Snowflakes and Peaceful Noel

This is one of my “bulk” Christmas cards this year – I took all the supplies away on holiday with me, but didn’t actually manage to make them until I get back. To be honest, I’m not very good at crafting away from home.

I used the Peaceful Noel stamp set and the Blizzard Dies, along with the Stitched Shapes Framelits and one of my favourite festive colour combinations; red, white and blue. Hope you like it!

Mini treat - Maltesers

These Clear Tiny Treat Boxes are lovely for displaying the tasty Maltesers inside. I was surprised how many the box would hold, too - but luckily I had a decoy box so I didn’t go hungry.

This was part of my “simple Christmas” demo where I showed the hostess and guests how easy it can be to make your own festive projects... especially if you use washi tape.

Do you like what I did with the Tailored Tag Punch? I simply popped the punched piece back in to add some little flags to each side. Not sure if I love it but it does make a change.

Moody blue Christmas

Want to make a lovely night-time snowy background like this one? It's easy - and you don't need any special equipment; just ink, sponges and water.

All I did was sponge the two colours – Pacific Point and Pool Party – onto Whisper White cardstock, then splash it lightly with water. The water absorbs the ink, leaving the snowy effect. You can dab any excess water off with a piece of tissue if necessary.

I used the Stamparatus to stamp Winter Woods on top in black ink, mainly so I could stamp again and again to get a really dark black image.  I punched a hole out and stamped the greeting on the card blank behind, finishing off with some black baker's twine and a bit of festive bling. Hope you like it!

Simple Christmas? Or stepped up?

The card on the left is a three-minute Christmas card, proving without a doubt that you DO have time to make your own cards this year. Time is saved by using the pre-folded Notecards and Envelopes, and the fabulous Suite Season Washi Tape.

Please visit my Facebook page to see how I made this card in super-fast time

The fiddliest thing about this card is the linen thread bow, but you could skip that and replace with a jewel... just be aware that the faceted gems will bump up your postage in the UK to a “large letter”, and we don’t want that!

For the stepped up version, I dispensed with the Sprig Punch and used the fabulous new Blizzard Thinlits die instead, as well as some basic rhinestones to add a mixed metallics theme.

You can also see a hint of a scalloped Cherry Cobbler edge. This is a piece of the Delightfully Detailed Laser-cut Designer Series Paper, brayered in Cherry Cobbler ink. So, on the whole, a more time-consuming project, but nice if you want to send something a bit more “special” to a close friend or family member. Or, if we’re being honest here, a fellow cardmaker. We know we all save our “best” cards for crafters, don’t we?

Dashing Deer - simple or stepped up?

Which do you prefer? The vibrancy of the brayered card above? Or the simpler version below?

The card above was one of our projects at last week’s Crafty Friday. The ladies loved the brayering technique and had fun creating their own colour combinations. The one above is Rich Razzleberry, Melon Mambo and Crushed Curry.

Blizzard Thinlits meet Peaceful Noel

Today I want to show you the last of three workshops we completed at my Autumn All-Day Craftathon.

We returned to the Christmas theme by combining Peaceful Noel with the Blizzard Thinlits die to create this no-waste set of projects. Can you see what we did?

We began by die-cutting the snowflakes from Pool Party and carefully prised out all the snowflakes to leave this lovely template behind. It would be a waste to discard this so it formed the basis of the front of this Night of Navy gift envelope, again using the Farmhouse Elements, this time sponged in Blueberry Bushel.

As you can see, it’s just a standard envelope, created using the Envelope Punch board. We used it to store four gift tags, but it could easily contain a gift card, money, or a small gift of jewellery.

Take a look at the tags close up... we’ve used the little stars from Farmhouse Elements, too, as well as red rhinestones for a touch of glamour. The “splodge” and greeting both come from Peaceful Noel.

As for the card, that continues the theme but keeps things Clean and Simple, too.

