Just Tagging Along

A quick post tonight, my crafty friends, as I have a hot date with a good book!  As I said in my last post, it's great to be focusing on Christmas now and that means presents, of course.  And presents need tags so tonight's post is for this week's Totally Papercrafts Challenge, which is 'tags'.

Papers: October Afternoon, 'Good Cheer' collection; Cosmo Cricket 'Mitten Weather' collection

Unusually for me, this project required no colouring - just a bit of assembly, really.  I took some white luggage label tags and folded each almost in half.  I covered the inside back and the outside flap in co-ordinating papers, added a large punched snowflake, a felt heart, some buttons a little sentiment (produced on the PC), some ribbon and, of course, a sprinkle of snowy glitter for good measure. 

I cut a little half circle tab in the 'back' so that the front could sit under it to keep it closed.  Inside the tag is some white space for writing your message:

  

 A really simple little project - one of those you can do while watching TV too!  Guess what colour our Christmas is going to be this year!!!

So, off to link up and off to meet my Kindle - aaaaah, the joys of reading.

Happy crafting.

xx

Getting Ready for Christmas

I quite like this time of year, when there are lots of Christmas-related challenges around - they focus the mind and have the added advantage of helping me get ready for our own Christmas!  And there's no better way than making little Christmas cards to send or sell.  And I have to say a big 'Thank You' to Laurie Schmidlin of 'Just Give Me Stamps' for her inspiration. Please check out her blog - she's amazingly talented.

So, tonight's project is one that I've put together as a quick and simple gift/project and it's also my entry for this week's Little Red Wagon challenge, which is 'use red' (how easy is that one!?).

I wanted to produce some very simple cards, easy to make in quantity yet stylish.  I saw Laurie's post a few months ago and it stayed with me because I loved it so much, so I decided to use it as the basis for this project.  As you can see, there's plenty of Christmassy red here, although not everything is red, I have to say - take a look:

Images:  Pink Petticoat, 'Tiny Christmas Treasures' collection - these are just six of the 24 cute little motifs.

Papers: Pink Petticoat digital papers, 'Snowflakes' colour collection and 'Gingham Colour Collection'

I just love these little digis - they are supercute, easy to colour, stylish and modern - what more could I want for some superquick makes?  I've teamed each with a colour, used snowflakes and gingham and quickly coloured the digi with my Copics - no fancy stuff, plain and simple this time.  Each is mounted on kraft card (which I love for Christmas stuff) and I found some cute little golden envelopes to go with them. 

Right, I'm off to bed.  Just six hours to go before I start it all again! Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrghhhhhhhhh! Time is flying by.

Happy crafting.
xx

Jumping for Joy at Karen's Doodles

Happy Monday morning all!  Just for a change, I decided that I'd like to join in with the main Karen's Doodles DT this morning and celebrate 'A Black and White Christmas' with them.  So my Karen's Doodles post will be today, this week.

Our challenge to you this week is to create a Christmas project in black and white - although, just to make it a little easier, you can use some colour on your image (but not anywhere else!).  I've had a sneaky peek at my Teamies' projects and you won't be disappointed, believe me - there are some stunners!

Here's my contribution:

Image: Karen's Doodles 'Joy'

Papers: Pink Petticoat digital papers, 'Snowflakes' collection (contains papers in all sorts of beautiful colours!)

Whilst on a bit of a pre-Christmas foraging spree the other day, I came across some wonderful little nets of chocolate snowballs at Thorntons.  So I bought loads as I had in mind plenty of little projects to make for stocking fillers.  Then I saw this wonderful image by Karen's Doodles and thought it would make a brilliant accompaniment to a box of snowballs. 

I made an ordinary tall box, then cut out a panel out of one side and backed it with a piece of thin acetate, to create a window.  Originally, I had intended to make a lid for the box but decided simply to squeeze it together at the top to close it (I stapled it, actually).

Sylvester, the happy snowman in this digistamp, is much larger than this - he has a bouncing bottom and everything - but I just wanted to keep the focus on the 'Joy' part.  I didn't want to colour too heavily either, so kept the colours simple, colouring 'Joy' red for punch. And, of course, a little glitter always helps!

This is destined for some little person's stocking at Christmas, for sure.

