CC&S #147 Sketch: Christmas Tree Triangles

Hi everyone! When I drew this week's sketch for CAS Colours and Sketches, it just screamed Christmas trees to me and therefore it wasn't hard to come up with a design.

I used a lovely 5-piece layered Christmas tree die set which I really haven't used enough especially as the trees are so easy to assemble. I curled, shaped and inked the edges of each layer to give the trees some dimension. The trunks are cut from snippets of brown paper and each tree is finished with a silver star. They are mounted onto a die-cut stitched rectangle which has also been debossed using a swiss dots embossing folder. The sentiment is printed directly onto the card blank.

Supplies Used:
Patterned Papers: Christmas Fancy (Dovecraft)
Dies: Christmas Stacker Tree (Dee's Distinctively), Stitched Rectangle Layer (Memory Box)
Embossing Folder: Swiss Dots (Magazine Freebie!)
'Greetings' Sentiment Font: Scriptina
Snippets: Brown paper, Linen cardstock, Sequin stars, Crystal Stickles

Well, that's another Christmas card made. Thanks so much for visiting. I hope you get a chance to play along with us this week!

Stef x

Rediscovering my blog!

I can't believe that I haven't blogged at all in the last two years - I don't know where the time goes!! Anyway I decided that I needed to start again as I accidentally lost all my pictures, patterns, photos etc, last summer when my computer was upgraded - I know I should have backed it all up and really thought I had but obviously not and it can't be undone unfortunately!

Papers: Kate Knight paper stack
Stamp: PMA Retail Therapy

Today is as good a time as any as one of my cards has been published in Simply Cards and Papercraft magazine, issue 94 - it's so exciting to see your cards in print! I also won a small prize so that was great too! It was one of three cards entered for their Card Designer of the Year competition. I didn't expect to win such a huge competition but it's nice to see they liked one of my cards enough to print it in a future issue of the magazine. These are the other cards I entered:

Card blank: Little Claire tag card
Stamp: Little Claire Flowerhead

This is one of Little Claire's tag cards and one of my favourite of their stamps Flowerhead, cut into four jigsaw pieces. I also won a small prize for this when Little Claire featured it on their blog in the countdown to Christmas. So now I have a nice new stamp to play with too! The second photo is the back of the card which has a ribbon bow on it. The purple colours of the ribbon matched each other much more closely in real life, but the camera has made one of them look rather blue.

The last card was made using a recently discovered technique of cutting metal flowers from a recycled pop/beer can using a Sizzix Bigz die. I first saw a video on youtube and couldn't wait to get a suitable die to have a go (with grateful thanks to my friend Rozzy for ordering it for me)! I think they will feature a lot on my cards this year and I have saved loads of different cans to experiment with!

Die: Sizzix Bigz Flower Daisies #2
Papers: Dovecraft Winter Wonderland

Winter Birthday Card

Supplies:
Papers: Dovecraft ‘Winter Wonderland’
Snowflake Stamp: Free with Papercraft Inspirations 67 Dec 09
Inks: Ink it Up ‘Clear’ and Whispers ‘Azure Seas’ and 'Whisper Blue’
Embossing Powders: Funstamps ‘Stardust’
Craft Box Bits and Bobs

It is my Mum`s birthday next week and for this card I have taken inspiration from Episode 3 of the new DoCrafts Creativity TV Club. This is the first time I have tried resist stamping and am quite pleased with the outcome except that I wished the image had been a little sharper. I also used the sketch from Clare Curd’s demo card but have altered it to fit a 13.5cm square card blank. As the inspiration came from Clare I thought I would also enter it into her weekly craft challenge - I hope you approve of my efforts Clare and thank you so much for all your wonderful inspiration!