Pennant Punch Christmas Tree

The final project from October's Card Class is this masked Pennant Punch Christmas Tree card. This was inspired by this card over on Vicky's blog. As regular readers will have seen, I adore this masking and sponging technique and could make a million Christmas cards this way.

I created a mask using a post-it note and the scalloped pennant from the Pennant Punch. I then sponged over the mask with Pear Pizzazz. With the mask still in place I stamped part of the large tree from Lovely As A Tree in Old Olive and Garden Green to give the leaf texture. The trunk was stamped using a stamp from Trendy Trees (a bit wonky I'm afraid- must find where I hid my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig).

I created a second mask using a torn post it and sponged over more Pear Pizzazz to create the grass and then finished with Garden Green ink to stamp the Contempo Christmas sentiment.

Hooray for Friday ;0) I'm off to my monthly crop tomorrow and i haven't managed to go for several months. Will be lovely to catch up with the ladies (as well as get my Convention swaps finished once and for all!!!).

Happy  crafting ;0)

-X-

An unusual Christmas card...

So this was inspired by a beautiful card I saw over on In Love With Stamping (I am having trouble with my internet at the moment and cannot open another tab to look up credit for this card). I just fell in love with this unusual colour combination for Christmas- More Mustard and Cajun Craze.

This was also my first experimentation with the baby wipe technique. And i really like the effect it gave, especially with such a large stamp like the Medallion background stamp. It created a striking but subtle background.

I embellished with a line of Basic Rhinestones and a bow tied with Real Red Satin Ribbon. The ornament was raised with dimensionals.

Please excuse the somewhat haphazard stamping of the greeting from Contempo Christmas. This goes to show that even us Demonstrators have issues with over inked stamps from time to time (I really must remember to check the stamp before putting rubber to cardstock- especially if the greeting is the last step to finish the card!!)

I hope you enjoyed this unusual take on a Christmas card. I think I might get a little more creative with my colour combos going forward....

Punch Art Father Christmas

Now I wish I could claim this Father Christmas Top Note card as my own. But alas this was inspired by a fantastic punch art creation posted by Kirsteen over on In Love With Stamping.

I've never tried to recreate a piece of punch art before. But as soon as I saw this Top Note Father Christmas I couldn't resist. This was one of the projects we completed in October's Card Class. And we had a lot of fun making him too.

I just love the texture of the Manhattan Flower embossing folder for the beard. You cannot even see the detail of the flower. It looks like it was designed for the sole purpose of giving texture to Father Christmas's beard ;0)

The colours I used for this are: Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green, Very Vanilla, Basic Black, Pretty In Pink and Regal Rose.

Thank you for stopping by tonight. Hopefully if I can get my act together I'll be able to schedule a couple more posts for the upcoming days.

Happy crafting ;0)

-x-

Hostess Thank You

Thank you for all the lovely congratulatory messages. They are very much appreciated ;0)

Now on to some Christmas crafting. I must again apologise for the poor lighting of these two photos. I was taking these late last night so that I had something to post today and the result is slightly 'off colour'. Bring on the Spring and some nicer lighting conditions (although I must confess to actually really loving these damp days and dark nights- a good excuse to cosy up under the duvet with a good film or a book).

I demonstrated at my friend Hayley's annual birthday workshop last night. I designed two little make and takes for all the ladies to have a go at which didnt leave much time for a demonstration. So instead I made this little hostess thank you set in advance and just showed the ladies instead. I picked Pool Party & Night of Navy as my colour scheme to give an icy winter feel to the two projects.

The card was made using my favourite technique again. I created a Post It note mask with the Curly Label punch and then sponged Pool Party and Marina Mist onto Shimmery White cardstock (I love this C/S as it gives a nice icy feel to Christmas-y cards). I then stamped the largest snowflake from Serene Snowflakes in Night of Navy over the top. I then stamped the 3 smaller snowflakes as a background. The Thank You sentiment is taken from Curly Cute.

 The hostess gift element of the set was this luminaria. I followed an online template for the basic shape and then customised this to use my own colour scheme and stamps. I had previously bought two packs of the battery operated 'flickering candles' from Ebay but not gotten around to using them. Now I have seen the result I will most definitely be investing in some more I think.

I did try and get the luminaria lit up but I just couldnt get the lighting and settings on the camera quite right. I created it using Night of Navy as the base. I punched the holes using my largest circle punch. I then cut 4 pieces of vellum to fit and stamped with Serene Snowflakes in Night of Navy. For the trees around the bottom I used Not Quite Navy as the base card stock then stamped the multiple tree stamp from Lovely As A Tree along a strip of card (using Versamark). I then covered this strip (on which I stamped the image three times) with silver heat embossing powder and embossed for the icy finish. The last touch was to sponge dauber white craft ink along the base of the trees to give it a snowy look.

And just one final quick bit of info. Stampin' Up! have launched a Hostess incentive which runs through till December 15th. If you host a qualifying workshop (£300+ sales) anytime within this period you will receive extra product for free. The product bonus is the lovely Paisley Petals stampset and coordinating Paisley Petals Designer Series Paper. What a great way to celebrate hosting your own Christmas workshop!

If you have any questions on Stampin' Up! please let me know and I'll try to help as best I can (poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 609249).

In the mean time, happy crafting ;0)

-X-

So here is my excuse

So I know I am super behind with my blogging and on updating you all with all the lovely Christmas projects I promised. But I do have a good excuse. As you may or may not be able to see from the photo above, I am happy to say I am expecting ;0) I am so excited to be pregnant and to have a full of energy 13 weeks along bouncing bean growing inside me. But it has taken its toll craft wise I am afraid. And my blog is also looking a tiny bit neglected. But as I am now moving into my second trimester I am getting my energy back so I hope to be back in the swing of things very soon.

Thanks for reading today and I hope normal service can resume asap.

-XXX-

Autumn Splendor Scrapbooking

Sorry for my long absence from blogland. Things have been pretty crazy here recently. I have a stock pile of projects to share with you over the upcoming week but a pretty dodgy internet connection. So please bear with me.

This is one of the scrapbooking projects for this weeks Stampin' Scrappin'. At the request of my Mum I have been experimenting with Autumn themed layouts for this months theme. I have had the lovely Autumn Splendor stamp set in my cupboard for months and never even mounted it. Well what a perfect excuse to ink it up.

The colour scheme is: Chocolate Chip, So Saffron, Cajun Craze & More Mustard. I created the background my stamping the various leaf stamps in the colours above. I then layer plain cardstock with a strip of the gorgeous Christmas ribbon from last years November incentive (sadly now retired). I created a border for the photo with More Mustard and finished by stamping the leaves on to Whisper White and attaching these for a corner embellishment with dimensionals.

Happy to be back in touch. I'll try to upload again in the near future. Need to ensure I catch the good light for photo taking (a somewhat impossible task with these big grey rain clouds at the moment).

-XXX-

Christmas gift box ideas

Here are two projects I shared last month with my card class ladies. The hanging cone would be ideal for a Chrismas tree and would hold sweets or a small gift. This is made with mainly retired products now. Apologies for that. This was the only sample I had made up. You can see that i created the handle using the gorgeous new Lace Ribbon  Border and this was attached with Fancy Flower Brads on either side (couldnt quite capture this detail in the photo).

The small pillow box was cut using a Crumb Cake base and wrapped with a strip of Always Artichoke Designer Series Paper. I then punched the gift tag from the new stamp set Beautiful  Season. I designed this to match the Beautiful Season card I shared earlier in the week.

Right, normal service should resume now as I am back from my holidays. This should be the last of my scheduled posts.

Happy Crafting ;0)