An eventful Christmas and Favourite Christmas cards

Stamps from Penny Black, Sutter and Andy Skinner and Pan Pastels

Seasons Greetings to you all, I hope you had a good Christmas and Santa was generous with the crafty goodies.

Ours went well, albeit eventful. The day before Christmas Eve the main junction for the cooking equipment burnt out, was re-wired but the induction hob was rendered useless so cooking was done between our house and our daughters......the benefit of living just across the courtyard from each other.

Plus I have been poorly, first of all having emergency dental treatment to drain two tooth abscesses followed by root canal work coupled with a return of my Cervical Spondylosis so Alex, Zoe and Joy took over much of the cooking, in fact they have been absolute gems. 

All of this meant I've not been near my blog but I did want to join Debby and share my five favourite Christmas cards of 2014, so here they are in no particular order.

My all time favourite Christmas sentiment from Penny Black

More Pan Pastels, gilding wax and stamps from Lavinia, Stampscapes, Penny Black and Art Impressions

Pan Pastels yet again and Penny Black stamps

No stamping here but I just adore this little girl from Nicecrane which I cut out and decouupaged into the arch frame

I hope you all enjoy the remainder of the festive season and New Year, I won't promise to come visiting just yet as it's always very painful to type when I have Cervical Spondylosis so I just have to bide my time until the pain eases.

Last minute gifts and Spring flowers

Today sees our last Allsorts challenge of the year, it will run for two weeks to give the DT a bit of a break over the holiday season and will probably be my last post of the year as we have family arriving Monday for the holiday period...............unless I get mega bored or find unexpected time on my hands.

So I would like to take the opportunity to thanks all of my blogland friends for their friendship and support in 2015 and.......................

Now back to Allsorts where Helen has chosen the theme of Last Minute Gifts and our sponsors are A Passion for Stamps and Marianne Designs.

I will confess I didn't know quite what I could make for this theme, I was thinking along the lines of homemade sweets and chocolates but they are usually a last minute make in my kitchen and as I like to have my DT work done and scheduled well in advance knew that idea was a no no. Then a clear out in a drawer uncovered a stash of Church candles which I had left over from a demo ages ago so I decided to decorate one of those.

I used a new Penny Black stamp set called Festive Florals, stamped the Poinsettia onto some tissue and coloured in with my Chameleon pens and heated it onto the candle. I made a matching card and also decorated a box to match. I was a little disappointed that the leaves look a slightly different colour on the card and candle although it was the same pen, but when I checked with Tracy Mouse who is the Queen of candles she said it happens and recommends going a shade darker on the candle, so something to remember in future.

And I have a second piece using Chocolate Baroque stamps, this set with the Willow called Spring Foilage has been one I've had my eyes on for ages and when I saw it on offer that was the prefect opportunity for me to but it. I used Dylusions for the background with a spritz of Glimmer mist to bleed the colours, stamped the flowers and willow and bleached out a bit of the colour so I could paint them with the same colour Dylusions. I sponged in some clouds and added a computer generated quote. I would like to enter this into the current Chocolate Baroque Colour Challenge which is shades of green, aqua and pinky/purple.

Happy weekend all.

All about Fairies at Butterfly Challenge

Morning Peeps, a really quick post with a couple of fairy cards for this months Butterfly Challenge which for this one month only is all about Fairies.

Like so many of us I love fairies and especially those from Lavinia Stamps so along with my Pan Pastels I created a couple of fairy scenes...........taking inspiration from the bottom of the garden of course !! 

I am pleased to say Blogger seems to have got his act together a bit now and I am seeing more photos on your blogs, so fingers crossed things continue to improve.

White Christmas

Morning to you all, what a ridiculous week it's been with Blogger, apart from the silly word verification which luckily is an easy one to resolve, the others issues I've been having are not. I am unable to see photos on the vast majority of blogs I visit and then there is the infuriating issue of typing comments when the cursor moves but no typing appears. So what on earth is it all about, is Blogger just totally overwhelmed by the sheer volume of blogland activity and unable to handle it all ? Really makes you wonder.

Moan over and let me tell you about our Allsorts theme this week which is White Christmas as chosen by the lovely Jo and our sponsors are FlonzCraft and Scrappers Delight.

