Something Festive for Friday

Good Friday Morning Ladies,

Another quick and simple Christmas card, made in Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla and Gold, using the Snowfall Thinlits dies.
I started by cutting my base card, which I simply do by cutting down the length of a piece of A4 card, (that way you get two out of an A4 sheet), I then cut at 11  1/2 and score at 5 3/4
Next I took a piece of Very Vanilla card and cut that at 4 inch X 5 3/4  I then placed the long Snowflake border from the set and die cut across my card at sort of half way diagonally.
I then die cut the same border in gold and paper pieced it in. I the die cut a large snowflake in gold and then cut another in cherry cobbler, I glued the gold snowflake down and paper pieced the Cherry cobber bits into the gold snowflake.
The sentiment is from the Merry Christmas to All stamp set, I simple stamped the 'Christmas' on the bottom of the card and then stamped the 'Merry' onto 'Very Vanilla' card and embossed with Gold Embossing Powder and die cut it with the matching label die.
I wanted a 'clean and simple' look so I haven't added any other embellishments, I don't think it needs anything else.
I think that you could batch make these quite easily too.  In fact to make it much quicker you could just die cut the large snowflake out of the top piece of Very Vanilla and place the Gold die cut snowflake over the top, you would see the Cherry Cobbler through the die cut then and wouldn't need to do the paper piecing.  (hindsight is a wonderful thing!)

We are hoping to get a good start on the Christmas Shopping this weekend so may pop into town to do some 'stocking filler' shopping, the girls always want underwear, p'j's and socks etc as well as smellies, candles, so we will see what bargains we can find on those.
Sophie has asked for an Overhead Projector for Christmas for her art work, it is something she will get a lot of use out of and will probably use for University too so we are trying to find a good quality one at a good price.  None of the others have really asked for anything much so far, which is always frustrating.
Paul's mum called last night to ask what they wanted and said should she just sent them some money, I really don't like doing that as it just doesn't seem the same but the girls are wanting driving lessons and Sophie is off to Florida on Boxing day with Lewis's family so wants money to spend and money for her Park tickets, I think she was a little shocked at how expensive they are, I think she said she needed £350 for just the park tickets alone.  I guess it's a once in a lifetime thing though so she should not worry about the money and enjoy the experience. Both her and Lucy have been very sensible with saving their wages so she can pay for it all herself, we will probably help her with some spending money though.

I hope that what ever you have planned you have a thoroughly enjoyable weekend,

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra
xxxxxx

Oooh a Little Sneak Peek.....

Good Morning Ladies,

What'd with this flipping weather, I think one of the worst things is getting used to having to dry the washing indoors, I hate having wet washing hanging around. I have found a faster way of drying the washing, putting the airing horse in front of the Aga, it really does kick out a lot of heat and it also means that the dampness stays in the kitchen. I know you used to be able to get racks that hung from the ceiling above, the only thing with that is the cooking smells, I got Paul to move the Airer into the utility room while we cooked dinner. Nobody wants undies smelling of Onions and garlic.

Now onto today's card, it's a bit of a Sneak Peek of one of the Suite's coming up in the new Spring & Summer Catalogue. The Suite in called Needle Point Nook, it has a lovely stamp set that has some lovely floral images that are all like photographs of proper cross stitched flowers etc.

If you zoom in you can see the detail, you get a selection of stitch stamps too, there is also a set of dies that has dies to cut out the flowers and foliage, a lovely label die and a die that pierces a pretty stitched pattern into your paper.

I made a card base out of the lovely Berry Burst card, I then cut a mat of Granny Apple Green card and added a layer of DSP on to that, I repeated the layers and then used the stitched pattern die with a die cut oval of vellum and added that to the centre of my topper, I then stamped a selection of the stamps in Berry Burst, Flirty Flamingo and Granny Apple Green ink, I die cut them and arranged them on top of the piece of vellum.  I stamped one of the sentiments from the set and added that to the label die cut that comes in the set.  

To finish the card I added a few sparkles and a little wink of stella. 

