A lovely Poinsettia Christmas card

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies,  

We had a lovely day yesterday,  it was so bright and sunny that Lucy suggested a walk around Bourton on the Water and lunch out,  it was quite busy with it being such a lovely day,  Lucy found a lovely place called The Den that did lovely Bagels & Baguettes,  so we picked up a baguette and a drink and went and sat by the river in the sunshine and did some serious people watching!  

We then headed back home to start working on Becca's wedding invitations,  🙄, what a palaver, we sat and made a mini press put of two spare cuttings plates, Lucy then made a raised bar with Masking tape to butt the card up to so that it's in the same place each time,  I sat and fussy cut a piece of thick plastic to put over the raised letters for inking up so that ink doesn't get all over plate and transfer to paper.  

This is raised bar to butt up card to for exact positioning 

The two pieces, closed ready to go through die cutting machine 

Lucy made a sturdy hinge to connect the two Big Shot plates, the press plate is adhered to one side. 

We did a couple of runs through,  frustratingly the Gold ink I bought, which was recommended,  as you need a particular kind of ink is an awful colour, it has some metallic shine but its an awful yellow shade, that just doesn't work with the Cream card.  So I have ordered another from Jacksons Art, fingers crossed this one is ok, as its really expensive!  

Today I am excited to be sharing Sonia's gorgeous Poinsettia card,  after a little break from crafting Sonia's 'craft inspiration ' returned from its vacation, helped along buy some lovely new craft goodies.  Boy has your mojo returned in style my lovely !! 😍  

Sonia's Description:

I’ve used the poinsettia and holly die from Tim Holtz ‘Vault Seasonal Sketch’

‘Merry Christmas’ from Spellbinders Christmas Mix and Match Sentiments.

I’ve also used a Sue Wilson snowflake border die, and Gems from my stash 🙂

Sonia you really do have a magic touch when it comes to Kraft card,  every Kraft card you have made has been exquisite,  this one is no exception, I love your composition and such a brilliant idea to use the Snowflake Border from SW. Your sentiment works perfectly too. 

Thank you so much for sharing your amazing card with us my lovely XXX 

I hope that you all have a great day,

Love and hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx 

Alcohol inks & Snowflakes

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

We had a bright and sunny day yesterday, which was a lovely change to the last few days.  We are hoping its going to stay dry for a few days so that we can get our Sun Room dried out, the wind was blowing that torrential rain under the flashing on the roof above, so we had buckets and bowls all over to catch the water,  the cats sit in there as its huge windows and they can watch the birds, they were very confused by the palava.  Hopefully it will dry out quickly.  With the huge trees in our garden we were very lucky to only have a leaky roof.

For today's card I used some of the Alcohol ink backgrounds that I made a week or so ago, I picked the blue ones I'd made to use with some snowflakes.  I die cut three squares and adhered them to my card,  I used some scraps of white card to die cut the snowflakes, I layered two together for extra dimension and finished each one with a sparkle.  I arranged the squares across the card and added a Tim Holtz Christmas sentiment beiow the squares.  Quite a Clean & simple design. 

I hope that you have a good day, 

Love and hugs,  

Sandra XXX

Simple Embossed Christmas card

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies, 

What a wet & windy weekend,  not a great way to end November!   The Wildlife Park was undecided at 8am as to whether it was going to open due to high winds, the girls got ready and left the house regardless only to find a tree down up the hill from us, so they turned round and went an alternative route which was longer but that had a tree down too!  So they came home and called in, I would have preferred them to stay home because we live out in the country surrounded by huge trees,  had they left 5 minutes earlier this morning that first huge tree could have landed on them,  anyway they were told the park was open and to make their way in.  Now bearing in mind all staff had taken risks to get in, they only allowed E-ticket holders and they had sold 52 tickets,  we had constant torrential rain locally and extreme winds, I highly doubt that anyone would have gone for a stroll around a Wildlife park, to look at animals most of which were couped up in their indoor enclosure.  I am a huge champion of the park but Yesterday I think they were stupid,  it must have cost more in staff wages than they made.  I couldn't relax until they were home.  Rant over! 

