Season's Greetings

Very best wishes for a Happy Christmas and a Peaceful, Prosperous and Healthy New Year to my followers and everyone who has been kind enough to take time to leave comments on my blog during the year.  I really enjoy taking part in the various challenges so thanks to the people who organise these as well - it must take up quite a time I imagine.  It is also great to follow other blogs and to keep in touch with what is happening in the crafting world - here's hoping Santa brings you all you wished for.

Make My Monday Week 29

The last challenge of the year at Make My Monday is to make a seasonal tag - I've gone along with another of the techniques from Tim Holtz.  This time it is a kind of image transfer using clear packing tape,  a clear acrylic accent piece and some self adhesive foil tape.  The background was stamped with some music and little scraps of text, sponged with distress inks and overstamped using some holly stamps from Christmas Reflections by Chocolate Baroque - fairly quick to make once I'd mastered the image transfer technique.  Hopefully this really is the last seasonal thing I make for quite a while and it will be good to get back to something different.

Jolly Snowmen

A friend sent me a photograph of some snowman ear rings she had seen and asked if I could work out how they were made.  It was such a dark and dismal day yesterday and pouring with rain so I thought I needed to rise to the challenge and make something bright and jolly.  Hers had arms and a long scarf but I only had a very small quantity of the red beads so this one is a variation; also I've not added the ear wires yet.  I worked out they must have been made using brick stitch and I used Delica beads.

A Colour Challenge

The challenge at Simply Stampin' this week is to use these colours from the Stampin Up range so I thought I'd have a go to see what I could come up with

 

 The background paper is from Tim Holtz vintage shabby range which I thought went well with them and I've used stamps from Notably Ornate and Vintage Vogue.  The ornate label and the sentiment were from the first set and the flowers from the second (stamped and cut out). Also used was a Spellbinder die to cut a decorative square and a Marianne die for the leaves.   Being mainly red and green I suppose these colours said 'Christmas' but I am trying to get away from endless seasonal cards now that mine are posted - at least most of them unless there are any I've forgotten which does happen!!

Forgotten Friday 42

I really needed a break from seasonal projects so was glad of the opportunity to look through my stamps (it took a while) to find something neglected to use for Judith's Forgotten Friday challenge.  I enjoy this challenge because it really does make me use items which have lain sadly neglected and this time it wis this lovely bird stamp from Crafty Individuals - can't remember when it was last used.  It was stamped with black archival inkk, then the sections were cut apart and sponged with Wild Honey distress ink; these sections were then adhered to a Spellbinders die cut and in turn onto to smaller die cuts in green to match the background paper which was printed from Chocolate Baroque Essence of Nature CD.  I thought this would be a handy card to have on hand for any occasion so I left it without a greeting.  If you have time in this busy run up to 'the day' take a look at some of Judiths beautiful work.

Another Tag

This is the other tag and this was made using the reflection technique from Tim Holtz.  A tag was cut out in acetate and coloured using alcohol inks, I then used stamps from Chocolate Baroque Christmas reflections on the inked side using black archival ink which was then removed leaving a clear impression in the colour - clever or what??  The acetate tag was then adhered to another one cut in white card. I added an embossed border together with a pine branch (Marianne die) textured with a Sizzix embossing folder - the bird was one which I'd stamped and gold embossed a while ago and not used so I simply turned him into a robin with a little bit of red Copic pen.  I have enjoyed following the progress of his 12 tags which he has done for several years now but I think this is the first time I've ever had a go.

Make My Monday week 28

I can now show you another of my tags which I made for a Guest Designer spot which I was kindly offered from the team at Make My Monday - thanks for the opportunity folks.  The theme is still seasonal and this week it was 'anything goes' with the added touch of some red ribbon.  I decided to make a tag based on  Tim Holtz resist techniques so the tree from Chocolate Baroque Steampunk Christmas set was stamped using Versamark and clear embossed before inking the tag with fired brick Distress ink, spattered with water drops and then some overstamping using the same colour. The panel at the bottom was embossed using a Cuttlebug gears folder onto adhesive foil tape from the DIY shop, coloured using alcohol ink.  The poinsettia flower is also from the same stamp set as the tree and the swirl is grunge board coloured and brushed with Distress stickles.  Finally the required red ribbon (and some green) were coloured using the same Distress inks to match the colours used on the background and flower.
Do go and take a look at their blog to see some more great red ribbon inspiration from the regular design team members.