Merry Christmas

                                          
I'm just taking a chance to write my last blog post for 2015 and share a couple of Christmas projects with you before everyone gets tired of the theme... that's if you're not already!! I know I'm looking forward to putting Christmas stash away for another year ;)

A few weeks ago I bought the Take a Bough dies by Concord & 9th so I could make some little trees for home decoration and I have to say I love this die set :) .... so far I've made a frosty blue tree that sparkles like mad and a traditional green tree, complete with tartan baubles and tinsel...

I found some dinky terracotta pots to put them in... this die set is going to be in use every year I think :)

Another project I was so pleased with this year was this card for my Brother and his wife... the MFT sweater die has been out for quite a while now but its a recent acquisition for me and it's proving to be great fun for those seasonal knits!!!

I found that the Santa Add on dies are the perfect fit for a bold design and then I used inspiration from the Waffleflower blog to make an elf Christmas jumper too using the same dies :)

Well that's all folks, just leaves me time to say Merry Christmas and best wishes for the New Year... see you in 2016 :)

Jenny x 

The Gift of Coffee

Mmmm... the gift of coffee indeed or to be more precise... gift cards for coffee shops!!

My blog project this week over at Make the Day Special Stamp Store is a couple of 

gift card holders on a coffee theme and I broke out my new stamp set 

called Let's Chat by Concord & 9th.

These are great stamps from a new stamp company and they're now available here in the 

UK courtesy of Make the Day Special Stamp Store :)

I love the unique top view of the cup and saucer in this stamp set and although you are given some lovely scripty phrases to place inside your cup, I wanted to be a creative Barista and give my drink a seasonal theme. I used Paper Smooches holly dies to make a stencil and sponge brown ink through to mimic an arty dusting of chocolate :)

I used the MFT Blueprints 16 to make my card .... 

it's such a useful set with lots of components to play with ;)

My second card uses a solid stamp from another Concord & 9th set called Lots of Blots... it's a bit smaller than the space in the cup so I had to do a touch of water-colouring to fill in the gap around the edge but I reckon it would pass as a creamy message in a coffee??!! :)

More details and links to supplies can be found over on my DT blog post here if you're interested :)

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Snowflake Tree Decorations

Hi there :)

Monday is my DT day over at Make the Day Special Stamp Store and today I have been sharing these Snowflake tree decorations made using the MFT Pierced Snowflake dies....

I've been cranking these dies through my Big shot to create multi layers in brown and white card then finishing with a sticky back wood paper on one set and white glitter paper on the others. I love how the different materials give a totally different feel and theme.

 The greenery at the top is made using Under the Mistletoe dies from Wplus9 cut in two shades of green card, I trimmed the branches into smaller sections and added red liquid pearls for berries.

The glittery flakes just have a white bow and silver bells.... both sets make the softest tinkling when moved and I'm looking forward to hanging them on our tree :)

For more details you can visit my DT blog post here

    

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Garden Grown Wishes

Hi there :)
It's my DT day on the blog over at Make the Day Special blog and I've been arranging some potted plants using the Garden Grow stamp set from Altenew..... I was so pleased so see you can now buy coordinating dies so cutting out those intricate shapes is much easier :)

The plants are coloured with promarkers and copics but I was chuffed to find a way to use those small words and phrases in the set as a texty background for my little scene!!
I've used three shades of grey ink to stamp the words for an ombre effect and sponged the lightest grey ink to help define the edges of the masked area. The sentiment is from an older Hero Arts sentiment set that I think has been discontinued.

Stash used:

  

Thanks for stopping by :)
Jenny x

Warm Woolly Wishes

Have you dug out your woolly hat and gloves yet???...

 I have, but only in stamp form as it's much too mild here still for the real thing :) 

For my DT blog post at Make the Day Special Stamp Store this week, I shared a winter's birthday card using a couple of stamp sets from Wplus9... Holiday Cheer and Background Builders: Knit..... they're perfect together :)

I love how the textured card adds to the 'knitted' effect and the stamping isn't perfect but that kinda adds to it too.... that's what I'm telling myself anyhow ;)

I used the outline of the hat and mitts on the same card and added some colour with the matching solid stamps and a small pattern from the knit background set. I kept the design simple so as not to cover too much of the knitted backdrop :)

Sentiment is from an Avery Elle and Lil'inkers stamp set, double stitched rectangle is from My Favourite Things :)

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Giving a Gnome a Home!!

