Christmas in July

These cards are made using the beautiful  Imagination Crafts 'Robin' stamp set

The stamps are designed to be easy to decoupage. The first card is a shutter card, the Robin is decoupaged but it doesn't show well in the photo. 

I coloured the images with Pro markers, used the small holly stamp to create borders and frames. I added some gold Stickles glitter glue on the scroll border and red Stickles on the holly berries. All the panels were layered on gold mirri board then I layered up the decoupage. 

The twisted easel was fun - I used the small scroll & holly stamps to create the border and frame the sentiment, decoupaged the robin & the holly and added LOADS of Stickles :-)

I'm taking these over to Sarn's Rudolph Day challenge. On the 25th of every month the challenge is to make 2 Christmas cards, and if you follow all 12 months you'll have at least 24 cards ready to go!

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Men's cards

I found this great stamp set at Newbury, from a company new to me 'Acid Drops & Whatnots'

They specialise in stamps & decoupage with a witty, humorous twist - great for those tricky men's cards! 

This one is made with snippets from LOTV 'Country Gentleman' pad & HOTP 'Red Velvet', plus a bunch of black snippets for the die cut back layers ( I have a HUGE folder each of black & white snippets!)

My checks & stripes didn't quite meet in the middle on my A5 card blank, so I had to get creative with a long skinny snippet to join them up!

Shamelessly copied from the stamp co's samples on display at Newbury! Added red card candi to finish it off

Linking this one to Pixies Snippets Playground - off to climb the treehouse! 

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Chocoholic birthday card

This one was made last weekend for Anna, my sisters partner. She's studying hard for her accountancy exams, and there seems to be a lot of coffee & chocolate involved!

The stamp is one of the Gruffies range from House Mouse, stamped & coloured with Pro Markers. The sentiment was hand written with a Sakura Gelly Roll glitter pen

The die cut layers, flowers & flourishes are all from snippets of the Hot Diggity Dog range (think its Papermania) that came out last year. 

Hope she likes it :-)

Going to link this to Pixies Snippets Playground, hop on over and see what the other playmates have created. 

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Stencilling

These 3 were made from panels created in a stencilling class I ran a few months ago. They've been sat in a drawer waiting for me to decide what to do with them!

And then at Newbury Art Stamps I bought this perfect set of Lili of The ValleyEveryday  Sentiments. I've been looking for a set of handwritten script type sentiments for ages & these were ideal - lots if ideas bumping around in my head for using these!!

So these 3 came together very quickly. They were originally stencilled using a mix of Glitzcraft & That Special Touch masks by Stamps Away. 

Top one,( bluebells I think, but could be snowdrops too!) is straight inked, mounted on a piece of toning card, then on a lilac card blank. 

The fuschias & dandelion clocks were inked, then Stickles added thru the mask.   For both I stencilled the card blank in a continuation of the main panel. Quite like the effect of stencilling on hammered card blank for the fuschias!

 The dandelions were mounted on a leftover piece of multicoloured glitter card that's been getting dog eared in my snippets box since the year dot. It was so dog eared I had to trim it severely, then found the stencilled panel was a bit big so had to trim that back too!! 

My snippets box is a big Really Useful storage box with hanging A4 files, snippets divided into colour sections, some sub divided with both plain & pattern sections!! And any leftovers go in there, so some quote small, ranging up to big chunks left from A4 or 12x12 being cut up. 

The only snippets that don't go in here are those taken from a paper pad - these go into an acetate bag and are stored inside front cover of the paper pad so they are always with the matching set. 

So am I completely OCD about my snippets?? How do you store yours? 

Off to the snippets playground to ask the playmates!

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Crafty displays

I've had a lovely day today playing with some of my new goodies bought at Newbury last weekend :-). Once I've sorted out the pics I'll upload some of the projects. Edit: note to self: never, ever, EVER try to use embossing powder when you have the fan on!! I will say no more!

In the meantime, thought I'd share with you how I display some of my current favourites in my craft room.....

This is a twisted wire heart wall hanging, it's about 18" wide and maybe a little taller. It has lots of little hearts dotted all over that can either hold cards, or can be used for hanging bits from, like my heart hangers dangling from the bottom!

I bought this at a craft market a few months ago and I absolutely love it! It's on the wall to the right of my desk, and I can look at some of my faves, old & new, & rearrange whenever I feel like it :-) best part, only cost £10!!

Until my hubby insisted I buy this (thanks Andy xxx) my creations were all tucked away in boxes. Now I can enjoy them all the time!

Hope you've had a lovely weekend, whatever you've been doing

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Makeover!

Do you ever put cards together, then look at them and think 'that's not quite right?'

That's what happened with this one ....

I made it from leftover bits from a project last month. When you print the House Mouse design sheet you get a lot of extras, too many for one card, so I used a leftover small image & greeting to make this dinky A6 card, with a snippet of lilac card from the earlier project. 

But I didn't like the finished effect, so put it aside. When I woke up this morning at the crack of you must be joking, I was wide awake with nowt to do but stare at the ceiling. So......

I changed the colour of the card candi, added a few paper flowers from my oldest stash (got the most ginormous bag of these die cut flowers when I started crafting and still have hundreds left!). Then I added an ickle bit of Stickles glitter glue to the ends of the knitting needles & the small flowers (probably doesn't show up in pic)

Et voila!! A card I'm happy with, to pop in my basket for whenever I need it. 

Off to link this to Pixies Snippets Playground, think I might have to climb over the gate (watch out for the stinging nettles!) if Miss has locked up!! (If you have no idea what I'm blathering on about click here!)

Whilst I was in my craft room I also stamped off some cute images to colour, so off to catch up on this week's Create & Craft that I've recorded, with my stamped images & my Pro Markers!

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Variation on a theme!

Not much crafting done here this week. Very busy with work, 2 craft classes, housework (yes, really!!) and Osteo visit. So this weeks makes were quickies while watching last weeks British GP...,

If they look familiar that's cos I took last weeks Christmas snippets idea, changed the embossing folder to a 'Happy Birthday' one & off I went! Finished off nicely with some Craftwork Cards sentiments bought 4 sheets at Newbury for £1!!

Off to visit the snippets playground to see what everyone's been up to

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x