DCM challenge - Song without words

It’s Lythan’s turn to challenge us this week from the Daring Cardmakers
and boy what a challenge!

I would like you to create a card inspired by a song or a carol - it could be for Christmas or not! (you may have got all your Christmas cards done by now...) BUT there is a twist. the words of the song are NOT to be seen on the front of the card. You could leave it to us to guess! Have fun!

Here’s my very simple card



Both papers are from the BG Fruitcake collection and I’ve used my tapestry stamps to create a border around the edge of the plain Green one and also on the Cream centre mat. The centre image is from a three panel Magenta Christmas stamp that has been embossed with Gold and painted with Twinkling H2O’s. The whole thing is edged with Gold Marker Pen.
Very easy but can you guess the Christmas Carol?

Another card I’ve made today is this one

Roberta Robo has been in action again and I’ve used yet another template by the wonderful ErikaP over on UK Scrappers.

Thanks Erika for still sharing your fantastic creations with us especially in light of what has recently gone on, it’s so very generous of you.

A Friend To Play At My House

I’ve had a wonderful day today despite the grotty weather because my special friend Lythan came over to my house to play. We’ve not actually managed a get together since the crop in the middle of September so there was loads for us to catch up on and there was lots of chatting and crafting going on.
Lythan brought her new Tilda and Sugar Nellie rubber stamps for me to play with and now I can feel a shopping spree coming on because they were so cute………. and I need them all!
Then, while Lythan was piecing together some cards with images she had stamped and coloured earlier I had a go at making a never ending card. It’s not quite finished yet but I hope to have some photos to show you in the not to distant future. I don’t think it turned out too bad for a first attempt but there’s lots of Gold inking going on to hide some of the not so straight edges. It was fun to make thought and I’ll definitely be having another go.

I've also finally managed to complete last week’s digital scrapbooking lesson and have to say I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself if I’m honest.

In this weeks lesson we were introduced to the wonderful world of brushes and were shown how to load and use them.
This meant some more changes to my layout of an 84 year old hoody and this week they are quite subtle. If you look closely you will see some rather fetching Red scrolls have been added to the White band across the centre of the layout.



Next we were shown how to make our own patterned papers.



Then how to make a brush with our signature on and finally how to make a spotty paper, organising the spacing so it remained uniform throughout.



Now the reason I’m feeling pretty please with myself is because I decided to have a go at making my very own Christmas paper and here it is……drum roll please………



Now I’m eagerly awaiting Lesson 5.

Golden Highlights - DCM's

Yet another week has gone by in a flash and I’m still chasing my tail.
Mainly my own fault because I’ve been out and about with my friend Susan looking at all the lovely Christmas decorations in the local nurseries at Van Hage (Ware) and Crews Hill (Enfield) and doing a spot of Christmas shopping at Lakeside. I also had the dreaded dentist check-up on Friday morning before heading off to Romford with Dad to look for a new cooker. I may be 51 but it doesn’t stop me being terrified of going to the dentist, still, it was all ok and he doesn’t want to see me for another nine months…phew!

I still found time to do my Daring Cardmakers Little Extra on Wednesday, this week’s Friday challenge, and a few other cards that needed to be done so here we go but before we start can I just say a great big thank you to everyone who visits my blog and leaves me mesages. It gives me such a boost when I read them and they are all much apreciated, so thank you again.


Now......this weeks Little Extra

Santa's Little Helper is still trying to motivate us into getting those Christmas cards made and this week our subject is
Piles of Parcels
We’d like you to put some gorgeous, tempting, beautifully wrapped Christmas parcels on your cards this time.

I have a rather large Docrafts stamp that was just perfect for this so I dug out my very scummy Basic Grey Fruitcake papers and stamped each parcel onto a different paper and embossed them in Gold.
I then stamped and embossed them again on the reverse side of the sheet for the ribbons, which co ordinates perfectly. Everything was then cut out and layered with some 3D foam.
The ‘Happy Christmas’ is an INKA stamp that’s also been embossed in Gold and I've finished all the edges off with a Gold marker pen.



Actually, thinking about it this card could have doubled for this weeks Friday challenge too because it was Keryn's turn to set the dare and she wanted us to include some Gold somewhere on the card but being the good girl that I am I made another card.



This one is on a Cream hammered card, don't know why but for some reason it looks White in the photo.
Gold stamping and embossing again, using my wonderful new set of Christmas Stamps from Elusive Images that the lovely Sheila, Manic Stamper made me buy. (Oh it’s good having someone to blame!)
The Happy Christmas is the INKA stamp I used on the last card and MUM was done using some clear alphabet stamps from Anna Griffin and more Gold marker around the edges of the card. Now I know this looks a very simple card, which it would have been but it took forever to make because silly me decided it would look lovely if I cut out all those swirls with a craft knife and attached the image to the card with 3D foam.

Um, note to self.....NEVER AGAIN!

I won’t bore you with all the details of these but here are a few more of the cards I’ve made recently.

My 1st Tanda stamps

Doing it Digi - Week 3

Ok, well it’s week three of the on-line digital scrapbook course run by Kirsty Wiseman and yet again we’ve made a few changes to the first page we made.

