Christmas Journal page

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies,

Welcome December and welcome to the start of a new week!  

Do you ever have one of those 'why do I bother ' days, I finished the journal page that I am sharing with you today.  I started another page 3 times and then gave up!  Then I followed a Tracy Evans tutorial almost to the end  was pleased with my achievement, I was on the phone to matt and getting Christmas shopping tips from Sophie at the same time, which was a recipe for disaster, the finishing piece was stamping an Owl on a sign post, of course I stamped it upside down, tried to rescue it but it wasn't happening! 😔  At that point I switched my desk lights off and walked away! 

I used Vintage Photo & Festive Berries Oxide Spray inks  and then dried with heat tool. I splattered some water over the background to add interest,  then added some background stamping.  To add some sparkle I added some stars, using Tim Holtz stencil and some gold glitter paste (although the gold glitter was hiding) 🤣, it did add some shine though. 

Onto the fun part, picking out all of the elements to build the focal piece.  I chose 3 main pieces and then added a ticket and cut a stripey label in half and added a bit to top and bottom.  Then came the Santa and the poinsettia and little 25 sticker.  The final touch was the splatters and the little sentiment. 

I hope that you all have a great start to your week, 

Love & huge hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

A look at this weeks makes

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies,  

I hope that you all had a brighter day than we did yesterday.   We had another early start as we had to be at Cheltenham hospital for my Urgent out of hours appointment,   we drove through some incredible flooded roads on the way.  

The GP appointment went ok,  mind you I had to wait until after 2am for them to call me,  they asked what time I wanted to go in,  I asked what times were available,   there were some virtually straight away, by this time Paul was sound asleep, which was no surprise after our long day on Friday, I didn't have the heart to wake him so I said we'll come for 8am, it's a horrible journey and weather was horrendous,  so Paul wanted to leave extra early, so 6.30 we were up and getting ready.  I felt so unwell, this one is the worst one I've had for pain and feeling feverish,  I felt 'ok' through the day, the discomfort started in the car on the way home, then as the evening went on I went downhill, I went up to bed at 10pm, went to bathroom and it was all I could do not to scream in agony, I was shaking with cold, so got into my heated blanket then I was too hot and felt so sick!  So called 111!  I'm not convinced that another 14 days of same antibiotic will work, she advised me to call GP for further advice on Monday.  I was literally bed/sofa ridden all day, if I tried to get up I felt sick abd dizzy!  Fingers today will be better. 

Let's look at what you have made this week.....

Karen

Karen's Description:

A very quick challenge card

Serif image/background 

Sentiment I think from Temu or is it Anna Marie

Tree-Christmas-Card

I absolutely love the simplicity of your design Karen, the little Robin on top of the tree is so cute,  the white splatters work perfectly as snow. 

Thank you so much XXX 

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Here is my card for this week’s tic tac toe. It’s for Oscar’s Birthday he will be 15 and is having a camera for his joint present.

I used    Stencil. Animals. Card.

Lilian your Birthday card for Oscar is perfect,  what could be more fitting than a card featuring cameras?!  They work with the rest of the design too.  The background behind the bird is so detailed, Oscar will love it. 

Thank you so much. XXX 

Sonia

Sonia's Description:

Here’s my card, sorry the picture quality isn’t great.

Christmas/Poinsettia/Embossing Folder

I embossed a piece of Kraft card for the bottom layer. I die cut the little house from Mama Elephant in pink textured card. I die cut a circle and stamped with Lavinia Stamps star swirl. I die cut the little square and cut the bottom edge with a scallop frame from Chloe’s Creative Crafts. I added a Lawn Fawn sentiment, and the long sentiment is from The Stamp Market. I die cut the small poinsettia in two shades of pink. Added a sparkle gem from Honey Bee Stamps.

You know I always love your Kraft cards, this is no exception,  the house looks lt is in a snowglobe with stars swirling around it.  What a great design.  

Thank you so much, it's lovely seeing you crafting XXX

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I hope that you all have a lovely Sunday, 

My love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

Mixed Up Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that your weekend gets off to a better start than mine.  

After having a lovely day out with some amazing friends we started the journey home,  after about 20 mins into the journey I had over whelming need to use the bathroom,  this was my first sign,  Then came the altogether agonising part of uti, the pain on passing urine.  I have a GP appointment 

Now on a lighter note lets look at some craft goodies.....

