Poinsettias for Christmas

It's certainly been a week of red flowers: I've been out several times selling poppies for Remembrance Day and made this Christmas card in between. The stamp is from Joanna Sheen and the flower from a die set by Marianne, the first I have tried. It isn't as deeply embossed as I would like so I'll remember to add another shim or two next time, but I'm pleased with the layout. I saw samples of the flower when visiting a fantastic new-to-me craft shop with friends last week but having bought it I discovered afterwards that it is also available in a smaller size which might look better on this size card. Ah, well, I'll just have to find an excuse for visiting my local craft shop and see if they have that one in stock, and meanwhile I'll make larger cards! I have bought sheets of red and green card specially for cutting the flowers (I have enough yellow for centres) so I will set up a production line and see if I can increase my total number of cards completed in a short space of time. Unfortunately although the stamp is excellent and gives a good crisp image it took me a long time to colour with Promarkers. I'm not very happy with the greens I used and may go back to the aquarelles I was getting to grips with before succumbing to the Promarkers eveyone was raving about....I do not delude myself that any tool will ever make me an artist!

Hummingbird

I've been busy making more Christmas cards but haven't posted them here because they are just variations on a previous theme. I can't attempt to make 120 completely different cards, so do about 10 or 12 'almost' the same before moving on to another batch. Today, though, I stopped to make a friend's birthday card for next week. I was determined to use one of JustRite's Backyard Birds because when it first came out J kept trying to insist that I really didn't need it - all for the good of my Credit Card I should add, because I was broke at the time but loved it so much that somehow I managed to find the necessary pennies! By using the hummingbird on her card I may be able to convince her 'See! I did need it!'

The bird's colouring may not be ornithologically perfect because we don't have hummingbirds in England but I did my best to copy the sample on the index sheet. Having cut out the centre with a small Nestie circle (which I raised on foam tape) I used Blossom #1 for the border and then a large plain circle for the blue layer. I chalked the backgrounds with pale blue for the bird and pale green for the border, and used the same green behind the morning glories on the long panel which was cut with the mega deckle Nestie. The trellis punch is used on pearlescent paper and the other background paper is from my stash.

Not a Snowman To Be Seen!

I promised to do something different, and snowmen don't come much more different than this!

The challenge on the JustRite blog this week is 'Colors of Autumn'. Despite being a JRS junkie I never manage to take part in the weekly challenge - most of my crafting is done at the weekend which in theory is perfect since the challenge is posted on Friday, but I need time to think about a possible design and by the time I've thought it's always too late :( But not this week! Being an autumn nut I was determined to take part and have been chewing over ideas. I thought of a rainbow done in red-orange-yellow-brown wth the basket of apples as the crock of gold at the bottom...unfortunately enthusiasm outran ability and it turned out rather differently but I'm still quite pleased with it. IRL it's quite a lot brighter than it appears in the scan, with a band of yellow that 'lifts' the background. I'm going to put it in a frame and hang it in my workroom - I'm slowly gathering various autumnal bits and having plain white walls gives me plenty of scope to play with touches of colour.

The background was sponged with Distress Inks in about ten shades. I used the largest size Trompe Script font by JR for the heading and stamped it in Memento Rich Cocoa ink. The apple basket is from Autumn Blessings - despite being an oval set it fits nicely with only a small trim into the large border from Backyard Birds.I coloured them with Promarkers and used a couple of pale chalks on the background to reduce the glaring white (with hindsight I could have used a slightly deeper shade). I mounted the circle on a layer of brown (both circles cut with Nesties) to define the edge and was going to mount the whole piece on the same brown until I discovered it looked much better on red. Oh, and the outline leaf is by PSX.

Now it's back to Christmas cards.....

The Same, Only Different

Just a quick post today because there isn't much to say about this card. I've spent odd moments this week playing around with different papers and colours, thinking about making multiple cards of one design, and I came up with this combination yesterday (remember, it's silver mirri card, not black). The background paper has been in my stash for years, being part of a large pack of 'handmade' which was on bulk offer somewhere. I haven't found a use for any of it until now when I decided that the sparkly flowers looked sufficiently like snowflakes to be used with appropriate designs. I love the Nesties Fancy Tag at the bottom - one of those 'dies to die for' that I simply had to buy when I first saw it and haven't used until today!

I'll try to do something completely different for my next post :)

Another Christmas card at last!

