Good Afternoon! I hope after the recent gales and rain the weather is looking a bit better :) Christmas is fast approaching, well its coming at breakneck speed so to help you prepare our new challenge will be one you can tick off the to do list.
Firstly though a huge thank you for playing in our stitching challenge, you're a creative bunch, I wish I could use my machine better! The winners will be announced in the catch up post in about a week.
We also have a new teamie - WELCOME/WELKOM SARAH! Sarah is quite a newbie cardmaker, she likes dabbling with messy things and colouring in! Sarah's also quite new around blogger and has been entering challenges along the way so a warm welcome to her! We also have a guest desgner join us -
Hope Jacare (Claire) so welcome also!
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CHALLENGE 34 - CARD & MATCHING GIFT
Our new challenge is to make a card with a matching gift, the gift can be absolutely anything handmade so long as it matches the card, not just xmas either!
Don't forget we always have 2 challenges open and our spotlight on
Dry Embossing is still open for another week with a fab prize from
Prairie Fairy on offer so if you use dry embossing you can enter both, remember to add both links though.
We're sponsored once again by
The Stampman which is bursting with yummy goodies including a huge selection of Tim Holtz and ranger items, Hero Arts, Stampendous and their own brand Aspects of Design. The Stampman are offering a £10 voucher for their shop as a candy prize so thank you Jill & Ian :)
Lets have a look at what the girls have come up with and hope you can join us too!
Here’s a card and matching tealight luminaire I have made. Red is my favourite colour for bits and bobs around the house so what better time of year to indulge myself. I used some papers which I downloaded as freebies a while ago to decorate my foldy card and a lovely decoupage fairy I bought offline. The flowers on the card and the luminaire are white Color Me Crazy flowers bought from Hobbycraft and coloured with promarkers to match the paper which is done with Starburst stains Holiday Wreath colours. The butterflies on the sides of the luminare are punched using a Sizzix paddle punch and then a piece of amber coloured floral vellum backed to it on each side so that when the battery operated luminare tealight is switched on it glows and flickers.
.....great minds think alike, it would appear, for both myself and our Guest Designer, the lovely Hope Jacare (Claire), have independantly made a journal/notebook and card, albeit in very different styles!
Mine is a Christmas themed book made with my BIA.
The inner leaves are also denim blue and interleaved with glassine, so it could be used =for photos as well as journalling.
The face-paper is Papermania Winter Wonderland and the mirri board and pearl card overlays cut with my Nesties.
My sister has a 'big' birthday coming up, and, and I decided to make a keepsake gift for her. The box is from Hobbycraft, and I stained it with Moonglow Moonshadow Ink in Ethereal Emerald before adding the photos and then varnishing. I dipped some flowers in the same ink solution, and when they were dry, I sprayed them with Crafter's Companion Spray and Shine before attaching them to the box. The card mirrors the shape of the box, and I used my plain and eyelet circle nesties to cut the photos and mounts. I've added an extra layer to the photo to keep it fairly anonymous for online purposes.
Melly
I decided i wanted to make something a wee bit different for the challenge this week, so after having a good wee look through the net I came across this wee Stationary box! I made the actually box from 12x12 card from my stash and all the the other elements are made from the Prima papers. I've made wee cards to match plus note cards and tags for the wee kit! I'll be making a few of these for Christmas gifts this year!
Check out my wee blog for more pics.
The image on the card is from Prairie Fairy Designs called "The Urge". Enough said!! haha. I used a different image on my little 'peek-a-boo' gift box, but you'll have to pop over to my blog to see it (& the gift inside).
I used a half a doilie & 2 half scallops to add some layers....and many, many pop dots later.....here you have it.....a perfect birthday gift set!
For my card and candle I have used some Forever Friends decoupage and a transfer.For the candle I added lots of little gems all around the candle and stickles to the wings. I've used FF paper for the card and a Martha Stewart border punch.Also I have used my new MS Snowflake punch :o) I love it! Lots of stickles used all round here but its hard to see in the pic( I had a nightmare taking this picture, nothing wanted to co-operate lol)
I made my little notebook as the gift, first cutting plain chipboard for covers and then cartridge paper for the inside pages, I then covered the chipboard with a neutral patterned paper and used distress inks sponged around the edges. I then coloured a piece of white cardstock with distress ink and stamped the script as a background. The bird, flourish and word stamps are all from PaperArtsy Hot Pick 1005 and they were stamped also with distress inks. I then bound it together with my Bind it All.
For the card I used the same patterned paper again inked around the edges and used a Stampin up punch to give it the notebook style edge, this time I used a PaperArtsy die to cut the bird shape and then stamped the image. The sentiment is from Stampin Up.
OOh, I really enjoyed this challenge. I started with the clock which was made from a chipboard shape and clock bits bought from Hobbycrafts at the NEC. I saw the 12 scallops and could see clock numbers in flowers and it went from there. Papermania Woodland Folk papers, lots of flowers and bling and some gorgeous embroidered leaves ribbon picked up on my travels completes my lovely gift & matching card.
I found a tutorial for this little box on Splitcoast Stampers. I used some lovely glittery DP from Dovecraft, one of my favourite Penny Black stamps a Martha Stewart snowflake punch and lots of lovely glitter and some jewels.
I was thrilled to be invited by Ei as Guest DT this week. I am Claire aka Hope Jacare and papercrafts are very much a part of my life. Originally I come from a textile background with a B.A. hons in Design from The Glasgow School of Art. I worked within the feltmaking, fashion and Knitwear industry before opening my own gift shop/Gallery "Scoskie" in Largs, Scotland. Since then I have had 3 children - Jacob, Caleb and Hope and no longer have my shop. I have a pretty hectic life that squeezes in as much cardmaking, drawing and papercrafting as I can. Last year after a lot of encouragement in Blogland I started selling my doodles and I love seeing projects that others make with them it gives me a huge sense of pride.
My only tip to card makers is to work in a clean enviroment...there is nothing worse than a beautiful card with a big dirty fingerprint on it. Lol.
I love/live to colour or paper piece and I tend to cut out my coloured images to create a less formal composition. Although with my project this week I have kept my image as printed and inked the edges (another favourite technique) I love the world of digital as it allows us so much freedom to create projects in a vast range of sizes and combinations
I wish I had more time to blog hop as there is such a wealth of talented creative people out there and I love going looking at new blogs, it opens your mind up to so many different possibilities...and lets face it we all do it because we love to create!
Over to you! Please link to the froggy link below, if for any reason its missing refresh your page or come back and try again x