Bah! Humbug! Day.,..Things that fly...

Well, okay normally when you think of Christmas cards and the subject of things that fly you might think of doves or angels or something along those lines, but no, normal things like that didn't enter my head.  I think in my case it's not a case of thinking outside the box, but more a question of living outside it!!!

Hmm, yes my card for our theme of 'Things that Fly' at Bah! Humbug! this week involves PLUTO!  He is flying - well it was that year that Father Christmas had flu and Mickey Mouse had to stand in at the last minute - you must remember that.  Laura (of 'it would be better in pink' fame) came into the craft room as I began working on this card.  Can you see the influence?  She insisted on black glitter card and really bright pink - eeeeeeeeeeeeeek - she has already requested this card to be saved to send to one of her friends.

Materials used...

• Cuttlebug Mickey Mouse die
• black glitter card, silver mirri card and pink pearlescent
• tiny stars - Nellie Snellen die
• black gems and black organza ribbon
• cuttlebug embossing folder - basket weave?
• silver peel off sentiment
• 8.5 x 8.5 card base

Additional Challenges

• Creative Card Crew - Fantasy
• KB Cute Monday Challenge - use glitter 
• Ooh La La Creations - Pink, pink and more pink
• Crazy 4 Challenges - Use dies

My second card for the Bah! Humbug! Challenge  of things that fly requires people to be really observant.  Yes it's a post box and yes it's a snowy scene, but check out the top of the post box.  Two ROBINS and they fly don't they? Oh my goodness by now you are probably thinking who let her on the Design Team?  LOL - I know that everyone of our fantastic participants at Bah! Humbug! will do a 100% better job than me.  I can't wait to see their cards, but maybe they will forgive me for my dippy entries this week.  Fingers crossed!  

Materials used...

• Cuttlebug embossing folder (basket weave?) 
• image and sentiment taken from magazine freebie from way back
• white, red and dark blue card
• silver ribbon and silver corner peel offs

Additional challenges...

• Two Sisters - Embossing
• Party Time Tuesday - Anything goes

Have a great Friday everyone and if you have time do pop over to Bah! Humbug! to check out the challenge.

Ann xxx

Christmas again...

Last week I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that I had won a Guest DT spot at the Die Cut Dreams Christmas Challenge blog.  What an honour and complete surprise that really made my day.  I really do love making Christmas cards and it doesn't matter how many stamps I have I just can't resist buying more.  However, the stamp I've used to make this card and matching gift tag is so old that I can barely see the design on the wood mount.  It still stamps okay though and that's what really matters.

As you may have already guessed Die Cut Dreams are asking everyone to create a card and matching gift tag.  I must admit I do like to do this for special people so it's nice to have one ready in my box for next Christmas.  Eeek it's only February!

Materials used...

•  Snowflake ornament stamp by All Night Media 926J
•  Marianne die cut circular frame
• CD - yes behind the frame is a CD.  I really like the effect.  It reminds me of the little mirrors they used to sew on clothing.  (in the days of my hippy youth)
• gorgeous black and white snowflakes swirl patterned card by Kanban
• black, red and silver mirri card
• Swiss dots embossing folder 
• black organza ribbon
• large Sizzix tag die
• Black sentiment peel off

Additional Challenges...

• Winter Wonderland - It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas (well it is on my blog anyway!)
• Bah! Humbug! - Use a CD
• Stamp Something - something funky - hmmmmm think having a CD on is funky and the lettering is so reckon I can enter this.

Have a fantastic weekend everyone.  I'm scheduling this to post in the morning and right now I'm off to watch a soppy DVD - 'Letters to Juliet'.  I've seen so many trailers for this - hope it's as good as it looks.

Ann xxx

Bah! Humbug! Day ... Using CDs...

Phew, just had a very busy week at work so I've had to snatch an odd hour here and there to take part in our great new challenge at Bah! Humbug!  This week we are asking everyone to be creative using CDs or even create something to hold a CD gift.  Tons of scope in this theme and I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with. 