Hi there :)

Does your home have a gnome?? Perhaps not... I must admit that we don't have any of the pint sized ornaments in the garden but I couldn't resist this cute set from MFT called You Gnome Me and all four of the little folk had to go on my card :)

I started by colouring the 'gift giving' gnome with pencils and trimming him out with scissors. To make him the focal point I stamped the rest of the gnomes on the Kraft card base in black ink and shaded them in a 'tone on tone' style using a brown and white pencil, this gives the gnomes some shape but keeps them in the background :)

For a sentiment I chose to use the Bella letters set from Mama Elephant so I could make my own... I thought this little guy looked like he was bearing gifts for a new home owner :)

                             

Thanks for stopping by :)
Jenny x

Ho Ho Ho!!

Hi there :)

I'm just popping by to tell you about this months challenge over at Make the Day Special Stamp Store. Yep it's the beginning of a new month and this is the last challenge of 2015 as we will be taking a break in December, it's a nice easy sketch for you and this is my very loose interpretation of it...

I have used an un-inked set by Avery Elle called North Pole... I do love this busy little Santa, he has a real purpose in his stride!! :)

I coloured him with markers and used his Santa hat minus the written phrase... I placed a white pom pom on the end instead :) I used the Ho Ho Ho hat for my sentiment.. selectively inking and embossing the phrase in sparkly black powder then using the matching dies to trim the words out :)

My circle of dots are created using a home-made stencil made with the bubbles from Swim Team elle-ments dies. I traced a light circle in pencil onto some cardstock as a guide for placing and cutting the dots.

I then simply applied two shades of light blue ink through the stencil onto my card front and adhered some sequins and spots of glitter glue to add that extra festive sparkle :)

We'd love you to play along with us, you can find more inspiration and details here :)

Thanks for stopping by

Jenny x

Stash used :

    

Talking Computers

I'm over on the blog at Make the Day Special Stamp Store today and I've been playing with the new Blogging Buddies stamp set from Mama Elephant.... I love those cute little images of the laptop and Mac/PC. I made three cards but this is my favourite of the bunch....

Whilst the set comes with lots of sentiments to fit into the screens I was intrigued to see what else I could use!! Skype was my inspiration to use one of the smallest photos from Mama Elephants Photo Bomb stamp set.... I did some simple masking and colouring then trimmed the images out with the matching dies and used a sentiment from that set too :)

I'm entering this into Less is More challenge this week which has a theme of  MASCULINE... this could actually be for both the guys and the gals, especially the youngsters although computers are not exclusively reserved for that generation!!! I'm just pleased these are easy to customise and set up *wink*

Stamps used:

    

My other two cards using this set are over at the MtDS blog here if you'd like to check them out.
Thanks for stopping by :)
Jenny x

O Christmas Tea!!

Morning :)

I'm getting into the festive spirit over on the blog at Make the Day Special Stamp Store today....

I'm always on the look out for ideas for non traditional christmas cards so this play on words popped into my head when I came across the Avery Elle Tea Time set and that then sparked the idea to make a gift bag in the style of a giant tea bag...

I've coloured the cup using Prisma pencils and added some festive decoration courtesy of Lawn Fawn.. I've also embraced some minimal gold foiling using a zig glue pen.... I'm not a big fan of gold but you just have to at Christmas ;)

I'm loving the Bella letters stamp set from Mama Elephant.. just the right amount of whimsy in the font and a perfect size for cards too :)

I've used the paper bag die from MFT to make my giant tea bag..... I pinched the top together to close it with a separate strip of card.... it's the length of string and dangling gift tag which add the finishing tea bag touch :)

Stash used:

Tea Time - Avery Elle

Winter Gifts, Sweet Christmas -Lawn Fawn

Bella letters - Mama Elephant

Paper Bag die - MFT

Thanks for stopping by :)
Jenny x