My card at the top is a recent DT creation I made for Stamp Addicts using the lovely White Christmas sentiment which you can find under New Products, the font is very elegant and it's a decent sizes stamp so needs little more than matting and layering, although I couldn't resist a poinsettia so may have gone a little outside the challenge brief.

This one however is totally white with the exception of the sentiment shadow and unusually for me no stamping. The Deer die is a new one from Penny Black and the stars are a Marianne die, an embossed background and an All Occasion Dies sentiment and card cut on the Cricut.

Today we are off out early for an pre Christmas family celebration so will try catching up with you all soon - dependent of course of the mood of Blogger.

Reindeer and Roses

Time for our monthly challenges at Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More where our themes are Winter Wonderland and Special Occasions which can include Christmas.

The card at the top is my Stamping Sensations piece, although it would equally with Penny Black as well as it uses the new Natures Friends 30-271 stamp set.......same as yesterday, just a different scene.....it was a set I had to have the moment I saw it. The trees have two layers and on and this one I stamped the base image black and then the second embossed with detail silver to give a frost feel. As usual it's Pan Pastels for the landscape and sky, a hand drawn fence and some silver glitter onto the overhanging trees.

Not one to join in challenges as you all know, but I couldn't resist entering the one at the top into this months Craft a Scene Challenge which is 'Winter Scenes', I used to be part of the DT and used to love the opportunity to create scenic artwork but had to give it up when my health went on one of it's downward spirals a year or more ago.

My Penny Black DT piece uses a recently acquired stamp 3073K Brush Rose, it's quite an oldie which for some reason I never bought before, I inked it with distress markers and spritzed with water before stamping several times. Some random script stamping into background, two butterflies from Penny Black 30-117 Free Flight and the sentiment is Penny Black 3851 Blessings.

And I have one more Stamping Sensations piece, this time using Chocolate Baroque stamps Decorative Edges and Let Your Heart Sing. The background was crated by masking a moon and brushing over Glimmer Mists and Dylusions, then stamping the bird and bush stamp once, then cleaning it and masking out the bird before inking again to stamp a second time to extend the design. Quite a lot of glitter to get the impression of icicles, plus some snow and  finally white Frantage around the edges. The sentiment is Penny Black.

As always we have some fabulous prizes to be won at both challenges so I really hope you will join in.

All about animals

Morning Peeps, a new challenge at Allsorts today and Tracy would like to see Animals on our work this week. Our sponsor is DigiStamp Boutique.

I have used TH Alterations cabinet die to create a tri fold card, Pan Pastels to create the sky and landscape and most of the stamps are from Penny Black's new Natures Friends clear stamp set, this was a must have as soon as I saw it and I couldn't wait for Paula at Crafts U Love to get her stock from across the pond. I added a few red stickles to create berries on the branches in the foreground and in hindsight should probably have brought the rabbits a bit closer to the front as they look a tad big against the Deer, but hey ho artistic licence and all that !

Happy weekend to you all and hope you will join us at Allsorts this week.

In the bleak midwinter

Morning Peeps, hope you had a good weekend.

The first of December also happens to be the first Monday this month so today is the start of  a new challenge at FlonzCraft Vintage Stamping Challenges  where our December theme is to base our work on a Christmas Carol or Song. I also have this weeks Nicecrane shares where I am sticking with Christmas again this week.

This Winters scene from FlonzCraft called Birch Tree in Winter reminds me of cold and frosty days so 'In the bleak Midwinter' seemed appropriate and I have computer generated the first verse to add to my card. I used a mask to create a moon shining from behind the trees and coloured with Pan Pastels then added some fine crystal glitter. 

As always there is a fabulous $20 voucher to spend in the store for the winner so I really hope you will join us this month, if you have never taken part before we would love to welcome you over at the challenge blog.

I have gone with a traditional feel to both of my Nicecrane cards, the one at the top uses an image from the Vintage Merry Christmas design set which has six different images, prefect to help you get those last minute cards made. The DP is Graphic 45, a spellbinder Poinsettia, ivy and some lace.

The image on this one is from the Antique Christmas collection, he's such a sweet little lad feeding the birds which I have decided are Great Tit's of which we have an abundance in the gardens. More G45 DP, a Spellbinder border die and some wooden numbers and a computer generated 'December'.

Have a good week everyone.