Beat the Christmas Rush - August 2019

These cards have taken a while to come to fruition ..... I actually started them in January, by making the double gate-fold card blanks and adding the paper panels using old freebie magazine papers.  And there I was stuck!
I bought the sentiment stamp from Inkylicious a while later and realised it was perfectly sized for the inner panel.  So I stamped / heat embossed five images in colours to match the papers, then die-cut using a stitched square.  It turned out that the red didn't match one of the papers as well as I had thought it would, so that square was put aside.  When I went back to it, I used gold instead, but couldn't be bothered to dig out the die again, so used a circle punch.
There seemed to be something missing, the cards needed some detail on the front panels, so I put them aside (again!) waiting for inspiration.  Eventually I decided on some SU snowflake stamps, stamped /heat embossed those and used their matching punches to cut out.  It's a little difficult to see in the photo, but the snowflakes run under the image on the inside panel, as well as on the front.

They have turned out rather well (eventually!) and I actually prefer the circle inside the card to the squares, so that's something to remember for next time!

Beat the Christmas Rush July 2019

I made eight of these, but could really only fit five into the photo!  The stamp is from Inkylicious, stamped and heat embossed onto some pearlescent card, then punched into a circle and popped onto a die card mat in the same card (die from Tonic).  I then made a card blank from the same card, with two rounded corners.  They were initially assembled as side fold cards with the rounded corners at the open side, but halfway through I decided that maybe they would look better as tent folds with the corners at the base, and I do now prefer them that way.

The gold is done on pearlescent ivory and the others on white.

Beat the Christmas Rush - March

UK Scrappers is running the Beat the Christmas Rush again this year here.  The cards below are white heat embossed on kraft, matted onto an embossed kraft background with a very thin gold mat.

The snowflake and sentiment are from an SU set released a couple of years ago.

Another Landscape Christmas card

Back to my favourite stamp, SU Lovely as a Tree! 

I stamped the trees and did some shmooshing with Distress Oxides for the background, masking off a circle for the moon.  Then I stamped the sleigh (Inkylicious).
A slight problem then was to work out where to put the sentiment!  So I incorporated it into the black mat :-)
I made three altogether, made easy by the stamp positioner, after all if you can stamp one, you can stamp three!!

Lovely as a Tree - gilding flakes

I had what I thought was a brilliant idea ...... using the stamperatus, I stamped the main image on white and ivory card, in black and brown respectively.  Leaving the stamp in position, I 'inked' up the stamp with Flitterglu and applied gilding flakes to the branches.  It should have been spectacular - but - it wasn't!!  Out of 16 images stamped, I got 2 decent cards.  The idea needs re-thinking..... LOL.
However, I am very pleased with the two cards I did make, only one shown here as the other proved too difficult to photograph with the gilding showing up.

Front and side view shown :-)  I haven't made an easel card for ages, but when I noticed that the Back to Basics current challenge is asking for one, this was the perfect thing to do with the topper.
The sentiment is from Visible Image, the trees from SU and the sleigh from Lavina stamps.

Lovely as a Tree Christmas cards

Lovely as a Tree is one of my favourite SU stamp sets.  Although when it came out, I did read it at first glance as "lonely" as a tree ..... :-)  Though not a specifically seasonal stamp, it does lend itself very well to Christmas cards.

A nice simple card, embossed in silver and gold, on aqua and red mats respectively.  I assembled four each of these at the retreat, but ran out of plain white card blanks and had to use deckled edge ones for the aqua/silver cards.  I think I like them better..... LOL.

Beat the Christmas rush - July

For the last couple of months, I had half-done several cards for this challenge, but not finished them.  So in July I have had an almighty catch up, resulting in four sets of five cards!!  The photo shows one from each set, with two white hexagons as they had different sentiments.

