Christmas Keepsake

Thursday's sure come round quickly! It's time for me to share a card made for today's challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. It is a sketch challenge this week. I also had a little help from the colour challenge at Cupcake Inspirations and from the cue word at casology. I haven't made a Christmas card in a while either. Some of you will remember that I used to design for 52 Christmas Card Throwdown and I hope my old teamies over there won't mind me playing along this week with their challenge too.

So here it is, or rather they are. I made two cards, in truth because I messed up one and had to make the second but the first one was still good and well, you can't have too many handmade Christmas cards can you?

This one is for CC&S. I used Ornament Keepsakes, a retired stamp set from SU, but still a good one and an embossing folder with a holly leaf pattern. The sentiment is from Holiday Home and I used a die tag to cut it out. The images were stamped, die cut and recessed behind the embossed card. This is my card for Cupcake Insirations too.

Here is my second card for the other challenges. I've used the same sketch but not used the embossed layer. I changed the tag and used tape to affix the ribbon to look like the strings from the ornaments. With its lack of embellishments I think this would be a great Christmas card for a guy and that's the challenge at 52CCT.

You can see that the ornaments were popped up this time. The Casology cue is circles, and I want to thanks those ladies over there because that's what made me go rummaging through my stamp sets to find this one again!

Oh, nearly forgot, here is the sketch and the colour palette

Blue Baubles

Another Saturday, how has the first week of January gone for you? Back to work? Kids back to school? Back to the normal routines of daily life? Yep, that just about sums it up for me too! But I'm still thinking of Christmas as we present the first colour challenge of 2015 from 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown

I took my Christmas tree down on Twelfth Night and it was that that made me think of this card. The blue spruce pine tree branches were stamped using a ornamental Pine, then I stamped and embellished some of the baubles from Ornament Keepsakes, luckily I have the dies too so cutting  ornathem out was no problem. I've used foam pads of different thicknesses to give the impression of depth. These are all blues, although I appreciate the Parisienne Night looks purple in the photograph.

Diamonds (and Pearls) Are A Girl's Best Friend!

Diamonds and pearls- don't you just love them! They are classic in every way, especially on Christmas cards and today at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown Asha has chosen them for our stash challenge

I loved this challenge, -to add bling? Oh, yes, bring it on! I could have gone sophisticated and elegant, CAS, vintage, shabby chic, steam punk even, all styles apply, but I went homestyle modern, with lots of Kraft and cream and a pop of warm burgundy. Have a look

The ornament stamps from Ornament Keepsakes were stamped in versamark and heat embossed with white. I used Kraft and black for the card stock. The matching die cuts make cutting them out simple. I used Kraft cs for the mat, added a layer of twinkling vellum and a border of washi tape. There are diamonds on the large round ornament and on the snowflakes. I added grey pearls to the other large ornament and a large black pearl to the centre of the small one. The ornaments are popped up on foam pads of different thicknesses.

The Noel was stamped on mountboard and then covered in several layers of clear embossing powder to give a tile effect. Finally, I tied a bow in some burgundy coloured satin ribbon. With all those layers I thought I could enter the challenge at Winter Wonderland, where they tell me it is only 89 days to Christmas! Whoopie! Also,Completely Christmas are having an Anything Goes challenge, so I'll enter my card over there too.

Tags on the Run

Just a quickie from me this morning. I made some gift tags using the emboss resist technique, one of the featured techniques on Technique Time Tuesday, where the current challenge asks for any previous technique.  I am so sorry that my post is about a week late, but that's about my life at the moment- at this rate we will be celebrating Christmas at New Year in our house!

They match the wrapping paper I have, hence the mix of colours and are destined for my work colleagues. The stamps are, of course, Ornament Keepsakes and the snowflake is a magazine freebie- one I really love to use.  Go to run, so much to do........

Christmas In-colours

Good Morning and a happy Saturday to you! Today's my last time as hostess at 52 CCT for a while and the theme is pick a previous theme.

  I have chosen to o Christmas Ornaments, as I haven't made an ornament card in a while.  keeping with my current contemporary mood I chosen non-trad colours

I used Mosaic Madness for the centres of the ornaments, which of course are from Ornament Keepsakes. The embossing folder is a generic snowflake and the die cut sentiment is from Memory Box.  Really, really pleased with the way this one turned out!

Cascading Christmas

At last! A few spare minutes to put up a post that should have been there Saturday morning! My only excuse is a very hectic weekend, as our swimming club ran their major event of the year, our three day open meet. I'm exhausted, never mind the swimmers!
Over at 52 {Chrismas} Card Throwdown there is a really fun challenge for Christmas cards with Fancy folds (Paper engineering, I like to call it)

Earlier this year I tried a fold (well, it's rather more of a cut!) called the cascading card technique for a challenge at Technique Time Tuesday and the entries in the challenge were fabulous.  I knew that I wanted to give this one another go (there is a tutorial on the TTT blog if this is new to you).
At the time I made a card for my daughter and it's one of the few that she's kept up all year. This time of course I've made a Christmas card

 I have chosen some pretty non-traditional colours -teal, hot pink and silver. The card does fold flat to fit in an envelope.  The snowflakes are white peel-offs, the other embellishments are heat embossed baubles or punched birds and leaves. I must say the photo doesn't really do it justice, it's a very tactile card, as you pull it open you get to see the decorations inside.
Do hop over to the 52CCT blog to look at the other cards from the rest of the DT, there are some great ideas for you to try, the hardest part will be deciding which fancy fold card you want to show us!

