrapped around the layers too to break the block of white behind each bauble.

This project was a great way to used up lots of scraps of white card and could be adapted to any colour scheme.  Using the tinsel embossing powder gave the card lots of sparkle.

Thanks for reading today