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!

Hunkydory Christmas Reflections Topper Deck

To kickstart this years Christmas cards, I've bought a topper deck of cards from Hunkydory. There are 18 different designs from traditional scenes, Santas to stunning wildlife - something for everyone!

They are mirri toppers which make them feel a bit special.

I have loads of backing papers leftover from previous years, so hopefully will be able to use them with these lovely images.

Christmas starts now ...

As its September, I now feel I can crack open the Christmas stash and start making the Xmas cards!

I usually try to make 300+ cards. as I have several charities who like to use the cards for fund raising

These ones have all use Craftwork Cards' Peppermint Forest' toppers - I'm now off to Hobbycraft to buy lots of card blanks!

Tattered Lace Magazine - issue 69

This months die and charisma from Tattered lace magazine is a heart shaped bunch of flowers. Here used for a Wedding Anniversary card

Two paired together for a C6 sized birthday card

and also 2 hearts on this 6" square card

More Moroccan Tiles ...

Made a couple more cards with my new X-cut Moroccan Tile die - experimented using different colour schemes and themes. 

As it is such a fiddly, intricate die I used spray adhesive to make it stick to the backgrounds.

Inking up old stamps ....

I've had these stamps for several years and haven't used them for ages, so it was about time they had an outing!  The background was made back in April when I experimenting with Brushos.

These stamps I think were from the Jan 2018 issue of Crafts Beautiful mag - and had never been used before. Unfortunately there are lots more stamps in my craft room that have not been inked either, so I must make more of an effort with my stash!

Baby Girls

There seem to be a lot of baby girls expected amongst friends and work colleagues, so I thought I'd better get prepared!

Made a few different styles and sizes

I went to The Range earlier on to buy a few basics - double sided tape, card blanks and glue dots and this reduced X-Cut Moroccan Tile die fell into my basket too!

I like the effect cut into holographic card on the baby card above - plus its quite effective in plain white as well!

Bird Watching

I've just bought myself a pack of  topper decks cards by Hunkydory called 'Watercolour Wings' - 54 ATC sized cards with 18 different bird designs

These are Garden Birds - such as Nightingales, Blue Tits and Wrens

I rather like this Barn Owl, I've also treated myself to their Christmas Reflections topper deck in preparation for this years Xmas cards!

Jeepers Creepers - where d'ya been hiding those sneakers?

Eek! It's been over three years since I last used this Woodware stamp.

Don't know why, as its a great image for teenage birthdays - for both boys and girls!

These cards were all coloured using Promarkers, but I might make a couple with paper piercing like before.

Tattered Lace - Lilies

I'm becoming more of a fan of the Tattered Lace Magazine and have bought issue 68 because of the beautiful lily bouquet dies and papers.

I know it is very expensive at £12.99, but I have found that I have used previous dies over and over again, because of the different colour ways you can download. 

And here is proof of the shoes and handbag design from issue 66, that I have just used in the orange colour with a scrap of my hand made distress oxide inky background

And now for something a bit different ...

Another card made with my distress oxide inked backgrounds - a change from my previous flowers and butterflies!  I bet you can guess what his favourite film is!

Me Time ..

It's lovely having some time to sit and experiment  with different inks and embossing techniques. I am hoping to have more time to do this in the future, if I can reduce from working full time to only 2.5 days a week.

Not all experiments were successful - but I am pleased with these cards - all with unique backgrounds

I even made an ATC out of one of the scraps!