Post-Christmas Tradition

Happy New Year Everyone! 

I haven't posted in absolutely ages I know, but as the Christmas Tree was put away today, along with the lights, baubles and tinsel, it seemed time a good time to join my friends in Blogland again.
We are always the last house to put up and the first to take down the Christmas decorations. Hubby's OCD prevents him having too much 'mess' around without him getting anxious to clear it away. But one task I always sit down to after the decorations have been cleared, boxed and hidden away, is cutting up the seasonal cards and turning them into tags for next year's presents. A post-Christmas tradition that the children used to enjoy but now I do on my own.

From this...

........to this......

...in front of a warm fire 

with a mug of hot tea ....

Shame it's not a real fire!

WOYWW

Christmas is truly over in our house when the decorations and tree are down (planned activity for this afternoon), and the Christmas cards are cut up to make next year's tags. So here is my Christmas Wednesday desk - a tray - with the remains of an hour's crafting. I've been cutting up said Christmas cards with fancy scissors and the result is the little pile on the right of the photo. When the girls were at school and everyone in their class sent them cards I had plenty of tags for the next year, but now they are away from home my supply is much depleted! I may have to make some next December - any excuse to craft!

You can also see my Christmas cacti in flower and a Yankee candle scenting the Lounge very nicely with 'Home Sweet Home' smells.

Join in with WOYWW madness over at Julia's and let us see your craft desk today.

I'm off now to check the dinner as it's another Christmas Lunch today in honour of Jenni and Tom who are staying over for a few days. Actually my husband is the cook in our house but he might need help with something or other. Our Christmas is not quite over just yet!

Christmas Cards Again

Sorry for the poor photos today, the light is very bad again. I'm back to making Christmas cards once more! Thankfully, only a few more to go and I will have made the number I need. I'm back to my favourite colour, blue, and have used Daisy Ds paper and stamps from Creative Expressions. I used sparkly embossing powder 'Disco Black' from Stamp 'n' Stuff and a glitter Sakura pen in blue to colour in. The stamped images are 3D which doesn't really show on the photo.

These stamps are made to be used with Nestabilities circle dies, but although I love the small scallop circles in the range, I cannot justify the cost at the moment. I have a circle cutter and swivel knife which just has to do instead!

I was inspired by Kaz on her blog 'Slightly Wonky Crafts' to try white embossing on purple patterned paper.

Here I used Graphicus and Papermania stamps and detail white embossing powder.

But I only made two purple Christmas cards as I prefer the black embossing. It's more dramatic I think.

Each to his (or her) own.

WOYWW

This is the first time I've been able to take part in WOYWW! I've been at home today and spent most of it crafting. It's very rare my workdesk is out of the cupboard on a Wednesday, so make the most of it, as I may not be taking part again for a long while!

I 've been making some Christmas cards with a couple of snowflake stamps I bought in wet and windy Worthing yesterday. Papermania stamps, I think, but I've already got rid of the packaging. They were £1.99 for two which I thought was reasonable as I already have plenty of Christmas-themed stamps and don't really need any more. But what has need got to with anything??

So here's my desk this Wednesday afternoon before I have to put everything back in the cupboard again. The other half's asleep in bed as he worked last night, so I get to play a little longer and let you see the results....

There's actually a bit more mess around than this shows.... of course there is! The photos show one half of the table only. I also have two small drawers of ink pads, acryllic blocks and stamps, and a paper trimmer (or two) in use.  Have you spotted a ball of crochet thread and a needle? Well, I did sew buttons on a couple of the cards to give them some texture. You can just about see my blue scallop punch and a glass of water. No, not to drink - I did plan on doing some painting but ran out of time!

There's not as much on my table as there often is ........ but under the table there's more............

All the essentials like rulers, craft knives, glues, sticky tape, scissors etc. And two magazine holders that I use to store unmounted stamps vertically. There's my heat gun and embossing powder somewhere around too.

Well, I'm off to see everyone else's WOYWW on their blogs now, but here's a photo of one of the finished cards (with button present!).

