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!

Challenge Cards Again

Well, it is so long since I did any challenges that I thought I should get busy, especially since I have done most of my Christmas cards (and it is still November- wonders never cease!).

StampTV had a nice sketch challenge this week (STVSLSP3) and Lots to Do Forum Revisited had an embossing challenge so this one should "kill two birds with one stone" so to speak!


The sketch for the StampTV challenge is here.
I used a Christmas theme and stamped the image onto a patterned paper to give it a bit of a vintage look. The sentiment was also stamped on the same paper. I layered both onto wine card. I also edged the image with gold strips to make it stand out a little more.

The background card is embossed with a cuttlebug folder then layered onto the wine card. I layered the image with foam pads to make it stand out from the background too. The three stars are little gold brads.

Vintage Cards

I have been making vintage birthday cards using images and background papers from Joanna Sheen's Vintage Birthdays CD.

This is a slideshow of the cards I have made and uploaded to my photo album on card Making World.


Find more photos like this on Card Making World

Back to being busy again!

The last week has been a busy one and I have got something to show for it!
Found a neat gift card holder demonstration over at Gina K's website - stamptv. So I spent a bit of time making some and was very pleased with the results!
I made the holders slightly narrower than the dimensions given in the demonstration because the A4 card is slightly narrower than the card available in the USA. But it doesn't matter because you can still fit a gift card comfortably in the holder.

Have also been busy with Christmas cards as it seems to be the season again! I did manage to get the cards for overseas into the mail by the closing date for economy post for the first time ever, I think! Here is one of the cards I made this year.

I have been using the Joanna Sheen Vintage Birthdays CD again and printed off some lovely images and backing papers. This card uses an image and background paper. I cut the image using a Nellie Snellen die in the cuttlebug. I then threaded narrow ribbon through the holes in the edges and tied a little bow at the bottom. I thought it was quite effective. The image was printed on textured paper which provided a slightly more vintage look.

And I couldn't help doing a card with a coloured image. This image is called Rain but I am not sure where I got it from - I must catalogue my digital stamps properly!! Anyway - coloured it with copics and layered on dotty card with a dotty ribbon.

Back Again!

Well it has been a month since I last blogged anything here - so I need to make up for lost time.

First up, a card I made for my mother to give to some friends for their 50th Wedding Anniversary.

The card used was metallic gold and cream card. Always nice to use this for a special occasion card.

I cut the corner flourishes with the Cricut using the Home Accents cartridge. The centre rectangle was embossed with the Divine Swirls folder on the Cuttlebug. The numbers were cut using the Songbird cartridge on the Cricut.

To finish it off, I placed tiny pearl bling on the centres of the flowers on the corner flourishes.

A few days ago, I was playing with some tags and Lord Tim of Holtz's book, Compendium of Curiosities and produced these tags. A variety of techniques was used and I had a lot of fun!
 You will need to guess what techniques I used from the book, if you have it already. If you don't have it - it is really worth getting! Send me an email if you really want to know...

I really liked the results when I used acrylic paint dabber to stamp an image then distressing! Hint - there are 2 using this technique!

CMW Monthly Challenge

Carol and I decided to try to revive the Card Making World Monthly Challenge group recently, so we chose the theme SPORT for October. Given that the Commonwealth Games are on in India at the moment and the Ryder Cup for golf has just finished, it seemed appropriate.

As part of the DT for this group, I made a couple of sporty cards to get ideas stimulated for the group. The first card is a golf inspired one. I have had this cutting file for some time (from SCAL) and have not had the inspiration to use it, so this was a perfect opportunity.

The golf bag was cut in the various parts using the Cricut Expression.

The oval backgrounds cut from a Nestabilities oval set. The top oval was run through one of my Cuttlebug folders and the edges of both ovals were inked.

The photo corners were punched using a Martha Stewart punch.

The surfer card was inspired by the digital image - hang ten Kody - (from Some Odd Girl) coloured with Copic markers.

The top layer of the card was cut with a Nestabilities Oval die and the "waste" used as the background. The lines around the edge are peel-offs which I coloured using a felt pen. Attached the lines then masked them and the outside edges before stamping the swirly stamp around the edges of the layer.

The digital image was attached to the back of the top layer then all attached to the card. The sentiment was stamped on a separate card and attached with foam squares, after inking the edges to make it stand out a little more.
This card was also a good one for this week's Tanda Teaser!
Really enjoying my Copics!