Today's card was quite simple to make, I made a card base then added a mat of another piece of Very Vanilla card embossed this time,  I then took two 2 × 5 inch pieces of patterned paper (SU Seasons of Green & Gold) I love it 😍.  I wanted to add swag tails to the two pieces so the easiest way I know is to use a square die.. 

So simple and you can cut a few layers at a time. I then embossed these two pieces with the same folder.

I stamped the sentiment in Old Olive and clear embossed it, I then die cut it and matted it onto a layer of gold.

I assembled the card finishing with the sentiment label, adding 3 gold glitter gems to finish the card.

I Hope that you all have a great start to the week,  

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra xxx

The last of the Bright & Colourful Challenge cards

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

The weather certainly isn't good however!  I dread to think of the flooding that will be caused by the constant torrential rain we had for the whole day yesterday, we drove to Cirencester to do our foodshop and the standing water on the road was unbelievable, at many points both sides of flooding met in the middle of the road, it was really deep too,  it was supposed to be warmer this weekend but it certainly didn't feel it yesterday,  I think that horrible damp cold is the worst, it seems to make your whole body ache. 

Enough of the gloominess lets look at your lovely bright and cheerful cards....

Maria

Maria's Description;

Happy, colourful cards for Sunday coming here.

The first one is the rose stencil. Tim Holtz ink and a little stamp with forever yours.

I dug out the cutting plates I got from you and used bright yellow and deep pink and weaved them together. Cut happy birthday out of green paper and heat embossing twice, a couple of flowers too in similar colour. 

Oh Maria your Rose stencil card is stunning 😍 I love the colours that you used, layering onto mirror card adds a little touch of luxury too.  

Your woven card is certainly bright & cheerful!  You would definitely smile when you opened it,  sometimes we need a card like that, its like a hug in an an envelope!  

Thank you so much for two lovely cards Maria, I hope that you are feeling better today XXX

Karen

Karen's Description:

Here’s an old SW layout I have done in the past

Background is a blend of DO and an Aall and Create stencil

SW Majestic Square and SW Butterfly (was a bugger getting card out of die even with wax paper will try a JL one) 

Beautiful blend Karen,  I love your colour combination, these days definitely haven't dated have they.  

Thank you so much for a lovely Bright & Cheerful card. XXX

I hope the boys enjoyed the trampoline park, did Alan have a go???  

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Hi, here is my card for this week.

It’s bright and cheerful as you asked for. Very simple washi tape.

I have quite a few rolls, which I need to use. 

What a gorgeous card Lilian 😍,  those Washi Tapes work so well together, such a brilliant idea.

Thank you so much for taking part XXX

*************

I hope that you all stay warm & dry and have a lovely Sunday,  

Love & hugs to All of you, 

Sandra xxx 

A bonus trip to the Wildlife Park

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

Welcome to the weekend,  what have you all got planned??  

Whatever you are doing I hope that Storm Bert doesn't alter your plans, more importantly stay safe, I believe it is going to get extremely wet and windy!  

We got a bonus treat yesterday afternoon,  Sophie needed to take the last painting she did into the park,  it was been stored at ours while waiting for the team that puts it on on the wall in the restaurant,  it is going to be on one of the pillars in-between the cabinets where the food is served, so the visitors will get to see it up close.   

We waited for Paul to get back from work and then set off,  we got to enjoy a lovely cup of tea and a slice of cake 🎂  which was delicious 😋.  I popped one of Soph's paint brushes into my bag as I wanted to make a point,  the painting was done in oil paints which take a while to dry between layers,  while she was in the midst of doing the painting she kept getting comments about how long it was taking,  I would estimate that it took her a month's worth of hours,  her days off were spent at the dining table from around 10am to 7pm, then there were all the evenings in between,  I felt like I needed to explain how adding the detail to the fur of the animals with a brush that she had trimmed down to having basically 1 or 2 bristles.   I could see that he was surprised and had a better idea of how incredibly time consuming it is to add that level of detail. 