I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at my Craftathon projects. The next All-Day event will be early next year and in you’re local to Derbyshire I hope you’ll join me. The ladies have asked for fewer workshops next time, to give them more time to chat, so we’ll be doing one in the morning and one in the afternoon, with a buffet lunch in the middle and lots of cake available all day. Hope you can come!

Peaceful Noel split-top box ... but NOT Christmas

Welcome back to part two of my look back at Saturday’s projects from my All-Day Craftathon.

This was our second workshop of the day, a split-top box containing three notecards. It shows how you can use the Peaceful Noel stamp set (which everyone received in their kit) to create non-Christmas projects.

This is how the box opens; fun, eh? I’ll post the tutorial on my Facebook page tomorrow.

Inside are three very simple cards, stamped exactly how everyone wanted to (although some chose to copy exactly!) To steer away from Christmas, we used the greetings from Botanical Tags.

I love this colour combination - Blueberry Bushel goes SO well with Mint Macaron, it’s really lovely.

Peaceful Noel tealight holder and card

Are you in a festive mood yet? I hope you will be by the end of this post as this is the first project from my Autumn All-Day Craftathon. ”Autumn” was a bit of a misnomer as two out of the three classes were decidedly Christmassy, starting with this fun card and gift set. 

The card is largely based on this beautiful project by Monica Gale. As you can see, CASEing (Copy and Share Everything) doesn’t have to be exact; I’ve taken my favourite elements of Monica’s card – the stitched circle frame, the stamped background, the die-cut words and the Pinewood Planks embossed layer, and made them fully festive with brand new products from the Autumn/Winter catalogue. These included as the lovely Farmhouse Elements, which come in grey but can easily be sponged with ink, or coloured with markers (as long as you leave them at least 20-30 minutes to dry).

Inside, the card looks like this...

At this point, I should state that every guest had the Peaceful Noel stamp set in their kit, so all the projects were geared around this set. And I believe we used every single stamp from the set during the course of the day.

To accompany the card, we made this fun tealight box, although the guests had festive apple and cinammon-scented red candles to put inside their creations, instead of bog standard white!

The candles slide out, matchbox-style, and there’s a fun lift-up lid, too...

I love this project which I made using this tutorial from German demonstrator Nicole Schlack.  For a tutorial in English, please visit the Notes section of my Facebook page tomorrow.

I hope it’s helping to put you in a Christmassy mood... but if not, don’t despair as I have a non-Christmas project for you on Wednesday.

Sneak peek: Peaceful Noel

This stamp set from the upcoming Autumn/Winter catalogue is called Peaceful Noel but I think it's versatile enough to use for much more than Christmas projects. 

Here I've stamped in Lovely Lipstick to make an everyday card with a greeting from Love What You Do. Not sure I've quite pulled off the non-Christmas effect, but it was fun trying!

Sneak peek: Detailed Deer Thinlits

Another sneak peek for you... this time some stunning new dies which will appeal to your wild side!

They're called Detailed Deer Thinlits Dies and there is, of course, a co-ordinating stamp set which I have resisted... so far. I love the white on white look but felt this needed something to make the deer stand out a little - can you guess which stamp set I’ve used?

The pearls are coloured with a Pool Party Stampin' Blends alcohol marker. Takes seconds and makes your pearls co-ordinate with any project.

Sneak peek: Peaceful Noel

Fancy a sneak peek? This is a gorgeous new stamp set from the upcoming Autumn/Winter catalogue called Peaceful Noel. Yes, it’s a Christmas set, but I took one look at it and decided it could be so much more.

This is why I chose it for my upcoming All-Day Craftathon - everybody who attends will receive this set in their kit, and we’ll be using it during the day to make festive projects as well as non-Christmas projects such as this one.

Not everybody was impressed with my efforts though... Hamish just loves to photobomb when I’m trying to sort out my project images.

I love this colour combination, but I have to confess it’s the first outing for Pacific Point for absolutely ages. I don’t know why; it looks lovely with Mint Macaron here. Maye that’s why? Maybe I needed Mint Macaron and Mossy Meadow to come back (I’m so pleased they did).