Top 10 of 2013 plus top 3 Christmas cards

Hello everyone,

I hope you have all had a wonderful holiday season and that 2014 brings you everything you wish for. I like to think back over the old year before I say goodbye to it and this post is looking back and picking my favorite 13 cards of 2013, before I start looking forward to where the crafty muse will take me in the coming year. I always find this exercise to be useful in reminding me of techniques or designs that I really want to try more of, and it helps spark some creativity too. I warn you that this will be a long post, so why not grab a cuppa and join me, or just have a quick scroll through if you prefer. There is a link to the original post with each card, if you want to find out more.

I made this thank you card back in January



using one of my favourite Penny Black images. I don't often do cutesy cards but this stamp has been with me a long time and I couldn't part with it.



Some friends of ours celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary this year and I really don't know where the time goes because I remember attending the wedding like it only happened 10 years ago! We will be celebrating our own ruby wedding this coming year though, and it is wonderful that we are still in touch with so many of the original wedding guests. I made this card



for them using Papertrey Ink materials and scarlet jewel colours as it was a Ruby Wedding Anniversary.

The Bridesmaid from my wedding became a Grandma for the first time in June, and I made this card when we attended little Joshua's Christening



This uses a lovely stamp from Lily of the Valley and some Nestability dies.

In February, Papertrey Ink celebrated its 6th birthday and I made this card for the celebration Blog Hop.



I used the Year of Flowers, Morning Glory stamp and I tried a new (to me) technique of stamping part of the sentiment on the panel and the rest of it on the base card. I really like tone on tone colours.

In July, I took the Summer Card Camp from Online Card Classes, and one of the assignments was to make a trifold card, so I came up with this one.



I used an edger die to give interest to the flaps and a Hero Arts flower for the focal point. I like how this turned out, and it reminds me that I want to try making more cards that aren't just an A2 portrait shape.

This next card was made for my daughter to give to some of her friends who got engaged




I love the look of white embossed on kraft colours and this CAS design is one of my favourites. I also decorated the envelope to make it a little more special.

Another card I made for the  Summer Card Camp involved a watercolour and masking technique that was new to me.



I really enjoyed playing with my inks and I got several images from the one inking with each one getting more pastel looking.

Bloggers are such friendly people and in November, a kind blogging buddy, Joyce, organised a blog hop to celebrate the birthday of another buddy, Tracey, so of course I wanted to join in. I made this card for her




using Papertrey Ink materials, and she really is a superstar!


This is another card that I made for Summer Camp -  what can I say - it was a really good class.





I used an Embossabilities folder and die cuts from Papertrey Ink. I wanted to make polka dots for the presents and used my Cropadile to punch out all the little dots.

My final pick for the non Christmas cards is not a card at all, but is a coffee themed gift set which I gave to my daughter for Christmas.



I really enjoyed making the felt coffee cozy using Papertrey Ink dies, but I had an absolute ball making the packaging and the gift card holder!

The last 3 cards are Christmas Cards which I got started on early this year.

This is a card made with the Papertrey Ink one liner dies,

a tiny tag die, and double ended banner die. I love the one liner dies and want to make more use of them.

I made this circular card on my Silhouette Cameo



and used a hand punch to cut out all the ferns to make the wreath. I cut and folded some vellum to make the sentiment banner.

I think this one was my favourite Christmas card this year, so I saved it for last.



I love the little WPlus9 Christmas tree (kindly given to me by Ann at Love Making Things), and I like the simple design.

Thank you so much if you stayed with me through this look down memory lane. For next year I want to get more use out of my Silhouette Cameo and try some new stamp companies, so if you have some favourites you can recommend, I would love to hear about them. I also want to enjoy being on my first Design Team for the Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge, so this year my Christmas stamps will not be packed away, and I will get a head start on next year's Christmas cards. If you would like to get a head start too, I would love it if you joined us.

Well I think that is more than enough for now, so I just want to wish you a very happy and crafty New Year.

Thanks for stopping by
Hugs
Carol x

Silhouette Cameo and Papertrey Ink Pillow box

Hi everyone,

I'm back for the final post for the



and this time I want to share a little pillow box I made

I cut the pillow box on my Silhouette Cameo, and stamped and embossed the word 'Christmas' from the Christmas Labels stamp set. I then added the Wonderful Words, 'merry' die cut. I cut and stamped a couple of bells from Bells and Boughs, backed with some ferns from a punch, and added a a little bow cut with a Memory Box die.

And lastly, here is a fun little money holder, once again cut with my Silhouette Cameo using pure poppy card.

Well that's all from me today - I'm off to make turkey sandwiches for everyone now!

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs

Carol x

Coffee Cozy for December PTI Blog Hop 2

Hi again,

I just wanted to add other post for the PTI Blog Hop



which is all about creative packaging. I had fun with my packaging this year because I was more organised than I have been for years, so I had a little time to play.

In the last post, I shared a coffee themed gift, and I made another Coffee Cozy - this time a pink one,

and I don't know if you can see, but I stuffed the little heart with some toy stuffing to give a little dimension, and packaged it like this :-

I used the Edger 1 die to trim the end shapes and then cut the edgers out of raspberry fizz card and added them to the ends as a kind of frame. The Boutique Accessories stamps came in useful again and I selectively inked another stamp to get the 'for you' at the bottom.

I took the photo before I put it in the cello bag because the camera didn't like the reflection.

This is how it looks on the cup

I was really wishing that I had Sweet Blush felt, but I don't think it is available yet, so the bright pink had to do!.

I'll be be back with one more packaging post later.

