Christmas, New Year and Winter

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.

Joyful Snowman

Happy Sunday everyone!

Now that my crafty mojo has returned, I’m focussing on a few more festive cards – I need to get my cards posted pretty soon!!

Today I’m using the fabulous bold Immense Joy (51-742) die kindly sent to me by Penny Black. I paired it with one of my favourite snowman dies (Snowman Joy 51-272) to create this super quick CAS card. I used distress inks to create a background panel and then masked off the area around the centre of the ‘O’ so that I could create a little snowy backdrop for that fabulous snowman!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Cardinals scene

Hello everyone!

I think/hope that my crafty mojo has returned! This morning the stars aligned and I actually had time to sit down at my craft table and play with some stamps and dies kindly sent to me by Penny Black.

As soon as I saw the On a Limb die set (51-749), I could not wait to get my hands on it and play with those wonderful cardinal dies! I have bought MANY cardinal dies over the years but havn’t really found the right ones… until now! These dies are perfect to me – just the size and shapes that I have been looking for! Be warned, they will crop up on more festive cards!!!

Anyway. for this card, I created a simple background from blended distress inks and lots of glitter! I coloured the cardinals with distress inks and used an old journalling pen and coloured pencils to add some detail to the images. The rather apt sentiment is from the Festove and Feathery mini set (30-926).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Christmas Kindness

Hello everyone!

Today I’m playing along in the CAS Colours and Sketches sketch challenge using products kindly sent to my by Penny Black from their Christmastime 2022 release.

As soon as I saw the new products, I could not wait to play with the Stocking Stuffers die set (51-747) – a really good sized stocking and lots of fun branches. I also added a couple of branches from the Joy of Giving set (51-748) and coloured everything with distress inks. The stocking trim was the exception as I used glitter on white cardstock. It’s so sparkly in real life!

For the background panel, I masked off a section and lightly blended some distress ink across my card base before stamping an oldie and goodie background stamp (Dotted Fusion – 40-278) with versamark ink – love how this dried a purple-grey colour.

I added a sentiment from the Jolly Snippets set (30-925) to complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Sept 2022 Get Cracking on Christmas

Hello everyone!

I haven’t felt much like crafting this past week since the sad passing of HM Queen Elizabeth II. I’m glued to all the events and have been in awe watching history unfold. Although at times, I feel like I’m prying into private grief…

But today I was inspired to create with the beautiful Peaceful Woodland stamp set (30-922) that I received this week from Penny Black. I decided to play along with this week’s 52 Christmas Card Throwdown which has a colour combo challenge. The colours are blue, gold and white. I rarely use blue and gold together so was excited to see what I could come up with!

I embossed a tree from the set and then lightly sponged some Stormy Sky distress ink. I cut the image using a tag die from the Penny Black Tagged die set (51-007) and added some stickles and white pearls. I adhered the tag to my card base and stamped a sentiment from the Jolly Snippets set (30-925) – this is a brilliant sentiment set which I think I will be using a lot!!

This is doubling up as my festive card for Jenn Shurkus’s ‘Get Cracking on Christmas’. (As I was writing this post, I looked at my last Get Cracking on Christmas post – I missed August and July was part of my Christmas in July event, so I end up looking at June’s post. Weirdly, I had mentioned the Platinum Jubilee weekend in that very post! I’m glad that HM had the opportunity that weekend to have a very clear insight into how much the public appreciated her life of service.)

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.