Tuesday Taggers - Jolly Old St Nick!

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Lots of news over on Tuesday Taggers today so do stop by and find out whats what!

I have been away for the weekend on the most relaxing retreat EVER! We have been thoroughly spoiled with an early Christmas including dinner, presents, music, games, mulled wine and decorations galore!

So that's where I made my DT projects for this week. The little key ring you can see in the top pic is a cross stitch kit which I found in my stash - I ditched the cross stitch and have gone for a stamped look with crafty individual stamps. This card could not be more simple - Santa by Graphic 45 card stampin up cherry cobbler and the gorgeous sentiment script is by papermania (Thanks Georgyxx)
And this little box/ pouch houses 3 bars of dairy milk and is a little stocking filler for my daughter. Again cherry cobbler card stock and Graphic 45 papers.
I have some fab pics of the retreat which I will post later in the week but for now please do visit my team mates work over on Tuesday Taggers - varied as always and not without surprises! LOL
Keep warm in all this wintry weather friends x

Shaping up

This week at Winter Wonderland we would like to see card shapes - anything but square and rectangle. This is perfect for these lovely round woodware blank cards. I have gone for a flat simple look just because I need some cards that will post easily! The papers are papermania, the sentiment dovecraft and the image is of course House Mouse. Last week I read my first Christmas story to my Niece after we had made reindeer food. The book was called why the reindeer were chosen. When My own children were small I bought a book each year depending on their age so now I have quite a collection of Christmas stories especially based on the nativity. Anyway back to the tale - it was lovely seeing her little face light up at each magical detail she learned - Children are wonderful for that. By the end I was quite emotional, soppy beggar I know but the magic still hits me too!
Hope this Christmas is beginning to feel magical to you. This Sunday is the first day of advent so the countdown is really here. Countless children (and some adults I know) will be opening their first door on the advent calendar next Wednesday - the season is really here - Fabulous if you have played along with us this year as you will feel ready for the Christmas card sending and if you havent make a few this week we would love to see them x
Stop by Winter Wonderland where my team mates have got their magical cards waiting to show you x We have a fab sponsor too!
With Love x Janet

KIS - Evergreen

Over on Keep it Simple this week the theme is Ever Green. I have used a blonde moments stamp from the trim a tree set stamped around the edge of some personal impressions glossy stamping card - this card has a gorgeous sheen to it and gives the stamping an extra wow factor. The sentiment is by butterfly kisses and wow thats it! A little matting and layering and its done. I may have to make more of these as OH thought it was a classy card - obviously I produce tat the rest of the time lol!
Have a great Sunday x Janet

A Decoration!

One thing positive about doing your Christmas cards early means you get to play with doing other Christmas projects because you are not in a rush!
This is a wooden box I decorated at the last craft retreat in September. I have stamped in black archival and used distress inks for all the colour. Stamps I borrowed off Bee and Linda as I had not taken Christmas stamps with me. The Tim Holtz ones I have anyway but it gave me an opportunity to play with the dark room door ones too so thanks gals!

Whoops forgot this gorgeous house is in fact elusive images - again thanks to Bee x

This poor picture is one of 12 matchboxes I made for a 12 days of Christmas swap. I chose 2 turtle doves and have used the craft stamper freebie stamp on shrink plastic as the charms. Sheet music and lush ribbon and lace, then wax seal complete the look
The swaps should be coming back any day now - how exciting one of the ladies is from Russia!

And now onto Winter Wonderland where I am the host this week. The girls will be cursing me this morning as I lost all the pics last night when editing the post - me thinks Clarky J is not popular today!

So the theme is a decoration. This wooden tray held some rather garish embelishments once upon a day - I bought it at the local craft shop - Embsay Mills - just for the tray. I painted it gold, used basic grey papers, crafty individual stamps, promarkers to colour and a little flower soft here and there. Mr Holtz ticket in the middle and this crafty individuals sentiment to hang underneath and this is now a gift for someone rather special!

