Be prepared!

Friday 30 April 2010

Winter Wonderland Christmas gift card holder

Over at Winter Wonderland this week the challenge was to make a gift card holder. I really love this idea as it does make giving cash or a gift card seem much more thoughtful. I made this following the tutorial here

Ive used red cardstock, basic grey wassial papers, a high hopes christmas kitty stamp coloured with promarkers, SU scalloped circle and sentiment.

Ive stamped the inside with a hand made stamp too. Really pleased with this and I'm sure I will make many more - in fact hop on over to my other blog as I've made one for a friends birthday too using left overs!
Winter Wonderland is sponsored this week by The Stampbarn
who are offering some decorative scissors and a stamp as prize!
Check out the DTs work here

and dont forget my blog candy - Next week is my chosen challenge week so my candy finishes on 4th May so the lucky winner can join in the challenge with their prize!

Monday 26 April 2010

Peace on Earth

Over at Susie and Vikkis challenge this week we have to use set words one of them being Peace. Perfect opportunity to play with this huge beauty of a stamp. The stamp itself is 3 and 3/4 inches by 5 and 1/4 inches big so really does take some stamping. Ive used silver embossing powder for a simple black, white and silver card. I wanted to stick to something simple so the words were the focus. Behind the words is just a strip of black card with 3 silver stripes of ribbon and the wording is mounted onto the card with foam pads.
I have over 40 Christmas cards now so I am really pleased with how my Christmas Preparations are coming along. If you haven't yet begun then do try joining in some of these fab challenges to get ahead for this year - you wont regret it!

Friday 23 April 2010

Winter Wonderland Now on a Friday!

Over at Winter Wonderland we have had a change of challenge day to Friday. That means you have all weekend to get your entries in! We are having an open theme week although of course it should be Christmassy! I've gone for a Vintage feel to combine with Vikki and Susies challenge.
Ive also gone for another Craft Stamper look as last week I saw a card made by the lovely Jean from Crafty Individuals using an envelope. It was stunning so I have recreated my own version for the challenge.

Cosmo Cricket papers I have stamped believe along the trim over the top of the beaded ribbon. The circle is a chipboard shape again by comsmo cricket which co-ordiantes with the die cut shapes in the paper pack. I used an envelope template by Lakeland to make the square envelope.


and the Santa image is stamped and then coloured with distress inks. All the papers have been edged with distress inks too using antique linen, frayed burlap and fired brick.

So back to Winter wonderland. We have 2 sponsors again this week for 2 lucky winners and we have blog candy with some of our DT too.

So hop on over to Winter Wonderland and read all about it!

Tuesday 20 April 2010

A vintage card

Susie and Vikkis Christmas challenge this week is to make a Vintage Christmas card. A perfect excuse to use my new Reindeer stamp - How gorgeous is he?? The image and sentiment are both from Graphicus - You may be seeing him and his little prancing friend quite a bit over the coming months LOL. Teamed with these Cosmo Cricket papers and a diecut snowflake I hope this fits the bill!
A little brad or 4 and the job is done apart from a little distressing with antique linen, frayed burlap and fired brick and its finished. Oh I do so love that stamp :0)

Sunday 18 April 2010

Winter Wonderland Embossing

Just a reminder that our embossing theme will be running until the 22nd April. Here is a little embosed tag I made to go with the blog candy. If you have not entered then dont forget there is still loads of time. I've loved visiting the entries so far which are stunning.
Have a great Sunday x
Janet

Tuesday 13 April 2010

Combined Christmas Challenges

Over on Susie and Vikkis challenge the theme this week is blue and silver - not usually a colour combo I use but I thought I'd give it a go. Over at Bah Humbug the theme is Tags - different ways to use tags on your Christmas projects. Over at Winter Wonderland the theme is embossing so an easy combinition of challenges :0)
here we have cardstock by Kanban, Silver holly paper by papermania, a little white card run through the swiss dots embossing folder and a chipboard Blonde Moments tree triple embossed with blue glass embossing powder, stamped into with the BM tree and a little perfect pearls silver added to define the stamp image. Added a large ribbon as the colour worked so well and finished off with a see ds sentiment stamp.
Don't forget my blog candy still plenty of time to join in! You can find it here

Sunday 11 April 2010

Winter Wonderland - This weeks its Embossing!

This weeks theme was chosen by our fabbie team mate Avril who would like to see Embossing on your project - any sort of embossing so go with whatever you like to do best!


Heat embossing is one of my favourite techniques - there is such a thrill about watching the powder melt and become something beautiful right before your eyes . This is a fab stamp and works really well with embossing. I picked it up at a second hand sale a couple of years ago and it has been used every year since! Ive gone for a gold on black look - then matted onto gold card then onto a card blank which has been covered with vellum, with gold swirls on it. The card blank is by papermania and is a black scalloped edge one. Ive edged the vellum in gold ink before attaching it to the card using black and gold organza ribbon.


Our challenge is sponsored this week by Card Mad Fairy
who is offering 3 digi images to the lucky randomly chosen winner Brilliant!
We are having a change of challenge day over at Winter Wonderland so this challenge runs until the 22nd April then we launch the new challenge on Friday the 23rd - so heaps of time for you to play this time.

Dont forget my blog candy! Just enter one week of the WW challenge and follow the other requests and it could be won by you!

Have a great day x Janet

Friday 9 April 2010

Christmas Reindeer

Over at Susie and Vikkis Christmas challenge. We have been asked to produce a card with a reindeer on. This was the perfect excuse to make a card using the techniques in last Decembers Craft stamper with Kate Cranes fab alcohol ink tutorial. Ive made the card full size but used exactly the same techniques.
Stream and Purple twilight alcohol inks, I improvised with a swirl stamp from stampin up, then of course the gorgeous Tim Holtz prancing reindeer. Some stickles for glitter and a bit of Matt and layering and its done. I love the colour blending technique which is called Monoprinting - the results are different each time.
So there is my Reindeer card - I hope to join in this challenge more now Ive found it!
If you are a Christmas Lover then check out my blog candy above.
Happy Friay x Janet

Sunday 4 April 2010

Winter Wonderland says Happy Easter!

We feel Christmassy every week over on Winter Wonderland but this week we have had a visit from the Easter Bunny too! This week is the last sketch from the lovely Pascale before she moves on to pastures new. You can find the sketch here
Just to keep Easter in mind we would like to see Bunnies somewhere on your card too. Check out the DTs cool ways of using non-Christmassy stamps in a gorgeous Christmassy way! Check out the Dts blogs from the links at WW as most have managed to combine their DT card to other challenges too - I would also like to enter this into Magical crafts
which has a theme of cute creatures. One stitch at a time which has a theme of anything goes and Charisma Cards which is a theme of magical animals.
So onto my card - Ive used a High Hopes Bunny stamp - Not Christmassy at all but it did go really well with the Forever Friends Christmas greeting of Hugs and Kisses! The papers are by papermania, holly punched and then red stones added for the berries. The red spotty ribbon was re-cycled from a box of chocs! Image coloured with promarkers then edges distressed by TH distress inks.
This was fun to do so I hope you will join in this week for a chance to win $15 worth of Whimsey stamps vouchers - fabulous!
Check out the post above this too for a chance to win some blog candy!
Happy Easter Winter Wonderlanders xx