The last Christmas card - for my Son

Hope you're all ready for Christmas and for those of you on the European continent that celebrate today- Happy Christmas to you. Well here's my last Christmas card, it's for my Son Alex and for him I chose a Fable 2 character for the main image. For those of you who are not familiar, Fable 2 is a video game and is one of my Son's favorite Xbox 360 games...





























From the base up...
1. Chocolate brown Stardream pearlescent card
2. Backing paper was a freebie I got from a magazine, it was green originally but as usual I scanned it and changed the colour to brown through my graphics program. I then stamped round the edges with an Inkadinkado Snowflake flourish stamp, first with Brilliance Galaxy Gold ink pad then stamped over again with Brilliance Coffee Bean ink pad. The corner frames where made with three different width gold peel offs layered on top of each other.
3. The main image was first layered onto gold hessian paper, then onto gold silk Mirri card.
4. The snowflakes are from Heidi Swapp (Ghost Shapes) which were covered with Sparkle N Sprinkle Champagne glitter and some gold rhinestones.
Well I'm off now to finish wrapping my Son's Christmas presents, then I'm going to kick back, relax and wait for Santa :) Hope you all have a WONDERFUL Christmas.
Take care, keep smiling and don't eat too much :P

Happy Christmas to my Dad :)

Hello and I apologise for not replying to all the lovely comments left for my HM card, but as you know it's that time of year and I've been a little bit busy. I made all those cards for my Dad to send out and I hadn't made any for myself !!! What a dope, so as you can imagine I've been frantically making cards for friends, and no I'm not going to show you them as they are what I am going to make for my Dad to send out next Christmas, so you'll see them then. Any way here's the card I made to give to my Dad...




































From the base up...
1. Stardream copper pearlescent card
2. K&Co Amelia Blocks Flat paper, with basic grey flourish stamp stamped in Versafine Vintage Sepia ink.
3. Raspberry Ribbons Gold organza ribbon from their new December kit.
4. Silent night rubber stamp from Magnolia, stamped onto K& Co Antiquity Tan Parchment flat paper and the edges were distressed with my very own finger nail :)
5. The main image is from Joanna Sheen's Victorian Christmas CD Rom that was mounted onto gold silk mirri card. The label is one I bought, which was just cream to begin with but I printed the merry Christmas back ground onto it from Joanna Sheen's CD Rom again and sponged the edges with Versafine vintage sepia ink. The Cherub/Angel is from Dress It Up.
6. The swirl/flourish is a Tim Holtz grunge board element that I heat embossed with gold EP. I don't think Grunge board is really made for heat embossing (it feels like it has rubber in it), but I though I'd give it a go. All I can say is you're OK doing it as long as you keep the heat gun at quite a distance away. It takes longer for the EP to melt, but if you hold the heat gun to close the Grunge board starts to curl (I think it might melt if left on to long) but I liked the end result so it was worth the extra time.
7. Dress It Up snowflakes.
Inside the card I printed onto K&Co Antiquity Tan Parchment flat paper, the following poem
Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.
Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice,but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen - and kissed me there.
~ Walter de la Mere ~
I like the poem, and my Dad likes ghost stories, so I thought it apt. I like the way this card turned out, and as you can see I'm getting a bit more adventurous with the embellishments.
Got to go now, got to make a card for my Son.
Take care & keep smiling

House Mouse Challenge 17 - Choir Practice

Finally. I've finished all my Dad's cards and he's posted them all off, so now I'm free to do what ever I choose - WOO HOO. So I decided to enter in to the House Mouse Challenge which is called "Let it snow". To be honest I'm a bit fed up with snowflakes having die cut so many for my Dad's cards, so I decided to use Woodwares "Fluffy Stuff" for the snow on this card ...















From the base up -
1. Stardream Mars red pearlescent card
2. Base DP is from the new K & Co "Christmas Cheer" 12x12 pad
3. Top DP is also from the K & Co pad but mounted on to gold silk Mirri card
4. The stamp is called "Choir Practice" and is coloured in with Derwents Coloursoft pencils and sansodor. The berries where gone over with Sakura Gelly Roll Glaze real red pen. Then mounted on to Gold silk Mirri card. And of course Fluffy Stuff for the snow.
5. Old gold eyelets from Making Memories and gold organza ribbon threaded through and bowed.
Not overly happy with the colouring on this one as I'm a bit out of practice, but I'll get better once I get back into the swing of stamping again.
Thanks for looking
T C & K S

PS. Used the sketch from the HM challenge on Paper Craft Planet from a couple of weeks ago.

O come let us adore Him

Well I've done no end of Santa's so it was about time I did a card depicting the reason why we celebrate Christmas...

1. Copper Stardream pearlescent card

2. DP is a small square picture I found on the web. Tiled it together in my graphics program to make a bigger picture then printed onto plain white card.

3. I didn't have any fancy copper corner peel offs so I made my own up by layering two different widths of border peel offs, mitred the ends and the corners and then cut some Cuttlebug decorative corners using copper Mirri card but only used the waste parts (scroll and teardrop) to add a bit more interest.

4. The main picture I've had for a while was mounted first on to silk copper Mirri card then onto ordinary copper Mirri card, which was then double edged with thin copper border peel offs.

5. The sentiment is computer generated, mounted onto the same Mirri card and again edged with peel offs.

I wanted to get a Victorian Gothic look, but without it being to over ornate.