I am going to do a little video introducing each of the sets, with a couple of samples of each one.

Sadly Sue wasn't up to coming over yesterday, I do hope you feel better today Sue, so I sat and sorted some of the new sets I had ordered, ready to make some samples for each set.

Pat, I hope that you get some answers today my lovely, I will message you later to catch up. xx

Lilian, I haven't seen you in in a couple of days, I do hope that you are ok, we miss you. xx

I hope that you all have a lovely day today,

Love and warm hugs to all,

Sandra

xxxxxx

Cheryl's beautiful Boxed card

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies,

Happy 'hump' day !! I kinda like Wednesdays, for a couple of different reasons, one being that Sue usually comes over to craft and also because we are only one more day away from Friday, when Paul has half day and its the start of the weekend! 

Today's beautiful card was made by our Cheryl for Tahnee, Cheryl has scalloped 8 x 8 inch card, added a beautiful background paper and then adorned that with some lovely die cuts and pretty crocheted Lace

The stamps that Cheryl has used on her card are from a retired set called 'Word Play' , like a lot of Stampin Up Stamps it has some lovely sentiments, this particular one says ''Go Confidently in the Direction of your dreams'', which is a fantastic sentiment for a young lady.

Cheryl has then made a box for her card, using the Sue Wilson Octagon die cut and the same sentiment as on the card, a few darling little butterflies fluttering around for decoration.

Cheryl, I absolutely love this card, I know this style takes longer but oh my goodness it's worth the effort.  It's more of a gift than just a card. 

Thank you so much for sharing my lovely xxx

 We had really heavy rain and wind yesterday, it was absolutely lashing it down against my craft room window.  I was sat warmly inside playing with some of the new Spring and Summer catalogue goodies, making some cards etc, I can't wait to share them with you, I think that we are all getting tired of seeing Christmas cards now.  Although I am very much looking forward to the actual ones arriving through the letter box.

I am hoping to do some crafting with Sue today, I will have to spend some time clearing a space first as the dining room table has a Craft Mountain upon it !!

I hope that you all have a lovely day whatever you have planned,

Love and hugs

Sandra

xxxxxx

Adding a little Vellum to Christmas cards

Good Morning Ladies,

Another one of my Christmas cards ticked off the list, I don't have too many more to make but as I have just got this new Suite I am enjoying playing with it, I have added a few cards to my list for some of our new Neighbours.

Today's card was made with the 'Snow is Glistening' stamp set that I shared with you on yesterday's post, I saw a similar card to this on Pinterest made with the one of Crafters companion stamps.  

I stamped my Christmas tree on to a piece of Vellum using Versamark ink, with vellum you must make sure that you use your anti static bag with vellum because it seems a lot more static than regular card or paper.  I then used some white embossing powder with a bit of glitter in, just to give a little sparkle to the tree, although it doesn't really show up on camera.  I then heat set the powder and then attached the vellum to a piece of leftover 'Galvanised' card with tiny silver brads.

I made my base card a little wider that usual so that I could add my very last piece of Dotted Tulle ribbon, ( I think I will HAVE to order more as I love it).  I attached the ribbon to the back of my mat with glue dots and then used another piece to tie a knot, I popped a tiny foam pad behind the knot to secure it, I topped that with one of the Snowfall Trinkets.  To finish the card I added a few clear, sparkly gemstones around the tree. I am going to have my sentiment on the inside of the card.

