Christmas Tipple

Good Morning (possibly?) and welcome back to my blog! I really quite enjoyed being a bit Christmassy with this one, so early, lol! This digi is from Dr.Digi's House of Stamps and is called "Rescue Squad".

He is coloured with polychromo pencils on kraft card. I wanted to colour him up in a snowy scene ready for a Xmas card. I swear that the ribbon looks straight on the real thing, lol!

Here is the digi in the shop:

And here is my version:

I added white gel pen, white posca pen and star dust stickles to the card after I had finished with the pencils.

Font is Honey Script. I used Centura Pearl Cherry Pearlescent cardstock for the main card base. Ribbons from the stash.

Thanks for joining me and feeling a bit festive! Have you checked out all the super Christmas digis in the shop if you want some Christmas inspo too?

Final Christmas Card Catch-up post!

Final catch up post relating to 2019's Christmas Cards, unfortunately the list of outstanding cards is much longer than that, I think it goes back into June! Oops. 

These two are cards from a Studiolight decoupage set, but they were larger fancy shape toppers. I added a few bits to the intended layout as well as some glossy accents etc.

I scanned the background shape into the computer and reprinted them onto card stock so I could make them into shaped easel cards.

I used left over pieces from the kit to make a central island inside the card that the top piece could rest on.

Didn't get any report on them from the people I sent them too so presume they weren't to their tastes - But I enjoyed making them!

Nightmare before Christmas!

More of the catching up and another Christmas pop-up box card, this time the theme was "Nightmare before Christmas".

Went with a restricted colour palette even though it was a christmas card, hoped the pop of red would keep it a bit festive.

I used the Burton's Nightmare font for the text and panel to write the message on.

It always a sense of relief when it still lays flat after adding all the components!

Eurodisney Christmas!

More of the mopping up, this is one of the pop up boxes I made for Christmas with a Euro-Disney theme!

For the main pop up part I used christmassy Mickey heads which I purchased from HeyLenaArts on Etsy. At the time I thought it would be faster and more professional looking that slowly creating my own and I love supporting fellow Etsy artists!

The background images are all Disney themed, photos of the rides, original artwork by Eyvind Earle, (The artwork is amazing, well worth a browse when you have time, I felt very inspired!) and Alice in Wonderland Maze statues etc. I also used a map of the park and the ride wait map from the Disney app.

I used some sticky sparkle sheet sticker over my Mickey heads and some Waltograph font for my greeting.

Bling from the stash as normal. As with all box cards, it folds flat to post!

More of the Penguins

I love making penguin cards, so yet another penguin christmas card catch-up post! This set is a new one I bought for my 2019 Xmas cards, it's Little Penguin Agenda from Mama Elephant. They are beyond cute! 

And I made this layout for a batch of my christmas cards and commissions. 

As well as the penguin agenda set I used a set from Cardio called "Branching out" to make the winter foliage behind the penguins. I used Distress Oxides to stamp and Nuvo jewel drops for the berries. Penguins are coloured in copics and fonts are Dacquoise and Deliquente Alt I.

Snowglobe Layout Part 2

More catching up, here are two of the other designs I made using my initial snowglobe layout for Xmas cards 2019. One was a commissioned card and the other one I made for a friend.

Ingredients.

• Stamps - Artemio Type F Penguins with Sledge Wooden Stamp. and Hello Bluebird - Frosty Friends.

I got the Artemio stamp as a wooden backed stamp several years ago, it's a favourite. I don't know if you can still buy it, but it does seems Artemio released a clear set including him.

The Frosty Friends set was a second hand purchase, it stamps really nicely so I'm hoping it's the real deal and not a knock off. It wasn't cheap! 

• Scalloped Background shape from the stash, coloured with distress oxides.
• Snowglobe die - Craft Emotions called Snowglobe with Houses.
• Papers from Making Cards Magazine. (I scanned them and have printed them back out many times since my initial freebies with purchase).
• Fairy lights from Paperchase. They were sold as present wrapping.
• Font is CAC Pinafore
• Bling from stash.

More Penguins!

Catch up post with another Penguiny card idea I used for my christmas cards in 2019, this time using the Woodware Clear Stamps - Penguin Parade.

I did some DL easel cards for my commissioned cards, here are two of them! I swapped papers and cardstock for them but the main layout stayed the same.  I used up old stock from the stash, I think most were magazine freebies, even the ribbon!

Font is Freehand 575 BT. Penguins were coloured with copics and then I added glossy accents and stickles. Bling also from the stash.

Rubber Crimbo Duckie

First post in a while that isn't a catch-up post! It's a DT day post! And I wanted to re-purpose the Rubber Duckie digistamp from Dr.Digi's House of Stamps and use him for a Christmas card. I really need to work on my Christmas card stash all year round and not leave them til December! lol.

This is a super simple card using the Rubber Duckie digi, it could be even more CAS than I did it but I wanted to share with you how easy it is to use a nicely shaped digi to make a card like this for any occassion. It's always great for using small scraps of cool papers too!

This is what the digi looks like when you download it -

Here are some brief instructions of how I made it.

First of all I create a 16x16cm square on the computer and used an overlay grid to position the ducks. My grid overlay divided the square into a 3x3 grid and I positioned a duck centrally in each section. For the middle section I pasted a small duck and added a circular "Christmas Quackers" greeting. I then printed this out and cut out the eight outer ducks (making duck shaped holes/windows). 

