Not long now! - Monday 10th December

Good Morning Blog Friends,

I hope you are all in fine health and not too cold! I am sorry I didn't get to all your blogs yesterday, it has been such a busy weekend, with a visit to Cirencester for a nice frosty walk in the park and a stroll around the market (and some mulled wine), then friends to stay and a meal out in a lovely local pub Saturday night...so much going on that I haven't crafted at all...I am never going to get those last few cards made!!

Today is a quick post featuring another card made with the '25th December' stamp by Woodware. This time I stamped it twice and covered the bottom layer with Tom Holz Frosty Film. The '25' and the holly, I coloured with promarkers and then used a versamark pen to coat the 25 and the berries, before heat embossing with red glitter embossing powder.

I matted and layered this on a tag, which had been distressed around the edges with Vintage Photo and then pricked with my pokey tool.

A busy week ahead, but I'm determined to get those few cards finished..have a great week friends!
Carole X

Emergency Crafters DT card - Saturday 8th December

Hello my blog friends!

Hoping you are all well...aren't we getting scarily close to Christmas? The new challenge from Emergency Crafters is 'Deck the Halls', so we're looking for Christmas cards and projects and this is my Design Team card...

I decided on a design with a bit of sparkle and really like this digital stamp from Mo Manning's Digital Pencil! I coloured the skater with promarkers and added Cosmic Sparkle for the glitter. The background paper is from the House Mouse Christmas project CD and I left it as it printed, choosing to leave the sparkle to the foreground image. I finished off with some gorgeous, shimmery ribbon and a snowflake cut from Spellbinders 2012 Snowflake Pendant, to which I added a beautiful little BoBunny button, from a pack sent to me by one of my lovely blog friends.

Thanks for stopping by and why not hop over to Emergency Crafters and enter the challenge? There's a very nice prize up for grabs!

If any of you do have a mo to pop over to Fantastic Ribbons and leave a comment on my ribbon wreath, I'd be so happy! The folks at this wonderful ribbon site and blog are thinking of starting challenges in the new year too!
Happy Saturday all!
Carole X

Snow Angel -Thursday 6th December

Good Morning my blog friends!

I hope you are all well and not feeling too cold..it's a  bit brrrrrrr...now, isn't it?! Welcome to my new follower and thank you so much for joining me on my crafty journey!

Yesterday I took the bus into Bath again to meet another friend, Grace, who I used to work with several years ago and we have remained good friends. We were literally meeting at lunch time, so I did have an amble around the Christmas Market this week and made a few little purchases :) It was such a cold day, but the sun shone and made it just a perfect winter day.

This week, the bus was very busy by the time it left our little town - it's a cross country bus, which stops in one other small town and otherwise little villages...at one of the stops a whole WI group got on..people were already standing and now there were 20 more..oh my word! Of course more people wanted to get on at the other stops too...it wasn't a pleasant  40 minute journey and I did think, a little dangerous...but we got there and thankfully they were getting the late bus back!

So for today's card....

I'm still on a Christmas 'roll' I'm afraid, there's no stopping me now I'm down to the last few more 'special' ones!

The card is backed with kraft paper, downloaded from Pink Petticoat and you will probably recognise the image as an LOTV stamp, which I have coloured with Promarkers. I then added some dies from various Spellbinders sets, some foliage, gems, bells and ribbon. The two snowflakes are little chipboard embellishments, coloured with picket fence distress stain and finished off with Cosmic Twinkles.

I know you are all very busy, but my design team project for Fantastic Ribbons (the ribbon wreaths) is now up on their blog..if you can spare a minute to pop over there and leave a quick comment, I would be really grateful! Thank you! You can get there from here

Thank you for stopping here, I really do appreciate it!
Hugs,
Carole x

Let it Snow - HMFMC134 - Wednesday 5th December

Hello blog friends,

Another of  House Mouse card today, this one was made from the Joanna Sheen Christmas Project Book/CD...

I started with an A5 card blank and matted and layered first with blue card and then a lovely red glossy card.  Before sticking the red card to the blue, I tied the polka dot ribbon and bow around it.

The image was printed from the CD and coated with some of the Tim Holz Frosted Film - drat that this just doesn't show up in photos!); then I matted and layered in the same way as the base card. I die cut the snowflakes using two Spellbinder sets with both perlescent card and wax paper. To finish off I added the sentiment from the CD, gems and the little 'Merry' tag, which is from  Teresa Collins' Christmas Cottage embellishment set.

I wish to enter this card into the House Mouse Monday Challenge

*** LET IT SNOW *** for Challenge # HMFMC134

Thanks for visiting!