I placed an order on Tracy Evans website on Wednesday and this lovely card was included in my parcel,  Tracy created this card a couple of weeks ago , it's on her YouTube page. I have to say that her colouring is incredible 😍.   

When I got home yesterday I had an envelope waiting for me,  when I opened it it was Happy Mail from our Lilian!   I asked which make the die was thet she used for her sentiment last weekend,   so she very kindly sent me some die cuts.  They were attatched to this beautiful Tag,  Lilian has inked the background,  added stencilling and then used a beautiful rub on.  I have to say that my photo doesn't do it justice!  It's so pretty.  Thank you so much Lilian ❤️ 

Now onto some craft shopping.....

Sonia

Thank you Sonia for sharing your shopping,  I'm secretly thrilled that you have bern bitten by the Stamperia bug!  I absolutely love your stamps and that paper pad is next on my list!  

My Shopping 

I  couldn't resist these new Tracy Evans stamps,  I love those stags, the antlers are amazing, the berries and foliage are great background fillers too.

These new concept Tim Holtz Mixed Media stamp and stencil kits are a perfect way to dip  your toe in to mixed media art.  They have a small selection of stamps from a bigger stamp set,  and a stencil thst  has a combination of two different stencils on, they are a perfect size for cards and little journal pages. 

Finally my latest Stamperia collection, these Junk Journals have a great selection from a particular Collection,  they have die cuts, background pages, sentiment strips and lots of little Ephemera bits,  I love their Allegro paints too, the blues in this collection are lovely.  

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I hope todays post is readable,  I had to write and  re write bits of it so many times as I just couldn't string a sentence together.  I started it at 11pm while waiting for 111 GP to call me,  I had to delete and rewrite most of ot at 6.45am while on route to out of hours GP appointment 😭.  They wanted me to go in at 3am but Paul was sound asleep and so where the girls,  so I said I would wait a couple of hours.   This is a really painful one though,  the bacteria is clearly well embedded in my bladder   and after nurse told me to stop antibiotics on Tuesday as bacteria was resistant to penicillin,  the bacteria has gotten busy multiplying without antibiotics!  I did ask if this would happen,  nurse just said 'see how you get on'  !! 

I hope you have a good Saturday, 

Love & hugs, 

Sandra xxx

 

Former Festive Friday cards

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies, 

By the time you are all seeing todays post we should be on our way back from Heathrow with Adam & Becca,  I have been so excited to see them both 😊 

We then have a quick turnaround,  as we have about an hour (depending on traffic) to have a cup of tea and get ready to leave for Watford.  I am so looking forward to seeing you lovely ladies. 

So as it was an early night after a sleepless night I am sharing a couple of 'Festive Oldies' with you. 

The first is a Stencilled Christmas card :

 Today's card was made using Sweet Poppy's Bauble Stencil, I inked through it with Iced Spruce & Wild Honey Distress Ink (not oxides). I tapped the blending brush quite heavily on scrap paper so that the ink went on lightly and gradually built up the colour and blend. I added the Wild Honey to the centre of Bauble and added touches down the ribbon.  After the ink was dry I stamped the cottage which is also a Sweet Poppy stamp, after I stamped it I used water to renove the yellow ink from the snowy rooves, I used a Quickie Glue pen and added some fine glitter.  I quite like the subtle colours. 

Card 2: 

Today's card is the card I made on Saturday following Tracy Evans Workshop, I thoroughly enjoyed making it, especially as I had someone special in mind. I think they are fun because there is no decision making involved, I did change a couple of details though. It involved inking, blending, stencilling, stamping, fussy cutting and layering! I took my time, after spending time creating a multi layered background you don't want to mess up the stamping! I would thoroughly recommend Tracy Evans Workshops, she puts so much thought into every element. 

I hope you don't mind another look at these cards. 

Have a lovely Friday my lovelies, 

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

2nd Half Christmas Journal Page

 

Good Morning Ladies,

Today I am excited to share the other side of my Christmas journal page. 

I actually loved creating this journal spread.   I was surprised at how much I loved the finished thing too.  The products are the same as yesterday's, the techniques are the same too. 

Arden Creative products are great quality,  the die cuts are 'double faced'  which means that you can have them facing either way, which is really helpful when you are creating layouts.  Their Rub ons are the same great quality,  they take very little pressure and come away perfectly.  

My fingers are itching to create another one!! 

I hope that you all have a good day. 