For my first project I decided to use a CD on the front of my card.  Love the reflective shine even if it is horrendous to get a good photo of. 

Materials used...

• Holly face rubber stamp by American Art Stamps - Paula Best design
• green corrugated card
• green mirri card and holly printed mirri card
• silver peel offs
• die cut spiky circle - Nellie Snellen die
• silver brads
• Promarkers

Additional challenges...

• Rainbow Lady - Use and old CD
• Cute Card Thursday - Shiny Happy Cards
• Fab's Big Christmas Card Challenge - Use Peel offs

My second project has been a nightmare to complete and I'm not very happy with it at all.  It just went so astray from my original idea, but oh well these things happen.

I bought an CD clock with 80s graphics on it's face from one of the Pound shops in Leeds some time back intending to alter it.  I thought it would be a relatively easy task - hmmm think again!  My original plan was to have a pink and silver theme so off came the red second hand, which is a bit of a shame seeing as I ended up using red in my design.

Another sad thing was that as the face of the clock was already so patterned I couldn't use take advantage of the mirror quality of a CD.  I did try to dismantle the clock with the aim of adding a blank CD, but I hadn't got the right tools.  Sigh, the only thing I could do was use the CD as a base and cover it with papers. 

Materials used...

• Joanna Sheen House Mouse stamps
• Nellie Snellen dies
• white card, silver and red card
• Promarkers
• self adhesive gems
• computer generated sentiment

I'm not happy with the finished clock at all and if I were starting again I would do the whole thing completely differently, but we learn by our mistakes and I do think that part of the fun of crafting is trying new things and experimenting. 

Additional challenges...

• My Time to Craft - Going round in circles
• Papertake Weekly - Putting on the glitz
• City Crafter - Cute Stuff
• A Spoonful of Sugar - Anything but a card.
• Totally Stampalicious - use some glitter or bling on your card

Have a wonderful Friday everyone and do pop over to Bah! Humbug! to check out the challenge for yourselves.  Max has found some fantastic links to tutorials for making all kinds of things using CDs.  I think I'm going to try some of them out myself this weekend. 

Ann xxx

Bah! Humbug! Day ... Doilies...

Hmmmmmmmmm Doilies are the theme this week at Bah! Humbug! and when a certain crafter went to the cupboard in search of traditional paper doilies she found none.  Poundland weren't their usual helpful selves either.  Not to worry after quite a bit of head scratching and a little bit of thinking outside of the box I improvised and came up with two designs which I hope fit the bill.

For my first card I used a Marianne die and nesties to create what I hoped would give a doilie look behind the mat and layered image.  

Materials used...

• LOTV angels and baby Jesus stamp coloured with Promarkers and glittered
• Nestie scalloped and plain circles (one circle cut on Cricut at 3.25 inches to get the finest of borders around the central image), Marianne scalloped circle die - oh I love these Marianne dies - just bought the rectangle one too.
• Dovecraft patterned paper 
• silver ribbon layed in stripes across patterned paper and used for bow
• tags cut using Cuttlebug tag die
• blue card and silver mirri 

Additional challenges...

• Crafty Creations - Three Little Words - mine are Love Peace and Joy on the tag.
• Kaboodles Doodles - Break out the ribbon
• Ooh La La Creations - for someone special - this is a 8.5 by 8.5 card and is intended to be for Gran to send my daughter next Christmas - oh boy am I organised or what?
• Woodware USA Challenge - Use ribbon

My second card with the main theme of Doilies was made using a real lace doilie bought as part of a very cheap set from Poundland some time ago.  I originally had the intention of using them on some vintage style birthday cards, but like so many other things just didn't get round to it.  Actually I now wish I had bought more as they are very light and work perfectly as a mat on a card.

Additional materials...

• Santa tag image and backing paper from one of vintage Christmas CDs by Joanna Sheen (not sure which one as this one was from a sheet printed out some time ago - yeah only another 6 images to use now - so pleased I no longer print the whole sheet when I want an image)
• Martha Stewart lace doilie punch
• green card and gold mirri card
• gold eyelet and cream organza ribbon
• gold corner peel offs

Challenges...

