My Favourite Card Made For Christmas!

So, here is my favourite card made for the Christmas period. I have used some beautiful papers from the Craftwork Cards Christmas Post range in the background and layered the card up from there. The sentiment at the bottom is from a Woodware stamp with the main word being SNOW, but it also has some great phases. The gorgeous flourish is from IndigoBlu and has been stamped using distress ink in vintage photo. The rosettes have been made using a Tim Holtz decorative strip die called 'Mini Paper Rosettes'. The corners have been cut with dies from the Lea'bilities range and the rosette tops using a die from Spellbinders Create-A-Flake Three.I don't know why, but I really    like this one!

 

Baby Humphrey!

 Here are a couple of new baby cards that I have recently had to quickly assemble, fortunately I have had some die-cut Crafter's Companion Humphrey's Corner decoupage to save me! I have to say the one thing I hate about craft...cutting any sort of decoupage! Hey presto, the cheat's answer to this becomes available and here I am! I have combined with some papers from my stash and cut the word 'baby' for the card below with my Cricut American Alphabet cartridge.  Some lace and odd bits of bobs complete these very simple cards.

Christmas Post

Well, it had to start sometime! I started some Christmas cards a few days ago using the Craftwork Cards Christmas Post collection. The first one on the left was made using papers and toppers from the collection, along with some Christmas Paper Bows from the same company. The 'tree' was made using 3 of the bows and topped with a small poinsettia flower from Marianne Creatables and some Card Candi. The tree was then backed onto coordinating red card embossed with the Crafter's Companion Christmas Patchwork folder. The pot is a Card-io stamp stamped onto kraft card and distressed at the edges with vintage photo distress ink. The main background paper was also distressed for that vintage feel and matted onto coordinating green card with a kraft card blank. The circle sentiment was backed onto a Spellbinder's delightful circle die.
The two cards below are made using the same collection and accessories, again with similar colour tones. I have also used red perfect pearls for the flower centres and found some cream and gold ribbon to add an extra touch. The card on the right was inspired by a card I made at a class this time last year with Lisa Baker, this time adapted for use with the Christmas Post collection. The card has been cut apart with some Hunkydory Snowfall acetate added and then reconstructed again. As Lisa's blog challenge is 'Traditional Christmas' I will enter these for this month...

 

Birthday Lovely Lili!

Morning all! This stamp is definitely getting a good run! Again, I love this girly from LOTV, (called Summer Lovely Lilli) and here I have used lots of shades of pink to complement her and make the ultimate, flowery, girly card! I have used my Cricut Storybook cartridge to cut the basic topper shape and again to matt. I have also used the same cartridge to cut some decorative corner flourishes and another, smaller shape to add dimension and layers. The flowers and buttons are from my stash and the papers are from the First Edition Dreamcatcher pad. The main image has been coloured with promarkers and the sentiment has been stamped using a Popcorn sentiment (I think!) As this month's theme for the LOTV challenge blog is 'Anything Goes', I thought she would be perfect to enter!

A Hobbit Hole in Autumn

Morning Bloggers! Ok, my husband is a little mad about myth and fantasy too, so I decided to make a card related to 'The Hobbit'. There is nothing like this in the shops; (not that I've seen anyway) I think there is an uncaptured market there... Anyway, this card has been made using loads of my favourite Lavina stamps. The main stamp is appropriately named 'hobbit hole' and the other elements are a mix of foliage, mushrooms and grasses. I have used autumnal distress ink colours which also make it quite manly, and made the topper sentiment on my PC using a piece of Tolkien's poetry. The green background paper I have made using some Indigoblu Morris Dance flake together with a small star Lavina stamp randomly stamped all over the

page. My Husband was pleased with it so I thought I would enter this into Lavinia's new challenge - Autumn colours.                                                                                 

Beautiful Belles!

