Christmas in September

The last day of September ... seems like it's been a long month. Our youngest started Sixth Form at the start of the month, our younger son headed off for his first year at university last weekend and our eldset goes back on Saturday for the start of his final year. It's going to be very quiet in the house without the boys.

So, I was a bit under the weather last week (one of the down sides of working with children) but I spent some time colouring some images, among them one from Pollycraft. And last night, I finally got around to making a card.

I coloured the image with Promarkers, then cut it out. The spotty paper is from Papermania, and I cut the mats with my nestibilities. The large snowflakes were cut with my Wizard and a Spellbinders snowflake die. You probably can't see it, but I sprayed those snowflake layers with Crafters Companion Spray and Shine (irridescent). It's the first time I've used it, and I was surprised to find it's a varnish type spray. I got it on my fingers and had to use nail polish remover to de-glitter myself afterwards. I like the idea of being able to give an overall sparkly layer, but I won't be using it indoors again because it set me coughing!

The smaller snowflakes and sentiment are from some sticker sets I've had for a couple of years - they were the 'free gift' for subscribing to a magazine. (A disappointment because I'd hoped for something else but that'd run out.)

Enough prattling! I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Creative Inspirations where it's 'Christmas in September' and
Charisma Cardz where they're doing Christmas Crafting.

Crafty Cardmakers Spotlight on Oriental Designs

Well, last week, the challenge on Crafty Cardmakers was to make a card with a 'world' theme, and this week, we're spotlighting one area of the world - the Orient!

 

I've used a stamp I was lucky enough to be given by my Secret Santa (Vixykins) a couple of years ago. I used Memento ink, and stamped the image twice onto Ryman Ink Jet card. I cut the woman out of one copy, and coloured both with Promarkers, then layered using foam pads. In the background, there's some red mirri-board that's been embossed in my Wizard with a Papermania folder, and I finished the card with some flowers and a Wizarded swirl. The largest flower I made with crepe paper, and the others are from Wild Orchid Crafts.

So, dust off your Oriental images and papers, and join us in the Spotlight!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Stamp Insanity where they're looking for embossing (mirri board in background)
Charisma Cards where 'Anything Goes',
and Scrappy Frog where they're asking us to make our own flowers (large red one)


 

Chance to Win at One Stitch at a Time

Things have been busy in the Stitchy world recently. First, there's a whole load of seasonal new releases, and now, there are three chances to win at the One Stitch at a Time Challenge blog. And there will be lots of new quizzes and games coming up over the next few weeks, so it'll be worth visiting, and even better, having a go for yourself.

A craftless Saturday for me this week. I was tied up with some essential errands this morning, and this afternoon we took our younger son to start his university career. Because they stagger arrival times, we didn't have to be there until four o'clock, but the plus side of that is that we didn't have to rush off after as we were the last batch to need car parking. Still, we saw him unpacked and left him to chat to his new flatmates. Our eldest goes back to his university next week for his final year, so it'll be quiet in the house - something our youngest is not looking forward to at all. Right now, it just feels like he's off sleeping over at a friend's house, but I suspect it'll hit me in a day or two that he's gone.

Stampman Challenge and Blog Hop

There's a big event happening over at The Stampman Challenge blog until 7th October. There's a blog hop, and a new challenge, and the challenge is to alter something.

That's a real challenge for me. I make cards, occasionally boxes, but I don't normally alter things. Anyway, I started out with a hard backed notebook from the local pound shop, and got started.

The colour of the book suggested the colourscheme - especially since I couldn't think of any neat way of completely covering the black with that style of book.

I started with a sheet of vellum from a Christmas collection I bought a while ago. I fixed it with spray adhesive, and made a border with alternating silver holographic and black punched flowers. I made some larger flowers using a different flower punch, and punched some swirls and leaf fronds. The largest flowers were made with several layers of alternating silver and black paper attached with silver brads and 'scrunched' before being unfolded. Then, I finished some of the flowers and swirls with sticky gems.

Definitely something to go into my very small cache of potential Christmas presents.