A simple star - that means that little bit more to me than just Merry Christmas

Good morning all

Yes I know I'm late today! - and it's probably not morning where you are but here in sunny Florida it's morning -infact with the jetlag thing I've been up for hours, I've had a lot of morning today and i haven't had breakfast yet!!

There's a new challenge over at 

Fab'n'Funky Challenges

Just for fun and very simply

Christmas

I have another of my recyled from last years Christmas cards 'creations' today.  This one just begged to be used again but when I picked it out and looked inside it made me so sad to see that it was from an old friend who passed away just a few weeks ago.  A relatively young man in these days - only in his early 60's but he had been ill with an industrial disease for a lot of years.

So this shining star is for Terry a lovely man

 who I'm sure will be twinkling away somewhere right now xx

Thia is what I did.......

Star with sentiment mounted on silver glitter card was the recycled part of the card

Two tiny gems added 

New mount for card created with silver glitter card 

and a Christmas embossing folder - both from Crafter's Companion

Hope to see your Christmas creations over at Fab'n'Funky this week 

hugs

Judith xx

Christmas cards - with Hunkydorycrafts 4th Little book of Christmas

Hi again

As promised i'm back again today with my second review of the products I received from Hukydory Crafts.  

This time  I've made Christmas cards with
 the 4th Little Book of Christmas
and
the Christmas Perfect Backgrounds Stamping Pad

I also used a variety of dies, ribbons, glitter and gems to embellish.  These pads are very easy to use for either a quick simple card where you could almost just mat and layer the picture  and add a sentiment - or add lots of embellishments and details for a special card

8 x 8 inch square card

6 x 6 inch square card

5 x 7 inch  card

8 x 8 inch square card

 The 4th Little Book of Christmas' 

The first thing I'd like to say about the 'little book' - is its not as small as I had expected - more a 'not so little book'!!   I had expected to be making 6 x6 inch cards with these  - and although you can cut them to various sizes I actually think they are better for bigger cards - as you can see I used them to  make a variety of sizes and styles

I liked that there was 6 of each image, great for bulk making - often a neccesity for Christmas cards, or for anyone who makes to sell.  But also really useful to have multiple sheets to decoupage  the image.

I also liked the variety of images in the pad -  cute, traditional, contemporary and some that had lots of small images that you could cut up to use in smaller projects or as embellishments

The Christmas Perfect Backgrounds Stamping Pad

This is a really good buy not just for the Christmas papers but also for matting and layering.  Each of the 48 sheets is double sided with a pattern on one side and a coordinating plain on the back.  I used these to mat and layer all of the cards above.  Really useful because everything coordinates perfectly.  Again a good selection of designs in a range of colours, typical of many Christmas pads with stars, Christmas trees, snowflakes etc - for me the bonus on this one is that the reverse side matches perfectly for your mats and to make die cut embellishments and with 4 of each design you have plenty to play with!

Adorable Scorable cardstock is definitely Hunky Dory in my book (or box in this case) !

Good morning all

I was asked by the lovely Hunkydory Crafts if I would consider doing a review on some of their products (of my choice) - and of course I said yes.

It's always good to try out new things and in all honesty I haven't used any Hunkydory product before - for no other reason than you simply can't have everything!!  

The first product I really wanted to try was the Adorable Scorable card, I have always thought that it looked extrely good quality when I've seen it being demonstrated, so was interested to see if it lived up to it's promise in real life - I have to say I was not disappointed.  I chose a pack called the Pets and Forest selection available HERE , it has a good range of colours for all occasions.  I used the colours Evergreen and Golden shimmer for the box lid and base and a lovely bright red called Red Robin for the holly berries

 I regularly make boxes for my cards and also enjoy making 3d projects with card.  My pet hate is when the card cracks on the scoreline or sometimes breaks and tears through altogether after bending a few times - when I've spent a lot of time on a compicated construction it's so disappointing, spoils the look of a project and is very annoying!

I decided to make a simple 5 x 5 inch square box

- decorated with die cut holly and a label.