Bring On The Bling

Do you remember back in the beginning of the month I told you that I had made a card for the sketch challenge, which I decided didn't quite fit the bill? You'll be pleased to hear that I didn't waste it, oh no, I upcycled it for today's 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown challenge..bling it up!

Can you see all that bling?  There's a glitter border, pearls, a silver embossed border, green Stickles on the trees 'outside', snow on the window sill, gems on the bauble, which hangs freely by the way.  Can you see why I started this card from the sketch ? I stamped the tree from Lovely As A Tree, over the top of some white card where I had cut this strips of post-it-note to form the window frame. Love the result this gave me.  There are more trees from the same set stamped in basic grey at the back to add depth to my scene.
I'm going to enter my card in a few challenges too. Firstly, at Christmas Cards All Year Round the theme is getting ready for Christmas - At Christmas time I always hang red baubles from the curtain rail in front of our large french window, at various heights, so this reminds me of that Then I'm also going to enter the challenge at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where the theme is Christmas/Holiday creation and finally at Korttikarkuri -Let's get Inky where cards must feature stamping.

A string of Baubles

Yes, this is the other easel card I created earlier this week. This time it's for the theme challenge at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown, where Jacqueline is our lovely hostess and she has chosen one of my favourite images on a holiday card- baubles/ornaments.
I used one of the small bauble stamps and die cuts from the Ornament Keepsakes set, stamped in Gumball Green and Raspberry Ripple.  I used some DP and matching cardstock for the matting and layering.  The sentiment is from Sassy Salutations. You will see that this is a twisted easel card and that my baubles have been embellished with gold coloured tops using a mettalic marker and strung on some bakers' twine.  Here's a better view..

Do have a look at the other cards from the DT over on the blog - they are awesome!

Stars and Plaid

Wow!  Three posts from me in one day!  Don't know if I've ever done that before, but I just wanted to squeeze into the draw at Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge with a card that I made using the sketch fromMerry Monday Christmas Card Challenge.  Here is the sketch:

For my card I chose a red and gold theme with lots of stars and dimension (no use trying to send this one in the mail!)

I used a stamp from the Ornament Keepsake set, stamped it 5 times and layered it together to make the 3D ornament.  I die cut one large and three small stars from mirri card and used some of my lovely plaid DP.There are even some stars on the ornament!

Back with another Christmas Card tomorrow, something quite different!

White on White

Feeling Christmassy yet?  It' s only two weeks away, today! I have so much to do but still found a little time to craft today, on my day off, and so I have a card to show you.  This time it's for the White on White Christmas challenge at Make My Monday. I really love to do white on white, but don't often get chance to do it so this was a good excuse.

I hope you can see the 'falling snow' -polka dot embossed cardstock at the top, then I've used two torn layered pieces of white card for 'drifting snow' and the bottom layer is white frosty glitter.  The three 3D baubles are stamped and heat  embossed in Snowflake White.  They are from the Ornament Keepsake set. I've just added some white ribbon hangers.  I must be dreaming of a white Christmas!

Christmas Flag It!

I found a new challenge today,well new to me anyway and I found it because I noticed a few cards around that all looked quite similar and I liked every one! Of course they were following a sketch, this sketch actually

The challenge blog is Merry Monday Christmas Card Challenge and this one is called 'Flag it'  I just love those ribbons and with a central sentiment and a focal point it is perfect for a cas kind-a-girl like me. Here's my card

I used a cream card blank and a selection of matching Christmas Papers. I made a 3D bauble using Ornament Keepsakes stamp set from SU, stamped in Raspberry Ripple and the greeting is from Sassy salutations, stamped in and matted onto Lucky Limeade. I sponged the edge of the sentiment in the same colour and added a few pearls.

Vellum Vase

What to do with vellum!  It's so luxurious, especially with gold, and yet I find it difficult to find the correct adhesive to use with it. Well, using vellum in an autumn themed card is the challenge at Make My Monday this week.

I have used the vellum to make a vase for my lovely autumn chrysanthemums.  I cut it out using one of the dies from the Ornament Keepsakes set, trimming off the bottom. I stamped the stems using the Perfectly Preserved stamp set and the flowers are two step stamps from a stamp set called Reason To Smile. I quite like the rough over-stamping effect but I suspect you could get a sharper image using a Stamp-a-majig. I've used burgundy ink, overstamped in red onto Naturals White cardstock and matted the image onto burgundy card and then onto another sheet of gold vellum. The little sentiment is from a Kanban set, I forget the name. It's another clean and simple project, but there are lots of other ideas on the blog - go and have a look!