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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New Baby Girl Card

If you already seen my NewBaby Girl Cookies post below this one, you’ll know that I became an Aunty at the weekend to the lovely Lucia Isabella.  So this week’s card just had to be the card I made to celebrate her arrival into the world! 

Card Recipe:

Stamp: QVC

Colouring Mediums: Memento Rich Cocoa, Promarker Pens

Paper & Card: Melissa Frances, Elegance Satin,

Tools: Spellbinders, Sizzlit, Grand Calibur

Embellishments: Lace, hand-made Pearl & Crystal Hat Pin, mulberry flowers, pearl swirls, baby shoe charm, ribbon charm, silky crush ribbon

This card shows that you do need to dig about in your long-not-used stash when a new occasion presents itself!  As I don’t go in for much “cute” with my cards, I was struggling to find a stamp suitable for a new baby.  However, I looked in my craft over-flow cupboard where I keep the stash that I no longer use and found a set of naïve stamps that I bought from QVC when I first started rubber stamping.  Within was this cute teddy, just perfect for our new little star!

So I stamped image onto Joanna Sheen’s Elegance Satin cardstock using Memento ink in Rich Cocoa.  This was coloured in with Promarkers and then I accented the image with glue pen , crystal glitter and rhinestones.  I cut it out with Spellbinders basic circle and lightly coloured the debossed edge with pink to achieve a faux mat. This was then mounted onto Spellbinders Vintage Lace motif, from which I hung a little baby shoe charm.  

The paper is from Melissa Frances, which has also been in my craft room for some time!  To finish, I added die-cut Vintage Lace corners and a die-cut heart, accented with glitter and rhinestones.  On went my mulberry paper flowers, handmade hatpin (see my tutorial on how to make hatpins) and a ribbon charm which I altered with Promarkers to emphasising the wording.  I do love a lot of detail, and hope you do too!

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

Country View Cards - Pick & Mix

LEJ Designs - For a Lovely (little!) Lady

Stamptacular Sunday Challenge - Swirls and Lace

I love to read your comments, so if you have enjoyed looking at this card (or even if you haven’t), do leave a comment, I do appreciate it!

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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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