Christmas is Coming ....

 

And its time to dig out the Christmas craft stuff and start making those Xmas cards!

First few are the easy ones, recycling some of last years cards

Adding background papers and embellishments

Next thing , look through all my old stamps and dies for new inspiration!

Tall & Thin

 

Made a few DL sized Christmas cards as I finally managed to buy a pack of blank cards & envelopes - they never seem to be in stock when I look for them.

These are made from last years recycled Christmas cards with added embellishments

Golden Snippet Christmas Cards

I saw a post over on Tiny Roses blog about making snippet cards using leftover strips of papers and she inspired me to make these two cards.

I hope to make some more at the weekend using different contrasting papers!

Upcycling Your Christmas Cards

Several people save all their Christmas cards and hand them over to me, as I love cutting them up and re-using them. It is such a shame to throw away some of those lovely designs. I often take off any embellishments such as sentiments, bows and charms to re-use too

 

Here I have several cards that I am going to die cut using some bauble and snowflake dies. Snowflakes can be really tricky to get out in one piece and this die is a favourite as it cuts so cleanly.

This stag bauble die was a cheapie, only £2.55 from China - see more cards made with it back in 2017 here

I've even used the cut out as a negative to make some more cards.

The ribbons were originally from the Christmas crackers!

All the scraps can be put into the recycling - unless they have glitter on them, then my local Council won't take them, so I tend to use the backs for shopping lists etc

All these will be put away until Autumn when I will start to make Christmas cards again!

A Commission and Recycling

I recently got a commission to make a card for someones first Grandson - this will be winging its way to Romania soon!

Like many people, I have now started making my Christmas cards. These two have both got parts of last years cards recycled in them!

More Recycled Reindeer

A couple more cards featuring Stags and Reindeer- this time using recycled Christmas cards from last year!

Diary Cats

I was about to throw out my old pocket diary for last year, when I realised I could take out some of the pictures of cats and use them for cards.

So I carefully scored out some pages and recycled them into new birthday cards!

Cannibalising Old Christmas Cards

These 2 cards were made by re-using some little robins that were on one of the Christmas cards I received last year - they were so cute, I just had to use them again!

I cut out branches from scraps of brown card and put them against different backgrounds. I still have a pile of last years cards to recycle in some way!

Re-using Old Christmas Cards

Several people give me their old Christmas cards each year so that I can reuse the ribbons, sentiments and toppers.

With a bit of mat and layering they can easily be reused as backgrounds too!

I also use the backs for stamping, so very little goes in the recycling bin!

Christmas is a coming .......

And like many people I have been beavering away making Christmas cards ready for this year. Not only have I sixty to make for friends and family, but I also supply 2 local charities. 

This is my first batch of over 100 cards and I hope to make a lot more in the next few weeks. I loved the free  Hunky Dory papers in this months Cardmaking & Papercraft Magazine and have made 13 so far, with some papers still left to use.

 Most of these cards made been made with freebies from magazines or recycled cards from last year.

A Bit Of Recycling

These 3 cards are all quick cheats made by recycling last years shop bought Christmas cards by a bit of mat and laying, plus adding sentiments and embellishments!

Recycling Drinks Cans into Flowers!

My daughter had several projects to complete in the school holidays - one of which was to make something out of recycled objects.

Her first thought was to use drinks cans( we have plenty of those to recycle!) and make a windmill. But after checking it out on Google, they seemed quite difficult to make, so we tried flowers instead!

We cut out different sizes of blooms with the spellbinder blossom set and decorated some of the layers with glitter glue and smooch paints.

Then we fasten them together with a brad and sellotaped the flower to some old knitting needles.

Leaves were cut out of green cardboard.

The vase was made out of an empty bottle of Aspalls cyder ( my favourite) with the label covered with a piece of recycled envelope and finished off with an old cerise ribbon 

Fab Card Making Session!

Just got home from from visiting my friend Francesca, where we had a long overdue card making and chatting session.

We both recycled old Christmas cards to make new ones for this year - using some of Francesca's large pile of punched out snowflakes to add a bit of sparkle to them!

I made 7 cards but Francesca made a bit less, because she had to take time out to make a delicious lunch!

I also had a play with some of her new Christmas stamps and love this Christmas tree one - I thought it was very stylish, so stamped off a few more to use later.

Get them (recycled) Jeans on!

This is a very recycled card - the girl is stamped on to the back of a Christmas card, the teal blue paper was originally an envelope and the silver trimmed ribbon was the handle from a Christmas gift bag, I even reused the scrolls punched out from the border!

Feeling very good about using up old stash and stuff and resisting the temptation to go out and buy some Nellie Stellen dies and and Lily of the Valley stamps that I really, really want but don't really, really need!

I'm entering this into the Something for the Boys challenge at The Crafty Pad and the Allsorts Recycling Challenge

Recycled Snowflakes

At Mid Suffolk District Council we are holding a sports ceremony soon where we are handing out framed certificates. Each of the frames came with gold coloured card corner protectors , which of course I snaffled - so this morning I have been cutting out swirls and snowflakes with my marianne dies and Cuttlebug.

Not bad from triangular scraps of card are they? I'm sure these will come in very useful.

Don't forget to pop over to Charity Crafters blog where there is a huge pile of candy in memory of a special crafter - Amanda. This closes on 26th Nov.

Nestie Flower Card

I've got the day off work but it's just too hot to do anything other than craft indoors in the shade! I made the flower from layers of pink mulberry papers cut out using the blossom 2 nestie from Spellbinders.

The rest is pretty much recycled - the little girl is a free image from a magazine which was printed onto the back of an old Christmas card. The backing paper was a tag left over from a piece of wrapping paper and the black paper used to layer it up was out of a box of chocolates!