So, why not join us in the Karen's Doodles Challenge this week?  Use a Karen's Doodles image and show us your black and white Christmas creations. There will be three winners, as usual:

* 1st place winner of 3 digi stamps of your choice from Karen's Doodles will be awarded by merit. The Design Team members will vote for their favorite entry and the winner will also get a Card of the Week blinkie to display on their blog.

Both 2nd and 3rd place winners will be chosen by Random.org and the prizes will be:

* 2nd place winner - 2 Digi stamps of your choice from Karen's Doodles.
* 3rd place winner - 1 Digi stamp of your choice from Karen's Doodles.

As always, I shall look forward to seeing what you come up with!  And don't forget to check out my Teamies' blogs and leave them some love!

Happy crafting.
xx

Oldies But Goodies at Karen's Doodles

Morning All. It's Thursday (again) and that means another Oldies But Goodies moment over at the Karen's Doodles Challenge Blog. Take a look - you're bound to find some inspiration! And while you're there, why not check out this week's challenge, which is 'Give Thanks'. We want to see your 'Thank You' projects - you have until Sunday evening to get them to us - using your favourite Karen's Doodles images.

So on to today's card:

Image: Karen's Doodles, 'Princess Kitty'

Papers: October Afternoon and SEI (I think!)

Embellishments: Bits and bobs from my recent (well, last month at least) win over at Sketchy Colors

Isn't this an adorable (and so true) image?  She is definitely the cat that got the cream!  I coloured her up with my Copics and then went back in with my Prismas to add a little shading and some 'fur'.  She's certainly a very regal cat.

Now, I have to say that although I love these embellishments, they are not really working on this card.  In fact, this is the second time I've made this card and, to be honest, I really should have changed my mind before I started it again!  (If you remember, the first one met with disaster when a cup of tea decided to spill all over it! - not my fault, of course!)  But, I faithfully reproduced what I'd made before and, well, look, it's not my best card design, okay?!  However, you can't deny that the image is gorgeous and I'm actually very pleased with my colouring.  Maybe I need to reuse this image in a different way - look out for version two!

So, another day at work but one less to go until the weekend.  I get a crafting day on Saturday as my OH is going fishing all day and I have new stash arriving tomorrow, ready for my Christmas cards. Yaaaaay!

Happy crafting
xx

Just Inklined to Blog Hop!

Happy Monday everyone and welcome to this month's Just Inklined DT Blog Hop.  This month, our Blog Hop theme is 'Punches - at least two of them!' and I know that my Teamies will have some wonderful projects to show you.

If you've arrived here from the super-talented Jak's blog then you're on the right track.  If not, why not hop back to Lydia's and start from the beginning, so you won't miss any of the wonderfulness along the way.

So, without further ado, here's my card (with advance apologies for the photography - these dark nights are playing havoc with the lighting!):

Image: Just Inklined, 'Holly, Ivy and Rosehips'

Papers: Graphic 45

Punches: Martha Stewart, Punch Around The Page, 'Double Loops'; Fiskars - no name, but I call it 'Victorian Scallop'!

This is a first for me - a step card - and I worked out the template all on my own (feeling very proud of myself!).  I didn't want the middle section to be at the back of the steps, I wanted it to be the main part of the card so it took a little working out.  But now I have the hang of it, I shall be making more!

Until I started colouring this delightful image, it didn't occur to me that I'd need to be canny with my choice of greens!  So I ended up laying down a base of Copics and then recolouring the leaves almost completely by using my Prismas on top.  It has worked (kinda) but I shall know better next time! 

I love these traditional Christmas papers from Graphic 45 - you can't beat a bit of traditional red and green for a Christmas card, can you, really? 

A nice big red bow, a few gems and it was ready to go.  I'm really disappointed that we couldn't get better photographs (mind you, you should have seen the ones I took! These are by my OH and at least you can see the colours properly!) - I'll have to look at getting a better lighting setup now that Autum days are here and I'm likely to be photographing in the dark.  Mmmm, maybe now is the time to really brush up on those photography skills too?!

Anyway, that's my post for today.  Next you'll want to hop over to the very talented Cathy, 'cos I'm sure she'll have something wonderful for you.

Happy Hopping!
xx