Christmas Cards

Due to a lack of valuable time, this year I found one design I liked and reproduced it about 30 times over for family and close friends.  I took a 6" x 6" red card and first stamped and embossed in silver a Stamping' Up Christmas message along the bottom.   I then used some Stamping' Up paper/card which a good friend gave me because she says it is now old stock.  I sponged this with the lovely Cherry Cobbler Stampin' Up ink and then punched out lots of baubles with the Stampin' Up bauble punch.  I took two baubles and matted and layered them onto cream, red and cream pieces of card, making sure that I attached ribbon from the top of the first piece of card  to the back of the bauble.  I finally glittered up the bauble and attached a small ribbon bow.

Christmas card for a special Mother

I used a 9" x 9" card and first layered a piece of pearlised gold card I had floating around.  I then used a Marianne poinsettia die and my Grand Caliber to produce two sets of leaves in a pearlised red card plus another set in pearlised green card.  I used silicone to put the flower together with a mirror gold card centre piece.  I used another Marianne die to produce the curvy stems to which I attached some holly leaves all in pearlised green card.  I punched out some little red circles using an ordinary 2 hole punch and then positioned the whole lot on the card. I printed the message onto white card, layered it onto the pearlised green and then positioned it over the green ribbon running from top to bottom on the left-hand side of the card.  I finally used some green gems on the top and bottom of the ribbon.

Long Absence

I wouldn't win any blogging awards that's for sure!  Mike and I have taken a 6 week holiday encompassing a visit to Bangkok in Thailand, Australia and New Zealand (in time for the Rugby World Cup).  It was a truly fantastic holiday and I fear we may have caught a severe case of the travel bug!  On our return I got caught up on the Christmas shopping, card making, cake making and all such nonsense so that my poor blog got totally forgotten.  Friends told me to put something on about my hols etc but I just never got around to it.  Now it is 2012, I am trying to make amends and get into the habit of photographing my cards again and writing something!

A Friend's Challenge

A friend challenged me to produce a birthday card, at very short notice, for his sister who works as a singer on board cruise ships.  I found two images and some appropriate wording within the Greetings Card Factory programme and just added some Glossy Accents before mounting onto blue card.  He was very pleased with the end product!

DYM Summer Festival

Durham Young Musicians held their annual Summer Festival competition on 10th July 2011 and, as usual, I charged myself with the task of producing 10 identical cards to enclose the prizes awarded to some pretty awe-inspiring young pianists who performed on that day.  I made sure they were very quick and easy cards to make by photocopying some music by Brahms and using a Debbi Moore music stamp.  It was then just a case of matting and layering.

Wimbledon 2011

Just got back from two visits to Wimbledon, one to Centre Court and the other to No. 2 Court.  The tennis and weather were great so I had a fantastic time.  I was fortunate to see Roddick, Lopez, Azarenko, both Murray brothers, Pat Cash and many others.

Campervanning into retirement!

First of all, welcome to my brand spanking new blog - Cartisan Crafts (with a great deal of help from my daughter of course..).

With my husband's imminent retirement, I was struggling for ideas for a suitable card. I used Serif Craft Artist to design the backing sheet for the card and then stamped and decoupaged the campervan image. Using Glossy Accents, I added a glass window effect to the campervan and Promarkers to colour it in. The deckchairs were added through Serif Craft Artist as well and were decoupaged.

I will be giving this to Mike this week, so fingers crossed he likes it! We're certainly both looking forward to having more time together.

Thanks for looking!
Lyn