Winter birthdays

I have a friend who has a birthday very close to Christmas and each year we try to make it completely separate from our Christmas get-together.

A few years ago she told me she didn't like 'winter' birthday cards that look like Christmas cards, so I made this for her birthday this year...

It's an easel card matchbox, so I can put a gift in the drawer. Perfect for posh choccies or a piece of jewellery :-). All the decoration is heat embossed using the WOW! Powders earth tones and metallics - lovely colours!

I uses tons of white card snippets for the panels & the die cuts, so I'm linking this to Pixies Snippets Playground, where Di is celebrating 100 Snippets posts!

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Purple reindeer!

After last weeks reindeer massacre (see here for details!) I decided I should try to restore the balance by making a quick reminder card. I searched hi & low for reindeer pics in my stash - think they've all run away in fear having seen what I did to their friends last week [sigh]

So the only reindeer I could find were purple & green (naturally!!) from an old mag cover kit (can't remember which one). Backing paper is a leftover piece printed from a Funky Hand cd, not really Christmas but if you squint they could be snowflakes :-). And the colours match perfectly, despite what the camera shows!

All white card from snippets, run thru a cuttlebug snowflakes embossing folder, and die cut into snowflakes. Purple card for matting leftover from die cutting something else ages ago. All finished off with liberal splodges of Stickles Crystal 

Off to checkout Pixies playground & see what others have done this week with their snippets!

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Venice scrapbook layout

I'm slowly scrapbooking our lovely Med cruise from last October (was there this time last year - sigh)

This layout came about because I have several pads of gorgeous K & Co papers that mix & match, and have been used on other scrapbook pages. I keep all my offcuts tucked inside the original pad in an A4 cello bag, so I can always find then

The scalloped borders were punched from leftover strips using a Martha Stewart deep punch (Daisy I think). The photo mats, letters and one flourish came from offcuts of toning Bazzill card. The final flourish from a snippet of gold mirri 

So this one has to be linked to Pixies Snippets Playground, cos the embellishments were a veritable raid in the snippet box!

Happy crafting peeps :-)

More Christmas Dufex Stickers

Hi everyone, I've been out of circulation for a week or so due to a nasty case of having popped 3 ribs - had them 'put back in' last week - major OW!!! so been feeling a bit sorry for myself, still in quite a bit of pain and rather restricted in my movements, so not much crafting done.  But this weekend got back into the swing working on my sample for a 1-day Saturday workshop soon (watch this space!) and some snippets Christmas Cards :-)

I had a few holly flourish due cuts leftover from another Christmas project, and they'd been transported to & fro in a bag & got a bit mangled........

I couldn't bear to throw them away, so decided to chop some & add them to some Dufex stickers & snippets of card & mirri to make some bigger Christmas cards. some still look a little bent up lol!!

The background papers were leftover prints from a CD, that I'd part-used to punch flowers. The dark blue & mirri card stock used  to mat & layer are all from my snippets box, as are the punched white snowflakes. I finished off with a few dots of Stickles glitter glue to bling up the background & holly :-)

I'm linking these to pixies snippets playground, cos I used lots of snippets!

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Bits n bobs

This is based on a demo I saw this morning on Create & Craft. Lovely kit from Craftwork Cards but I have soooooooo many Christmas papers I didn't want to buy any more. 

These are from a Dovecraft pack I bought last year & have loads of off cuts. I store all my designer pack offcuts in the same pack as any remaining papers, do I always have snippets that match. 

This uses an easel card template I have, plus my Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die, and a whole load of offcuts & glitter glue lol!!

As I've used tons of snippets I'm popping over to pixies playground to see what other snippets makes are about this week, and as it's a Christmas card, I'm linking it to Crafty Hazelnuts anything goes Christmas Challenge

Thanks for stopping by

Debs

Sun -v- snow

I've been away for a while on my hols. I must be one of the only people I know who leave UK in a heat wave, to holiday in the Arctic!

I kid you not, we cruised to the land of the midnight sun, which is in the Arctic Circle - and yes, the sun stays up for 24 hours - thank goodness for blackout curtains!  We had snow, sleet, rain and a force 10 gale, all the time knowing family & friends were bbq'ing in the sun!! 