We ended up having a hectic day yesterday, I got up and the house was freezing, so, so, cold that I got dressed, got myself another cup of tea and went and got back under the duvet.  I called Paul to see if there was an issue with the boiler again this morning and he said that it had started and then after about 10 minutes cut out, he said he had reset it as he was leaving but there was no flame in the actual boiler.  So I went and had a play but there was still nothing, so I called Mr Sainsbury and he organised for someone to come out, he didn't think it was going to be the same day though as they had been called out to another one of his properties, so he very kindly said that Matt could go and fetch a load of logs so that we could at least have some heat, with that and the AGA we could manage, apart from having no hot water.   Anyway within about 40 minutes a van pulled into the driveway and it was the heating engineer, I got the impression they had been coming here for years as they knew where everything was.  He fiddled about and then disappeared and came back with a new Circuit Board, he showed me in great detail what had gone wrong, I just smiled and nodded and pretended that I understood!!  I then asked him to check out Lucy's radiator as it just won't come on, so he went up and it sounded like her was going to come through the ceiling, he then came down for a larger Hammer and disappeared upstairs, a few huge bangs later and he had fixed it !  

So we ended up stripping off some of our layers as the house was almost tropical!!  OOH it's lovely to be warm!

I have a another Special Deal for you today...……

10% off all tools and inks in the Main Catalogue, so if you were going to treat yourself to Trimmer or Score Tool or even an Envelope Punch board now it the time.  If you do fancy anything just let me know and I will add it to my order to save you postage!  

Off to play with some of my new goodies today from the Spring and Summer catalogue, I can't wait to share them with you.

Have a lovely day, I do hope a few more of you manage to get in today, the place was very quiet yesterday.

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra

xxxxx

Monday Challenge

Good Monday Morning Ladies,

I hope that you are all relaxed after the weekend and prepared for the week ahead, what have you all got planned?  Not much happening here, I have to call and get someone to come look at our heating, its been a nightmare, some days all radiators are hot, some days, (like yesterday) none of the radiators come on, so every room was cold, particularly my craft room, as it has two windows and cold floor!

Now onto this weeks Challenge, something new and different this week so...… 

I would like you to make a card that features '3 Of A Kind', it can be 3 of anything, I used Snowflakes for my card, you could use anything you like, Trees, Stars, Circles, words, Butterflies, sentiments, literally anything, you could even do 3 apertures, now there's an idea!!

I thought that this challenge could be used by those of you who need to make more Christmas cards, it would also work for birthday, thank you, hello, anniversary or even Valentines and Easter (Val) xx

I used my new 'Snow Is Glistening' suite to make my card, oh my gosh ladies I absolutely love this set, you get sooo many snowflake dies of different sizes and styles.

Snow Is Glistening Stamp set

Snowfall Thinlits

Happiness Surrounds Stamp set

Snowfall Trinkets

These are all 4 items in the Snow is glistening suite that is only available for a limited time, while I mention that I should also let you know that …..

Until about 11pm tonight you can get 10% off  Annual Catalogue Stamps and kits....

Here is the link to my Website : http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/cotswoldcrafter/

Now back to the card, I die cut just two of the dies from the set, 1 out of 'Galvanised' metallic card and one out of Whisper White, I added tiny bits of foam pads to the back of the white snowflake for a bit of dimension and popped it on top of the metallic snowflake, my 3rd snowflake for the 3 of A Kind' challenge is one of the Snowflake Trinkets.  I was aiming for the clean and simple look.

So my card was simply a Whisper White Base card cut to 4 1/4 X 5 1/2 inches with a mat of 'Galvanised' card and then the top layer is whisper white.  The sentiment is from the 'Blizzard' stamp set.

I hope you like my card. xxx

I hope that you all have a lovely week.

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra

xxxxxx

Your Challenge Cards

Good Morning Ladies,

Another amazing line up of Challenge cards from you amazingly talented ladies, You have all interpreted the challenge in your own way and these stunning cards are the result, so without further delay, lets see what you have been creating...…

Brenda

Brenda has created a stunning 'Nativity' Scene on her Christmas card, adding a little decoupage for dimension, your card is just stunning Brenda, the embossing has picked up every tiny bit of detail.

Thank you so much for a simple yet stunning card.

XXX

Janet

 Janet has created four Simple cards for our Challenge this week, each one using either One die set or One stamp set, the first is a lovely, detailed die cut card, very pretty.  The second has a real Scandinavian look, again from a die, what could be simpler?!  The third card also looks a little Scandinavian to me, I love that die and the glitter card really sets it off.
The last card has a gorgeous stamp, so much detail in one stamp, love the sentiment too.
Thank you so much for taking part and making so many cards my lovely.

