Favourites of 2012

I love to see peoples favourite project posts, and thought I would post my own.

My cakes have been a highlight this year:

Joining the Fantastic Ribbon DT was a real accomplishment too!

This is my favourite ribbon project so far!

Here are my favourite cards:

Totally CAS

Waltzingmouse challenges always test my ingenuity!

Rainbow colours are still a firm favourite!

I still love all things nature, and love these PTI dies.

I just love this, it was completely personalised for the person receiving it.

That was my year, I think 2013 will be the year of the Silhouette for me, which is a completely different style of card making to my usual style, but I'm excited!

Happy New Year!

Fantastic Ribbon DT Christmas Wrapping

This month we were asked to come up with a wrapping project using some lovely Fantastic Ribbons.
This year I have mainly wrapped my presents in parcel paper, for a lovely kraft look. This means that ribbons and special labels are what makes the gift look so special.
I decided to use a technique I have only ever used on cards before, which is the double sided ruffle!
You need one parcel to wrap, some double sided tape, some ribbon and a little patience. Measure out the length of ribbon you think you will need and add  about half the length again (to allow for the ruffles).
Attach a length of double sided tape down the middle of the parcel and then stick the middle of your ribbon down in the centre. Create ruffles going in both directions, and then wrap the ribbon simply around the back and up the sides. Tie a bow above the centre of the ruffles and voila! The wired ribbon makes this super easy to do and holds its shape really well. I used Arabesque Iris on this present.
Have a Fantastic Christmas!

And a Partidge in a Pear Tree!

Here is a very simple card, which took me 8mins 30 second to make (I was timing after my last 10 minute craft dash challenge!). I used the waltzingmouse Teeny trees set (my absolute favourite!).

I used the smallest petal shape as my pear and stamped each one twice, once in a pearlised green, and then in a darker green over the top.

I finished it by outlining the card with a fine liner.

Newtown, Connecticut

When my husband shouted through to the kitchen that there had been a shooting in America my first thought was that it would be a high school, so I was even more horrified to find that it was a primary school. My own son goes to primary school next September, and it makes me feel sick to even think about something like this happening.

There will be children and families who will never get over this terrible event, but to try and help in some way Amber over at Damask Love has set up a project to try and focus creativity to help to heal and bring some positivity and love to this community. She describes it better over here, but please consider getting involved in this very worthwhile project.

60,000 views and my Christmas Cards

This week was quite momentous, as I reached 60,000 views on my blog! I am astonished that in the past 2 years I have had anything like that number of visitors, but I know its primarily down to two posts! One with a cupcake wrapper template, and one with a Union Jack template I created about the time of the Royal Wedding, which was also really popular this summer for the Olympics and Queens Jubilee. I'm hoping to add some extra templates to the cupcake wrapper page soon with printable wrappers I have designed, so hopefully it will continue to be popular.

This week I have mostly been getting sorted for Christmas, baking Christmas cakes, making cards, planning church events. I have to say that I only ever make handmade Christmas cards for immediate family and very close friends. This year I have made 11. I buy a box of cards for all my other cards and try to personalise them a bit with a verse of scripture, but that's my limit for the other 50 or so cards!

I have been so excited to use the wonderful Papertrey Ink set, Star of Wonder, which I got for Christmas last year and I have not been disappointed. The set has 3 main circular images, and I chose the manger scene for this years cards (I can save the other two for future years!). I wanted a verse of Scripture, and recently bought some Nina B Layers of Colour Christmas verses. I chose a suitable verse and stamped directly onto the kraft card base.

I stamped my circular image onto white cardstock using, then used distress inks (antique linen, tea dye and walnut stain) to add some colour to the image. I cut it using my spellbinders circles and layered onto a sun style die cut from Nellies dies - Multi frame Die Star #2, cut from bronze cardstock. I then layered this on to a labels 1 or labels 4 die cut, both stamped with a music background and heat embossed with gold embossing powder. Some gorgeous brown ribbon from Fantastic Ribbons finished it off really well.

I'm entering these cards into the Addicted to Stamping Bingo

This qualifies for the middle row, Ribbon, FREE (Sponging) and Embossing.

Its also being entered into Young Crafters Unite Challenge #16 - Happy Holidays

and Charisma Cardz Challenge #49 Christmas makes

Fantastic Ribbons Design Team Christmas Home Decor Project

Welcome to this months design team project on Christmas Home Decor.

I decided to make a Christmas card holder to hang in my hall.

You will need: Ribbons  and twine, needle and thread (sewing machine would be good too), a lolly stick, some thick wire (I used 0.6mm), wire cutters and round nosed pliers.

I started by stitching the top of the two ribbons I had chosen to create a gap for the wooden stick. I took the stick out when I was using the sewing machine, but you can see the amount of space I left, about 1 inch.

Next I needed to make 7 paper clip like swirls to attach to the holder which would display the cards. To do this I cut a 3 inch length of wire, wrapped it around a smooth sided pen, then took it off, flattened it back and using the pliers bent the top into a loop I could stitch through. (I know you can buy these fancy paper clips some places, in fact I'm convinced Ikea had some recently, but I can't see them on their website, but if you can't be bothered making them even normal paper clips would do!)

Using a standard card as a way of measuring I went along the length of the ribbon and attached the clips by stiching through the ribbon at approx 20cm intervals.

At the top of the holder I wanted to use a pokey tool to make a hole in the stick but I soon realised it was just going to split the wood, so instead I used a pen knife and created little channels on either side of the stick which would stop the twine from slipping off.

Next I made the main bow. There are loads of tutorials on youtube how to make bows, but I watched this one, which was specifically for making bows with ribbon which was patterned on one side.  I had stitched the gingham ribbon onto the red side of this satin ribbon (which is a gorgeous brown on the other side), so this was important for me. The ribbon was about 1m long to make this bow. I had a box of paperchase jingle bells which I have hoarded for about 4 years and use very sparingly. I added 3 to the centre just to finish it off.

Here's what the holder looks like without cards. Its about 2m long.

And here it is with cards.

I hope you have enjoyed my little tutorial. I think these make a lovely change to just putting cards on the mantle piece and they are pretty easy to make, and with the ridiculous price of this ribbon at the moment you could make this for about 50p, I kid you not! 

Make sure to check out what the rest of the design team has made over at the Fantastic Ribbons blog!

WMSC 126

 Welcome to this weeks Waltzingmouse sketch challenge. I needed a card for my lovely Niece's birthday, and already had some papers which I wanted to use for it, this sketch seemed to suit what I was thinking very well.

Unusually for me there wasn't a great deal of stamping to be done, and I had a few die cut elements too.

The close up shows that the sentiments (Teeny trees) are stamped over a pink and orange polka dot background (Off beat backgrounds).

I used my cuttlebug alphabet and number die set for the number 4, I had borrowed a Tonic cloud punch from my friend and the wavy circle was coloured in rainbow striped with my promarkers.

I think she really liked this.

Thanks for calling by.

Bx