Still had a lovely time, seeing real live wild reindeer in their natural habitat was amazing. And the Norwegian fjords are gorgeous. 

So no crafting for a few weeks, and have to say its been so hot in my craft room I couldn't summon up much enthusiasm. But today made this stepper card

I'm hoping it qualifies as a snippets make to enter the challenge over at pixies playground, as the whole thing is made from a leftover aperture card. I bought loads of these in my early crafting days, but struggle to use pre-printed cards now, I prefer to stamp & decorate myself. These were too pretty to get rid of, with glittered butterflies, so I set to with the scissors & this is all that's left of the original card!

Going in the snippets folder for another day! And the centre stepper card will be the basis of my classes next week - a twofer!! :-) 

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend, whatever you're doing. 

Thanks for stopping by

Debs xx

Seashells

I had a snippet of my embossed water droplets card left, and was racking my brains how to use it. Then I remembered this lovely sea shells set from Crafty individuals! And an off cut of 'wavy' paper from a First Edition pad.

You can just about see the droplets behind the seahorses. The original plan was to have just the seahorses, but then I decided to add a few seashells, so raided the white card snippets, stamped, coloured & cut out. 

Then I decided that I needed a second panel with a verse, and then more seashells!  Then I decided they needed to be glazed with Glossy Accents. So what was to be a quick snippets make ended up taking most of an afternoon lol!

Linking this to Pixies Snippets playground cos I used a ton of snippets!

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Steampunk snippets!

This card came about following a Cuttlebug 'how to' class that I ran earlier this year, and the card is featured in this months (July) Making Cards magazine.

In the class I demonstrated how to squash & cut loo roll tubes to get great cheap'Kraft Kard' - check out the large cogs. Also brown parcel wrapping paper - check out the embossed centre panel. And finally, used drinks cans - the silver embossed butterfly, and the silver and black cogs (can of  Guinness, anyone ;-))

Scraps of black card, embossed, torn and brushed with metallic mica powders. And the card was finished with a few flourish and butterfly die cuts from black card & parcel paper, and a few screw top brads with legs chopped off.  In fact, the only bit of this card that came from 'proper' stash is the printed background, also artfully torn  lol!! 

Cos of all the household bits n bobs used, I'm linking this to Pixies Snippets playground

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely weekend

Debs xx

Crop homework

This card is made from a kit included in the goody bag from the WOYWW crop - finally got around to making something with it!

The kit included a sketch, the card blank, snippet of pink & black paper & buttons. I made the backing paper from a scrap of cream hammered paper that matched the card. I stamped the background with brushed corduroy & Victorian velvet distress inks using a script stamp & Papermania urban stamps I picked up ages ago in the sale and this is first time I've used them - they're fab! 

And I couldn't resist adding yet more of the lovely Tattered florals (obsessed, Moi???!) from Shaz, plus a few card candi. 

Entering this in Pixies Snippets challenge, where last week I won the fabulous Water droplets stamp - cant wait to play with that when it arrives!!

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Thank you cards

 

These were made as Thank You cards for the lovely Julia and Jan for organising the crop on Saturday - should be safe to post now assuming mr postie has delivered on Time!

They were made using leftovers from various K&Co papers, the lovely Tattered Florals that were a gift from Shaz, and my HOTP layering Tool Kit. - great fun! The butterfly in the first pic was found languishing at the bottom of a box, from another K&Co kit (I am rather partial!!)  On the second card, I didn't have quite enough of the teal to make a full size layer as all the pieces were pre-creased down the centre from a previous class, so I had to improvise, and made a border, then there wasn't quite enough of the floral layer, so had to make the top layer shorter than the base layer, and hide the crease with a judicious butterfly, but it looks ok I think

Linking them to Pixies Snippets Playground  cos of copious use of leftovers, snippets and rummage bitz!

Thanks ladies, I had a ball at the Crop!!