After our tea and cake we got to have a walk around the Wildlife park,  it was around 3.20pm and  we virtually had the park to ourselves,  now the bonus of being parents of much loved staff has it benefits.... I really wanted to see the Rhinos, with their paddock being so wet and icy they were being kept inside for their own safety,  as we were stood in the rhino indoor area Mark the keeper came in, he asked Soph if we were her parents and she told him we were,  he then invited us down to stroke and pet the rhinos, Paul's eyes lit up,  it would have been too tricky for me to get down there and I wanted Paul to be able to fully enjoy the experience rather than worrying about me,  believe me my heart was full seeing both him & soph getting to experience something so special 😍🥰, I gave Soph my phone....

This was the view from the viewing area...

Paul & Soph got to stroke all of them,  Mark got them to feel the difference of the skin behind the ears to the inside of the back left, Paul said the top area was really tough and leathery and the underside was soft and it was very warm too.     The one pictured in the last two photos is Monty, he weighed 4 tonnes!     What an incredible privilege,   I think Paul was buzzing for the rest of the day.  

We also got to see....

The Snow Leopard, he has hard to photograph as he didn't want to sit still. 

The Lions (Rana & Khana)  was very vocal and feeling a bit frisky, he didn't want to leave the lioness alone,  we were stood just by the wood (bottom right), so we were very up close to them.  When he was roaring you could literally feel the vibration in your chest. 

This is Louie, look at his awesome humps!!  We tried to get Maggie, who looks a bit bedraggled and her humps are flooped over bless her, I know how she feels with droopy humps 🤣😂,  however Louie was chasing her so it was impossible to photograph. 

By this time it was 4pm and we were frozen so headed back to the car,  however on route to the car park we passed the Colobus monkeys, who were having their tea, the one in the first photo was obsessed with the peas in his tea time selection.  The food was placed in different areas,  the Mumma with the little baby was being very selective,  she was literally pulling out the veggies one by one and tossed the ones she didn't like on the floor!  The last photo is so cute it looks like the little Colobus is wearing a Beret. 😍

What an absolute treat,  we loved every minute, definitely a memory Paul & Soph will treasure forever. 

I hope that you all have a lovely day, 

Love & hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx

Karen's Christmas Challenge

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies, 

Here we are at the end of another week, I can hardly believe next weekend we will be at the end of November!!  Once we hit 1st December its Christmas before you know it!!   Are you all organised?                                                                          What have you all got planned this year?  Ours will be a quiet day, just the girls here for Christmas Dinner, Becca & Adam are both working all day Christmas & Boxing day as they are fully booked at the hotels,  Adam is a sweetheart and prefers to let his team that have children the day off ,  so he will be busy in the kitchen.  Becca is hosting,  which she loves, she did say that she was hoping to pop home for an hour to have Mum's Christmas dinner,  to be honest its mostly Dad's Christmas dinner, we always have enough for about 10 people so a couple of extra dinners is no problem, although I'm sure Adam's Christmas lunch would be much nicer.  Matt is working Christmas day until early afternoon,  he enjoys cooking his own dinner and Alex only gets Christmas day off so they like to spend it together, which I am totally ok with, I remember feeling incredibly guilty not going to our parents because Paul used to be away a lot we wanted to spend Christmas on our own, so I make sure that my lot know that there is no obligation and they certainly don't have to feel guilty.               So far I have bought  1 gift, thats it, no idea what anybody wants, the older they get the harder it is.   The girls do a Categories thing for their gifts,  so they buy an outfit for each other,  something funny,  something custom made (personalised), something to eat,  they have added in a Temu category too.  They know each other that well that they always love what they buy each other. 

Our Next Challenge 

I asked on our Chat group if anyone would like to suggest a challenge for the next couple of weeks, Karen kindly suggested Christmas 🎄,  which is a great challenge for those last minute cards, although it doesn't have to be cards,  Lilian and I have made some Christmas tags, you could also make a Christmas journal that you could use for Christmas preparations or purely as a memory album or an Christmas Art journal documenting different techniques that you have tried for cards etc,  you can show the technique and all the details of what you used and how you made it.                      So Thank you Karen for a great suggestion. XXX 

If any of you have any kind of theme you'd like for future challenges please let me know.

Have a lovely Friday, 

Love and warm hugs, 

Sandra XXX