Christmas in August

Hi Crafty Friends

Well, as usual, I am behind with my blogging. But it has been a lot of fun making the things for the card club. Here are some of them - first up a Christmas gift box. As you know, I love making boxes. The construction for this was quite simple, but the gorgeous Spellbinders Victorian Medallion 3 die really made it special. The poinsettias are Tim Holtz Tattered Poinsettias

And here is a better picture of the top

I thought this was quite feminine, so we should make a gent's gift box as well. My brother always asks for ties for Christmas (goodness knows what I'll do when he packs in work!), so I went and found a tie and designed a box round that. It would also be great for gloves, silk scarf, home made sweets ....

Then it was back to cards - and a break fromChristmas. The scalloped borders are Spellbinders and the doily is quite an old Marianne one, but it's one of my favourites, though it's not so fancy as some of the new dies

But we were soon back to Christmas, and after all that die-cutting, we did some stamping. Mind you there was a lot of die-cutting of ovals first. The card as you can see was just a simple Spellbinders heirloom ornament matted onto Christmas paper and topped with a Sue Wilson bow. So we spent the morning/ afternoon making lots of different images. They all started with hills and a sunset (inspired by Card-i-o) and then everyone chose different stamps to make scenes - the ones that weren't used on the cards can be made into Christmas tags or toppers for other cards. It was great to see such a fantastic variety.

Then back to industrial strength Cuttlebugging. I love this border die (Lyra, by Sue Wilson) but it was quite complicated to cut the layers - still, being on red alert by the Cuttlebugs, did get me out of making the coffees! We stamped snowflakes on the background paper and embossed the bauble (another Spellbinder). In case you're wondering, the leaves are not a strange red colour - that would be my jumper, reflected in the silver leaves.

I was really pleased with how this next one turned out. Trish very kindly lent me her fabulous Frostyville border die (Memory Box). We made hills from torn card and added Marianne Tiny Pines and a stamped Santa (Dimension Fourth - now sadly I believe no longer in business).

This didn't take very long so we had time to make a small origami gift box, which I'll put on my next blog, when I've photographed it.

Hope you like what we've been doing
Happy crafting
J xx