A New Beginning!

Over at Card Making World, the challenge for January 2011 is A New Beginning. It is also the theme for Try it on Tuesday (previously Tuesday Taggers). After much thought and suggestions from friend, Carol, I came up with the following.

SVG Cuts has a cute Happy 2011 cutting file on its freebie site here and it can be downloaded very quickly!
I cut the shapes from blue and white cardstock then layered them together. I put Kindiglitz on the words and numbers to make them stand out a little.
I cut a label with my spellbinders die, embossed the edge then distressed it with Chipped Sapphire DI. It makes the embossed edge stand out quite well.
I attached a ribbon with a knot to the bottom of the layer then attached the lot to the card, after I had rounded the corners. The bottle and glasses were from some sprinkles that I picked up at a local craft shop some time ago, but they worked out quite well! The card also fits the Stamp Something Challenge which is on this week as well.

The second article for the challenge is a Challenge Diary. I have been thinking for some time that I needed a diary to note all the challenges that come up each week/month. So I came up with this one. The cover is made from a sheet of DCWV paper which I cut to A5 size then stamped using Stazon Timber Brown and various distress inks in tonings of brown. I also used masks to cover off the images that were most important (the calender and the words). The back cover is left plain.
I made up a template for the pages and printed them onto A5 paper (doubled sided) with enough pages for 52 weeks of challenges!!! I then put them together and bound them with the Bind It All. I tied pieces of fancy yarn to the wires to add a little contrast!

The two tags at the top of the diary were made from shrink plastic. I stamped the shrink plastic using Stazon ink, carefully cut them to size, made holes in the top to accommodate the jump rings, then heated them with my heat tool.

I still have not finished my 12 Tags of Christmas, but I will get there!!

Enjoy.

Two more Tags

I have now finished 7 of the 12 Tags of Christmas for this year!
This tag was firstly swiped with white paint dabber along the edges and allowed to dry. I then coloured the background using Tumbled glass and Broken China. The ink was wiped off the painted bits to retain the white colour. The snowman was cut from grunge paper using the Cricut. The hat, arms and nose were cut from another snowman and coloured using distress inks then attached to the white snowman (coloured with white paint dabber and edged with Pumice Stone DI. Merry Christmas stamped on the snowman's body.
The top layer is heavy acetate (an old package, recycled and cut to shape) and was embossed with the snowflakes folder in the Cuttlebug. Attached to the bottom layer with brads.
The Merry Christmas stamp is from a Hero Arts collection.

This tag was layered with Christmas Carol paper then coloured using Rusty Hinge and Vintage Photo distress inks. The rosette was cut from the same paper and edged with vintage photo DI. The embellishments are from a Tim Holtz collection. The words were cut using the Cricut and MTC software then attached and covered with Glossy Accents. The buttons are from my stash! The brads along the bottom were attached, then hammered to produce a vintage look. The bead embellishments attached to the top were put together from my stash of beads and findings.

Enjoy!

Have a wonderful, safe and happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

SVG Cuts

Follow this link to the SVG cuts great giveaway today! http://svgcuts.com/blog/?p=8018

You could win a beautiful Cricut Expression! 

They are giving away lots of other goodies too.

More Tags

I have now finished a further four tags in Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas for 2010.

Again, I didn't have all the images that Tim used but used some of the stamps I already had and improvised! The pine needles is a Tanda stamp that I picked up in May. The pine cone was cut with the Cricut from the Joys of the Season cart.

Instead of using a stamp for the branch, I cut one using the Songbird card in the Cricut. The bird was also cut with the Cricut and stamped with a music stamp, then coloured using Fired Brick DI.  The rosette was made following Tim's instructions, with tissue tape and topped with a button. The image is one I found in a Christmas set. I cut it out, then edged with Walnut Stain DI and stamped with joy stamp using walnut stain DI. The white specks on the tag were made using the snow cap dabber before I inked the edges of the tag. The DI wipes off the paint and leaves it standing out slightly.

For this tag, I cut the trees, deer and wreath using the cricut. The trees were inked with distress inks. The deer was embossed with the snowflakes folder in the CB, then painted with blue paint and sanded on the raised embossing to provide the multicoloured effect. The tag was coloured using blue distress inks and edged with vintage photo.  The sentiment was stamped with fired brick and edged with vintage photo. Tissue tape was added to the bottom.

For this one, I cut some background paper and attached it to the tag. Added a santa picture that I cut from other paper. Edged the tag with stormy sky  DI. The large clear embellishment was coloured with alcohol ink then the snowflake stamped with archival ink then wiped off before it dried. Stuck the embellishment to white card and cut it out. Added the bling to the bottom of the tag. The sentiment is stamped in fired brick DI.

Have really enjoyed doing these tags and hopefully, might get the rest finished before Christmas - only 5 days to go!

Happy Birthday Series

I was playing round with my Cuttlebug and a Happy Birthday folder last week. I had embossed a number of pieces of card in different colours and decided to do something with them. I came up with these 6 cards, all of which follow the same basic layout, but with different colours and embellishments. I used Copic markers to colour the images.

Find more photos like this on Card Making World

Enjoy!

My Tag Number 1

I was so impressed with Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas that I decided to challenge myself to do the tags as well - along with thousands of other t!m fans around the world!!!

I didn't have all the dies necessary to complete the tag the same as Tim, but I was able to cut similar shapes with my Cricut. So the house, tree, fence and wreath have all been cut using the Cricut. I used SCAL to cut the house and the tree, My Community cartridge for the fence and Joys of Christmas cartridge for the wreath.
I cut the house from grunge paper then embossed it with a woodgrain folder in the Cuttlebug. Covered it with white paint, then laide a layer of distress ink (walnut stain) on top of that. Wiped off some of the ink from the paint to give a more distressed look. The tree and the snow on the house are actually flocking laid over glossy accents (house) and paint (tree). The fence has a layer of crackle paint and that gives it a slightly distressed look as well. I used distress crackle paint (peeled paint) on the wreath along with some darker distress ink (forest moss and pine needles) then laid some distress stickles on top of that. The ticket is cut using the ticket die then stamped with a ticket stamp and christmas greetings. The star atached to the tie at the top was from one of Tim's embellishment sets that I picked up at a closing down sale yesterday!
I am quite pleased with the way this has turned out and plan to get to work on the rest of them in the next few days.

Monthly Challenge for December

Over at Card Making World, we are having a monthly challenge. This month the theme is A Christmas Carol and cards entered must reflect  a Christmas Carol in some way.

My first sample card for the challenge was based on the carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem. I copied the music for the carol and reduced it to fit on the card. Then I distressed it using the wrinkle method and coloured it with antique linen DI. I then spritzed it with gold perfect pearls and water in a mister. It I also inked the torn edges of the paper. The stamped image is by Montarga which I embossed with gold and added gold beads to the bottom of it to make it look a bit like sand! I stamped and embossed the image twice and cut some of the buildings out, which I added to the image to give a bit of depth. The sentiment is from a Hero Arts Christmas set. Finished it off with some blue and gold ribbon across the card and gold star brads in the corners.

The second card was made using a Nestabilities die set. I folded the base card the cut it with the largest die, leaving a bit of the die over the folded edge to create a fold.

I cut another single layer the same size to add to the base card, then embossed it in the Cuttlebug. I cut two other layers, one in the same colour and another in silver to provide layers. On the smallest one, I stamped the Partridge in a Pear Tree stamp (again from Montarga) and embossed it with silver. I stitched round the silver layer with the sewing machine (no thread) to provide a little bit more detail. A Christmas greeting is stamped inside the card.

Thanks for looking!