More Stash Busting

I've spent a bit of time between Christmas and New Year crafting in a vain attempt to reduce my stash

These first couple of cards come from a Dovecraft pad that I bought back in the sales 4 years age!

This card uses rose corners from a 2018 Tattered Lace magazine and stamps from Feb 2018 Creative Stamping Mag.

And these couple of cards are using papers that have been around for ages!

Creative Stamping Issue 80

The postie bought me an early Christmas present today  - the latest issue of Creative Stamping magazine.  After I had braved Tesco for some salad and rolls, I had the rest of Christmas Eve off to play with the lovely Art Nouveau stamp set.

I did a bit of heat embossing in both gold and silver

and was pleased how well the stamps came out - they look very elegant!

A good start to next years cards - I sell them on behalf of St Elizabeth Hospice in Suffolk and other local charities and normally raise at least £300 each year.

I sell a few on eBay, at work and at Coffee mornings etc, and it always nice to have a few different designs for people to choose from.

All is calm .....

and peaceful here at home, presents wrapped, cards given out and just some last minute fresh salad stuff to get tomorrow. Cats snoozing amongst the tinsel and a glass of Port & lemon by the keyboard.

Wishing everyone at happy, healthy and enjoyable Christmas - however you celebrate it!

Now officially fed up of making Christmas cards, so it was a bit of light relief to make these birthday cards from my very old stash ( see last post!)

They are a bit basic, as I seem to be lacking inspiration at the moment, perhaps I need to visit a few of  my crafty friends blogs for some ideas

Far Too Much Stuff

Way back in July 2015 I bought a huge amount of stash off a lady who had to give up crafting for health reasons. I blogged about it here and here

I was searching in my craft room for some gilding flakes when I realized that over 4 years later, I still had so much of that stash lying untouched in different boxes and drawers

I really should stop buying fancy new bits that catch my eye and start using more of what I already have - there are still loads of papers, card stock, ribbons, toppers and other embellishments that I haven't touched yet. Perhaps a new years resolution should be no new purchases until a dent is made in this stash!!

Easily Distracted!

I was searching for something else, when I came across these gold and silver pots of Starlight paints from Imagination Crafts which I bought back in Summer 2016! I was going to do some embossing but ended up painting instead.

They have only been used a couple of times, so it seemed a good idea to paint some wooden shapes. The heart and cats will end up on the Christmas tree, the sparkly reindeer in cards and I'm not sure what to do with the golden  sheep shape!

Great Value for Money

I picked up this book of Winter Feelings die cut elements from The Works - as you can see it only costs £3 for 12 A4 pages 

Packed full of different stars, trees, snowflakes, deer, foliage, garlands etc

They illustrate 12 different cards, but I have have mixed and matched with some other stamps and elements from my stash and made around 30 different Christmas cards with some bits left over!

Some Cute Christmas Cards

Whilst I prefer stags, reindeer and snowy scenes on my Christmas cards,  you have to make some in lots of different styles to suit different tastes

So here are some cute cards!

Silver Swirl

Used my lovely Honey Doo Bauble swirl stamp again, this time embossed in silver and layered with silver holographic card - looks quite striking and different from when I stamped it in gold last month

More Christmas cards .....

All made with bits from my marathon die cutting session at the weekend

And like so many of my cards they might feature reindeer!

Busy, Busy .....

I've been busy with my Big Shot cutting out loads of shapes for my Christmas cards - baubles, reindeer, tags and sentiments

I've tried to use up some of the small scraps of card that I've been hording for ages as well!

And here are a few of the end results!

Cats & Dogs wearing hats

These cute foam cats & dogs wearing Christmas hats were part of my haul when I went shopping in the USA last month. 

I also cut out lots of  black cats & pumpkins using the dies I bought there, to put in the Halloween sweetie bags that I handed out last night

Christmas card production in full swing!

I've been busy beavering away making Christmas cards for charity in my spare time.


These ones have been made using the Hunkydory  Christmas Reflections topper cards I bought back in September
 

Unfortunately I cannot photograph the lovely foiled effect !

I've Been Away!

I've been away on holiday with the family to Florida. Whilst I love Disney, the theme parks and and sunshine - I also love the chance to visit the large Michael's craft store in Orlando too!

So when the rest wanted to go to be scared at the Halloween Horror Nights they hold at Universal, I got myself an Uber ride to the store and spent a quite a while wandering around - they have some amazing Halloween goodies

This life sized scarecrow was reduced from $500!!!!

Prices are not cheap any more so I was a bit selective about what I bought, the best bargain was the We R Memory Keepers scrapbook reduced to $4. There are also stickers, wooden shapes, brads, dies and lots of felt shapes of rugby, tennis,basket & footballs for  future men's cards. 

I've now got to get some of the photos printed out, so I can start the holiday scrapbook!

Little Wooden Owls from Hobbeycraft

Couldn't resist the packet of cute wooden owls when I visited my local Hobbycraft shop at Martlesham recently.

Especially as some of them are covered in silver glitter!

Honey Doo Christmas Wishes

This Honey Doo Christmas Bauble Swirl stamp was one of the car boot bargains I picked up back in February!

I have only now got around to inking it up and using it - it came out lovely when I used gold ink!

I just checked and it is still available on their website for £7.99

More Reindeer this year ..

Reindeer and stags are a perennial Christmas favourite of mine and have started to appear on this years cards.

I have several dies and stamps that I have collected over the years

You can also see them appearing last year here and in 2017 too!   In fact, I could even find a reindeer  Christmas card back in 2011

Covering up a mistake!

I decided to do some heat embossing to make some Christmas cards - unfortunately I was a bit slow with the stamping and the embossing ink had started to dry before I put the power on!

The card was supposed to look like this, but was too faint and blurry

So I had to cover up the sentiment and used the new Merry Christmas die that came with Simply Cards & Papercraft Mag this month, luckily I has just cut some out in different colours to try it out!