Christmas Dance

It's the launch of the new theme over on an Oldie but A Goodie Challenge and this fortnight it's Winter, so I thought this Christmas Dance Card in warm winter colours was just the thing!

Card Recipe:
Stamp: LOTV Christmas Dance
Colouring Mediums: Memento London Fog, Promarker Pens
Paper and Card: Neenah White, Christine Adolph
Tools: Spellbinders Labels 18 and Snowflake Dies
Embellishments: double sided adhesive sheets, microbeads, glitter, rhinestone crystals, May Art double-sided stitched ribbon.

I know from the outset that I wanted to create a snowflake wreath as a frame for the main focal image.  I cut a variety of snowflakes from my patterned paper, including some that I had covered with a double-sided adhesive sheet.  Once die cut, I covered some in irridescent glitter and some in microbeads, and I think this combination of plain, beaded and glittered snowflakes adds a lot of texture and interest to the card.

My main image is a LOTV stamp called Christmas Dance.  I'm not a huge fan of "cutsie- children" stamps generally, but I am a fan of having a varied range of images to hand in my crafting stash so have found a place for a select few "cuties", this being one of them.  

I stamped the image with Memento London Fog, which gives a softer image than using black.  I coloured her with Promarkers to echo the colours of my Christine Adolp patterned papers and accented the image with glitter and a festive pom-pom (I do love a festive pom-pom)!

I hope you'll join us at an Oldie but a Goodie Challenge, where you need to use an item from your stash that's over 6 months old. On my card, everything I've used is over 6 months old!

Don't forget, if you haven't already done so, you can enter into my 100th Blogpost Celebratory Prize Draw for the chance to win some great Tonic Studios Prizes -details here. 

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Upscale your Christmas Crackers & add a bit of Luxury

Christmas Crackers Straight from the Box



Upscaled Luxury Christmas Crackers





This is a fun, Christmas project. If, like me, you want your Christmas Dinner Table to look opulently festive but don’t like the price the Luxury Christmas Crackers (which, after all, end up in the bin within hours of use), perhaps you’ll follow my project to Upscale your Christmas Crackers.

For this project you will need:

• Inexpensive Christmas Crackers (mine cost £6.80 for a dozen)
• Coordinating 25mm Double Satin Ribbon
• Gold Mirri Card
• Gold Pearlescent Paper
• White Paper
• Sheet of Double Sided Adhesive
• Glitter
• Rhinestones
• Spellbinders Create-A-Flake Die Set (or similar)
• Glue

Adhere one side of the double-sided adhesive sheet to the sheet of white paper, then cut and emboss a set of three Snowflakes (largest flake in gold mirri, medium flake in adhesive paper and smallest flake in gold pearlescent paper). Repeat sets for as many crackers as you have. 

Peel away the adhesive layer and cover the medium size flake in glitter. Layer up the three flakes, applying a small dot of wet glue between each layer.

Cut 2 x 65cm lengths of Double Satin Ribbon. Remove any existing ties from the crackers and then tie your own ribbon around the crackers and trim the ribbon ends.

Glue the snowflake topper to the centre of the cracker, top off with a rhinestone crystal and use more crystals to decorate each end of the cracker.

 If you really want to go uber-luxury, finish off the Snowflake topper with a Rhinestone Button (but as these button cost over £1 a piece, they push up the price per cracker quite a bit).

I hope you've enjoyed this fun festive Christmas, do let me know what you think and wishing all my blog readers a very Merry Christmas.





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