Thanks for stopping by

Hugs
Carol x

Coffee themed gift set for Papertrey Ink Blog Hop

Hello everyone,

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Day and are settling down to enjoy Boxing Day after all the hard work is over. I had a lovely day with my family and received some nice crafty gifts and some vouchers to spend on more so I am very happy.

Today is the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop



and we were asked to show how we use our creativity with packaging, which is a great idea for after the holidays.

I made some coffee cozies with the PTI coffee cozy dies to go with a coffee themed present for my daughter who is Costa Coffee mad.

I used scarlet jewel and white felt to make the cozy and then packaged it up to look pretty. I used kraft card and the Latte Love stamp set to decorate the background, along with a stamp from the Boutique Accessories set. A strip of stripey scarlet jewel paper was cut with the heart border die to finish it off.

I also used the gift card die to tuck away a Costa Coffee gift card

and placed a coffee travel mug in a clear bag

with the addition of a tag and some ribbon.

The whole gift, along with some coffee pods,  was popped into a gift bag

I also have some other packages to share if I get time today. Enjoy seeing all the crafty inspiration along the hop!

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs
Carol x

Holly Jolly Christmas Blog Hop part 2

Hello everyone, and welcome to the second round of cards as part of the Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge month long blog hop (that was quite a mouthful!).

Preparations for Christmas are reaching fever pitch at our house but we are nearly there, and I hope we will have a more relaxing Christmas week as a result. I hope you are getting there too but if you still have some cards to make, I'm sure you'll get some inspiration from my talented DT colleagues, and all the fabulous entries on the Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge blog


For my card, I used a fun image from Limited Runs Digital Stamps which  is called Christmas Tree with Bird.



I took some blue card, masked off a moon circle and used a stencil called Multi Snow Dots from Imagination Crafts to add some Aleene's Glitter Snow to create the background. I printed the digital stamp onto green card and cut round it, before adhering the tree onto the background. I used a white gel pen to draw a garland on the tree and used a cotton bud to add red and yellow dots of Pan Pastels to create lights for the tree. The little bird was placed on the tree to gaze at the moon and a snowbank and sentiment finished it off.

There are lots of prizes up for grabs, so why not join in by showing us one of your cards or projects.

The Challenge part of it is simple. Make a Christmas Card or Project 
then do the following.

1. Link your card up to Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge Blog, using a direct link to your project, not just 
your blog.

2. Comment on all the blogs through out the hop.

3. Find the letters  to spell out a couple of words related to the challenge, and send us an email tohollyjollychristmaschallenge@gmail.com

The letter you need to collect from me is T.

You should have arrived here from

Anne

and the next stop is

Meighan

But if you get lost, you can get the full list from here.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs

Carol x

Papertrey Ink Christmas Card

Hello everyone, and a very warm welcome to Bianca, who is a new follower this week.

As we get closer to Christmas, I'm having to get serious with my cardmaking so I can get them into the post quickly. With postal rates in mind, I've been trying to make flatter cards that are easier and cheaper to post, so I looked at the challenge over at Addicted to CAS, where the codeword this week is Snowflakes.

I pulled out my snowflake stamps (Snowflake Serenade by Papertrey Ink), and masked off a diagonal strip on my panel. I then stamped various snowflakes, overlapping the mask, in three different colours.

I then cut a strip of Limeade Ice card and stamped it with the sentiment from Think Big Favorites 20, and scored some lines to give it a little texture. Some little gems in the centres of snowflakes and a little bit of matting finished it off. A simple CAS card that is perfect for the post.

A little tip - I can't remember where I found this idea, but I confess it wasn't my own. If you want to score lines on a panel but you need to be precise so you don't go over your stamping, get your scoreboard, place your stamped card on it, stamping facing up and score the appropriate lines. You will of course have a debossed line and you may be happy with that, but if you prefer an embossed line, flip the card over and score over those lines again, and when you turn it back over, you have perfectly place embossed lines! I bet you all new about this already and I'm the only one who finds this amazing lol.

I'd also like to enter this int the Little Claire'designs challenge which is Christmas, and the Crafty Hands challenge which is seasons greetings/winter.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs

Carol x

Holly Jolly Christmas Blog Hop and month long challenge

Hello everyone,

I'm so pleased to have been invited to join the Design Team for 6 months from January, over at the Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge Blog, but as this is my first DT, please be kind and stick with me while I learn the ropes. Every year, one of my New Year resolutions is to make my Christmas cards early so that I won't have a mad rush come December. Well that isn't going to be a problem for me next year because being on the DT will discipline me into getting down to it, and I hope you will feel that you want to join in the fun and get organised too.

As an introduction to the team, I was invited to join in their December Month Long Challenge and Blog Hop, and I made this card:-

This was my first time ever using a Digi Stamp, and it is called Wreath 2 from Floppy Latte Designs, one of the sponsors of the Challenge. I coloured the wreath with Copic markers and added glazed red dots for the berries with a glaze pen. I imported the image into the Silhouette Studio software, offset it and cut an aperture in the top panel so that you look through to the image and get a bit of dimension. I also used the Papertrey Ink canvas impression plate on the top panel to add a little texture. The sentiment is from PTI Bells and Boughs, and the little doodad is from Peace Love and Joy. A little matting finished it off.

You can join in the challenge too, and all the details are on the Holly Jolly Christmas Blog, but it is an Anything Goes Challenge. The sponsors are offering lots of prizes, and the challenge ends on the 31st December. Each member of the Design Team has been given a letter to spell out a couple of words related to the challenge, so you will need to visit each blog and when you have decided what the words are, send an email to hollyjollychristmaschallenge@gmail.com, and you could win a great prize.

The letter you need to collect from me is T.

You should have arrived here from Anne

Anne

and your next stop will be Meighan

Meighan

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the Hop.

Hugs

Carol x