Bah Humbug Challenge 47

Well this week's challenge at Bah Humbug is the last one for 2011 which means I have at least 47 cards in my box ready for the festive season - thanks so much to the team and the guest designers for organising this and for showing us so much brilliant inspiration during the year.  This final week the theme is 'cute critters' and I've chosen to use an image from Docrafts From Me to You CD with Tatty Teddy posting his letter to Santa.  Background papers, border and greeting are all from the CD, as is the holly embellishment which I printed, cut out and layered adding some glitter along the way of course.

St Lukes Charity Challenge

Well that's another month gone by, it's the first of December and I've just realised that there are no chocolates in my Advent calendar yet - maybe just as well because I ought not to eat them anyway!!  Being December means also that it is the start of another challenge for St Luke's charity blog and the theme this time is 'Let it Snow' and I really hope the snow stays firmly on Christmas cards only and doesn't fall on us like it did last year. My card this time is in the LIM style with just a small strip of snowflake backing paper, an image stamped using Lovely as a Tree by Stampin Up and I added a reindeer in the foreground using a free stamp which arrived with Craft Stamper magazine.  I used the whole stamp for the greeting and masked off the circular part so that the reindeer stood in front of the trees.  Plenty of glitter was added for the snow on the ground but I'm not sure it shows up too well on the scanned image.

Make My Monday week 26

The last challenge for November on Make My Monday is still on the Christmas theme but this week we were asked to produce a box, either a decorated ready-made one, one we'd made or one we'd altered.  As I seem to be having quite a busy week I've gone for a fairly quick one - using a die cut box and decorating it with Trees which I've made using stamps and a punch from Stampin Up, I added a tiny tag and some gold thread to tie and that's it for this week.  I had several quite elaborate ideas in my head but sadly time was against me this week so it just had to be quick and easy - the most difficult part was getting a decent picture because the day has turned very grey again!!

Bah Humbug Challenge 46

The lovely people at Bah Humbug are asking for fabric this week for their challenge and as I recently discovered Kanzashi flowers I hope that this brooch which I made will be acceptable - it would make a lovely Christmas gift for someone.  This type of flower was used traditionally as hair ornament by Japanese women and were made in fine silk. This one was made using some scraps of batik patchwork fabric which I just happened to have and it is about 3 inches across - they are relatively simple to make with not much stitching involved.

At the weekend I attended a workshop to learn how to make jewellery using chain maille techniques and promised a friend that I would post a picture.  Basically chain mail was originally a type of fabric made from metal links to protect the body from arrows and the like so maybe this will count as fabric too for the challenge??  At the workshop the aim was to teach us some different ways of linking jump rings to form various patterns so I came away with some short lengths of patterned chain which will eventually be made into bracelets (if I can remember the intricate way they were linked).  However we did get to make a pair of ear rings and here they are.

Forgotten Friday 41

Well Friday has come around and gone past yet again but I do have a card for Judith's Forgotten Friday challenge.  This time I'm using stamps from a set which I was lucky enough to win in a raffle way back in July at a brilliant Stampin Up day but to my shame this week is the first time I've used any of them.  The set is called Fast and Fabulous and they are two-step stamps.  Background paper is from a pad which I've yad for ages and as usual has lost the cover.  The sentiment uses another SU stamp with matching punch.