Debs x

WOYWW Crop

What a lovely day it was on Saturday - meeting up with so many WOYWW'ers! Thanks so much to Julia and Jan for organising the day - I didn't get much crafting done - but a lot of laughing and chatting :-)

I got to meet so many people - apologies if I didn't get a chance to chat with you -there  just weren't enough hours lol!! I saw Mary Anne's beautiful quilts, Zoe's amazing colouring (she's way too modest!) Saw Debs cute kitten with wool card - great idea! Made a button stem for mortis bouquet, found out Janet lives just down the road (coffee & cake soon!) met the famous Fergus who takes Hettie everywhere :-) Showed Dolores how to make air clay roses, cut myself some die cuts (with a lot of help from Julia!!) and received some lovely ready cut tattered florals from the amazingly generous Shaz - they must have taken ages to cut so many! Saw Helen's beautiful journal and so much more......!

And we ate loads, laughed loads, made some money for a good cause and returned home absolutely shattered .-)) thanks to everyone who helped me with the mobility issues - hopefully next time we get together I will be able to walk, talk and hold a plate - oooh such a goal to have lol!!!

The lovely tattered florals from Shaz inspired me, and took Janet's advice and  gathered lots of goodies together to be carted downstairs. Spent a happy few hours crafting on my lap tray with the die cuts whilst also using up snippets to create this.....the wispy bits around the flower are the teeny little strips cut off from the backing panel to fit the card, then curled with the edge of the scissors and glued under the flower with the amazing 'glues anything' Pinflair :-)

Then I had a load of teeny snippets left from that one, so I made this one with leftover snippets from my snippets make! Still with me?? I glued the triangles cut from the ends of the banner strips on the previous card to the flower petals - was quite chuffed with the resulting co-ordinated flower! So I am entering them in Pixies Playground Snippets 

Ok, this post is way too long, and I have work to do, but have more snippets makes to share later in the week :-)

Happy crafting

Debs xx

Spinner card

I made One of these cards recently as a Thank You for a friend & stupidly forgot to take a photo! So I made another one from the leftovers!

All the papers are from K&Co - I think it's Bailey - but I only have bits and pieces left, so I'm entering this for the snippets playground make. The flower spins and I think Di had a lot of fun playing with it lol!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Debs

Flowerpot thank you card

This is based on a Split Coast Stampers tutorial I saw on you tube, and I've wanted to try it for a while but not had the time (you know how that goes, right??)  It's a basic fold with aperture at the top, trimmed diagonally at the sides to the shape of a flowerpot, then add a punched border and a tag inside plus tons of flowers - very therapeutic all that cutting and sticking :-)

And I got to use up lots of snippets from my First Edition New Leaf pad, so entering this in Pixies Snippets Challenge!

 

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

More snow!

Yesterday was absolutely freezing here on the South Coast, and we had light snow for most of the afternoon, thank goodness it didn't settle.

So it seemed appropriate to be making Christmas cards! This one is for Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge - 'Christmas song' - I thought this song might be appropriate for the penguins to sing!

 

I was having a bit of a tidy in the craft room & found 2 x A4 boxes of unidentified 'stuff'. When I opened them up I found lots of part finished Christmas projects & paper off cuts, old cards kept for upcycling, heat embossed Christmas greetings and on and on! Looks like I have enough to make several years worth of cards, and that's not counting any of my 'proper' Christmas stash!

 

So as this card is made from snippets, I will also enter it in Pixies Snippets Playground

Hope the weather is a bit kinder where you are!

PS - for those who asked about the tin cans, I will upload a tutorial later today or tomorrow

Debs x

It's so cold!

 Finding it hard to work in my craft room at the moment as I have to wear so many layers to keep warm! Still, it's an ideal time to make Christmas cards lol!!

This one came about from trying to be good and use up snippets - the background is made of 1" squares punched from leftovers, and layered on the background card as a patchwork, with faux stitching to add to the effect.  The topper is an upcycled Christmas card (I save them all!) cut with a Spellbinders die, and backed with another snippet to match.  The tiny gingham bow kind of sets off the homespun theme I was going for - but was a **** to tie using such small leftover piece of ribbon - didn't have any more of this one so had to make it work :-)

Any my upcycled topper has 3 geese on, so fits with this week's Crafty Hazelnuts theme which is '3 of anything!' - so this one is entered in the following challenges:

Pixies Snippets Playground
Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge
Sarn's Rudolph Day challenge

And I wanted to say thanks to Shaz in Oz for her advice on how to add watermarks to your photos - super helpful advice, and pointed me in the right direction :-)

Happy crafting

Debs xx