At this rate of progress I'll be able to send this year's cards in about five years' time! Here is number 6 (of around 120 needed.....)

I love this stamp (and regular readers, if there are any, know how much I love snowmen) which is from JustRite Stampers' Old Fashioned Christmas. The pretty blue background paper was free inside the new Making Cards special Christmas magazine and I wish I could buy lots more; sadly there was only half a sheet of the blue, but I'm sure I have other, similar papers I can use for more cards of similar design. The base card is dark blue and the mat for the background and the bottom panel, also the backing for the scalloped circle, is silver mirri card but unfortunately it has, as usual, scanned rather dark, however if you click on the picture and squint at the enlarged version you may be able to see that it's not all dark and gloomy! I used Promarkers to colour the head and the punch is Double Loops. All circles were cut with Nestabilities Classic Circles and the Eyelet Circles

This isn't really my design. I tried to provide a link to my inspiration but couldn't get it to work, so you'll have to go to the Stampers Dream blog (link is in my sidebar) and look at the entry for September 24. Not having the same punch or stamp (but both are on their way to me lol) and choosing a different colour scheme has changed the appearance quite a lot. I love Michelle's card - maybe my next one will be red and green.......

Woohoo - I've just realised I can enter the Bah! Humbug! challenge this week! The theme is 'Cuties' and in my book they don't come much cuter than this!

Yesterday's other card

My mojo may have returned after being AWOL but it didn't like being worked too hard! Sarah's card with the butterflies wasn't very elaborate and didn't take too long to make, so I thought I would continue the good work and make a card for a friend's birthday next Wednesday. Oh dear! It seems I'm unable to concentrate if I have time in hand....I was fairly satisfied with the final result, although it might have looked better with a symmetrical design, but I sweated gallons before I reached that point.

First I picked up the pad of autumn papers I bought recently. Anyone who reads this blog semi-regularly will know I'm an autumn nut and I tried hard to come up with a good idea, but it just wasn't right for this particular friend who is a dainty pink and blue person rather than a striking yellow and orange one. So the papers went back in the drawer. I suddenly thought of the willow pattern china stamps by Joanna Sheen which I've had for a couple of years and used only a few times on ATCs. There was my blue! And including the big plate gave me an excuse for using my new Eyelet Nesties as well - the largest was a perfect fit. So far so good.

Then it was downhill all the way, or do I mean uphill? Nothing was quite right. I tried a MS border punch with similar eyelets but got the spacing wrong the first time and couldn't make the second attempt fit anywhere. I then stamped more of the china as the background using Versamark ink, looked at the square mid blue card thus produced, added the strip of ribbon and felt it was all wrong, so I cut the front off and tried it as an easel card, sticking that same front onto dark blue. No, it needed a light edge - and besides, the end of the ribbon on the back showed - so I unstuck it (being thankful I'd only used a glue stick and not my tape gun), cut a white mat and remounted it all. Oh, and at some point I was trimming slivers off edges because I realised that the finished card was going to be a hair's breadth too big for the available envelope, which it was anyway so went into a much bigger one folded over. No, I didn't attempt to make one the right size...

Still with me? We now have an easel card with blank inside and no support for the front edge. I think it took another half an hour minimum before I fixed the final piece, with the jugs, like the plate, stamped in Brilliance Mediterranean Blue. It only took three attempts to add a small insert sheet with a punched border at the bottom (those MS punches really do not like single sheets of thin paper and it's high time I remembered) and the best happening of the day was not smudging the stamped greeting.

Now all I have to do is remember to post the thing in good time.

Made a card today!

My first card in three weeks - I think my mojo has been two timing but it was forced home today and I actually produced a couple of cards; the pics of one, however, are waiting to be uploaded from the camera so that will have to be a separate post.

This card is for an online friend in Scotland whose birthday is tomorrow so I have little hope it will arrive in time, but since she lives alone and is having a very bad time with her health maybe she will enjoy stretching her birthday a bit (and she certainly won't be expecting a card from me). I've had the verse for years but never used it, likewise the butterfly paper, and I felt quite virtuous for using up several scraps. Mind you, I seemed to have more scraps when I'd finished than when I started but isn't that always the way?

There isn't a lot to say about it: the stamp is by Clarity, the punch is Arched Lattice by Martha Stewart. Happy birthday Sarah...