To make the hexagons, I used a 6" square blank and a Sizzix hexagon die, with the folded edge of the original blank just inside the cutting edge.  I also went a bit mirri-tastic!!  As always, it doesn't photograph well.....
The white hexagons have a holly wreath die from Tonic, cut in silver mirri, a hexagon frame (Card Making Magic) which is a two piece swirly bit and stitched outline.  The sentiment on the left is from an old set, I have no idea which brand and the right hand one is from Stamping all Day.  Both were stamped/heat embossed with Wow apple red powder.  Just a few 5mm red pearls for the wreath to finish it off.
The ivory hexagons have die-cut gold mirri - the same hex frame, a gift die from Tonic and the sentiment a tiny peel off.
The Scandi hexagons have a huge die-cut snowflake (Kaisercraft) and the same round sentiment as the white, but this time I punched out the centre to make a sentiment polo LOL.  I really like it and plan to make some more little polos in different colours :-)
Finally, the A6 card has a background done by inking through an aperture, over stamping with the tree and sentiment from SU.

Beat the Christmas Rush - April (and March catch up!)

For some reason, March just seemed to pass me by .... so for April's BtCR I have made two batches of five cards :-)

I used the stamping platform to stamp the sentiment in alternate red and green and matted with a dull gold.  Very quick to make!

I originally intended to have the white die-cut on the kraft background, but since said background is embossed, it wouldn't have stuck down very well, so I made a mat.  Not sure whether it now has too much red on it, but it's OK :-)

Stamping Platform - second card

I was hanging on for the stamping platform to arrive as I knew it would be perfect for the February Beat the Christmas Rush challenge over at UK Scrappers.

I used two SU images, both of which are multi-step stamping.  After setting up the stamps on the plates for the first card, duplicating it for three more cards was a piece of cake!  Perfect for batch making.  The handwriting sentiment is from Visible Image, the other is from my sentiment box so no idea of the brand, sorry.
So that was 8 cards made in not much time at all, I also die-cut the mat and stamping background for an even more streamlined process :-)

Beat the Christmas Rush 2018

Sue is running Beat the Christmas Rush over UK Scrappers this year.  Five cards a month and by the end of October, you'll have fifty!  You can miss a month and jump back in the next month, it's up to you.
Here are my five for January:

You may notice there are actually six! - I made these at a crop and I happened to have six of this particular colour of card blank with me, seemed a shame not to use them all :-)
The papers are from a Sara Davis 6" paper pad and the large sentiment die is from Memory Box.  The snowflakes are made with a Martha Stewart punch.  Initially I just had the sentiment, but it just seemed to need a little something more, hence the snowflakes :-)

The last cards of the year

Having managed to get everything posted to everyone by the skin of my teeth, I thought I would share the last couple of card batches I made.
I have been playing with a new set of hexagon dies:

The dies are from Sizzix (bought in the sale!) and I cut the blanks from an existing square blank, then cut a mat out of Crafters Companion patterned cardstock.  The snowflake image is by Sue Wilson and I stamped/embossed in silver.  The sentiment is so old I am not sure where it is from, this was also stamped/embossed but this time in lilac.  I am definitely going to make some more of these hexagon cards, they are great fun :-)

These vintage cards were actually done at the October ATDML retreat but I never got around to blogging them:

I made shmooshy distress ink backgrounds, then over-stamped with images from Stampin Up - frame, carollers and Father Christmas - and an old one from Creative Expressions.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and  Happy New Year :-)

UK Scrappers Christmas Countdown Day 15

Today I am taking part in the UKS Christmas Countdown :-)  Some lovely projects posted so far!

This gingerbread men screen card is not very complicated to make and looks very effective.  It can be customised to fit your own border punch, or done to standard measurements - this one is customised. A sheet of 12 x 12 will make two blanks. All measurements in inches :-)

Customised measurements and method:

• Cut a 12 x 12 sheets of cardstock into two 6 x 12 strips
• Punch along the top edge with your chosen border punch
• Count the pattern repeats on the border
• Work out the nearest number divisible by four - this punch made 34 repeats, so the number needed is 32
• Cut off the extra repeats and score three times at equal distances along the card - so in this case that's every eight repeats
• Use a bracket-type punch to make the 'legs' by using the top half only to punch at the base of the card, centrally in each section
• Cut four panels of patterned paper to fit
• Die cut letters and gingerbread men and assemble

Standard measurements and method:

• Cut the strips to 11 x 6
• Punch along the top
• Score at 2.75, 5.5 and 8.25
• Continue as above

The standard method is obviously quicker, it's just that I like my pattern repeats to line up with the score lines ..... LOL.