Love and hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx 

First half of double page Christmas journal page

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies,  

A chilly but sunny day yesterday,  I wasn't up to a day out with Lucy sadly,  we are hoping to go do a bit of Christmas idea shopping today, at the time of writing this I am crossing my fingers 🤞                    Our midweek date night has been highjacked by the girls this last couple of weeks 🤣,   we were planning a cinema trip to see Nuremberg, however the " Four" of us went to see Wicked !!! 👀 🙄🤣, I am just kidding I don't actually mind that they wanted to come out with us.  The film is really long though, so it's finish time was 11.30pm 😲😬 Thats way past my bedtime 🌙 😴 

I was planning to get a couple of projects finished yesterday but with spending time with Lucy and looking at her shopping ideas,  I only got 1 finished,   it's a Christmas double Journal page, I followed a Vicky Papaicannou Workshop on YouTube.  I really enjoyed it,  it's fun, well explained and easy to follow. 

I am sharing one half today and then I'll share the whole piece tomorrow!  

The page started with two pieces of torn Rice paper, then I painted the rest of the pages with Ivory Stamperia Allegro Acrylic paint,  it dried quite fast,  I then did some random stamping ( I do find partial/random stamping hard)  I think it's because of those early days of trying to stamp perfectly with inferior stamps and getting frustrated at failing.  I give it a good go though! 🤣  The good thimg with these pages is that if something bothers you too much you can use something to cover it.   At this point (above) I had added some green splatters too, then edged the pages with Vintage Photo distress ink, It adds warmth and draws your eye in.  After this step I stencilled over the pages in Vintage Photo to tie everything together and add interest and texture.  

You can see both the Vintage Photo stencilling and the next step which was embossing paste through the same stencil.   That is the background complete, now I set this aside to dry while I picked out some die cuts.  

I arranged the largest piece on the left hand page which I am sharing today, I added some doodling and white splatters too finish the page.  

I will share the full double page spread tomorrow. 

I hope you all have a great Wednesday, 

Love & Hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx

A festive journal page

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

The weather was back to dark, wet & gloomy yesterday,  we couldn’t even see the hills that we love to look at while doing the dishes 🤣.   So different to Sunday when we got a load of washing virtually dry.  Even with my desk lights and my daylight lights it was still almost too dark to do any crafting!  But I give it my best effort. 😅😂

Just as I suspected my body wasn't wanting to 'play' yesterday after an afternoon in the garden with Paul,  I dream of a day with no miserable pain!  I do my best to not let it rule my life but there are days that I don't win the fight!  

This is where I have been enjoying making journal pages,  they are for me,  to experiment,  play and more importantly allow mistakes to be part of the learning process.  I don't dislike the pages I create but I wouldn't necessarily be happy to send them as a card to anyone.  

We are all our own worst critic, which isn't healthy,  sometimes the 'perfect  Pinterest pieces we see and love are digitally perfected,  all slight imperfections erased.  As long as you have enjoyed creating a card or journal page and it looks like something you'd be delighted to open yourself,  that's all that matters  

So with that in mind I am sharing yesterday's craft session. 🤣

I started by  creating a 'messy' background using Wisteria Lindys pigment shaker, sprinkled over a 6 x 4 inch piece of card,  spritzed with water and put to one side to 'do its thing' .  I then stamped an older Tracy Evan’s stamp 'Poinsettia' using 'Hawthorn Rose ' Versafine Clair ink, which pairs nicely with the Wisteria Lindys Shaker,  I used  watercolours to colour the larger sepals of poinsettia,  adding some of the Lindys mixed with water to add shimmer to the poinsettia too.  I left the top layer how they were stamped, although I did fussy cut them and added a swoosh of the lindys shimmer!   

When the background was dry I added some stamping in the Hawthorn ink,  Its hard to pick up on camera but I added lots of dots of glue and sprinkled Tim Holtz Rock Candy  which gives an amazing sparkle!  

I hand cut a tag by tracing around Tracys Tag and adding a light blend of Lost Shadow Oxide ink, I placed it on the background using Glue Gel, I added some scrumpled cotton underneath for texture.  I stamped and fussy cut so leaf sprigs and tucked them under the poinsettia.  A few ink splatters (some a little bigger than intended) finish the page. 

I will say that I love the shimmer of the Lindys combined with the sparkle of the Rock candy!   You can't have too much pizazz at Christmas!! 

I hope that you all have a good day,  

Love and hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx