Christmas Shades...

Happy Thursday,

I'm sorry this post is a couple of days late I had planned to sneak peak the my new Christmas Shades paper pad on Tuesday however I wanted to make the projects in each colour and that proved more time consuming than I thought!

To start with the first picture is a collection made with just a few of the Soft Berry shade of papers form the pad.  I have made a Large gift bag, Pillow box, Christmas Card and a small gift bow.  I have also used, of course,m a selection of the stamp release as well!

I thought It would be fun to introduce the pad by making one of my favourite things a box and to do it, as shown, in every colour.  The colours are Soft Berry, Amethyst, Soft Gold, Sapphire, Ice Blue & Soft Holly.  As usual I have matched these to as many Creative Expressions ranges as possible so that you can easily match your products to make beautiful creations of your own.

These small gift boxes were the perfect idea for me to show the different colourways as well as how I have teamed Creative Expressions  double sided satin ribbon to the colours.

Shown here are the Soft shades and below the Modern shades hopefully giving maximum crafting possibilities.  I also wanted to make the pad multiuse so some of the patterns can be used all year round in fact there is only one design that says Christmas!

Another sneak peak tomorrow,

Enjoy...

Leaping Reindeer...

Happy Wednesday,

Well its another day and another Christmas Release 2016 sneak peak.  Today I thought I would concentrate on the Leaping Reindeer set ( I'm not sure of the official name TBH lol)

This set features a section of sentiments and stamps with a stars and reindeer feel starting with this large outline leaping reindeer shown on today card.  I will make sure that This card gets its day in the sun as it were as its a great background technique that needs some explaining!

As per usual for the launch I am showing the drawings themselves so you can see the collection of stars moons and reindeer as well as the Star surrounded funky sentiment!

I designed this set around the reindeer with the idea that you can build a scene with the stars trailing form behind and either a solid or present moon.  I also included the smaller reindeer leaping to either side, with matching stars, so that I got maximum flexibility.

The other really useful stamp, that seems to be appearing on loads of my samples, is the wreath of stars which is shown here in polished silk glitter with a painted silver glitter background.  This stamp is small enough for gift cards and as a focal element on smaller cards which I know myself is really handy when I get into the batch making.

To finish today a quick shot of the sentiment, stamped in gold sparkle embossing powder on still card.

More tomorrow and the paper pad I promise lol

Enjoy...

Magical Christmas...

Happy Tuesday,

A change of pace form yesterdays sneak peak with a very modern card today using a set that hopefully will make traditional as well as modern Christmas cards!


Today's set is the Magical Christmas set with a collection of trees, banners and sentiments all made form stars!

This set is used here to make a very modern card with Polished Silk glitter and simple stamping.

Once again I have added a picture of the actual set so that you can get an idea of the designs on this one as well as the Sentiments which I must admit I love with the unusual font and a selection of open and closed stars surrounding each one.


















I designed the main tree totally with stars with some filled and some open which means that it will stamp really easily both in normal inks and in embossing powders.  I do think that, as above, it looks stunning stamped in Glitter and I cant wait to show you one stamped with Golding flakes.

I have included some smaller trees and have designed these to have a positive and negative.  In keeping with the multistep idea I have been using for this Christmas the star banner is available in solid and open stars so that you can stamp the solid stars in one colour and the open in another.  These can also be used together and rotated to build a selection of stars in different styles.

I have also added a sentiment that I missed before and yet use a lot Happy New Year always useful for when you realise you have forgotten to send someone a card after Christmas.

I will be demoing a version of this card on next weeks shows so if you want to know how this was made then tune in!

Another set tomorrow,

Enjoy...

Christmas Rose Launch...

Happy Monday,

Well its that time of year and from today for the next 7 days I will be sneak peaking my new Christmas range.  I thought I would start with the Christmas Roses which were drawn especially for Julia watts ( and the other friends who asked) as I was asked last year to draw a set of Christmas Roses.  The strange thing is that Sue Wilson also designed a Christmas rose die set and the chance was too good to miss therefore my Christmas Rose elements clear stamp set is the same size as the dies meaning that you can cut the flowers with the die!

The additional feature of this set is that I designed it as a multistep set which means that you have a solid Rose with shading stamp and an outline stamp.  Therefore you can stamp the solid, stamp the detail over and cut the whole thing out with the matching die.  I even designed the Ivy Flourishes as multistep with solid Ivy Flourishes ( in 2 sizes) as well as the outlines for them.