So thats the task at Winter Wonderland. Make a decoration and enter in the inlinkz - you could be the randomly drawn winner of 3 digi stamps from Delicious Doodles.

Hopefully my team mates have forgiven my huge Gaff and replaced their projects in the post - I do hope so as they were absolutely gorgeous - stop by for a look here

Happy Friday x Janet

Winter Wonderland - winter sports!

Over at Winter Wonderland we have come over all sporty and wondered what Winter Sports we could find for our cards. I came across this cute Penny Black image of Hedgehogs sledging - completely unsure if sledging is a sport I have re christened it tobogganing hedgehogs LOL.
The image is coloured with promarkers and the paper is an old piece which I think maybe papermania. Matting and layering onto the shaped craft work cards card blank the ribbon and faux stitching/ dots just completes the look.

As always I am blown away by the talents of my teamies so hop on over to Winter Wonderland and take a look at their gorgeous creations. There is also a wonderful prize from our sposor this week so check out what you could win too!

Tuesday Taggers - purple, silver and gold + stamping

I have to admit this is not my usual choice of colour combo however the Tuesday Taggers team are very talented so when Ildiko chose this colour scheme we have all gone with the flow and wow wasn't she right? Sometimes coming out of your comfort zone is whats needed to change the way you think about colour. I have embossed an image from Butterfly Kisses in silver - added some gold gel pen in places then matted and layered. The background is a branch stamp by Tim Holtz that I have embossed first in gold then in silver.

The gold matt piece was not big enough to matt the whole background so I have just added a strip which I quite like. There my card complete. Although I'm stuck in Christmas mode my team mates have been more adventurous so do stop by for some gorgeous inspiration at Tuesday Taggers.

Have a great day x Janet

Keep it simple

The theme at Keep it simple this week is to use shape so I have gone for a round card from woodware. The reindeer is a beautiful graphicus stamp which I have embossed onto some red paper. The fir cone stamp is by paperartsy and the greeting by inkadinkadoo. A huge bow with ribbon from my stash and thats it.

Our sponsor this week is our teamie Clare who has some stunning paper flowers for the lucky winner - check them out here

I think my little Christmas blog will be receiving much more attention over the coming month as most of my DT work will be Christmas themed so hope you like what you see x Janet

The Stamp man Challenge Christmas - anything goes!

Well for a start you will notice I am not the photographer LOL!
This has been taken by my good friend Michelle or rather Midnight Crafter.
This project is for a make and take session for a group of ladies coming to The Stamp Man for a visit (the gatefold card) on the 8th and part of the Christmas gifts class on Wednesday 10th. It uses a set from the sale section which is perfect for Christmas - Aspects of design 32 flitter flutter snowflakes.

The use of the white detail embossing powder gives the inky background a gorgeous Christmassy look. There is some gorgeous inspiration over at The Stamp Man challenge blog so do stop by and check it out.

Winter Wonderland - Sing us a Christmas Carol

Our lovely teamie Marianne has chosen this weeks theme which is Christmas Carols. I just had to ink up this crafters companion bear set (bought in the sale and sadly neglected till now!). I have used promarkers to colour and added some Blonde moments trees at the back from papers long since retired from the BM collection - I think I have been waiting for them to become collectors items! The musical notes and Fa la la stamps are also from the CC set.

Our sponsor this week is the fabulous Pink Gems - Love love love Janets fabulous shop and her blog is awash with inspiration and talent so do pay a visit and take a peep.
I'm at work again today so am hoping this schedules ok. This weekend however I am off work. On Saturday my craft club folks are gathering for a Christmas fest - we are making a Christmas planner album made from envelopes and cereal packets whilst listening to Christmas tunes and stuffing ourselves with mince pies! The ladies who form my craft group are fabulous - we always have such a laugh together and I am always at awe when the room is full of such talented folks - we all have so much to share and teach each other its truely a pleasure to be amongst them.
Hope your weekend is packed with fun and laughter too x Janet