Today kicks off the Christmas Cheer Challenge, where UK demonstrators gather the troops (our loyal customers) to create as many Christmas cards as we can for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. The target is a whopping 10,000 cards in ONE weekend! Sounds impossible? Well, let’s see - the target was originally 10,000 cards over TWO events but, at our birthday challenge earlier this year, we managed well over 9,000 cards, so the target has been raised. Can we do it?

This morning we will be making these cards at my Crafty Friday event, and we'll be making more at a workshop this evening. Unfortunately it's a busy birthday weekend here chez Read, so that will be my only contribution to the challenge, but we're doing what we can!

Log slice ornaments with Carols of Christmas

I didn’t make swaps for OnStage this year, but made these gifts for my team members who attended. I kind of guessed they’d be popular so planned a class around them so you too can join in the fun!

Come along and find out how to make the Mini Pizza Boxes turn green and much more...

Carols of Christmas gets the Lemon Lime Twist touch

I LOVE Lemon Lime Twist and think it looks great against the starkness of Whisper White and Basic Black. Here’s a project using the trees from the Card Front Builder dies set; all I did was die-cut the trees from a Whisper White panel and offset them to reveal the Lemon Lime Twist beneath. No waste and you get four trees from one roll of the die. 

On the same colour theme, I created a 3D package, designed to hold a roll of ribbon. This time I did die-cut two sets of trees; one in white, one in black. The cunning trick here is the border; if you look closely you can see the join where the two sections of the border die meet. This is a bit hit and miss and I have to confess this isn’t my best effort. If you’re particularly fussy, you could cover the join with some ribbon or other embellishment. 

The inside of the package was created with a pocket made from Merry Music Designer Series Paper; it may seem extravagant but it’s thinner than our usual paper so perfect for the job and also you get 24 sheets in a pack, so plenty to go round! And I like that it subtly adds interest to the project, like the fancy lining of an expensive jacket.

Carols of Christmas projects

There are some gorgeous products in the Autumn/Winter catalogue this year, and these lovely cards showcase just a couple of them, including the Carols of Christmas bundle and the Merry Music Designer Series Paper. One of the great things about the paper is that you get 24 sheets in a pack, which means you’ll have plenty for ALL your Christmas projects!

This was one of the projects from my All-Day Autumn Craftathon recently – there are two designs so people can choose how to use the products themselves. Love the splash of copper!

Carols of Christmas - one design, two cards

At last week’s Crafty Friday event, we made a fancy fold card to this design, then scaled things back by making a much simpler card along the same lines.

The one on the right folds out and is held together with a belly band, and is ideal for a “special card”, while the one on the left is a bog standard card design, much more suited to making multiples for most people on your Christmas mailing list.

For the measurements for the fancy fold card, please go to this link. 

It was fun to get the glitter and gold glimmer paper out on a warm August day, and we had lots of fun using the new Carols of Christmas bundle, which is available to purchase ahead of its official release next month.

Carols of Christmas bundle with Wood Textures DSP

I think this Wood Textures DSP is the perfect accompaniment for this new stamp set, Carols of Christmas. I do think I should have cut the DSP smaller but, by the time I realised this, I was too far down the line, so we are left with a too-slim border of Crumb Cake.

Still, lovely versatile stamp set and lots to play with in the accompanying Card Front Builder dies, too.

Mix It Up Monday: Carols of Christmas sneak peek

Hello Monday… and goodbye July. Today is the last day to take advantage of the best sign-up offer I’ve ever seen. Join today and you’ll get this stamp set free, as well as a fabulous pack of vital craft tools to add to you stash. 

It’s also the last day to earn a Bonus Days coupon to spend in August – spend £45 today and get a £4.50 voucher to spend next month. 

But most of all, it’s Monday, and time for another project using a colour combination from my In Color charts. Today’s Mix It Up Monday project is a CASE of this gorgeous project by Holly Stene. Unfortunately I didn’t have any suitable ribbon so my version is a little plainer. 

It uses the new Carols of Christmas stamp set and co-ordinating Card Front Builder dies, which will be in the upcoming Autumn/Winter catalogue (goes live in September) but you can purchase from tomorrow. There are lots of possibilities with this set and I look forward to showing you more projects… when I get time to make some!

The colour combination uses a splash of Lemon Lime Twist, which is a favourite of mine but even I had to admit that it probably wasn’t appropriate on this particular Christmas card, so I kept it as subtle as possible. 

For the trees, I stamped them lightly in Whisper White using Timeless Textures, then embossed with white embossing powder to create a frosted look. I don’t know what’s got into my lately... I don’t usually emboss anything and now I can’t seem to stop!