New Home Card

I made this card for my brother and sister-in-law when they moved. The card base is by Pebbles - I really love the aqua chevrons. The stamp set is Bitty Bungalows by Paper Smooches. I stamped the images with Momento Tuxedo Black ink and coloured them with alcohol markers. I fussy cut them and popped them up on gue dots to add dimension. The sentiment is from an old Mollie Bloom set (I can't recall the name I'm afraid) and I stamped it with Hero Arts Soft Pool and Stampin' Up Real Red inks. The wood veneer geotag is from Studio Calico and I coloured the central heart with matching Real Red ink and used glossy accents to add shine. The heart images are from the Happy Feast stamp set from Lawn Fawn. The piece of rafia took me the longest to decide on - I must have tried every peice of twine and ribbon in my stash before I finally settled on this one!

Bright Leaf Thank-You Card

This thank-you card was made from a Hobbycraft 5x5 white notecard. Firstly I adhered a piece of green polka dot patterned paper from the Amy Tangerine Sketchbook 6x6 paper pad. I used the scallop blade cartridge from my American Crafts paper trimmer to create a decorative top edge and a Tonic Simplicity border punch to create a decorative bottom edge. Next I adhered pieces of Stampin' Up Crushed Curry chevron ribbon to the top and bottom of the patterened paper. I then cut another piece of patterned paper from the Amy Tangerine Sketchbook 6x6 paper pad. I used my Cricut Mini and the Cindy Loo cartridge to die-cut the thank-you sentiment. I then adhered the die-cut paper to the front of the card. I completed my design using dark brown twine, a clear button from Hobbycraft and a wood veneer heart from Studio Calico.

Gilded Reindeer Christmas Cards

So these two cars are my Christmas cards for 2013. I wanted to create a fairly simple design that would be relatively easy to produce in large numbers. I started out with a white 5x5 card blank from Hobbycraft. I used a peice of patterened paper from Crate Paper's Sleigh Ride collection (yes, I know it's last years collection but I just love it so much that I had t use it again this year!). I cut each 12 x 12 sheet into nine 4x4 squares and gently distressed the edges of each using my Stampin' Up distress tool. The stamped design is from a UK stamp company called IndigoBlu - I fell in love with this design, called Merry Christmas Deer, when I saw it on the Create and Craft tv channel. Indigoblu also make a product called FlitterGlu which allows you to use a stamp an image and adhere gilding flakes to it. I used gold and silver flakes for my two card designs. It's pretty easy to achieve quite impressive results, if a little messy - but that's all part of the fun of Christmas crafting! I used red Papermania gemstones for the reindeers' noses. To complete my cards I used hemp twine and wood veneer snowflakes, both bought at Hobbycraft.

I didn't want to give everyone exactly the same card so I varied the design using a different patterened paper from the same Crate Paper collection, as well as varying the colour of gilding flakes I used.