XXX

Karen 

Karen has also created 4 incredible cards for our 'Simple' Challenge, 

"The first is a shaker card that I saw Leonor Pugal do something similar on Hochanda this afternoon with some Memory Box dies
The second is the waste from the first and with the letters removed and put back into the first
I hope that made sense"

Card 3:
I used a piece of the alcohol and pens technique on photo paper speckled with white ink
My favourite freebie die mounted onto blue card.

The Last card was made using a Tattered Lace die that Karen bought some time ago, simple die cut in gold, shadowed with black and trimmed down to fit a 6 X 4 card.

Thank you so much Karen for 4 incredible cards, all completely different and fantastic!!

XXX

Lilian 

Lilian has created another masterpiece, Lilian has taken a fantastic background paper and stamped that stunning stamp onto it and added colour, which has bought the image to life.  A simple sentiment finishes this stunning card.

Thank you so much for another amazing Challenge card Lilian.

XXX

 lynda

Lynda has made four gorgeous cards for our 'Simple' Challenge, all I have to say is "I thought you would find this challenge difficult Lynda, being the queen of embellishments, but you have made four stunning cards" !!!

Lynda's first card uses the Stampin'Up Dahlia Stamp, stamped in Navy, with a lovely sentiment to finish.

The second card features a lovely background paper with a beautiful Silhouette Die Cuts added, simple but amazingly effective, love the monochrome look.

The third card uses the Stampin Up Springtime Thinlits, Lynda has die cut them out of paper that she has coloured herself. again finished with a simple die cut sentiment.

The fourth and final card features the stunning "Very Vintage" Stamp, with the lovely ''One of the best things in life is you" sentiment.

Lynda thank you so much for four amazing challenge cards.

XXX

Margaret

Margaret has created her 'Simple' card with the 'Beautiful You' stamp set, Margaret has coloured and fussy cut the lady, mounted her onto a card base matted with Marina Mist card.  Margaret has stamped her sentiment to match.

A truly lovely card, thank you so much Margaret.

XXX

 Maria

Maria has made a stunning pair of cards for our Challenge this week, the first features an absolutely beautiful stamped image that Maria has highlighted with white and gold and used gold to frame the image too.  A gorgeous card !

Maria's second card features a simple white card base with a Sue Wilson Die cut frame topped with a Christmas die cut featuring a bow and holy, Maria has added pearls for the berries.

I love your cards Maria, thank you for taking part.

XXX

Michele 

Michele this card is amazing, I absolutely love it!  I think it looks like a 'High End' department store card.  Sometimes it is the simplest of designs that make the greatest impression.

Thank you so much for taking part Michele.

XXX

 Val

 Val, I love your design, you have used one of 'those' amazing embossing folders, topped with a Sue Wilson frame with that Amazing 25th Dec die cut, I just love that die Val, I think its that lovely font.
Thank you so much for taking part, I know you are snowed under with orders, so I really appreciate you taking part.

XXX

Ladies, what can I say, you absolutely blew me away with your cards this week, I honestly thought that you were all going to struggle with it, but as usual you rose to the challenge. 

Thank you all for supporting the challenges once again, I know I say it every week but I really so appreciate the time you give up creating cards for the challenge.

I hope you all have a lovely Sunday my lovelies,

Love and hugs

Sandra

xxxxxx

Mixed Crafts and Michele Mag Review

My ATC's from Karen

Good Morning Ladies,

I hope that you are all nice and warm and relaxed for the weekend, well apart from Our Michele who was out at 6.30am to get to her Sale.  It's going to be really cold Michele, so I hope you have your Thermal knickers on!!

On a serious note, I hope that you have a really successful morning, I should get your friend to get the hot drinks in when she arrives mid-morning!!

