Snowman card

Hi Crafty Friends

How lovely to have glorious sunny weather on a bank holiday! But a bit less lovely for those trying to craft in a boiling conservatory. On Tuesday, for the first time, we had to cancel because of the weather. Luckily it was more bearable on Wednesday and so we cracked on with Christmas.

Thinking we wouldn't want to move around much or do any strenuous die cutting, I went for a mainly stamped card. The image is two different stamps, so a bit of masking was needed, but apart from that it was very straightforward.

stay cool
happy crafting
jx

Z Fold Man's Card

Hi Crafty Friends

When I made this week's card, I was assuming it would be for a man, but a friend of mine asked for one, for a woman, so here is this week's unisex card 😀

I'm quite fond of a Z fold every now and then, and DLs are a big favourite of mine too. This one uses some lovely paper from The Works. The diecuts on the front are a die from China. We cut two, cut them about and rearranged the bits to fill the space. The border punch (an old Martha Stewart) behaved itself so fancy edges were achieved without drama.

We were a bit light on numbers on Wednesday, which meant I got to do some crafting too, and the weather was kind so we weren't boiled. Happy days!

Chin chin!
Jx

Santa Steppers

Hi Crafty Friends

I'm still not totally into Christmas makes, but I'm mindful people have a lot of Christmas cards to do and want to get on with them. So this week we made a Christmas stepper card. It's one of my favourite folds and this is a new version with different proportions from my previous ones. I wanted it to fit my stash of envelopes and feature my fancy frames, so this is what I came up with.

 Sorry, I'm a rubbish photographer - you can't see the glitter on the leaves (and the gem on the bow appears to have dropped off). Hey ho.

I was ridiculously pleased with myself for working out an easier way of cutting the matting layers, so I may crack on and make a few more Christmas cards after all 😀

happy crafting
jx

Distress Oxide backgrounds

Hi Crafty Friends

This week we got messy! I've recently bought some Oxides (yup, given in!) and despite knowing nothing about them, I thought we'd give them a go. I made 4 samples and then got carried away and made a lot more backgrounds, or at least started them.
We splodged and splooshed quite happily for a bit, then added more texture and grunginess with stamps. The focal images were stamped on, and the flower heads stamped on old book pages and paper pieced on top. I stamped the sentiment on a blank bit of book page, cut the words apart and outlined them with a fine liner pen.

Here are my sample cards. The flower stems on the first two cards are from one of the first sets I ever bought  (Woodware, I think) but I've put different flowers on them. The fantasy stems? leaves? were very popular, and I must say I love them. I think they are a Dimension Fourth stamp, (now sadly defunct, I believe)

The stamps on this next example are my latest pride and joy: they're Chaos by Visible Image

Here's my fourth sample, not made into a card, and some of the other backgrounds waiting to be stamped.

On Wednesday, I had a lot of fun mopping up people's unwanted ink left on their messy mats. Random colours and random amounts of water, but they still turned out fine, probably better than my more intentional ones. Here's just three of them. I'm looking forward to adding texture and making cards with them. it was good to get some crafting done myself 😊

Thanks to Jackie for making the messy mats.
happy crafting
jx

Vintage Car Card

Hi Crafty Friends

It looks like my secret doing-the-rain-dance worked and we had more bearable temperatures here at Serendipity Towers this week.
It was just as well because there was quite a lot to do on this card, but the only fiddly bit was sticking the metallic highlights back into the die cut car. I haven't used brads on a card in ages, but I love these and may have to drag them out more often.

So, we were kept busy, but there was time for cake, courtesy of Joan who brought a delicious fruit loaf, slurp!
Cake and crafting, what an excellent combination!
Jan x