Apologies

Apologies to everyone - I've been unable to visit blogs since Wednesday because the power was off for a couple of hours during the morning and when they turned it back on it appears to have 'killed' my router which left me with no broadband connection until a replacement router arrived today which I've just set up to get me up and running again.  However did we manage before the Internet kept us in touch!!

Hopefully normal service is now resumed.  There is always a silver lining though - at least I've not been able to spend any money on online craft goodies and couldn't go out to the local shop in case I missed the package being delivered!!

Christmas Village

In spite of having a good stock of Christmas cards I'm still drawn into making more - this time using a 'free' die which was on a Tattered Lace Magazine which jumped into my basket some time ago.  I have to confess that today was the first time the die had actually been taken off the magazine so that it can be stored away with my collection.  I used the free embossing folder which has appeared previously but this time I cut out an oval from the middle of it to contain my little village scene.  Backing paper is a pretty one with embossed snowflakes found in my stash.  I wondered about adding a greeting but probably won't because this really speaks for itself as a Christmas card.  Of course looking for something else, I've come across a set of free bauble stamps which have never been used so maybe another seasonal card is called for!!  I think I picked up the magazine with those on the cover last year and they deserve to be used.

Embossed panel - free folder used on white Centura Pearl card dusted with blue ink
Background - Papermania paper with embossed snowflakes
Village - free dies from Tattered Lace
Snowy hill - scrap of white card torn
Scene - dusted with Glamour Dust for a bit of sparkle

Pixie Snippets Playground 147

I've taken a picture of some more of my paper blooms (see previous post) which I imagine should qualify for the Pixie Snippets challenge this week because those fringed asters and the other blooms certainly involved lots of snipping.  The finished flowers are around 3 inches across and the asters for instance involved cutting fringes with scissors into three strips of mauve/purple paper around 16" long for each - this certainly required a degree of concentration!!  The alium type flowers are made from numerous punched shapes glued to polystyrene balls and then 'fluffed out'.  Apologies for the photograph but I had to take it rather quickly because I seem to have lots of odd jobs to catch up on today so couldn't really spare any more time to set this up but I'm sure you get the general idea. Hopefully when I've caught up with myself I can get back to making some more cards.

Paper Blooms

I've spent an enjoyable day today in my local craft shop demonstrating the making of paper flowers using a book called Paper Blooms.  It was something new for me making flowers more or less life size although I've made lots of miniature ones before - give anything a go that's me!!  One good thing about these ones was that the materials used were reasonably easy to get hold of and a minimum amount of equipment required.  I've taken a very quick photograph of some of the ones I made and will try to get some better pictures in daylight.  The poppies and other large white flowers were made from coffee filter papers and wine filters, the pumpkin was made using strips of orange card with a couple of stamped leaves and other blooms made using odd bits of paper from my stash.  The fringed asters which don't show too well took a lot of cutting of fringed strips before they could be assembled.

Floral Card

It's a while since I did much in the way of stamping or colouring because as you may have noticed, dies seem to be very much in vogue at the moment.  However considering that I have so many stamps I thought I should redress the balance somewhat so here is a card with a stamped and coloured image as the main feature with some die cutting as embellishment.

Floral Image - Stampin' Up coloured with alcohol pens
Dies - Deco Labels from SU
Border - Cuttlebug die with Die-namics bow die
Sentiment - computer generated on Cuttlebug die cuts

Christmas Cards

I've made a couple of Christmas cards to pop into my box - one using an embossing folder and die cut flower and the other using an image from Crafter's Companion 2013 Christmas Collection (bought last year) and nothing from the kit has been used yet so thought I'd better have a go rather than be tempted to buy this year's collection.  It has been raining steadily all day today and so very dark and chilly, really miserable.

Embossing Folder - Couture Creations
Poinsettia - Sue Wilson dies

Image - Crafter's companion 2013 collection
Snowflake - free die from magazine

Pixie Snippets Challenge 146

Each week on the Pixie Snippets challenge there is an opportunity to be included in a random draw to win a generous prize and last week I was lucky enough to be picked out of the 'hat' when I won a die set which cuts various sizes of sequins.  Of course I've included some of these into my card for the challenge this time around.  I started with a snippet of Centura Pearl card which was embossed and then had some blue ink brushed over - more snippets of card to cut a banner, a lacy strip, a flower and some leaves with a final snippet of ribbon from my overflowing ribbon box - finally some tiny snippets in the form of a few strategically placed sequins using my new die.  There is another great prize on offer this week so why not have a go and use up some of your snippets.

Background - Die-sire embossing folder
Banner - die cut using Stampin' Up framelits set
Flower - stamped using SU Beautiful Bunch and matching punch
Lacy Border - Couture Creations die
Leaves - Robert Addams die (Papercrafts)
Sequins - Die-namics die