Christmas, New Year and Winter

Tis the Season

Hi everyone!

Today I’m playing along with the current challenge at Freshly Made Sketches using products kindly sent to me by Penny Black.

As soon as I saw the tree in the new Berry Basket die set (51-796), I thought the images from the Decorated die (51-661) would look so cute hanging from the branches! I couldn’t wait to try it out today! Some of the images were a little too big and so I used the Bauble Border die (51-150) to supplement the images. I coloured all images apart from the candy canes with distress inks (I used pencil on the canes) and used a gold deco pen for the hangers.

Following the sketch, I inked a strip using Speckled Egg distress ink across a card base and a smaller piece of white card which I then embossed with the brand new Blizzard folder (65-013). After adhering the embossed card and the die cuts to my card base, I added a sentiment from the Holiday Snippets set (30-307).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Bottlebrush Trio card

Hello everyone!

Today I’m playing along in the Color Throwdown challenge which has a combo of white, black, dark green and yellow green – I don’t think they’ve chosen this palette before and I was excited to play with it!

I just saw a Flora and Fauna instgram post using their Tinsel Tree dies – love them although sadly I can’t get them in the UK, but I was reminded of a wonderful die that I do have in my collection – their larger Bottlebrush Tree. I found it and got cutting! I used regular coloured cardstock and decided to double up each tree with a sparkly die cut. I had some dark green glitter card that worked really well, but nothing suitable for the yellow green trees. So I used Holly Branch Mica Stain to create an inky panel which I then die cut.

I die cut some Penny Black pots from white glitter cardstock, added white glitter card dots to the trees and assembled the die cuts on a base that I had cut using the wonderful Sparkly Flakes coverplate die by Alex Syberia.

The biggest challenge was the photography! My camera and phone both interpreted the yellow green as yellow so I had to play around with the backgrounds and light intensity to get a better representation of the real-life colours. It took a while but I got there in the end!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Iconic Winter Countryside

Happy Festive Friyay everyone!

Today I’m playing along with the theme challenge at the 52 Christmas card challenge.

The theme is ‘Winter Countryside’ but instead of reaching for my dies, I pulled out the Iconic Christmas stamp and die set from My Favorite Things. I bought this as soon as it was released a few years ago, but for some reason I don’t think I ever inked it up. Today was the day!

I adhered my little winter scene to a base that I had embossed with my newish Nellie Snellen Christmas Tree embossing folder and added a sentiment by Mama Elephant.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Mica Holiday Blocks galore

 

Hello again!

Next up today is my entry in the Color Throwdown challenge which has a combo of pink, grey and green.

Oh my goodness! When I started swatching my  new mica stains on Saturday morning, I had no idea where it would lead! I decided to use three of them (Winterberry, Merry Mint and Frozen Fog) for my card for the challenge. I pulled out the fabulous Tim Holtz/Sizzix Holiday Blocks dies and got cutting.

I think the die set works best with four or five colours so I added white glitter card into my palette. Once everything was cut out, I had great fun creating little mini scenes in each block – drawing on inspiration from Tim Holtz’s makers – particularly Pete Hughes, Cheiron Brandon and Stacy Hutchinson.

I then assembled the cards on various bases and added stamped sentiments to a few of them.

Photographing the cards was a MAJOR challenge – I couldn’t use my photography box because the mica was so reflective and making the Frozen Fog appear silver rather than grey… I had to abandon it yesterday and try when I had more time this evening. The pink and grey appear a little darker than in real life, but at least you can see they grey now!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Swirly tree

Hi everyone!

Today I’m playing along with this week’s challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.

I was short on time this evening so I opted for a very quick make using a fabulous swirly tree die (by Dixi Craft) and a Penny Black embossing folder.

Originally I had just planned to use the tree and the green embossed strip but when I tried that I felt the tree needed more of an anchor, So, I added a second strip of matt mirror card and also a piece of glitter card to act as a trunk/pot.

To complete my card, I added a Penny Black sentiment.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

White trim a tree

Happy Festive Friyay everyone!

Once again I’m embracing Festive Fridays by playing along with the colour challenge at the 52 Christmas card challenge where the combo is kraft, black and white.

I’ve been wanting to use the Tim Holtz/Sizzix Trim a Tree die set since September! Today was finally the day and it was so much fun to use! The tree is large and with all the layers, the tree is rather thick but still quite delicate – I think I will be handing this one out in person rather than sending it via Royal Mail! I added tons of glitter to the card but it’s so difficult to photograph! So frustrating!

I used a beautiful cover plate die by Alex Syberia called Sparkly Flakes – isn’t it pretty? Finally I added a Clearly Besotted sentiment to complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.