Christmas Card Club #17- A Winter Scene

 

Hello Ladies, sincere apologies for having missed two challenges, I'll explain at the end!

I hope these are suitable for Mrs.A's choice of a Winter Scene. The stencil is from Sweet Poppy, called North Pole. The top 3 were done in glitter paste- made by mixing my own glitter into various pastes. Having seen the price of tiny pots of ready made glitter paste, I had a go at making my own a while back, and it works absolutely fine. Plus the bonus is that as the glitter is mixed into the paste, there's no shedding!

The bottom three were done with plain white stencil paste- again from Sweet Poppy Stencils, and I added a little Diamond Stickles to give the snow a little sparkle. I managed to use up some off cuts of Christmas papers to cover the front of the cards, but don't really have space for a greeting on these.

 So, it feels like I've just stumbled from one medical issue to another lately. You may recall I had some real pain from my right shoulder, and being right handed that was not good. I thought it was down to my old injury when I snapped off the part of my shoulder blade where the rotator cuff joined, and it's not the first time I've had trouble from it. However, as it was taking forever to heal, and I'd noticed that some days I had no trouble, then would get up and be in pain again, I did what you shouldn't and Googled it. Turned out the most likely cause was actually a trapped/pinched nerve in my neck, and the fact I could wake up with it made me think maybe it had something to do with how I was sleeping. Added a second pillow,and within days it had gone! Next came a UTI, and thats taken 4 weeks to get on top of- at least I hope we're on top of it. Had a weeks antibiotics, and they helped, but two days after finishing the course it was back. So, I got given different antibiotics, and a sample was sent for testing. Well, these antibiotics did absolutely nothing, and I got worse every day till they got the results back. I was literally getting up in the morning, and laying down on the sofa, having naps, reading, wanting to go to bed about 9, then repeat every day. Once they got the results back, I was given a new antibiotic, and so far, that seems to have done the trick. In this time I also had a CT scan, which shows the nodule from the cancer isn't doing much, but also showed that the stent I have between my kidney and bladder seems to be blocked, which is probably whats causing the UTI, and will mean being admitted in the next 2 or 3 weeks to have it changed. Finally, not to be indelicate, but for the last few weeks, it's felt like when I sit down, I'm sitting on very bruised buttocks. So bad, that mainly I've been lying on the sofa again, trying to take the pressure off. Literally could not sit for more than 5 minutes. Anyway, my GP looked at the CT scan,and said she can see thickened scar tissue going into my buttocks, and is most likely from the bowel surgery when they took muscle & flesh from my abdomen to cover the area removed on my bottom! So, painkillers and painkiller gel, and trying not to sit on it for too long, and that does seem to be working, as it's nowhere near as bad as it was. Funny thing was I couldn't for the life of me figure out why it should have started causing problems, then last night I had a light bulb moment. The one thing that HAS gone my was lately has been losing some weight- I've lost a little over a stone, and ideally want to lose another half, to get to where I'd like to be. Suddenly realised I was probably feeling that pain as I'd lost some of the natural padding in that area I'd accumulated, lol. But, it seems much better, I'm still spending as much time as I can not directly sitting down, and that and the gel seem to be doing the trick.

I will be doing my best to keep up with the challenges, and am going to pop round and look at everyones from last week. Hugs to everyone.

UFO's- Part 2

Been a couple of weeks, but around other things, finally managed to complete another few of my UFO's.


The three backgrounds are all from Clarity stencils, as are two of the stamped images.

I made the backgrounds quite a while ago, while I was just playing around with stencils, ink & brushes, and they've sat waiting for inspiration to strike. Which it finally did.

 

This Clarity stencil is called Flare Frame, and is one of their many 7" square ones, which are a perfect fit for their 7"  stencil card, which also comes in other sizes. The design part of the stencil comes out at 5½",so you have matting & layering ability.
It also has the central square 'mask' so you can blank that area off, if you wish.