I thought It might be useful to show you the stamp set which might make everything I have just said more understandable lol

The first card (above) has the flowers stamped in Cosmic Shimmer Gold Brilliant Sparkle embossing powder onto Vellum.  I then cut these out with the dies from Sue's set and shaped them with a ball tool on my stamping mat.  Next I added CE Stamens in the centre of each flower and grouped them with some of the foliage that comes in the die set.

This card will get a full day on the blog with proper instructions and I will have it on my Stamp Launch show on Hochanda a week today which will be the Weekday Wonder with shows at 10am, 1pm, 5pm and Tuesday at 11am and 3pm!

Another new set tomorrow and maybe a glimpse of my Christmas Shades Paper Pad

Enjoy...

Holly Gemini...

Happy Sunday,

Another of my samples from the release of Sue Wilson's fabulous new Festive Die Collection.  I have a real love for the gemini dies so this had to be one of the first dies I picked up and had to play with. The brilliant thing about the gemini is that you get a centre cutting line as well as 2 different sides or edges. This enables you to make so many different detailed die cuts.

I stared this card by cutting a piece of gold pearl card to 51/4 inches.  I then cut the top section of the gemini, without the cutting edge, across the top.  Next I cut the bottom die in the set across the bottom of the strip of card, again without the cutting edge, this gives you the gold panel which has all the detail across the top and bottom leaving the centre panel.

I repaid the die cuts on a scrap of brunswick green card and embossed each die cut.  I smoothed Gold Treasure Metallic Gilding Polish which brings out the raised pattern.  I then cut the poinsettia and the individual holly spray out and added these above the gold panel.  Finally for this part I added Phill Martin's vintage Berry PVA dimensional glue on the ends of the swirls.

I used the centre cutting die to cut a white panel that fits exactly the lines in the lower panel ( Hope that makes sense)  I then tied a piece of candy striped ribbon across the front.

I cut a selection of die cuts for the centre and added the warmest wishes cut in gold in the centre.

For the background I embossed a piece of bright white foundation card with the let it snow A4 embossing folder.  I smoothed Gold Treasure metallic gilding polish over the top and added a PVA pearl in the centre of each snowflake.

Finally a bow and a couple of stick pins for the centre and a few layers pf gold and white.

Enjoy...

Let it snow...

Happy Saturday,

Well I like to try to keep to the something different Saturday and thought this card would meat the bill.  Especially as I will be demoing this card today at the Newbury Papercrafts show at Newbury racecourse.

There is a real mix of dies in this one but the difference is the Amazing Snowglobe die from the new Festive Die range released this week designed by Sue Wilson.  The brilliant addition to this die is the Treat Cup which has been made to match the die cut exactly.  The treat cup is designed to fit between the top and bottom layers of the die cut making a dimensional snow globe style shaker card.











yOu can see the detail here and hopefully how this works.  I filled the snow globe with a mix of white microbeads Iced snow and the silver stars from the baxkfround above.

I cut the start night background die in Steel pearl card and added a backing of bright white card.  I then added cosmic shimmer dies clear glue at the strs and aded iced snow.

The frame is made with the frame die form the Ornate Holly background.

Finally a bow and some stick pins.

If your coming to show show come over to the Art of Craft stand and say hi!

Enjoy...

glitter angel...

Happy Friday,

A simple Christmas Card today using the amazing new Festive Striplet from Sue Wilson for Creative Expressions.  Im not usually one for simple cards however I feel that the glitter on the backing of this just gives the impact that I like ( along with a large bow in the corner of course lol)

As the festive Die range has been launched, and excluding my Stamp and Christmas range launch next week, I thought it was time to return to Christmas Friday!  This means that I will post a Christmas Crad every Friday from now until the big event!  Hopefully over the next 6 months I can show you at least one Christmas card a week that I hope will everyones Christmas Mojo in gear!

I started this card by die cutting just the angel in bright white foundation card in the centre of a panel.  next I spray glued this to a sheet of heat emboss able acetate.  I then carefully, using the Cosmic Shimmer glue highlighter which comes with a small brush) painted glue on the reverse of the acetate in panels and added Pale Bronze cosmic shimmer polished silk glitter.  I repeated the process on the other panels and added sahara gold polished silk glitter.  Finally I added more glue on the detail of the Angel and added silver chrome in these spaces.

Once dry I simply mounted an embossed and die cut panel, embossed whilst in the die, over the top lining up the aperture that I cut with the outline form the same die set.

To finish the card I added a bow made with champagne wrinkle edges ribbon, some gold twine from my stash .  I tied Tim Holtz christmas Muse tokens at the ends of the gold twine and added a Creative Expressions metal button in the centre to hide the mess of knots!

Enjoy...