Embossed resist cards

I mentioned in an earlier post (CUPBOARD CRAFTER: Rainy Days and Thwarted Plans#links) some embossed resist cards that I had made, but at the time I could not upload them. Courtesy of my daughter's SLR, a steep learning curve, and more patience than I ever knew I had, here they are! Finally!

I also made an A5 card but cannot show it here as I've submitted it for publication - fingers crossed.

I used a stamp from the 'Live Out Loud' themeplate from http://www.graphicus.co.uk/, stamping onto patterned paper and then embossing using clear embossing powder. This created a resist for the Tim Holtz Distress inks that I worked in over the top of the images. A very simple technique but it shows off this stamp nicely I think.

There are a lot of bird stamps around at the moment, ranging from peacocks to owls, but these are definitely my favourite. There are four themeplates in the collection. I have just two of them. I think the bird tails from my second set, the 'Curly Birds', make very nice background swirls, as shown on the green and brown card.

Confession time: I have loads and loads of ribbons, buttons and brads in my stash, but I love them so much, it is a real sacrifice to give them away on my handmade cards! I usually try to get away without putting ribbon or buttons on a card, but sometimes, as here, I really had to so that they look finished.

Some crafters cannot bring themselves to use papers from their stash -  with me it's embellishments. If I wasn't on a budget I would have ribbon in every pattern and every colour! And have a neat storage system with them all displayed on reels and arranged in colour families  --- Heaven on Earth.

Blue Christmas

Well, it couldn't last could it? I just had to include my favourite colour for Christmas cards - at least for a few of them!
This afternoon I have been playing with a cuttlebug snowflake folder that arrived today and these are some of the results. I wanted something easy to make and readily repeatable. I think these fit the bill. Here's how to make the simplest ones.
I used a circle punch to punch out three circles in an A6 card blank and stamped my greeting by E-Z-Mount using Pearlescent Sky Blue Brilliance ink. Then I ran some blue cardstock with a white core through the cuttlebug in my new embossing folder and punched out the same number of circles. With the card closed, I adhered the embossed circles in place to the back of the card and swiped the embossed areas with a Moonlight White Brilliance ink pad. Using a blue Sakura glitter pen I drew mock stitching around the circles to finish. Voila!
There is a bonus to making this type of card --- lots of white punched circles! And being a crafter who, like every other crafter I know, cannot waste a thing, I made use of those too! See below!

To get this effect I inked one side of the embossing folder with the blue Brilliance ink pad and placed the white circles inside before running through the cuttlebug.

Maybe I'll convince myself to go back to green again for my next batch of Christmas cards? Mmm.

If you're making your Christmas cards, or even if you're not, here is a blog candy giveaway from Elaine at My Creative Corner - http://elainesden.blogspot.com/2009/07/anyone-for-candy.html.  And a second chance to win blog candy here http://littleshopofcrafts.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-heart-hero-arts-blog-hop.html Good luck.

Well I'm off to enjoy the promised good weather for the weekend. Hopefully it will be good. Enjoy your weekend too!

Cuttlebug Christmas in July

Corny. Christmas in July.

But this time of year is when I start making my Christmas cards - along with many other crafters! These are some of the cards I made yesterday. I don't know if you can tell from the photo but I used Cosmic Shimmer paints which really sparkle in the light, along with a swiss dot embossing folder for my Cuttlebug machine.
Here's an inspirational Blog with weekly challenges using your cuttlebug: http://cuttlebugchallenge.blogspot.com/ 
Last year's Christmas cards were mostly blue, my favourite colour, so this year I've deliberately stepped out of that Comfort Zone! So - Green is my colour choice for this year. (If you receive one of these cards come Christmas you'll have to pretend you haven't already seen it!!)

I rarely make the same card twice (I always want to be moving on to something else!) but these were so enjoyable and easy to do that I'll be making more soon. Just until I get the number I need.

Thankfully I don't have hundreds to make like some people. If you're one of those crafters I do feel for you! Although we wouldn't have this hobby if we didn't enjoy it would we?