• Die Cut Dreams Christmas Club Challenge - The Gift of Love
• Charisma Cardz Challenge - mythical/fantasy - hmmmm not sure whether Santa qualifies here as my voice is one of the loudest shouting 'I believe' when 'Miracle on 34th Street' is shown each Christmas.

Have a great weekend everyone.  

Love and hugs 

Ann xxx

Bah! Humbug! Day ... Buttons and Bows...

I know I say this every week, but I really can't believe how fast the weeks are flying by.  Today sees the start of our new challenge at Bah! Humbug! with the theme of buttons and bows.  I love buttons and buy plenty, but for some strange reason I just don't use them as much as I should.  Maybe I will after this challenge.

Materials used...

• Mimi from T for Transparent set by Penny Black
• small circular sentiment by LOTV
• Promarkers
• ultra fine glitter and Diamond Dust
• Swiss Dots embossing folder
• green and pink card and snowflake paper by Papermania
• snowflake die cuts using Marianne dies
• tiny green buttons by Making Memories
• gems and organza ribbon from Stash

My card was made with the following challenges in mind ...

• Penny Black Saturday Challenge - the sketch (had to leave the swirl out as it looked too fussy on the snowflake paper)
• Pollycraft - Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr Baby it's cold outside

My second card was created using my new favourite toy - Serif Craft Artist!  This time I didn't use it to scrapbook, but made a card instead. 

 

I used the sketch from Sketch and Stash and planned the card on the pages on screen.  I thought the images of buttons and the button frame complete with bow gave a different angle to our challenge.  I printed one sheet of the design with the button brads and then another sheet with the Father Christmas on which I then mat and layered  on top of the Swiss Dot embossed panels.  

I couldn't resist adding a real pompom to Santa's hat - another card that won't make it through the slot at the Post Office.  I really need to win the lottery before next Christmas so that I can actually afford to post my Christmas cards.

Hope you will pop over to Bah! Humbug! and take part in our challenge.  As it's the first challenge of the month we have a great prize up for grabs.  

Have a great weekend.  

Love and hugs.

Ann xxx

Bah! Humbug! Day...

Can't believe it's Friday again and time for another challenge at Bah! Humbug!  This week is a super easy challenge called 'An Oldie but a Goldie' and we are encouraging everyone to take a look at their old stash.  We want everyone to pull out something they love and want to use again or maybe even for the first time if you're like me and buy things, but don't always use them.

My snowman card was made using a stamp I've had for ages.  I love it to pieces, but I just never got round to inking it up.  Maybe I should buy less and use more - eeeeeeeeeeek no!

To create my card I stamped the image on to acetate and then attached the acetate to blue and white sky effect glitter card using glitter brads.  Then I stamped the image twice on to white card.  I coloured and glittered the snowman and then cut him out before attaching him to the front of the acetate.  I also cut out an extra layer of the snow at his feet to give a little more dimension.

The bottom half of the white card is embossed using a herringbone patterned embossing folder (yeah that's twice this week I used something other than Swiss Dots).  The tags were cut using a Cuttlebug tag die.

My second set of cards for this week's challenge make use of my Cuttlebug snowflake die and embossing folder.  I've had this for ages and I just love it.  I think the photo is pretty self explanatory and does anyone read the writing on blogs anyway.  I for one am terrible for just looking at the pretty pictures.

Additional challenges...

• Cutie Sunday - anything goes
• CPS Card Sketches - used the sketch for my snowflake cards.
• My time to Craft - Emboss, Emboss Emboss

Have a fantastic weekend everyone.  Hope you can find time to dig out the gems in your stash that you haven't used for ages and play with us at Bah! Humbug!
Love and Hugs
Ann xxx

Christmas Crackers...

