Christmas in June

 

I was amazed this week to spot that one of the Craft Channels is having a Christmas week and it is early June - I'm sure they get earlier every year.  It so happens that I was lucky enough to win a give-away from the lovely Christina's blog.  This arrived and as it is a Christmas magazine with stamps and a die I thought I'd have a play and make a quick card - very similar to one of the examples in the magazine. It did feel odd making a Christmas card so early and I've now put the items away into my Christmas crafty box until a bit closer to the time.

I used some of the background paper which was included and also one of the toppers which has been die cut so that the petals of the poinsettias will stand up when tweaked and yet be flat for posting.  The sentiment was also amongst the paper pack and I've added some Glamour Dust and Stickles to the flowers for a bit of glitz

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Items used all from Stamps by Chloe magazine kit

Trio of Birds

More birds on a card today but very different from my previous one.  Looking through some boxes of stamps I came across this one which - again - hasn't seen ink for quite a long time.  Could this mean that I have too many stamps do you think???  Anyway I used some watercolour card and inks to make a background on which to stamp the birds. Once stamped the square was cut using a die with one slightly larger for a second toning layer.  A scrap of card in a tone similar to the image was embossed to pop behind.  Finally adding some patterned paper, a lace border and a sentiment.

Birds - stamp from Crafty Individuals
Squares - Noble Pierced Squares die set Creative Expressions
Embossed panel - Embossing Folder by Creative Expressions
Lace - Elegant Border Die from Crafter's Companion Downton Abbey Range
Background - Paper Printed from Artylicious Essence of Nature CD
Sentiment - Computer Generated, Stampin' Up punches used

Lovebirds

The stamp used for this card came with a magazine some time ago.  There were four little sets of stamps and stencils and I've often used the little stencils but the stamps remained uninked until now when I spotted these two little birds amongst them.  I added the hearts using a fine black pen and then coloured using pencils before die cutting the double pointed banners.  I tried several ways of using this without success until I suddenly thought of using a large heart behind the image and a couple of flowers and a leaf which were hanging around on my desk and now it has turned out as a 'congratulations' card for maybe an anniversary or engagement.

Paper - from my stash
Large Heart - Tonic dies
Birds and Wording - stamps from the freebie set given with a magazine
B\anners - Creative Expressions dies
Flowers and Foliage - Cardmaking Magic Spring/Summer Floral stamp and die set
Image coloured with Polychromos pencils
Flowers coloured with Inktense pencils