Christmas, New Year and Winter

Christmas in July 2023 – Day 2

Hello everyone!

Welcome to Day 2 of LucieG’s Christmas in July 2023! Today I’m playing along with this week’s Color Throwdown challenge.

As soon as I saw the combo. I envisaged some brightly coloured Christmas trees! After looking at every single tree die in my collection, I chose the fabulous Pointed Evergreens die by Simon Says Stamp that I got a few months ago. I cut it from several different inky panels and black cardstock. When I assembled the die cut, I offset the black card slightly to give a shadow effect.

I felt a black background would be more dramatic so I embossed a panel with the Simon Says Stamp Delicate Pine Branches folder and then adhered the trio of trees. I really wanted to add a sentiment that sais ‘have a colourful Christmas’, but O couldn’t find one – I am positive there is one in my collection.. and when I find it, I will be adding it to this card. In the meantime, I used a sentiment by My Favorite Things.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Christmas in July 2023 – Day 1

Happy Saturday everyone!

It’s that time of year again! LucieG’s Christmas in July! Woohoo! For the past few years, I’ve dedicated July to Christmas cardmaking and reaped the benefits in November/December when life always seems to get super busy! I LOVE having a good supply of cards to send to all my friends rather than stress about making them before the posting deadline. Plus I get a chance to use the festive supplies I didn’t get round to using last year… or bought in the after-Christmas sales this year!

Anyway, for Christmas in July Day 1, I’m playing along with the Freshly Made Sketches challenge using products kindly sent to me by Penny Black.

I started by creating a night sky by blending various purple distress oxide inks. I then inked up a tree from the Peaceful Woodland set (30-922) and heat embossed it with some rainbow glitter embossing powder – the sparkle is amazing in real life! I extended the lines for the ground using some black stickles and finally added a sentiment from the Jolly Snippets set (30-925).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Dazzling Warm Wishes

Happy Sunday everyone!

I’m so happy to play along with one of my favourite colour challenges – the Color Throwdown which has a fab combo of black, white, grey and magenta.

Although I really wanted to make a card with a magenta bird after seeing the challenge graphic, instead I reached for the beautiful Birch Press Design Dazzle layer set – I love how quickly a card comes together with these layer die sets! They are so much fun to use! After adhering all the die-cut layers together, I embossed a sentiment from an older Simon Says Stamp/Darkroom Door collaboration set and adhered all the layers on top.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Warmest wishes flourish

 

Happy New Year’s Eve everyone!

As I get back into a cardmaking routine, I knew I wanted to make time to play along with the 500th challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches. Congrats to the team for such an amazing milestone – and thank you to the various DT members for a decade of inspiration, encouragement and support!

We could choose any past challenge and add a seasonal twist. So, I made a wintery card with the sketch from Challenge Number 497!

First of all, I applied some distress collage medium to my card base and then added several different glitters. While that dried, I cut the beautiful Elegant Snowflake Flourish die by Memory Box from glitter card and white card and stuck the layers together. Once the glitter background was dry, I adhered the die cut to my card base and added a sentiment by My Favorite Things.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

Saltwater Berries

Hello there everyone!

Life got pretty busy towards the end of this year and I totally missed all the last posting deadlines. I saw all the mountains of mail outside the Royal Mail sorting office and decided that there was no way that any of my cards would make it through before mid January! And who wants to receive a Christmas card then? So instead I will be sending winter cards out in January! And so begins an epic winter cardmaking project!!

I’m also going to use this project to get to grips with my new lighting tent. I realised that I was spending far to long photographing my cards so I have invested in a small lighting tent and used it for the first time today. It seemed easier than my old set up and I’m looking forward to practicing with it over the next few months!

Anyway, for today’s CAS winter card, I used products kindly sent to me by Penny Black. I pulled out the beautiful Berry Bouquet brushstroke cling stamp (40-860) and some Arteza markers and distress inks. I was originally going to colour the berries different shades of red, but I liked my base colour (Saltwater Taffy) and abandoned the other colours! I did add some Stickles to random berries though!

I grounded the image by lightly sponging some Antique Linen behind the image and added a few aqua paint splatters. Finally I stamped a sentiment from the When Snow Falls set (30-881).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Copper snow

Happy Monday everyone!

I had a couple of hours free this evening so I finally got round to joining a couple of challenges again! I’m playing along in the Freshly Made Sketches challenge using the unusual colour combo from this week’s Color Throwdown challenge.

I knew I wanted to use a copper and black background and originally planned to stencil some copper paste onto my card base. As time was not on my side, I decided that using a background die may be quicker – and it was! I chose an older background die by Hero Arts which I stuck onto some copper cardstock. I decided to use the Antique Pine Label die by Memory box as my focal image which I coloured with bundled sage distress ink. The green looks so light in the photos, but it’s darker in real life! Sometimes I find taking the photos so stressful!

Anyway, to complete my card, I stamped a Clearly Besotted sentiment onto some kraft card and added a few kraft snowflakes and dots.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.