Well it's Bah! Humbug! day again and this week sees us going CRACKERS at Humbug Hall.  LOL, yes our theme is Christmas crackers.  To be truthful this one nearly sent me crackers as I just couldn't believe it, that when I trawled through my vast collection of rubber stamps there was not one stamp with a cracker on!  How strange is that?  
Anyway, all was not lost, it just meant that the grey cells had to do a bit more thinking this week before starting on my card.   With no stamp, stencil or even patterned paper with crackers on I decided that perhaps I should work on the idea of a cracker shaped card with maybe a cutie sitting on top of the cracker.
In the end I made and decorated a cracker shape and attached it to the front of a piece of A5 acetate folded in half.  Then I sat Santa Emma by C. C. Designs on top.  The card will still fit in an C5 envelope, but unfortunately the bobble on the Santa's hat is going to mean yet another large letter size expensive stamp.  I don't know about anyone else, but I can't believe that from April it's going to cost 75p to post a card.  Sheesh, better start saving up now!

Materials used ...

• C.C. Designs digi stamp
• DCWV paper and plain red card
• Heavy weight acetate
• gold border, corner and sentiment peel offs
• gold and white ribbon
• Promarkers combined with paper piecing to colour image
• pompom from kid's craft set trimmed to size (trimmings used to add fluff to edge Santa hat)

Additional Challenges...

• Stamptacular - Anything but square
• My Time to Craft - Spots and Dots

Have a great Friday and weekend everyone and if you have chance do pop over to Bah! Humbug! and take a look at the fab designs by our Guest Designer Carole.  It would be nice if you could leave a 'big hug' over there for Max too as she has had to have an operation on her wrist this week and is banned from using her craft stash for a little while.

Winter Wishes...

Oh my goodness I seem to be making so many Christmas cards at the moment.  I really must get some birthday cards done and some other projects too.  Friday comes round so quickly and of course Friday means it's Bah! Humbug! day.  Yeah!  I just love our theme this week.  It's using stencils and oh boy did I have fun?

I decided to use embossing paste with a brass stencil by Sizzix.  It's actually one of their embossing dies that come in a  plastic folder, but I've pulled it off the folder so that I can use it in lots of different ways.  

On my first card I attached the stencil to white card and then scraped the Dreamweaver embossing paste over the top.  On removing the stencil I tipped dark blue glitter on the lower half of the image and light blue on the upper part.  It looked fabulous, but alas it didn't look quite so good after I dusted it with a paint brush supposedly just to remove the excess glitter.  Eek, to my horror, virtually all the glitter fell off.  Sheesh I was covered in the stuff and felt like crying as my pretty image now looked very bland indeed.  

Thankfully I was able to save the day by replacing the stencil, carefully painting glue over the design and then lifting the stencil and adding glitter in the same way as before.  Phew close shave, but the card survived.

My layout originated at Mojo Monday with some quite big changes that came about as the card developed.  

Additional materials used: 

• Snowflake frame die by Spellbinders
• Snowflakes die by Marianne
• blue glitter card, silver mirri card and plain white card
• Dots embossing folder
• gem brads, silver sentiment peel off and white/silver ribbon

Additional challenges...

• Sir Stampalot - A Winter's Tale
• Cupcake Craft Challenge - Something New (my glitter is new - usually only use a snowy sparkly one so very different for me to use coloured glitter)
• Cute Card Thursday - Monochromatic

My navy blue card uses the same stencil and I'm pleased to say that this time I applied the glitter super fast, stuck to one colour and pressed gently just a little to help it to adhere.  Seemed to work as when dry very little glitter was loose.

Of the two this is my favourite as it's more subtle and well I just like it.  The tiny snowflakes were cut using the tiny snowflake die from the same Spellbinder set as the frame.

This card was made using this week's sketch at Rainbow Lady's Challenge blog and also follows her theme of winter.  I've waivered from the sketch a little, but I'm sure Cynthia won't mind.

If you have chance do pop over to Bah! Humbug! to take a look at the fabulous designs by our Guest Designer Carol.  She is really talented and has contributed more than one sample yet again. 