Carole X

Sunday Stamper week 234 - Tags!

Good afternoon friends in blogland!

It's a late post for me today, but I had made my project for this week's Sunday Stampers and wanted to upload. This week Hels (Sheridan) has set the theme of tags...whoopee! I am way way into making tags...love them...and for the main family and best friends' presents, I have been making tags...so good to make a project that will get used straightaway!

I used  a large parcel tag and covered it with some gorgeous paper I have in my stash..you can't see it in the photo, but it's dark blue, has 'Merry Christmas' imprinted all over it and is all shiny and satin (feels gorgeous, I use sparingly).

The stamp is a bit of a mystery because the original packaging has disappeared! I'm pretty sure the little set was free with a magazine, but who it's made by is a mystery, hidden somewhere under the piles of stamps and papers currently surrounding me in the craft room..ooops!

Anyway, I stamped it on black card with versamark ink and then heat embossed it in snowflke embossing powder mixed with a little cosmic shimmer glitter jewels. I roughed up the edges a little and mounted in on some blue glitter card - then gave the edges of that a bit of a scraping too. 

The little set with the deer stamp also has a  border stamp, so I stamped and embossed this along the bottom edge. Then I cut a snowflake from Spellbinders 'Create-a-flake four- and a little flourish from Ironworks Motifs - I cut this with the blue glitter card and some wax paper and have used both on the tag.

To finish I added some ribbons and gems...thanks for stopping by!
Carole X

Winter Door Wreath - December 3rd

Good Morning Blog Friends...... and thank you so much for visiting and leaving your comments! Trish did love the card (Saturday's post) and even posted a photo on Facebook, which was lovely!

I didn't get to post yesterday, but I did decorate the tree!

Those of you who have been following me for some time will know that I have a seasonal door wreath on my front door. It's a tradition I  have acquired from having American relatives and admiring all the wreaths on the doors during my visits over there...and I have been decorating my door for a long number of years now.

This year I decided to make some new ones and this is the one I made for this Christmas...

The base vine wreath was bought from Calico Crafts and all the greenery from our local garden centre. All the separate pieces are wired and just threaded through and secured and I added a string of lights for the twinkles. I've bought a few extra sprigs because my winter wreath stays until the end of January, so after  December, I'll swap out the Santa robin. It's funny that it's sometimes not until you have completed a project and photographed it that you notice something you've left out or not quite right: there's a little gap at the top in the photo..you can't see it but there is another robin that side, in a nest and when I look at it on the door, I can't see such a gap under the nest...I think I'll be adding one of th spare bits of greenery tomorrow :)

Hope you like it! Hope you all have a lovely crafty day...I have the day off but it's a trip to Bristol this morning to the dentist for a filling...booo!

Carole X

Good Morning Blog Friends!

Well December is here and it's time to panic (not that I wasn't already- lol). At least today has started bright and sunny here and the hens are having a great time scooting about the garden in some dry weather at last!

Thank you for those who visited and commented on my ribbon wreaths yesterday, they were fun makes...hopefully tomorrow I will be posting my new seasonal door wreath..that's if I get it photographed!

I hope I got around to most of you yesterday, it was all a bit of a rush..I did some housework in the morning in preparation for putting the tree up today, then I had to get the bus to Bristol. There is  a lovely shopping area in the centre by the University. I had a wander up there (it's on a steep hill), bought some little stocking fillers (mostly foodie) in a gorgeous shop called Bristol Guild (of Arts and Crafts) and a few other shops, then met Tom when he'd finished work...we had pizza and then walked down the hill to the Hippodrome theatre where we enjoyed an evening of opera, Cosi fan Tutte. Tom had a 95 year old man sat next to him, he was with his nephew, said they had come up from Bridgwater and were making the trip again tonight for La Boheme! Hope I'm that willing and agile if I get to 95!

Anyway, for the card....I made this one for my friend Trish, who has  just become a Grandma (she seems so young, it's scary!)  Luckily I knew that her daughter and husband were expecting a boy, so I could make it a week or so in advance! 

Trish and I have been friends since about 2009, when we both joined Twitter. It's a long story, but when we realised we both lived close enough to meet in Bath and after having said 'hello' when we attended the same concert, we met for lunch and have been friends ever since (it was Trish I went to the Christmas Market with last week)...so it is possible to actually make real life friends via social media! Trish and her husband Alan now even keep a few hens too..see it's catching!

This card is made using an LOTV stamp, coloured with Promarkers. I made the background paper by using a polka dot mask and inked the edges with distress ink. The layer beneath the image was made using an M-Bossability.

Thanks for stopping by...off to put the tree up now!

Carole Z X