The paper is from Craft Creations, the letters are from Die-namics (stitched alpha), the gingerbread man is from Tonic and the punch is from Stampin' Up.

Out of the Drawer: Snowflake Christmas cards

This Stampendous stamp set and matching dies came out a couple of years ago, I saw it and thought well that's OK, but I won't bother with it.  Fast forward a few months and I see a card on Pinterest and decide that actually I would rather like the sets after all!  But you know how fast everything is released and then disappears nowadays...... I couldn't find it anywhere.  In the end I got the stamps from a UK company and the dies from the US, via Amazon.
So what happened next ....?  Yes you guessed it, they went into the drawer and have never been christened, even though I went to such lengths to get them!!
Tine to put that right:-)

There are two small and one large snowflakes in the set and I used the smaller ones, in two colourways.  However I found that one of them was more difficult to die-cut as the die obscured most of the stamping and it was very difficult to position accurately.  The gold snowflake on the right was my third attempt, I then switched to the other one which is much easier to cut!
For the blue cards, I stamped/embossed the snowflakes in silver and blue, plus a sentiment (Stampin' Up).  The paper is from Craft Creations, matted onto silver mirri.
The gold snowflakes and sentiment are also heat embossed and the paper is from Teresa Collins, matted onto a nice dull gold.
I made five gold and six blue - it would have been six gold but I messed up the stamping of the sixth snowflake and I was a bit fed up with them all by that point LOL.  I also discovered that my 4" card blanks were actually not square, so I had to trim all my carefully cut mats to fit!  I have since cut down the entire pack so that they are all square, otherwise I can't use any square dies without them looking wrong! Thank you, Card Crafts UK ......
I ma very pleased with how they have turned out, that's eleven more for the box :-)

Christmas cards, first batch!

Yes, it's the dreaded C-word...... the first batch made this year, I think.

I made four of these, from one sheet of 12 x 12 paper (Bo Bunny).  I didn't want to clutter up the beautiful background, so kept it very simple with a sentiment tag, stamp is from Stamping all Day.

I like this way of using a busy background, so now I need to dig into my Christmas paper stash to see what other similar papers I have :-)

Late Christmas card round up

No, I promise I am not starting this early for next Christmas!!  These are the last few I made last year, but never had time to blog.
The first one is Pin-spired and is a take on the most pinned item on any of my boards, the Pin is here and to date it has been pinned at least 500 times ...... Pinterest used to give you an exact number of times it had been pinned from your own board, but that seems to have disappeared, just a global figure given instead now :-(

I used a Die-namics oval mat, Spellbinders deckled oval, snowflake background stamp and the main snowflake is from Bee Crafty.  Sentiment from Stamping all Day.

These cards are done using Sue Wilson dies and embossing folders.  I rounded the corners of card blanks and mats as I thought it went nicely with the snowflake.  Tiny peel off sentiments on SU punched tags, to finish.
OK no more Christmas cards.... until the 25th January ... mwah hah hah......

Blogtober 14

The final post of Blogtober, a little later than normal, but I have the excuse of recovering from the ADTML retreat!  I managed 8 complete layouts and some cards, which I am very pleased with.
Today's post is a tutorial for the double gatefold cards (which I mistakenly called waterfall cards in a previous post).  The instructions were given to me by Nicky, a SU demonstrator who runs workshops in Chailey, East Sussex, contact her on nickyalevy@btinternet.com if you would like to come along.

Take a 12" x 12" sheet of cardstock and cut in half to make two strips 6" x 12".

Then score each one at 2", 4", 8" and 10".

Mark each short side of each scored strip at the central 3" point with a small pencil dot.  There are two variations from this point: cut to the 3" mark from either the top of the 2" and 10" score-lines, or from the top of the 4" and 8" score-lines.

Decide which is the front of your card (the back is for writing on!) and cut panels to fit the front of the card as shown below - I have only done one variation, but the principle is the same for both.

