Sketchy Christmas

Wow these weeks are whizzing by aren't they - can hardly believe its time for another challenge at Waltzingmouse Fanatics but we have a really cute sketch this fortnight so hope you'll join us if you have their products to play with.

I decided to take the sketch down the Christmas route and play with my yummy new papers and washi tape from My Minds Eye so picked a stamp to match the reindeer theme that runs through them.

I used two stamp sets - 2011 Holiday Ornaments (and the co-ordinating spellbinders die) and Say It Loud Winter Holiday.   I stamped the reindeer and dotted pattern onto the die cut kraft bauble in red and topped with the little topper stamp in black.  The paper I've used is double-sided so this card is made from one sheet and I stamped the sentiment directly onto the red striped one and added a little washi tape underneath to match the sketch before mounting the ornaments.

Pink Poinsettias

It's challenge day at Waltzingmouse Fanatics and this fortnight we'd like you to get your markers out and colour an image on your project http://waltzingmousefanaticschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/challenge-24-make-your-mark.html

I decided to make a start on Christmas as I've been wanting to replicate the pink poinsettias I found in a garden centre last year and fell in love with but which lasted about 3 days as they always do in my house!

I stamped the poinsettia from Big Bloom Poinsettia in charcoal grey (Hero Arts) and then coloured it in with distress markers using a little water to blend.

The sentiment is from Say It Loud Winter Holiday and I finished with a bright pink mat  and a little shimmer on the green centre to make it all pop.

We do hope you'll join us this challenge.

Waltzingmouse and Flamingos

After our little Christmas break, it's time for another challenge over at Waltzingmouse Fanatics and we have a colour challenge based on a flamingo.

Although it's a bright and sunny image, the weather here in the UK has had me digging out my Christmas jumpers so I decided to use that for inspiration for my card.  I selected the flamingo pink, white and black from the colours for the stripes on my jumper inspired background and put it on kraft base to use 4 of the 6 colours in the scheme.

The background stamps are all from Nordic Winter and I just masked off the edges of my card before stamping them across and filling the background.  Once I removed the masks I added some faux stitching with a thin marker and then stamped a sentiment from Say it Loud Winter Holiday over the top.

We have a prize up for grabs for this challenge too - so I do hope you'll hop over to blog and play along with us - you have until 9th January - http://waltzingmousefanaticschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/

Halloween Fanatics

It's time for our third challenge over at Waltzingmouse Fanatics today and given that we're into October we thought we'd give you all the chance to get a head start on Halloween and pull out all your new release sets if you ordered them  http://waltzingmousefanaticschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/

Now I'm not the biggest fan of Halloween - nothing against it and I do love a good pumpkin - but it's just not very big around where I live so before this new release I didn't actually own any of the Halloween sets so I planned a project using Claire's wonderful little freebie poem which I thought would be great to give to my great nieces and nephews.

I embossed Halloween Treats from the Say It Loud Winter Holiday set onto some orange card and added a super cute bat I cut on the cameo.   I printed the poem on some copy paper, die cut it with a tag and then used an ink duster to add a little purple and grey ink for a spooky feel.  I filled some glassine bags with my bat poop and then simply stapled it all together.  Quick and easy Halloween treats!

However, when I saw the new release, I was very drawn to The Count - I do have a thing about vampires as I'm an avid reader of the Anita Blake books by Laurell K Hamilton so I made an exception and bought a couple of the sets this year and made a little card.

I stamped him in versafine black for a very strong silhouette in the foreground and then masked him so I could add the spooky ruin from All Hallows Eve behind him in grey.  I went for this set for this very image as it reminded me of my all time favourite painting which hangs in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool - it's a Gothic ruin just like this and the painting is so huge I can sit in front of it for hours and just imagine myself stepping into it.   Anyway, enough waffle - back to the card.  I added just a hint of red on his collar and the top of his walking stick and matched that in to the sentiment so it looked like it was scrawled in blood - perhaps it needs a few drips to finish it off.......

I do hope that's got your blood flowing (lol) and that you'll hop on over to the challenge site and play along with us this week http://waltzingmousefanaticschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ and to get a bit more inspiration don't forget to visit my team mate Deborah

Christmas stickers

Another weekend gone by means another card in my slowly growing Christmas card colleciton thanks to 52 Christmas Card Challenge Throwdown http://52cct.blogspot.com/2012/02/embellishment-challenge-2.html and this week the challenge is to use stickers.  I thought I was going to have to dig deep in my old stash for this one, then I opened a drawer and found some stickers and tags I bought in the John Lewis sales in January - et voila - inspiration struck!

I hand drew some lines to hang the baubles off, used the backing card that came in the stickers pack as my DP and picked out the red with some metallic red tape behind to form a fake matt.  Finished with a rocket red sentiment from the holiday edition of Say it Loud from Waltzingmouse.

I'm loving this weekly challenge and am so pleased that my Christmas card stash is gently growing week on week as I feel confident I will not have to resort to bought cards this year!

Peace on earth

I'm back again with another Waltzingmouse Christmas card for the Christmas Card Challenge and this time I'm tackling the April Challenge which was to include snow on your card.  I've used this weeks Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge as the basis for this card so its an entry for that too.

This is my interpretation of it - a snowflake covered background of decorative paper with some elegant black ribbon and a couple of layered buttons.  I stamped one of the gorgeous baubles from 2011 Holiday Oranments in silver onto black shrink plastic - cut it by hand and made a shrinkie-dink bauble as my dangly element.  I finished with a simple sentiment in black to match the ribbon using the Say it Loud Winter Hoilday set.

I'm really having fun making all these Christmas cards one after the other so am glad I decided to play along late in the day.

Catch you later.