Funky Hand Again

The Link Gizmo would only let me add one phot so I'm doing a second post with the other one so that I can link that as well

Funky Hand Monthly challenge

The challenge on Funky Hand this month is a double - they want a Christmas project made using traditional colours (red/green) and a non-seasonal project using their seasonal papers.  I've chosen to make a pillow box and a birthday card using papers from Twelve Crafters Crafting.  The box was printed onto card using a template from their programme and the Santa label was made up using images from the digi section and cut out using a sizzix die.  The card used a star background paper and a textured plain one from the same CD - stars were cut using a Sizzix die with sentiment and numbers added to make a quick and simple birthday card.

Sympathy Card

I always like to keep a few cards on hand for various occasions and realised that I had no sympathy cards so made a couple (I really hope I don't need either of these).  For this one I used a little flower stamp from Stampin Up and the 'vase' was made using their Christmas bauble punch embossed and with a slice chopped off the bottom.  Image was cut out with Nestabilities dies.  Background paper is also SU and I stamped a simple message - I always feel such cards need to be fairly simple.

Make My Monday challenge 25

The challenge this week on Make My Monday is to use flowers, foliage or snowflakes and I reckon I have all three on this card.  There is also plenty of inspiration from the Design Team if you take a look at their blog.
The image is a stamp from Chocolate Baroque fat robin set coloured with Polychromos pencils.  Backing paper is from my stash so not sure where it came from, the flowers were made using three sizes of Marianne dies and the pine foliage is also one of theirs. A Spellbinders die has also been used along with lace, ribbon and a little stamped sentiment from a set of free stamps (Papermania).

St Luke's Charity Challenge

I was reminded on my friend Anne's blog that I'd not yet made a card for the St Luke's Charity challenge which this month is 'Deck The Halls' so a Christmas card I guess.  When I saw Anne's mid month motivation card I was sure I had a similar stamp in my collection and once I dug it out I realised it was exactly the same (a very old wooden stamp by PSX which I've had forever).  I've made a quick card using it and also using up some seasonal papers from my stash from last Christmas - I really am trying to use things I already have in an effort to clear some space but I have to say using this small amount of paper hasn't made much difference to the heap!!  The stamp was coloured using Copic pens; background papers and greeting are from Papermania and a nice red ribbon finishes off the card.

Forgotten Friday 40

It is thanks to Miranda that I dug these stamps out to use this week and to my shame although I've had them for ages (we're talking years here) they had never been inked - how bad is that??  Do take a look at her blog to see some of her lovely work.  This card was made for Judith's Forgotten Friday challenge and of course this is another blog which has beautiful work - they are both on the Chocolate Baroque design team and these large flower and leaf stamps are CB (formerly Elusive Images).  First of all I stamped one of the large flowers on a piece of ivory card with Versamark and clear embossed, then applied various Distress inks with cut'n'dry foam and overstamped with a swirl stamp in one of the colours to give a subtle effect.  The leaves were stamped also with Versamark and embossed with Queen's Gold, coloured using Copic pens and cut out before arranging them on the card with a small gold die cut flower (Marianne die).  This weekly challenge is brilliant for making me use items which lie neglected and sometimes even completely forgotten - thanks Judith.

Bah Humbug 45 Again

When I saw this  Bah Humbug challenge earlier I thought it was a shame I couldn't use the lovely gift bag we made at the Extravaganza last weekend so went ahead and made the little gift box.  However I have now made another bag following the  ideas but using different papers and stamps from my own stash.  Card and background papers are bits from my oddments and I used an EK Success punch for the decorative edge.  Stamps and punches used were from Stampin Up apart from the actual words which were stamped inside the label border with a greeting from a Polkadoodles set. I must say I had a problem finding a greeting stamp small enough to fit - I have lots of greeting sentiments but most are too large for any of my fancy punches and I usually resort to printing them on the computer.