(The red lines here are not my grid, they are to protect the digi from theft.)

(If I then only kept the shape around the ducks, leaving just silhouettes it would be very simple to create an svg file and cut it out on the cutting machine!)

I then created a grey box to cover each of the ducks and pasted it into the grid I had made. This is for the correct layout of the scrap papers underneath my ducks.

I then added some extra border to the square making it a 17x17cm card front for the card. By adding a black border on 3 sides I was able to cut it out the right size and score the 4th edge ready to make up my card. (I leave a 2 centimetre overlap and then stick it onto another blank 17x17 cm square to make the card blank).

After I had printed this out I cut out eight 4.5x4.5cm squares from christmas papers. I stuck them on each of the grey squares. 

Using 3D foam I mounted the topper, with the duck shape windows directly on top of the papered squares.

I cropped out the sentiment design and reprinted it on a new sheet of paper, and then using my cuttlebug and dies made it into a 5cm diameter circle and from red card a 5.5cm diameter circle to layer it onto. 

I then coloured in the duck with copics and 3D foamed it into the centre of my card.

Finished Card!

Did you like a post with more instructions and info on how I made it? Tbh, with my coloured cards the process is very obvious and simple but I thought maybe when I use the computer to make a card or a template for lots of cards, it might be interesting and helpful to share?

Penguins!

Catch up post again, a card I made as one of my christmas designs for 2019 using the Avery Elle - Bring on the Joy stamp set.

I love this set and enjoyed using it in my snow globe layout. (Which as later posts will show, I used with a few different stamp sets!)

I thought I would just do an ingredients list for this card, I used a lot of different things.

• Stamps - Avery Elle Bring on the Joy. (Coloured with Copics)
• Die cut trees from Joy called "Mery's Christmas Tree and House Border".
• Scalloped Background shape from the stash, coloured with distress oxides.
• Snowglobe die - Craft Emotions called Snowglobe with Houses.
• Papers from Making Cards Magazine. (I scanned them and have printed them back out many times since my initial freebies with purchase).
• Fairy lights from Paperchase. They were sold as present wrapping.
• Fonts are Daquoise and Freebooter Script.
• Bling from stash.

Using Up Studio Light Spares!

Hi again, more of the catch-up post department! 

A couple of years ago I discovered the Studio Light Christmas Card kits. They are booklets with a suggested card layout and then all the parts to make it up. They also add a few extra and spare parts for every card and at the end of making up the sets (mainly as they proposed) I was left with a large bag of cool leftovers. This year I made 8 cards with leftovers from a couple of the official card kits.

Here is one of the cards that you are given a guide for. I make them up as suggested and then add some little extras, in this case, some wooden bling and a little wooden bunny.

These are the eight cards I made with the left over bits. (From two whole booklets).

The booklets always come with a central image for you card, so printing out some new central images was all I needed to make up a new design. I chose 8 photos and cut them out with circle dies and layered them onto card.

I have a few friends who like cats, so the first two were cat themed.

I have a friend who likes travelling so I printed out a snowy northern lights image for her.

For my SIL & BIL and my Nephew I  made two cards using photos of their dog Smudge (That I took from their facebook photos, oops!) and I gave them a blue hue to kind of look a bit more wintery? They seemed to like them at least, lol!

All the layering card and the backing papers are from my stash, luckily I have a lovely nordic 6x6 paper set that go well with the Studiolight colour schemes.

I did another dog card for my FIL. They used to have a lovely golden retriever called Chester, a long time ago now, so hopefully this meant happy memories!

My brother seemed to have opinions on appropriating non-Christmas animals for Christmas cards, but I don't think it matters what animal you pick as long as the photo has them in snow! This is a snow fossa for my brother, and I did my Mum a snow tiger!

So that was the set I made from the recycled bits! I love making these. I don't really mind if people don't think they are very christmassy, this year what was important for me was enjoying making my big batch of remaining Xmas cards. 

I've probably made over 100 Christmas cards using the StudioLight kits but never seem to have bothered blogging any before, so thought I would at least show these extras this year!

Happy 2020!

Happy 2020 everyone! Hope you had a lovely start to the year!

So I have a mahousive back log of cards I haven't got round to blogging, so I am going to do a whole load of daily catch up posts, I hope! :) This is the warning post! Cards are coming!

I bought this Avery Elle stamp set (Winter Woodland Wonders) for last years cards, but didn't use it that much in the end. I was keen to use it for some this year and I made this special first christmas card, as a commission.

The ribbon is holding it together because it's a twist and pop card! I love meddling with a bit of card technology! It folds pretty flat still, so even better. I used a blank ready made mechanism, though I moved it into a 6x6 inch card as the original is pretty tiny. And it's as simple as just gluing it into a bigger card, no hassle at all.

Here is a link to a video on how to make your own.

I used patterned papers from Making Cards Magazine, in most cases I scanned them, recoloured them to match my scheme and then printed them out on 160 gsm plain paper.

Backgrounds are made with distress oxides. The images are coloured using Copics. I added glossy accents and stickles at the end. Enamelish hearts are from WHSmith and Enamelish stars are from Paperchase. Ribbon and card stock from the stash.

Picture below so you can see a bit more of how the mechanics look!

Thanks for joining me on the catch-up posts!