This first one was done by adding ink through the stencil and letting it dry. I re-taped the stencil in place, then applied Translucent stencil paste (Sweet Poppy) over it, which was sprinkled with glass microbeads, for texture.
 Being a bit messy, I'd got some ink & paste into the central aperture, which I'd masked off, and was partly why it got put to one side, while I figured out what to do with it.

Finally had the idea to mount a small stamped panel over it, and went with that for all three.
 The owl stamp is also by Clarity, and actually has 3 owls on it, but that made it too large for the centre, so I masked off an owl on the right, as that was the easiest one to cover up, inked, removed the tape and stamped.
 Colour was added with Prismacolor pencils,and some Distress Ink in Stormy Sky sponged over the edges, after I'd trimmed it down to a 3" square.

To add all the panels, I die cut a square of white fun foam slightly smaller than the panel,and used that to give the image a little dimension.

These were the images I selected for the panels, the Owl & Lion stamps are both Clarity, the Tree image is from Inkylicious, called Daydreamer. I had to trim off parts of the image for this to get it down to the right size.

I also added some stamped grasses along the bottom of the Lion image, from a set by Indigo Blu called  Nature 1.

This one uses another Clarity stencil, this time called Circles Box. Same size & details as the previous one. This just had ink added through the stencil. The Lion stamp also has three images, so again I masked off one on the right as before.Chose a pale purple cardstock as my mat, and mounted onto a 6" square card base.

Again, ink through the stencil and then I found a closely matching cardstock for the mat.
 The image was stamped in Archival Coffee, which I also blended around the edges.
 This Inkylicious stamp has the person, tree and ground as one stamp, then there's a separate small bird flock, and the word Daydreamer.
 All three are mounted on a 6" square card blank.
 Left them blank at the moment, so I can use them for any reason later.


Entering this in the Crafty Cardmakers Challenge, Add some Texture. 
Crafty Creations Challenge, Anything Goes.

WOYWW #493- the no exciting things happening edition.

Back again for a link up at Julias place, The Stamping Ground, and also at #WOYWW on Instagram. Progress has been made with the flowers, but it all got put aside to make Christmas Cards for the Christmas Card Club Challenge last weekend, they're all in the post below. So the flowers are back for a second run.













I did do these so far.

Most of the images I've got left are for larger cards.



Still got a few left from the Christmas cards to finish up too.

All done with Sweet Poppy stencils & paste, and a few were foiled as well.




I think these tall trees were my favourites.

The purple and blue is a bit of a departure for me, it seems that I most often stick to traditional colours at Christmas.
 But, I'm using up paper pads and peel offs, which can only be a good thing.










I was surprised earlier to see a miniature rose in the front garden not only in flower still, but covered in buds too. And a Fuchsia is still flowering well.

I've also bought some Winter flowering pansies to put in the planters, which, apart from a few geraniums still flowering, are pretty much all over.

So weather permitting, they'll get planted over the weekend.






And I'm done, apart from..........And  Finally...........

Christmas Card Club Challenge #23- Decorations/Gifts

For my cards for this challenge, which was chosen by Rita, I've gone with the decorations theme, and that's baubles and trees!
 In all cases, I've used Sweet Poppy stencils and stencil paste, and some have also been hot foiled. The foil ones are not always easy to photograph, as depending how the light catches them makes a world of difference to what you see.Had to take them over by the window so the colours would show, otherwise they just look black.

Starting with some foiled baubles, both backing papers are from old packs, the red I think came from The Works last year, and the blue is an old Dovecraft one, quite a few years old now.The blue baubles have some acrylic gems added for a bit of bling.









These next baubles are a new stencil from Sweet Poppy this year, and I thought it worth a try to add foil, then see if I could stencil another design onto the bauble after. You can, but it's a bit fiddly, lol.



 For the Blue bauble I used a Tim Holtz Snowflake layering stencil and silver paste.


The top red one also uses a TH stencil, Flourish, this time with gold paste.

