Ringing the changes

Hello lovely visitors, - more Christmas card again today I'm afraid to say.... But with nearly 40 cards to make, it's about the only making I do at the moment. Hope I don't bore you too much.

I've called this post ringing the changes, as these card are quite different from the previous ones I have shown. They are all made with a collection of G45 papers my lovely daughter gave me for my birthday.

They are all pretty similar, I have just layered up some papers and then finished them with simple die cuts as embellishment, - all in an effort to keep them flat for easy posting.

I am making and showing all of my cards in sets of about 4 or so, I can never repeat the same things to often, otherwise I get bored myself, and I also like to try out different things. Also, different style cards suit different people I think....

This one is on it's way to friends in Australia, the husband is an expert bird watcher, so I hope they like it.

More variations on a theme

And here finally the last one in a slightly different format.

Well that's it for today, thanks for your visit and happy crafting!

xxxxx

Destination Inspiration at A Vintage Journey

Hello friends, welcome, - how is your preparation for the holiday season going?
Today I have a full tutorial on the A Vintage Journey Blog, using 4 different "ingredients" chosen by my teamies and myself for this month. I am number 4 in the line up, so there is 3 further projects and tutorials linked if you are interested.
Here is a sneak peek of my project:

If you want to see the full project and what all of us used this month, just click HERE.

Enjoy those last days of November and thanks for your visit here like always.

xxxxx

vintage cards take 3

Hello friends, today I want to share the final 2 vintage Christmas cards I made, at least for the time being. If you want to know how I made them, you can find details in a previous post. For now I will just show you a couple of photos and  a little slide show here again.

I know we are all pressed for time at this busy time of year, so I really appreciate you popping by here.

Have a great week with hopefully some creativity in it

xxxxx

Textured album insert

Hello lovely blogfriends, today I want to share a project using three of my favourite things:

So what are they you may ask?
Well, first of all, I have become addicted to Midori size notebooks, so this is what this is. They are inserts for a Mindori Travelers Journal, and I love putting these together using the Eileen Hull Journal die. If you want to know how to do this, - here is a brilliant video that explains it. This one is going to be used for handwriting practice, - it has squared paper inside.
Second up, are Tim Holtz Oxide Inks and
last but not least Decoart Fluid Acrylic paints and various sprays, and it is these latter two that I used for this cover.
Below a quick step by step:


 I added some texture paste through a couple of stencils to a plain Midori travelers journal insert.




Next I covered it with gesso, some crackle paste and three colours of Oxides, I also used a tiny bit of Paynes Grey acrylic paint around the edges.



Then I added a variety of sprays and the whole thing came to life.


Finally I highlighted the raised bits with some Distress Crayons and then with the help of a glue stick and some foil added a few bits of gold glimmer here and there.
Below a few close ups still:

Well, that's it for today, and like usual,

Happy Crafting!

Vintage Christmas cards (further variations)

Hello friends! Well, here we are, nearly the weekend and that much closer to Christmas......
Today I have 3 further Christmas cards to share.

Below a short tutorial of how I made them:

All of them started with some textue paste and a stencil:

I then added colour with a mix of Acrylic paints in Titan Buff, White and Burnt and Raw Umber, I used different brands, Decoart Fluid Acrylics, Golden Fluid Acrylics and Paper Artsy Frescos, using both a brayer and my fingers.

On one of them I also used Distress Crayons to get a kind of patina effect.

Raised bits were also highlighted with Treasure Gold.

I then added various die cuts and vintage images as focal points, and that was pretty much it.

Below a few close ups still:

Below a short slide show to see them in close up

I am going to add one of the cards to the following challenges:
Countryview Crafts: Stencils
That's Crafty: Stencil it
Frilly and Funkie: Timeworn

Thanks for your visit like always

xxxxx

Variations on a theme

Hello lovely visitors, thanks for taking the time to drop by!
Having been away from home for nearly 3 months, means I am way behind with Christmas cards. But in the last few days I have been busy trying to catch up, so here is the first batch of cards...

They all use the same Stampendous stamp and are probably going to be the most traditional cards I will make this year, meant for those of my friends and family that like that sort of thing. The finished cards are all 5 x 7 with minimal embellishments for easy posting.

The word Noel was cut with Tim's die, I think it was a new one last year. I embossed it with Stampendous Frantage powder.

The little twig was another Tim Holtz die from the Holiday Greens Mini set. The white berries were made with Tonic Studios Nuovo crystal drops, a recent discovery that makes the most berfect pearl drops.
The next cards are all pretty similar, like I said, variations on a theme...

For this one I stamped and then fussycut the holly part of the stamp, and the berries were done in the same way but this time using red crystal drops.

I also embossed the edges of the cards with Stampendous Ancient Bronze EP.

Finally, a couple more, all done in a similar way:

This one more simple, stamped in Plum Archival ink and the middle part just coloured a bit with brushmarkers and a water brush.

And here a variation in blue tones.

Well, that's it for today, I am currently working on a second batch, more mixed media in style, - so stay tuned as they say :o)

Thanks for your visit like always and I hope you are having a good week!

xxxxx

Back from Australia and Rubber Dance Bird album

Hello friends, welcome, specially also to all my new followers, thank you so much for being here!
Well, I have finally returned from Australia after nearly 3 months, and though I will miss my grand daughters a lot, it is also good to be back home again (and my craft space and supplies).

Today I am sharing the cover of a little book I made using the Sizzix Eileen Hull Mini Album die and some free stamps I received from Rubber Dance.

I decided to use this little album to keep photos of some of the amazing birds I saw in Australia. The stamps I used are from the Merry Magpie set, and there certainly are plenty of magpies there! Though in real life I much prefer all the other colourful birds that frequently visited the back yard where my son had built a little bird house. Anyway on to the project:

As you can see, - after cutting the actual album covers from matboard, I coloured them in various Distress Ink green tones. Next I took a  postage stamp die cut that was still flying around my craft desk and painted it with Decoart crackle paint.

Once the cracks appeared I painted it with dark brown acrylic paint and then rubbed Decoart white antiquing cream into the cracks.

I cut a piece of card coloured with blue shades of Distress inks for the background and then played with the various stamps in the set to decorate the rest of the panel.

 Apart from the sentiment that was stamped straight onto the background and then clear embossed, I stamped all of the other elements on separate bits of card, fussy cut, coloured  and then positioned them until I was happy with the composition.

These stamps are not my usual style but I had great fun playing them. All of the Rubber Dance stamps are great for all sorts of projects, be they cards, mixed media and specially also art journaling. If you don't know them yet do check them out.

Well, that's it for now, but before I leave I will just share a few of the photos I intend to keep in the album.

It's strange to jump from late Spring straight into late Autumn, here in Scotland it starts getting dark already just after 4, - that will take some getting used to again.... Anyway, thanks for visiting my little blog and I hope to be more active in blogland again and pay return visits just as much as I can.

xxxxx