We have a 'bumper' Mixed Up Saturday this week, featuring some lovely crafts from Janet & Karen and an absolute Bargain find from Sue, we also have a fantastic Magazine Review from Michele too, so get your pens and paper ready to jot down which one you like the look of.

The opening photo's are of my amazing ATC's from our lovely Karen, she put so much thought into each design, including her love of Crocheting, hence the verse on the first card, which had us chuckling, in fact Sophie was bewildered for a moment or two when she read it, she said 'Muuum, is this from one of your Craft Friends, because...have you read it Mum"!!!!

Karen Crocheted the Aster using Embroidery thread, it must have been so hard to work with such a small hook and thread but my goodness it's worth the effort, its stunning, I can't stop looking at both of them.

The second ATC is in pretty pinks, using a lovely background design that Karen has stamped a sentiment on then Embossed.  The butterflies represent the 'wings' in the 'Spread your wings and fly' sentiment.  I agree with you Karen, we should all have a go at doing exactly that, at least once!

I absolutely love both of them Karen, thank you so much for such a lovely gift. xxxx

Janet

Janet has shared some lovely Gift Boxes and another Memory Album, I will leave Janet's description below:

"The crackers and box are Tonic dies - this years Nordic Christmas

The Memory Book is also Tonic dies but this time I made as Open Pockets throughout the book and used Birds and Flowers as the theme"

Janet I love your Crackers and your Gift Box, I am tempted to ask you to die cut me a couple as Paul always gets at least on Toblerone for Christmas, I would like to trick him and stick something else in the box, one with something boring like pants or socks, then in the other I could put a Voucher for an experience or something.

So if you wouldn't mind I don't mind covering postage etc.

Your Memory Album is the most beautifully decorated one I have seen, those papers you have used are stunning, everything you have added works perfectly, I love that little felt/lace Bird. Your attention to detail is outstanding Janet, little touches like the heart button on the tag make such a huge difference.

I am so grateful that you have shared it with us today, you have really inspired me my lovely. xxx

November’s monthly magazine review

Simply Cards & Papercraft has a lovely set of  scenic Nativity Dies free this month.

Making Cards magazine has s cute set of stamps & some lovely papers this month.

Ideas using the free papers.

More ideas using the traditional papers.

Papercraft Inspiration has a great gift this month-co-ordinating Stamps and s window frame Die.

Love Cardmaking has a fantastic gift with this issue. There an Embossing Folder, Stamps & Dies. The stamps & Dies can be used all-year round and there’s lots of inspiration inside.

Papercrafter magazine has a gorgeous set of Dies-cute animals that can be used for many occasions.

Diecutting Essentials has a really lovely snowflake Die this month. I used this on one of my challenge cards last week-it’s great for simple cards that look impressive.

Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine has a huge stamp set free this month.

Papercraft Essentials.

Has a gorgeous set of stamps by Raymond Briggs (creator of The Snowman) and a luxury foiled kit as the free gift.



That’s it for this month.
Michele x


Thank you so much Michele for another amazing review, there are some great free gifts with some of the magazines this month, I know I am certainly going to be looking out for a couple of them.

Is 'Making Cards & Papercraft'  the new 'Making Cards' Magazine??  it looks similar.

Looking forward to Next Month's review, I imagine it will all be New Year ideas and leading up to Valentines day! (how scary is that?!)
Thanks again Michele xxxx

Sue

Our Sue got herself an amazing Bargain from a local charity shop, I believe she paid 50p for each die set, the two outside ones look like they are Spellbinders in Create and Craft Packaging, the centre die is a 'Wild Rose' Studios Die,  Sue brought them over to me unopened, it looked as though they were Brand New, it's a shame there was no other Craft Stuff with them, such an amazing find that put a huge smile on Sue's Face!  

Thanks for sharing your bargain find with us Sue. xxxx

Thats about all I have room for on today's post, so Lynda I will share your lovely book for Harry next week.  So that it isn't crammed in.  

Thank you to all of you for taking part in today's blog post, I am very grateful to all of you.

Have a lovely weekend,

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra

xxxxxx