Christmas Card Club - "Sentiment as Focus"

Good morning all.

It was my turn to set the theme over at the Christmas Card Club this week and I've asked the ladies for "Sentiment as Focus".

It was my intention to make several cards this week but with a busy month of birthdays time ran away with me. This uses dies from Crafters Companion and Spellbinders and the sentiment in from Stamping All Day.

Please excuse the awful photograph but I had to take it at night!

If you'd like to see what the other girls have created you'll find their links on my sidebar.

Winter Jornalling

Good morning all.

Many thanks to all who have visited over the weekend and left such lovely comments, I do appreciate them all.

A quiet day yesterday...more washing and some much needed ironing!

Sharing one of the projects I managed to do on Saturday. One of my goals this year was to do some journalling...here is one of my first attempts.

I started by gluing some torn book pages and backing paper to the pages. Pages were then roughly gessoed then I've stencilled with embossing paste using a snowflake stencil from Joanna Sheen and a snowflower one from Sweet Stamps. I used glitter bead gel with a stencil from Clarity stamps which didn't work as planned....but what the heck! Punch waste snowflakes were used across the pages.

Pages were then washed with aquatints with a darker ink being used over the embossing paste. Stamps from Clearly Besotted, Personal Impressions, Paper Smooches, Premium Craft Brands and Stamping All Day were stamped with Memento ink.

Winter was computer generated and printed onto tissue paper. Snowflakes were leftovers from a previous project and were lying in my bit box.

Challenges entered:

Unruly Paperarts - inspire your heart with art day

Journalling Pad

Good morning all.

Yesterday was a total washout except for about ten minutes mid afternoon when we saw blue skies and a beautiful rainbow!

Another altered water colour pad to share today. No inanimate object in the house is safe from being gessoed at the moment...Hubby and the kids better watch out!!

I forgot to take a before photo but this is a bog standard A4 water colour card pad. I gave it several coats of Gesso then masked off the edges (although there has been some seepage!). The newsprint stamp from Clearly Besotted was stamped in two corners and also masked off. Next I got out the bold and bright set of aquatints and daubed the colours all over. Using a stencil from Memory Box and textured paste I stencilled the flowers bottom right. The main image is a stamp I got in a lucky bag, it's huge...I had to use a pyrex flan dish to stamp it as I didn't have an acrylic block big enough! I stamped in archival ink on tissue paper and used studio multi medium gloss to attach it. The journalling stamp also came in the same lucky bag, the other two sentiments are from Premium Craft Brands and are also stamped in versamark and heat embossed. The background has been stamped with various stamps from Stamping All Day, Indigo Blu and Premium Craft Brands in an assortment of distress and memento inks. The stencilled flowers were then sprayed with tangerine Sprinkys.

Challenges entered:

Bloggers Challenge - alter it

Crafts 4 Eternity - bright colours

Just Add Ink - add texture

Through the Craft Room Door - anything goes

Not Just Cards - anything goes

Anything but a Card - anything goes

Altered Eclectics - anything goes

Rhedd's Creative Spirit - anything altered art goes

Scrap it Girl - use watercolours, paint or gelatos

Soft and Silent

Good morning all.

On Wednesday I felt quite envious of a few of my blogging pals who were flying out of Edinburgh yesterday headed for the Nec...when I work up yesterday morning and heard the weather I was more than happy to turn over and snuggle under the duvet again!! The wind howled most of the day with squally showers...I didn't venture over the doorstep at all.

Another simple Christmas card to share today.

Stamp is from Stamping All Day, inked with silver metallic ink. Dies are from Spellbinders. Embossing has been done with a Joanna Sheen snowflake stencil. Finished with silver metallic ribbon and some gemstones.

Challenges entered:

CHNC - make it sparkle

CHNC Extra - anything Christmas goes

Moving along with the Times  - sparkle or shine

Crafty Ribbons - Christmas with ribbon

CRAFT - winter

Inspired by Stamping - silver

Crimbo Crackers - clean and simple