PJ's in the daytime

I normally play along with the PJ Party late at night as it starts but my hubby is working away this weekend and had to be up at 5am today so we had an early night last night.  So - as I'm alone, I can still be in my PJ's at noon ;-)

There were 4 play ahead challenges plus the bedtime story sketch this month - I've managed 3 of them and will back to play the sketch later  http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/welcome-to-november-pajama-party.html

Challenge 2 was to make a Christmas card and I couldn't resist playing with my new Alpine Christmas set.

This set is soooo much fun to play with!  I stamped the village twice (masking off the church on the second with a scrap of tape) using momento luxe ink.  I have to say I have been searching for a decent white ink for a long time and Wedding Dress from this range is STUNNING!  I used it for the hill in the background too and used a cotton bud to dot some snow around to ground the village.  The trees were stamped in olive grove and the sentiment in black.  Simples.

Challenge 3 is a doozy - make a Tag - but Claire is judging this round so you have to make a tag she will like - yikes!  I went old school with Festive Foliage.

I started with a kraft tag and stamped the mini pinstripe background across it in pearlescent ivy.  I added my holly sprig in bamboo leaves over the stripes and masked it off so I could stamp the pine leaves behind in the same ivy colour as the background.  Pinecones (adirondack ginger) and berries (SU real red) finished off the stamping.  To add some texture, rather than stamping the mistletoe directly to the card, I used some of my favourite material - cloud clay - and stamped it in the ivy colour (ink stops the stamp sticking to the clay) before letting it dry overnight.  Once dry I cut it out with scissors and painted on a wash of ink and shimmer.  I used liquid pearls and glossy accents to give dimension to the berries and a bow before sticking it to the tag.  I cut a larger tag from DP and tied the two together with some green twine.  I finished with a sentiment from the opera tags Christmas set stamped over the holly.   Hope you like it Claire ;-)

Challenge 4 was actually the one I tackled first - I did it as soon as I got my alpine set as the darling little chalet was screaming decoration to me!

I stamped it 4 times on copic card so the corners touched at the base and then coloured it in and very carefully cut out all the teen-tiny little windows!

I cut it out and and used the up and under method around the eaves - so for two facing each other I cut a slit up and for the other two I cut a slit down from the top of the roof - so once folded you can get it to hold together to make a little decoration without the need for any glue.  Pretty, but really, it doesn't come into it's own until the lights go out.....

Sorry for the dodgy photo - it's very hard to photograph - but you can now see the point of cutting out all the tiny windows - this makes THE most perfect tea light holder.  [BATTERY TEA LIGHTS ONLY PLEASE - don't burn the house down with flames and paper!]  I wish I could show you it properly but hopefully you get the idea - I plan on using them to decorate my Christmas table :-D

See you all later with my bedtime story sketch.

Christmas kisses

I've got a lovely long day of crafting all to myself today so I've been hopping around to see which challenges to play in and decided to combine two to begin with - the waltzingmouse sketch http://waltzingmousesketchchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/challenge-93april-14-2012.html along with this week's Christmas card challenge over at 52 christmas card throwdown which is a green and white colour challenge  http://52cct.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/colour-challenge-4.html

I went for my favourite stamp from the festive foliage set and stamped it onto green dp to paperpiece it onto the white circle onto which I hand drew a dark green line.  I added 3 pearls to be the berries on the mistletoe and dotted each with some green stickles to add the detail back in from the stamp.  DP is from My Minds Eye Be Merry and the bottom strip was embossed using a sizzix folder.  To allude to the scalloped edge on the sketch, I tied 4 knots in a strip of green ribbon and finished with a matching sentiment from the same set.

I'll be back later with more challenges hopefully.

Just one word....

This week's Less is More challenge is actually running for 2 weeks, so we have lots of time to play over the festive period.  Now all the cooking is done, I've managed to sneak in a little make time, and here is my entry and the first of my Christmas cards for 2012!   I only sent 6 handmade ones this year, pretty poor for a card making obsessive, so I'm determined to get ahead for next year!!!!

I've gone for a super-simple design using a wonderful set of Waltzingmouse foliage stamps.  It's a 4x4 inch pearlised square base card and I've simply stamped the mistletoe in Pearlescent Thyme Momento ink, added glossy accents and a tiny bit of glitter to the berries, and stamped what I think is the perfect one-word sentiment for a Christmas card from the same set (Festive Foliage)

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Christmas leaves

Here is the entry for March's Waltzingmouse Christmas card challenge which was to make a minimum of 3 identical cards using kraft, red and white or cream as your colours.

I made 3, but my husband really likes them so thinks they should be "our" Christmas card for this year so I may make more.  I started with a square kraft base card and stamped 3 outline holly leaves from Waltzingmouse Festive Foliage and embossed it with white detail powder and embossed the berries over the top in red.  I continued this red and white theme into the sentiment which is from Say It Loud Winter Holiday, embossing the small "bring on the" in white and the larger "Merry" in red.  I think it's one of the most balance CAS cards I've ever made and really love it.

As it is a one-layer CAS card featuring leaves, I am also going to make it my second entry into this weeks Less is More challenge.

Thanks for visiting.