Christmas continues ....

 

Continuing to make loads of Xmas cards  for charities, in lots of different styles and techniques to appeal to different people.

but even so, deer seem to crop up in many of them!

Christmas Starts Now

 

One of my rules is not to start making Christmas cards until 1st September - so all 4 boxes of my Christmas stash are stored in the garage until then. 

Then it is pleasure to rediscover everything I put away 9 months ago.

I have so much stuff, that I do not really need to buy any more papers, sentiments, stamps or embellishments.

So these first few cards are the start of making an in-road into that pile.  They will go in the charity box, so can be in a variety of styles and colours.

Forgotten Stencils

 

I know exactly when I bought this delphinium flower stencil because I blogged about it in June 2016!

I tried it a couple of times with paste and spray paints, but never like the effect, so it sat at the bottom of a drawer, forgotten and neglected for 8 years.

Now, I have discovered it makes a lovely birthday card for gardeners using pink, purple and blue distressed oxide inks. Finished it off with a metallic purple dragonfly brad, that I have probably had for 8 years too!

Finished cat card

 

Following from my previous post - here is the birthday card with the cat face on it - this stamp is called Tabitha's Portrait by Anita and is one of my oldest and most favourite stamps.

It also featured on my blog 12 years ago and also in 2015 !

A little pack of cards

 

I picked up this little pack of 20 small cards with a green stripe down one side for only £1.20 and challenged myself to use them up asap!

So they became the central focus on several cards. They stamp well with either a sentiment or image

And the green stripe can be linked into the colour scheme

So I don't think it will take too long to use them all up

Forgotten Embossing Folders

 

Moving on from my forgotten stamps post, I dug out and dusted down some embossing folders that were lurking at the back.

Made a couple of birthday cards suitable for children

 And this wedding card - think I need to get a bit more texture in my future cards!

Forgotten Stamps

 We all have those forgotten stamps, that have been unused and un-inked for years, don't we?

So I dug out a couple of old stamp sets from Inkadinkado that date from 2008 & 2009 to use again

Despite being 15 years old, they still stamped nice and crisp images.

Cloudbusting

 

I bought a very cheap 'cloud edge' stencil off Temu, that arrived today - only took 8 days to come from China.

The first cards I made with it are these these 2 new baby cards with a flying elephant - for a boy and girl.

I then found some die cut birds to put against a cloudy background.

Think it was a bargain!

Reach for the Stars

 

I've just treated myself to another stencil, this time Reach for the Stars, from Honey Doo crafts

The first card I made was for a graduation - it seemed very appropriate!

And this one is going to a charity that sends cards and packages to sick children in hospital, they want positive and upbeat messages for those who may have long term and chronic conditions.

Latest batch of cards

 This card was made with one of my more older, and favourite stamps from Woodware, 'gone to seed', and has appeared in my blog many times before!

This card was made with a freebie stamp - possibly from creative stamping magazine?

I thought this card would make a nice generic card for any adult.

Before & After

 We all have some images or toppers that we don't like or are not our style in our stash, don't we!

I had these vintage style Hunkydory toppers for ages but didn't like the Lady in the middle - I finally realised I could cover her up and use them!

I don't know why it didn't occur to me before.

Same with this one with the corset, much happier with the finished card.

Distress Oxide Circles

 

I was lucky enough to get some more distress oxide ink pads as part of my Mothers Day present, so have been experimenting with the new shades of beige and green - tea dye & bundled sage.

They go so well with the Kraft card blanks that I have in stock

More soft glows

 

Following on from my last post, here are a few more cards made with blending distress oxide inks behind as small topper to make them stand out.

I also used a softer grey ink (Versafine Clair Morning Mist) for the sentiment, very quick and simple to make.

A Rosy Glow

 

The Picked Raspberry ink pad is probably the one I use the least, so I have made an effort to use it on a few CAS cards to give a 'Rosy Glow' background to a simple topper.

It's quite a bright pink, but makes a nice contrast to the toppers and makes them 'pop'.

Also useful for a 'get well soon' card.

And this layout has helped to use up a few old toppers that have hanging around for ages!

Heat Embossing on vellum

 

I haven't done any heat embossing for over 2 years, in fact I struggled to find my embossing powders and ink pads in my craft room - and I very rarely use vellum on my cards.

However, I did make a lovely card using white embossing powder on clear velum at the recent Honey Doo workshop that I attended and thought it was time to have a go at home. I found some patterned vellum that has been sitting at the bottom of a pile for well over 5 years.  I was pleased how the gold on the red vellum came out  - would look good on a Christmas card too.

The pearly white  leaves on the green was more subtle, but still made a nice texture. I tried to also do some flowers, but that was not a success and they ended up in the bin!