Love and hugs

Ann xxx

Recycling...

So heartbreaking to take the Christmas cards down and just throw them away or donate them to recycling schemes.  This year, like many other crafters, I'm hanging on to mine and I'm going recycle as many as I can into new cards or parts of cards.  I'm not talking about the gorgeous handmade cards I received as those are way too precious to throw away, but the shop bought ones that are lovely but not keepsake cards.

This card uses a beautiful photo of a robin that was the front of a card sent to my mum.  It already had glitter on it and really only need trimming and then matting and layering on to matching papers to make an 8" x 8" square card.  I used my Fisker's Shapeboss to emboss the holly border and then sanded it to make it pop.  A ribbon, holly die cut and tags with a Merry Christmas sentiment on finish the card.

In addition to my card being featured on Top Tip Tuesday on Bah! Humbug! it is also intended for the following challenges...

• Papertake Weekly - A Cold and Frosty Morning
• Crafty Emma - All Creatures Great and Small
• Crafty Hazel Nut's Christmas Challenge - Recycling
• Top Tip Tuesday - Anything Goes

Have a great day everyone.  I'm off to play with my Cricut machine and try out an idea that I've been toying with this week.  Hope it works.  Fingers crossed.

Love and hugs

Ann xxx

Bah! Humbug! Day is here at last...

Today sees the start of our first challenge of the New Year. How excited are we?

This week we have the theme of Holly - Fairies and Magic, which is a perfect accompaniment to our prize giveaway of a Holly Fairy rubber stamp and matching CD by Crafter's Companion.  I've made two cards for the challenge.  One to show case the Holly Fairy and another very simple card and gift tag.

Both the holly die cut on the card and the holly bauble tag were cut on my Cricut machine using the Joys of the Season cartridge.   The gold berries on the card are my own version of card candy.  I used the smallest circle die in my set of original circle dies by Spellbinders (any small circle or waste from hole punch would do the job) to cut a circle.  Then with the circle die cut face down in the palm of my hand I rolled a round ended pen top on it until a lovely indented circle was made.  Attaching these shaped circles to the holly with Pinflair or silicone glue means that the lovely rounded shape is supported and doesn't get flattened.  On the bauble gift tag I used a gem stone, but I wish I hadn't as really I preferred it plain.

To create the inner I used computer generated text and the waste from the bauble die cut to decorate the page.

My card and bauble tag are also for the challenges at ...

• ABC Christmas Challenge - Anything goes for Christmas
• Anything Goes Challenge - the letter C (for Christmas of course)
• Cupcake Challenge - Predominantly white
• Aud Sentiments Challenge - Only have two words (Merry Christmas)

Card number two uses an image and backing paper from Crafter's Companion CD 4 in the Flower Fairy Friends range.  I printed the image and backing paper on to beautiful white paper with a gold opalescent sheen.  Unfortunately in a photo it looks dire, but in real life is quite effective.  Honestly!
The layout uses the fab sketch from the challenge at Sketch and Stash.  I used holly border punch to create the border across the front of the card and also to fancy up the inner.  Yes, I'm still succeeding in sticking to the plan of doing the inners at the same time as cards.  It nearly drove me mad doing them all last December and I decided that no way did I want to face a marathon like that again.

The inner on this card is in two layers with a plain green base and then the white with gold pearl finish paper printed with a sentiment and then punched to give a holly patterned edge.

My card is also for the following challenges...

• Crafter's Companion - sketch (have wavered slightly as I couldn't find my corner rounder punch)
• Papertake Weekly - Anything goes plus lace (punched lace is allowed)
• Flutter By Wednesday - Anything goes but remember your fairy, angel or butterfly.

Well have a great Friday everyone and I hope we'll see you over at Bah! Humbug! sometime soon.  Check out Max's beautiful card and Carol our Guest Designer for this month has created some wonderful works.  Unfortunately, my friend and team mate, Irene is not well at the moment and has been unable to join in.  If you can spare some hugs for her then I'm sure they would be well received.
Ann xxx