It scored absolutely beautifully, with lovely clean scorelines - no creasing, splitting or tearing

Here are the actual scores of the box base and lid before it was constructed but after I had creased all the lines.  It is a really lovely weight and quality - you can see the sheen on both colours in the photographs - a really nice effect without being overley metallic

It was also very easy to use for die cuts - including the fine cut 'Noel' word on the label

My opinions here are entirely honest - I think the photographs illustrate what I have found.  I definitley would buy this card in the future to use for my boxes and construction work.  There is such a wide range of both solid colours and patterns available.  Check out this fabulous card on the Hunkydory crafts website HERE for details of the full range.

I will be back tomorrow with another review of the Hunkydory 4th Little book of Christmas  and Christmas perfect backgrounds Stamping Pad,

A bit of upcycling with Winter animals

Good morning all

I've been looking for some different (and quick) ways to make some extra Christmas cards this year and remembered that I had saved some of last year's cards that I received to 'do something with' - like you do - then don't - if you know what I mean lol

So I spent a day or two making new cards out of some of the lovely cards I received last year.  I realise now that I should have taken before and fter photos but I can't do much about that now!

Here is one that I made with the challenge at

Moving along with the Times 

 in mind

The theme is 

Winter Animals

The original card was actually just the black and white background with the trees and 'Winter Wishes' sentiment - quite pretty and sparkly but it could have been so much more.....  see below for what I did.....

The challenge at MAWTT still has a week to run so you have plenty of time to enter your Winter Animals cards.  Sorry to Wendy, our lovely host Jackie and my teamies that I'm a week late!  I had a horrible ear infection last week and got totally mixed up about the challenge week - and I got no crafting or blogging done at all - thankfully after antibiotic, hydracortisone and seroid ear drops (7 times a day - there just wasn't enough hours in the day!!)  I'm on the mend

Here's what I did....

I made a frame with black card using Sue Wilson pierced square dies

Mounted that onto champagne coloured satin card

I then cut a new moon and Stag with a Crafters Companion die using a thin gold craft metal that I got from a Create and Craft sale day a few weeks back - I love this it has a fabulous finish

and that - as they say - is that.  It looks so much nicer than the original card and I was quite pleasd with the result -  making a card like this was definitely a bit of a novelty! - I've made a few more now - series to be continued .......

Hope you'll join in with our challenge at MAWTT

hugs

Judith x

When is a Fa La Llama not a Llama?! .......

.......When it's an Alpaca!

He he - good morning all

Did you see what I did there lol

I saw this fab little alpaca image was available from our sponsor this week and just had to have it!

But I really wanted her to be a Llama so I could do my own take on the lovely Llama cards that are around (in fact all over the place!) this Christmas

So forgive me Alice the Alpaca (available HERE)
you have been redisignated as a Llama lol

Sorry about the lighting on this photograph - it's so difficult these dark days to get decent colour and I ran out of time so just had to go with it- it is brighter IRL and she has pink ears and nose and blue eyes - poor Alice - she's really suffering for my art 😉

This card is for our challenge at 

Fab'n'Funky Challenges 

our theme is 

Add an Animal

(so either an animal as the main focus or as part of the general scene - Birthdays, all sorts of ocassions and lots of scope for Christmas here - rudolph, nativity - so bring out all those lovely animal stamps

Our lovely sponsor this week is 

Dr Digis House of Stamps

There are sooo many cute animal digis in the Dr Digi store - pop over and take a look and check out the Fab'n'Funky girls creations on the Fab'n'Funky Challenge blog.  I just love what everyone has done this week with these cute images

This is what I did....

Image - Alice the Alpaca from Dr Digi's house of stamps

Coloured with copics

Papers - an old papermania Christmas collection (sorry lost the cover sheet!)

Die cut hat and scarf from Sara's Cute Christmas (santa suit) at Crafters Companion

Bunting Dies - Whimsey stamps
Letter dies -Dies'ire essentials from Crafter's companion

I hope I've inspired you to join in with our challenge this week - we'd love you to help us fill our Ark!!

Hugs
Judith xx