This weeks lesson was really fun because we were taught how to make our own embellishment including buttons and staples and then we went on to being shown how to remove a section of the layout and replace it with some Bazzill type card stock that we also made ourselves.

Here’s my layout ..mark 3!



Then Kirsty set us a new challenge.

Download a free kit from any of the usual sites and use everything in the kit. All the papers, card and embellies. Totally load your page and using drop shadows etc. SHOW ME WHAT YOU CAN DO - I can’t wait to see! Perhaps make some embellies to match (you will know what I mean from class 3 when you see it. you will lOVE class 3!)

Because I’m particularly looking for heritage/vintage style kits I’m finding it a bit hard to come across suitable free ones, so once again I brought mine but it was still only a few pennies so I’m not complaining.
I found a kit designed by Mindy Armour called Spice and it’s just perfect for what I was aiming to do. The kit contained 3 12 x 12 papers, 3 ribbons, 2 guitar picks, 2 photo fasteners, a brad and a Journaling block and every thing in the kit was used. I even made some matching triangular buttons…..actually, these turned out better than the ones I did for the lesson. Lol!

Getting Corrugated

Can’t believe it’s Friday already and Jo over at Daring Cardmakers has set us another challenge already. Where do the weeks go????

She says:-
I seem to have developed a little bit of a fixation with old cardboard boxes....! My dare this week is to use some corrugated card on your card - it could be corrugated craft card or an old box etc. taken to pieces :) You could make the card blank from it or die cut shapes etc...

Well, I managed to get my card done this afternoon as well as one for last weeks Little Extra so I'm feeling pretty smug with myself at the moment.

Here’s the one using some corrugated card.



I’ve used some White Paisley paper from Making Memories to cover the whole of the card and then pulled apart a box for some corrugated card to cut my tag from.
Next I then cut a slightly smaller tag from the patterned paper, this time useing the reverse side which is plain Kraft paper and topped it with a little birdhouse made from scraps of Red and White card, a cocktail stick inked with Black StazOn and some Tulip puffy dimensional fabric paint, which goes fluffy when you heat it.
I then added some faux stitching to the edges of the card and tag and some tiny punched holly leaves with Red stickles glitter glue centers.
The greeting was Robo’ed and finished off with a little Tapestry Stamp Robin for good measure.

Here’s my card for the Snowmen and Snowflakes mid week little extra.



For this one I’ve use pale Blue cardstock which was stamped with my Winter Night Sky tapestry stamp set.
The little snowman is a rather cute Fun Stamp, which I’ve water coloured and then matted onto some DCWV Christmas paper.
The second mat is plain card that’s been in my Cuttlebug Snowflake embossing folder.
All the edged were inked and then I added the peel-off snowflakes and attached each one through the centre with a tiny silver brad.
Last but not lease I added silver peel-off greeting.

Doing it Digi - Week 2

Yep, it’s the second week of Kirsty’s
Digital scrap booking course and because I’m all behind part three will be on its way later this evening.

We were taught some new techniques; things like cutting out shapes, adding shadows and making shaped text and we put them into practice on the page we made last week.

Here’s the page with the alterations.



I then decided to have another go on my own and came up with this page of my Great Aunt Winnie and Great Uncle Fred



The kit is called Pink Fizz and was created by Lauren Bavin. I don’t know about you but I think it fits my heritage page so well that I couldn't’t resist it. Unfortunately it wasn’t a freebie but it was still only pennies to buy so I’m a happy bunny.
Incidentally, if anyone happens to know of any freebie or other sites for that matter with a good selection of heritage papers I would be very grateful. Also so any sites with English Military stuff as opposed to US.

And.....Cut!

I bet you’ve all been wondering what I’ve been up to since last week when I popped in to say I would be back to crafting with a vengeance.

Well, unfortunately it wasn’t to be………………instead I came down with a chest infection to beat all chest infections. It seems there’s a lot of it going about but this one really knocked me for six for a few days and I’m still not over it yet. Fingers crossed the antibiotics do the trick soon and I’m feeling more like my old self.

I did finally do a bit of crafting yesterday though and decided to start by doing this weeks challenge over at the Daring Cardmakers

This week its Tracie setting the dare and it is to make a card and CUT!Any theme goes, so for those of you needing a break from Christmas crafting this is the perfect opportunity to have a change. All styles are welcome but there MUST be an element of hand cutting somewhere. It could be a greeting, a shape, letters printed on your pc and hand cut; anything goes as long as you did it by hand.
I needed to make a 40th Birthday card so I thought it was as good a reason as any to have a go at this one.

The hand cut elements are the two tags, the faux chipboard 40 and the mat for the lettering cut in my Tag-a-Long.
Thrifty me also decided to try and use up some scraps from amongst my growing pile of craft goodies so I’ve used some off-cuts of ribbon and small left over pieces of K & Co paper that were sitting in the box.

I also had a play with the new sets of Tapestry stamps that I brought from America a couple of weeks ago. I know I’ve said this before but I love these stamps……they’re so versatile and I really do need more of them!