Then cut panels for the back as below.

Now fold the side panel towards the centre, from the 4" score-line as shown.

Then fold from the 2" score-line back out towards the side of the card.

Repeat for the other side of the card.

Stamp an image for the inside panel and a sentiment tag for the front and attach them - the tag only needs to be stuck to the left hand panel!!

And there it is done!  It is actually easier to stick the inner image before folding it, but this is the way I did it at the retreat because I was concentrating on getting the photos of the folds!!  You can do all sort of things with these cards, you could have die-cuts on the front panels and the image/sentiment on the inside, for instance.  These are the others I made, the other variation is also shown.

This is definitely going to become a staple design in my card-making.  For someone like me who doesn't 'do' paper engineering, these are marvellously simple to make :-)

So, at the end of Blogtober, how have I done?  Well, I have achieved my goal of posting three times a a week, sometimes it has been a case of a late night spent making an item for the next day's post, but mostly I have been quite organised and made ahead LOL.  I need to keep it up now, perhaps two or three posts a week :-)  I have to admit though, I am just a little bit Christmas-carded out ......!!

Blogtober 10

Stamping and embossing today!

The snowflake wreath is from Stamps by Chloe and the sentiment is either Personal Impressions or Woodware, it's quite an old one.  I stamped/embossed in silver, though it does look more grey in the photo.  Then I die-cut the wreath with a stitched circle die and a mirri mat to match.  That was going to be it ...... but when I laid it on the card blank, it just looked too plain.  So I took a snowflake embossing folder and ran some white cardstock through it to make a background.  Perfect :-)  I rounded the corners of both the blank and the mat, to go with the circular topper.
Very pleased with these, I must experiment with different colours of embossing powders.
For Blogtober details, visit Karmacraft.

Blogtober 9

I have had a play with some old papers :-)  These are from an old Hot off the Press pack, about half a dozen different designs in the pack.

They are quite simple cards, two panels edged with peel off lines and a sentiment strip.  I have made them quite flat, with only the sentiment raised up on 1mm foam tape - HOTP paper tends to be quite thin, so I would have to make a panel of plain card covered with the paper, to give it enough rigidity to be raised up by 1mm.  I might try that next time, I was in a bit of a rush to get these finished last night for today's post LOL.  The sentiment stamp, stamped/embossed in gold, is from Hobby Art.
For Blogtober details, visit Karmacraft :-)

Blogtober 8

I love this nine patch design - I make it every year, with different papers :-)  Simple yet effective, the trick is to be absolutely spot on with the lining up of the squares, or the impact of the grid is lost!

The papers are from Simple Stories, I took a 6" sheet of each of three colours and die-cut nine squares out of each one, to have enough squares for three cards.  Then I die-cut the letters and assembled.  I use repo herma adhesive, so I can move the squares to be exactly positioned :-)
There will be another one of these later in Blogtober, with cooler colours and silver letters :-)
For details of Blogtober, visit Karmacraft.

Blogtober 7

Nearly half way through Blogtober!
Today I am sharing some vintage style cards - simply inked and stamped, which is one of my favourite things to do :-)

I cut some 4" squares of ivory cardstock and smooshed over them with distress inks in my favourite combination of Antique Linen, Tea Dye and Vintage Photo.  Then I stamped the images in Coffee ink from Wendy Vecchi.
The carollers and sentiment are from Stampin Up, it was on the sale-for-charity table at the workshop last Saturday so I snapped it up!  I can see myself using it a lot :-)  The holly is from Stampendous and I can't remember whether I bought it last year or the one before!!  I had never used it, but it gives a beautiful impression and I will certainly be using it more now that I have 're-discovered' it.  The sentiment is from Stamping All Day.
To give the card a little lift, I used gold peel-off lines around the image, it was exactly enough, even though it doesn't photograph very well :-)
I had intended to layer the images onto some embossed cardstock, but decided to go for the simple plain card blank instead.  Maybe I will use embossed mats next time for some variety .... I'm sure I have a holly embossing folder somewhere!
For details of Blogtober, visit Karmacraft.