This stepper card was made using the Creative Expressions 'Belle of the Ball' plate. The dress images are so detailed that I did not want to fiddle with them too much, so I decided to simply emboss them. All the stamps used here are from the plate, including the corners and sentiments! I was asked to make some prom cards this year; I think this is a great plate to use!

Card Candi Flowers

 I recently saw some Card Candi stamps that I thought were really simple but effective, so I thought I just had to give them a go! I also just happened to have acquired (!) a few Embossalicious folders which I thought might frame the main image nicely. I like these Crafter's Companion Diesire folders, they are the perfect size for my Big Shot and my usual 6x6 card size! This folder called 'Elegant Frame' gives a great feature to focus the eye. Both these cards are both made using the one of the Woodware Bubble Bloom Card Candi stamps, which also come with the sentiment I have used here. I have stamped them both twice, the second time just cutting out the leaves to coordinate with the main colour I chose. I have tried to go tone in tone with all the embellishments as well, as I thought the main image would look a bit busy otherwise! The ink has been added just to highlight the folders (Tumbled Glass Distress Ink). The card below also utilises one of the Spellbinders D'lites dies to accent the sentiment.

Cosy Friendship Cuddles

Sometimes I think we underestimate the pure value of sending a card just to put a smile on someone's face, so I thought  I would make one to do just that! Feeling in a pinky mood, (can you tell..?) I chose an adorable LOTV image (Milly Cuddle Time) that can make anyone smile! The main image has been coloured with Promarkers, lightly edged with Spun Sugar Distress Ink and cut with basic Spellbinders circle dies. This main topper has then been layered onto a piece of dark red paper cut into a square shape with a border on the side (the fancy border section is a Tim Holtz On the Edge die - Scrollwork); Matching background paper has been matted on top, along with pink lace and thin satin ribbon to edge the work. The large red swirl is a Tim Holtz Bigz die - Elegant Flourishes. The sentiment is another LOTV stamp from a fantastic sentiment set that has a brilliant range to choose from. Again, I have used Spellbinder dies to layer. Finally the flowers have been cut from coordinating plain cardstock using the Heartfelt Creations Sun Kissed Fleur die. I have added little 'stitch' like lines to accent the flowers and papers, along with more Spun Sugar Distress Ink to bring in the edges. The flower centres have been done using Liquid Pearls Rouge. The background papers are from the First Edition Sweet Owl pad.

Fairy Birthday Magic!

This is actually a huge 8x8 card made for my daughter's 9th birthday! The background paper is from a huge DCWV stack called 'Once Upon a Time' which features an ethereal theme (it is hard to use it as I love it so much!) I have mounted onto some dark red paper, picking out the red as my main colour to compliment the vintage browns. The topper has been torn from Neenah card, distressed with Vintage Photo ink and stamped using some beautiful Lavinia fairy, scenery and flower silhouette images. The words are from Katy Sue designs, torn and distressed in the same way. I have cut the flowers using my Cricut Flower Shoppe cartridge, laying up several times with one layer being glittered. The ribbon and gems are from my stash. She loved it! I will be entering this in September's Lavinia blog challenge called 'Add a Flower'.

Style Divas!

 These two cards were made for two friends of mine who are very stylish and chic. They also love vintage things, so I thought I would have a play with some Creative Expressions stamps that jumped into my basket at the last craft show...
The dress form and sentiment stamps are all from the same collection. They have been stamped using brown archival (black in the card below) and then embossed with clear powder to give a lovely sheen. I have used Cosmic Shimmer dark Bronze PVA glue to add the dots to the sides of the image. The top card features 2 embossed panels separated with sparkly brown ribbon and a cameo I made using UTEE, coloured embossing powders and a mould. The feather has been die cut using Spellbinders Jewel Fantasies and the pins are from Creative Expressions as well. The card below features some Kanban Mackensie cardstock with an embossed panel to the top. The black buttons have been tied with raffia and some black lace has been threaded with plain ribbon.