On the bottom red bauble I've used an old brass stencil of a holly border.

That foil on the bows is actually gold, not green.

 Again, paper from a pad from The Works used as a backing.











The sentiments are peel off stickers coloured to match with Sharpies.

Next set of cards uses another new this year stencil, called Starry Night Tree. To get the marbled effect, I added blobs of paste on one side, then sort of shimmied the spreader across the stencil. I was hoping to get the paste down without straight lines, and it worked ok. Acrylic gems added randomly to match the trees.

One final tree card, the stencil is called Swirl Tree.
 Covered in green foil, and some red gems added.
 Backing paper from a stack from The Works, back last year, I think.
The sentiment is a Crealies die, layered up for dimension.

Snowflake Christmas Cards

Putting all of those snowflakes to good use, and this is the first 3 cards made using them. They were inspired by a card I spotted on Pinterest back last week.

 This is the card that I saw, and it was mainly the embossing folder that caught my eye, as I have that one.  It's by Darice, called Snowflake Swirl.

The cardmakers name is Carol, and her blog is Our Little Inspirations.











I think my card is made larger than hers was, as I needed to add some embossing to the lower part of the piece of cardstock I was using. Mine is based on an A4 sheet of cardstock scored and folded.
 A few weeks ago I did some stencilled sheets using the Tim Holtz Merry Christmas stencil with silver embossing paste and sprinkling it with Crystal Glamour Dust, but they weren't long enough for this so I needed to do some new ones.

I found this stencil best to work with upside down, as the tiny parts of some letters- notably the 'R' and 'M', can easily get caught as you spread the paste. This also applies when cleaning them, you do need to be very gentle to avoid bending them.





I also had to do each one in two sittings, as the stencil wasn't long enough for my card front, but they only take about an hour to dry.I tried with the first one doing the whole strip, but it's impossible to do without smudging the paste you've already laid down.
 As you can see, epic fail!

While I was waiting for the paste to dry, I made a start on layering up the snowflakes. They're not all for these cards, I have another set planned. There are 3 or 4 snowflakes used in each one.

 I trimmed the strip down to roughly one third of the card width, then trimmed the embossed panel down to fill the front.


Both were attached with DST. I added a very narrow strip of silver ribbon to cover the join. For that I cut some narrow dst roughly down the centre, and added that over the join, then wrapped the ribbon around the card front, siting the join where I intended to place the large snowflake at the top.

The card base and the embossed panel are both Pearl White cardstock.

The sentiment is a Crealies die, and I cut it 3 times from white cardstock, and once from silver glitter and layered them up for a dimensional sentiment. I added a tiny acrylic jewel as the dot on the 'i'.






I also did a couple of stencilled sheets using Glossy White stencil paste- both this and the silver are by Sweet Poppy- and again sprinkled with Crystal Glamour Dust.

 So I changed it up for the third card, using the white sheet, and swapping the sides round too. In each case the ribbon join is under the large snowflake.

A small acrylic gem in the centre of each snowflake finished them off nicely.

Christmas Card Club Challenge #8- Poinsettias/ Christmas Greenery.

 Back with another of our fortnightly challenges, and this time it's Mary who has set the theme for us.
 Whilst at Ally Pally last week, I bought a new Sweet Poppy Stencil and matching die for Poinsettias, so that's what's getting an outing this week.


For this one, I stencilled in a Red glitter paste- made using Translucent paste and mixing in some glitter. This works great, as when it dries you have no glitter shedding! The stencil and die have 3 sizes of flower, so you can match them to the size of your project, or layer them up for some real wow! I used all three layers here, and filled the centre with some tiny beads and Glossy Accents. These beads are red & gold, and were amongst 3 tubes I bought the the NEC Hobbycrafts show last year.
 The sentiment was stamped in Versafine Satin Red, and is from Circa Design.Stamped onto white card, and matted onto red pearl paper, as was the main front of the card.
The same red pearl paper was edged with an X-Cut border punch called Lace Trim. The Holly sprig behind the Poinsettia is, I think, one of the Cheap from China dies, as I have no brand for it.

