Christmas Countdown Calendar.....

It was our first Swarm in the new shop yesterday...and as usual we had a great time! This was the project that I prepared for the ladies. There are a few of these floating around in Blogland and various publications, but this is my take on the idea.

My ladies oohed and aahed when they saw it....and boy did they work like trojans to finish theirs. They ALL did a fabulous job, and made something that they should all be proud of- the finished articles looked EXACTLY like mine!

The base for this calendar was a piece of card used as packing for 12 x 12 papers, but cereal packet card would be just as good. I cut out the shape by hand and covered it with patterned paper. The blue sky was just a smaller version of the main shape. The santa & sleigh was cut at 4" from black cardstock and adhered with foam pads over a glittercard moon. I cut 7 card tags and 14 paper tags which were adhered to the card tags, alternating patterns back & front. The numbers were cut from pink & green cardstock and adhered to 6 of the tags, one being left blank-although I did put a '0' on one of the left-hand tags it isn't necessary. There are 2 tags on the left hook and 5 on the right hook. The left hooks are number 1-2 (plus the blank/0 tag) and the 5 tags on the right hook are numbered 1-0. The tags are simply turned over each day to reveal the date eg. 21. 'December' was cut from pink cardstock with a green shadow and adhered with foam pads beside the tags. The hooks for the tags were made with jewellery wires (I think that they are called eye pins) bent over a marker pen to form a hook then fixed in place with white brads. A scattering of punched snowflakes complete the calendar.

Carts used:

Santa & Sleigh- Christmas Noel

Moon & tags-George

December-Designer's Calendar

Numbers-Winter Woodland (font shadow)

Thanks for looking today!

Heather xxx

From our house......

I just don't seem to be able to make a bog-standard card these days! When I see a C5 card blank it doesn't inspire creativity but if there's a fancy fold or a shape in there somewhere, well that's a different kettle of fish!....
I made a shaped card with this door cut. I cut 2 doors with blackout enabled @ 8 3/4" (this will fit a C5 envelope) from white card and joined them together down the left hand side. I then took off blackout and cut another door frame from cream card. The door itself was cut from 2 shades of red card. A gold key plate and doorknob was cut from gold mirri then adhered to the door. I painted a piece of aceteate with peel-off markers and adhered it behind the fanlight at the top of the door.The wreath was from a pack of Papermania embellishments from last year's stash. This was adhered with foam pads to the door. I cut 2 topiary trees from green, brown and terracotta card and added some tiny punched glittercard flowers, then adhered them with foam pads either side of the door frame.
I computer generated the sentiment 'From our house to yours..... with love at Christmas' onto Safmat, then applied it to a piece of white card edged with red cardstock. This was adhered with foam pads to the 'doorstep'. The rest of the sentiment is inside the card.
This card can be made on the Create too. Just put the machine into Portrait mode. A card this size cannot be made on the original Bug- sorry!
Carts used:
Door & frame-Christmas Solutions
Topiary Trees-Joys Of The Season
Thanks for looking and I look forward to seeing my ladies tomorrow for The Swarm!
Heather xxx

Meeting Santa.....

Here's another tri-fold card for you. I love making these cards, they are so easy and give you lots of space to be creative in! I took some of these cards to my Workshop yesterday, and some of my ladies made one or two..they did a sterling job and made some lovely cards.
I kept this one simple because the imagery on the red paper is sooooo pretty and I didn't want to hide it too much so on this card the sentiment is inside (you can just see a peep of 'Season's Greetings on the inside). I used Dovecraft paper (12 x 12 stack), an EK Success punch (LOVE THESE PUNCHES!) a scalloped frame and the image cut from red glittercard. Punched holly, gold ribbon bow and a poinsetta complete the card.
Carts used:
Santa & Child- A Child's Year
Scalloped frame- Just Because Cards
Season's Greeting (inside card)-Wild Card
Thanks for visiting!
Heather xxx

Skate-shaped cards.....