Thanks for looking

TK & KS

Gathering Holly

1. White pearlescent white card

2. DP from Artylicious Seasons Greetings CD (colour changed to suit)

3. Main image mounted on to white pearlescent card that was double edged with thin silver border peel offs.

4. Corners made with Cuttlebug die from white glitter paper and rhinestones added.

5. Blue organza ribbon with a Dress It Up crystal snowflake.

6.The sentiment is a rubber stamp from Kodomo Inc, stamped using Brilliance Mediterranean Blue ink pad.

Kept it simple as the picture is so delicate I didn't want to overwhelm it. Thanks for looking and enjoy your weekend.

TK & KS

PS. I've got another card scheduled for later (17:00 GMT)

Green Santa ???

While I'm waiting for the glue to dry on my next card I thought I'd show you a card I made on Tuesday. Yes I know, it's that Santa again and it's that Raspberry Ribbons sketch again, but I really am struggling to come up with anything new and I'm dying to get my HM and Magnolia stamps out again, but until I finish my Dads cards I can't, so you'll just have to bear with my repeats...

Santa looks blue in the picture but he's actually green. Oh well, from the base up, here goes...

1. Stardream Pearlescent green card

2. DP is from DaisyD, it's called Antique Blue Wild Flowers, but trust me it's not blue, it's green. I was most miffed when it came and it was green, but it's a nice paper, so I'll forgive them for being colour blind!

3. Main image is mounted onto dark green linen paper and then silver silk Mirri card.

4. Dark green silk ribbon threaded down each side and some silver snowflake border peel offs and some thin silver border peel offs.

5. Prima flowers, the larger has a pearl brad and the smaller flowers silver brads. The leaves are from syntego.

6. The seal stamp is from Magnolia, stamped onto white pearlescent card with Brilliance pearlescent ivy ink pad.

The card I'm working on at the moment is an image I've not used before and it's lovely. Other than that I'm saying nothing else, other than you'll have to wait :)

Take care & keep smiling

Triple Snowflake

Hello again,

Here's another card I made while I was ill. I got the inspiraton for this card from a lady named Unni, to see the original card click here. Isn't it lovely, well I just had to do a version of it. so here it is...

1. Base card is Stardream white pearlescent card

2. Dp with text is a freebie I found on the web sometime last year, originally it is red and gold but of course I changed it to blue. The snowflake DP is from Artylicious Seasons Greetings CD rom again changed to suit.

3. The silver strip down the middle is a wide silver border peel off that is normally just flat, but here we go again, I changed it by putting it in my Swiss Dots Cuttlebug embossing folder to give it a bit more interest.

4. The snowflakes were made with a Wizard snowflake shapeabilies die and the middle snowflake is made with a QuicKutz singleKutz die. they have been coloured in with Sakura clear Stardust gelly roll pen. Then the first is secured with a pearl brad, the second with a plastic flower and star brad and lastly a silver star gem.

5. The sentiment is computer generated, mounted onto silver silk mirri card and the whole lot edged with thin silver border peel offs.

I think if I did this again I might put some of the snowflake layers through an embossing folder or maybe stamp with a background stamp and heat emboss. But I must confess I'm not that impressed with either die. The Wizard one because I had so much trouble trying to get the pieces out I bent the die, not to bad that I cant use it, but I shouldn't have had that problem. And the QuicKutz, well all you get is two arms of the snowflake and you have to build it up,

so you end up with a middle thats about 3mm thick! I cut the middles of mine and diguised them with the flower. Had the dies been more user friendly this would have been a quick card, but hey ho it's done now. Oooo I just thought I could have done a gate fold card. See, typical I get all these ideas now it's finished DOH!

Toodle pip, take care & keep smiling

Cupcake Challenge 16 - Chocolate Christmas

Hello people,
that cold I thought I was coming down with on Sunday hit with a vengeance Monday. I've ached in places I didn't know you could ache, I've been hot, I've been so tired it was untrue and now I've got a sore throat and am losing my voice, but apart from that I feel great! When I haven't been asleep I have made some cards the first of which I decided to enter into the Cupcake Challenge, which calls for a vintage card. You will notice that the main image, the DP and the sentiment stamp are ones I've used recently on other cards, my excuse is my brain has been too tired to come up with anything original, plus I like them...

OK from the base up...
1. Stardream bronze pearlescent card
2. DP is from Artylicous Seasons Greetings CD Rom, again I change the colour and coloured the berries in with Sakura gold stardust gelly roll pen, then sponged the edges with Versafine Vintage Sepia and Brilliance Galaxy Gold ink pads.
3. The label/tag was just plain but I found a picture of some Christmas sheet music and printed it on to the tag, again went round the edges the same as I did with the DP and added a gold organza bow and loop.
4. The main image is from Joanna Sheen's Victorian Christmas CD Rom, mounted onto a gold silk Mirri card die cut Nestabilites.
5. Prima flowers that were sponged with Brilliance gold galaxy ink pad. The red stamens came from my Blooms to Go set, they were yellow, but I rolled them around a Brilliance Rocket Red ink pad (as you do) and then added the sentiment to the largest flower. The sentiment seal is from Magnolia Rubber Stamps. Last but not least some little leaves that I actually left alone.
Not sure about the flowers, I could do with some holly leaves, but I haven't found any I like...yet.
Thank you for popping by and I'll be seeing you again real soon.
Take care & keep smiling