A similar version, this time in gold & white. I'd made some white Glitter paste, but this time I only used the two smallest flowers to layer up, and the centres again filed with small gold & white beads & Glossy Accents.
 This sentiment came from a Hobby Art set called  Winter Wishes. I stamped in Encore Metallic Gold Pigment ink, and heat embossed with Gold detail powder. After I trimmed it down, I ran the gold pad around the edges, then sprinkled with the detail gold powder and heat set that.
 I double matted the sentiment onto gold paper & white card. I cut a piece of gold to fit the card front, then a sheet of white slightly smaller, which was run through an Embossing Folder called Poinsettia Trellis, from Creative Expressions, by Sue Wilson. The folder is about 8x8. Another piece of the gold paper was edged with an old Fiskars Holly Border punch. A sprig from the Tim Holtz die set Winter Greenery was added behind the bottom one, and a small flourish behind the top one.

This is the stencil & die from Sweet Poppy.









So those are my cards for this challenge, but just before I finish, I thought the rest of you ladies might like to see this:

Sylvie and I met up at Ally Pally! It's always lovely to meet in the flesh crafters you have known through the Internet.😍

Swirl Tree Christmas Cards.

 So, on yesterdays WOYWW, I had been working on some glitter paste Christmas tree cards.
This stencil is by Sweet Poppy, called Swirl Tree.


 I made 8, 4 on black linen cardstock, and 4 on white.

 Now the paste has dried, you can see some of the sparkle from the gold glitter I mixed into the stencil paste.


They've been trimmed down to fit an A5 card base, a greeting added with some small peel offs I'm still trying to use up, and a few red acrylic gems for Baubles.








Here they look a little dull, as the glitter doesn't start to show up properly until the paste dries.

I was asked about glitter/paste proportions, and have to admit there was nothing exact about this- I just added until it looked about right! I'd guess that the ratio was roughly 3 teaspoons of paste to 1 or 1 1/2 of glitter. You basically want enough glitter to make it sparkle, but still keep the paste fairly soft in consistency. And if you are adding glitter to coloured paste, be aware that you won't really see any evidence of glitter or sparkle till it dries.




If using white/clear/translucent, and coloured glitter, you will of course see the glitter, so will be better able to judge proportions, so it may be best to use that first time round to get a feel for it.


You can buy glittered Stencil Paste, but if you have glitter, it's just cheaper to make it yourself.

Here the stencil is taped down over the cardstock, and beneath it is a magnetic sheet, which is a great help in keeping the stencil flat and in place. Under the magnetic sheet- and I just bought some A4 sheets off E-Bay or Amazon, you want to get a fairly strong, thick sheet for this- is a small off cut of non-slip mat, bought in a 1 metre roll from Poundland.

Christmas Card Challenge #2

So, I'm finally back crafting, and making some Christmas Cards. It feels like I've been fighting one infection after another, starting with the Sepsis in September!
 This challenge theme was Christmas Baking, but I don't have a single thing on that theme at all, so fortunately,this year it also allows us to make a card on any theme.
I recently bought a new Sweet Poppy stencil, Damask Baubles, and had been making up some card fronts using stencil paste and laminating with foil. So my theme this month is Baubles.😁

I made a total of 21 in all, 9 on white card, and 12 on black.  Story of my crafting, and why I end up with so many UFO's- I can't stop at one or two. While I've got the stuff out, I end up making loads.

I'm just showing a few here, I'll do a blog post on them all later today, or tomorrow.  Photos don't really do them justice, the sparkle is gorgeous, and changes as the light catches them.

Some were done using one colour of foil, others I used a separate colour for the bow & chain- that was a real test of patience, lol.


I finished them by matting onto an opposite colour A5 card base, and adding the greeting use small peel offs.
  Now I just need to do inserts, and they'll be good to go.