Christmas, New Year and Winter

Stop! It’s Tinsel Time!

Happy Saturday, people!

It’s a typical British summer’s day (overcast, cool) and I should be in the garden as some shrubs need serious attention…. but I’m in the craft room instead playing with my fabulous new Avery Elle Quirky Trees stamp set!

Last month, I told myself I would be more restrained with Christmas supplies this year – I have so much already! And what do I do as soon as the first release hits the stores… But at least I only got the one set I suppose!

Anyway, I couldn’t wait to ink up those quirky trees and decided to use the lovely colour scheme that the Color Throwdown has this week (grey, teal and pink). I cut out a middle section of the card as I love the see-through effect and was please that the card turned out to be quite stable!

To finish off the card, I added some Stickles and my favourite sentiment from the set. Am I the only one thinking of the ‘Stop! Hammer Time!’ lyric from the MC Hammer song (U can’t touch this)?? Yes? I know, it’s not just these trees that are quirky!

Anyway, I’m also entering this into the current CAS Christmas challenge where the theme is ‘tree’.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

Glittery holly berries

 

Hi everyone!

I’ve been playing with more Christmas supplies that I bought in the January sales. I’ve really enjoyed Christmas in July and plan to continue it into August!

For this card I used a holly die from Penny Black and a Tim Holtz stencil. The sentiment is by Clearly Besotted.

I coloured the leaves and berries using regular distress ink and used distress oxide to create the stencilled panel. To finish off the card, I added some Nuvo red gliiter drops. I really love how these dry in a beautiful dome! I’ve finally found a way of creating dots and easily adding them to my project when dry – I use waxy paper! I had previously used acetate and a clear block but it was so difficult to remove the dried dots! They comeoff the waxy paper very easily indeed!

I’m entering this into the current Color Throwdown challenge (red, green and grey), Freshly Made Sketches challenge and the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge (Christmas in July).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

 

Poinsettia in a pot

Greetings!

Another day and another Christmas in July card! For today’s card, I worked with a lovely stamp from Magenta Art Stamps which I got five years ago! It’s another large image and I have struggled to use it in many cards… but I love colouring it in!

I heat embossed the image and then used two shades of red from my Twinkling H2O collection to colour the flowers but you can’t really see the two shades in my pictures unfortunately.

After colouring the image, I added lots of gold splatters using some diluted Cosmic Shimmer powder. On reflection, I feel this may make the card a little busy for a CAS card…. or maybe I feel that because I added a blue card frame rather than my ‘safe choice’ of white card…

To finish off my card, I added a sentiment from Penny Black.

I’m entering this into the CAS Christmas challenge – poinsettia.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG

Botanical tree

Hi everyone!

I’m fully embracing Christmas in July this year and today I’m playing along with the CAS Christmas challenge which has the theme of ‘poinsettia’.

I decided to use the wonderful Botanical Tree stamp set from Power Poppy. I first saw this stamp on Instagram almost three years ago and bought it after Christmas. Sadly, like most of my Christmas supplies, I don’t use it enough!

The tree is quite large – and I always find it challenging to use a large stamp on a CAS card. So I stamped the image on the left of my card and trimmed off a small part of it. Believe me, I didn’t want to cut anything off that beautiful image, but I think it actually helped to ground the image on the card.

As I wanted to focus attention on the poinsettias within the stamp, I kept the colour scheme very simple and coloured just the poinsettias and leaves at first. However, I felt the image was still unfinished, so I coloured the roses and added some sparkle to the rest of the image using my Nuvo Aqua Shimmer pen. Although this is bit different from my original plan, I still think the poinsettias are very prominent!

The sentiment is also from the same Power Poppy set.

I’m also entering this into the current Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge – Christmas in July.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Blue Christmas trees

Hello there!

The palette for this week’s Color Throwdown challenge is cobalt blue, aqua, grey and white and although the inspiration photo was of a gorgeous Mediterranean sea view, I thought of Christmas cards!

I decided to enter the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge as well and so this is my take on both challenges.

I used dies from Simon Says Stamp and Tonic Studios and blended Blueprint Sketch and Salty Ocean distress oxide inks to create the die cuts.

After I finished the card, I felt the background still needed a little something extra, so I added some stars and dots from a Lawn Fawn background die.

I’m also entering this into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge (use a die or punch), the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge (Christmas in July) and the Simon Says Stamp Flickr challenge (a favourite technique – inlaid die cutting).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Dashing through the snow

Hello there!

I’m sharing another one of my Christmas in July cards today. Seriously, I can’t believe we’re over halfway through the month! Time is certainly flying by!

Anyway, I’m playing along with the current Case this Sketch challenge and decided to use one of my sweet Memory Box reindeer dies. I coloured the deer using distress oxide inks which I sponged onto the body with an ink blending tool. I then coloured the scarf using the inks with a splash of water.

To create the background, I applied a light coat of Shaded Lilac distress oxide ink through an Echo Park stencil and then added a coat of Tonic Studio moonstone glimmer paste! Love all the sparkle!

The sentiment is from a set by Marianne Designs. I’m delighted to say that I located it very quickly using my new Evernote system. I’ve only just started uploading my supplies to the system (that process is going to take forever!) but really pleased with it so far!

I’m also entering this into a number of other challenges:

CAS Mix Up challenge – colouring die cuts, stamping and my choice (stencilling)

Shopping our Stash challenge – Christmas in July

The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge – Anything Christmas goes

Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge – Anything Goes

The Merry Christmas Challenge – Anything Goes

CAS on Friday challenge – Christmas in July

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.