I thought I'd have a go at a couple of shaped cards again and came up with these. The blue skate is made from papers from the DCWV Winter Wonder stack and the red skate from stash papers.
I cut 2 skates from cardstock with shadow enabled and joined them together at the top to make the card base. Another skate the same size was cut from paper and adhered to the skate base. A smaller skate (shadow OFF) was cut from silver mirri and patterned papers, decorated with pearls coloured with permanent markers and a silver cord bow.

The sentiments were adhered to scalloped circles cut from paper. The white circles were embossed, then adhered to the scalloped circles. The sentiments were cut from glittercard then the completed circles were adhered to the skate tops with foam pads. A ready-made snowflake and a poinsetta were used as extra embellishment. The skates are quite big- cut at 6 1/4" -and will fit into an 8" square envelope. I tried to make a decent sized one to fit the original bug/Create but the largest cut is 5 1/2" and is quite weeny- not big enough for a stand-alone card. Sorry folks!

Carts used:

Skate-Christmas Solutions

Scalloped/plain circles & Warm Winter Wishes-Winter Woodland

Christmas Wishes-Winter Frolics

Thanks for looking!

Heather xxx

P-P-P-Pick up a penguin......

I picked up a GORGEOUS stack at the shop last week-Winter Wonder by DCWV-all icy blue, white and silver. I have to say that I hadn't planned to use the penguin, but after I'd made the card base I didn't want to put a skate on it. Looking through the stack there was a page with a lovely little penguin on it and this little chap is quite a good copy! I used blue & white glittercard with orange scraps for the feeet and beak, and a couple of googly eyes. A piece of sparkly white ribbon became a scarf and a layered snowflake was adhered to his tummy. The sentiment was mounted onto a scalloped circle. also decorated with punched flakes.
A layered fabric poinsetta was enhanced with a punched glittercard flower, jewelled brad and glittery bow, then adhered to the punched border. Three punched flowers with gem centres were adhered on the back section of the card.
Carts used:
Penguin-Joys Of The Season
Scalloped/plain circles & sentiment-Winter Woodland
Thanks for dropping by!
Heather xxx

Precious Cargo......

Here are a couple more tri-fold concertina cards made in exactly the same way as yesterday's card. I used baby script and polka dot and gingham papers and I think that the finished cards are very soft and pretty. I used an MS punch on the pink card and an EK Success punch on the blue card. I never thought I'd say this 'cos I love MS punches, but I think that EK Success are the better punches. I've broken 3 MS punches and I feel that the punch mechanism in MS punches is really flimsy, whereas the punching handle (for want of a better word) on EK punches is much more substantial. I think that I'll be getting more of them in future.

The stork on both cards was cut from white glittercard and I drew around the baby portion onto coloured glittercard to create coloured blankets. I added a scalloped circle with an embossed plain circle holding the sentiment, which were cut from glittercard. The sentiments were cut apart to fit the circles. Ribbon, punched daisies, layered blooms

and a scattering of pearls complete the cards.

Carts used:

Storks & sentiments-Nursery Rhymes

Scalloped/Plain circles-Winter Woodland

Thanks for visiting!

Heather xxx

Winter Fun.....

This is the A5 version of yesterday's card. I'm not a huge fan of DL cards (which yesterday's card was) so I adapted the fold to fit a C5 envelope and this card fits the bill! I used a piece of A2 card - I buy mine from The Range for £2.99 for 25 sheets-and scored it @ 5", 10" & 15" using a Hougie Board. The A2 card fits the board perfectly, then I just trimmed down the resultant concertina card to the same height as an A5 card (A4 folded in half). I then trimmed 2 panels to a diagonal leaving 1/2cm to allow for punching. I then decorated the card using Dovecraft papers, a pink glittercard skater frame with embossed mirri background, spotty ribbon, plenty of punched snowflakes (life's way too short to cut small snowflakes using the Bug!) and a sentiment cut from more glittercard/mirri with a white base shadow. A smattering of pink & blue gems complete the card.
Carts used:
Skater frame-Winter Woodland
Sentiment-Winter Frolics
Thanks for looking!
Heather xxx