The Cats Pajama's Tuesday Challenge #352

Yippee, its finally Friday!! Max arrived home from camp this afternoon after being away the past four days. He had a fantastic time but I had to wash ALL of the clothes he took with him (whether he wore them or not) as they were all soaking wet and smelled like shoes!! I also have no gardening to do this weekend (apart from my own....) and have just posted the last of my Christmas cards, so things are looking good!!

The theme for the current TCP Tuesday Challenge is 'Winter Holiday'. I recently made 100 cards to give to Sending Love NZ who distribute cards to rest homes for people who have no family etc. I made three different types. These ones that took the longest but I loved making them with all the vibrant colour:

The die is from The Cats Pajama's 'Round Tree Die' and I had to have it for my Christmas cards as soon as it was released a few months ago. It was fantastic for Halloween and even better for these colourful creations.

I started off by die-cutting 50 of the round circle die (it comes with the tree die) from white CS. I then die-cut the tree part from 25 of them, so I had 25 left over to make the backgrounds.

Using Distress Inks, I grouped them in similar colours and blended the darker colour on the outside of the background circle die-cut and blended with the lighter shade in the middle. As you can imagine my fingers were covered in ink but they looked so amazing, I couldn't stop blending!!

Once I was happy with them I flicked them all with water and dabbed gently with a tissue. Once they were dry I used Gina K Connect Glue to adhere the tree die-cuts over top. These were then adhered to the card fronts with glue tape.

I don't have any TCP Christmas stamps unfortunately, so I used this pretty one from the Simon Says Stamp 'Stamptember' set with Gina K Designs 'Joy of the Season'. I tried to match up the ink colours with the darkest Distress Ink and stamped them on each card. I didn't add any sequins as I didn't want elderly people having the sequins fall off and become annoying, so left them nice and clean.

I also stamped inside the cards with this sentiment stamp from Ellen Hutson 'Mistletoe and July'. I've used this one a lot, its great to use when people may not be celebrating Christmas itself.

I finished off writing in all 100 cards this week. I've set up a box at our local library so hopefully other people will drop in some cards too!

Bella has been hanging around me for ages to go for a walk, so I better do that before I lose the energy. I also need to hang out all the washing I just did, hopefully it doesn't pour with rain like it has a few times this week out of the blue. Our weather is so bizarre at the moment but this weekend is supposed to be super hot, so hopefully we can go for our first swim of the season. Better get out my clippers to 'tidy up my hedge' if you get my drift.......lol...

Take care
Shona

The Flower Challenge # 27

Hello there!! December has rolled round in a flash and we are starting our final challenge for 2018 at The Flower Challenge!!

This month we are wanting you to create a project using an 'Older stamp or die'. So its time to dust off your 'collectible' craft products and take them out for a spin!!

I had so much fun with this one. It was great going thru all my stamps and since I can remember where every single one came from and when, it was amazing how old some of them were. I managed to find this background stamp that I purchased years ago second-hand and have never used:

Why have I never used this stamp before?????

As you can see its from Hero Arts/Basic Grey and called 'Tiny Flower Background'. The date on the back of the packet is 2012 so I'm thinking its not available anymore. Its so pretty and stamps really well, so I might just have to give it a bit more love!!

To create this card I started off by cutting a panel of teal blue CS slightly smaller than the card front. Using my MISTI I stamped it twice using Versamark ink and heat embossed with Hero Arts 'White Satin Pearl' embossing powder. The sheen is incredible and I wish I had been using this powder more often!

  

Using a big piece of white foam I popped the embossed panel on the card front to give it some dimension.

For the sentiment I die-cut the Simon Says Stamp 'Love' die shadow part from white CS and the word itself 3x from the same teal blue CS. I glued them all together and then to the card front. The rest of the sentiment (from SSS 'Love' stamp set) was heat embossed with WOW! Embossing Powder 'Pastel Glacier Mint' on a strip of white CS. This was glued in place along with some sequins from Neat and Tangled.

I'm going to link this to the Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge where their theme is 'Anything Goes'.

 

You have until Tuesday 25th December (Christmas Day!) to link your projects to The Flower Challenge and if your needing any help with inspiration, pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team have created for you. I'll be back on the 15th with a 'reminder' card and this time I think I'll try to find my oldest floral die!!

Take care

Shona

 

 

 

CAS-ual Fridays Stamps - Girl Friday post #1 for December

Well, December is here and I am so not ready for Christmas!!!!! I've done no shopping, still haven't got all my cards out, I'm behind in gardening as its been raining so much and haven't even started by Christmas baking.....so you could say I'm a tiny bit stressed but I do love Christmas, so I know it will all be good in the end!!

We are half-way thru the 2018 Fall/Winter Coffee Lovers Blog Hop and with CAS-ual Fridays Stamps being considered a 'Super Sponsor', I thought it would be a great idea to include some coffee in my Christmas!!

I had a great time putting these together and thought they would be perfect attached to a gorgeous coffee cup filled with goodies for a coffee-loving friend!!

I started off by die-cutting the 'Coffee Cup Fri-dies' and 'To-Go Cup Fri-dies' from white CS. I also cut the top for the 'To Go' cup from black CS.

For the coffee-cup I stamped it with snowflakes and tiny shapes from the 'Snowy Sayings' stamp set using Hero Arts 'Bubblegum' Shadow Ink. I then stamped the sentiment from 'Mistletoe and Holly' but I masked out the 'kiss' and replaced with 'coffee' from the 'Peace Love and Coffee' stamp set on some white CS. I fussy cut it out and glued on the cup. I then glued on some pink sequins from Neat and Tangled and tied on some silver twine.

For the blue cup I stamped it using a strip of snowflakes from the 'Snowy Sayings' set with help from my MISTI, and using 'Daydreaming' Waffle Flower Ink. I did some masking again to stamp the sentiment from 'Mistletoe and Holly' and once again using the 'coffee' from 'Peace Love and Coffee'. I glued this to the cup, along with some sequins from Neat and Tangled and also the black top. I used a hole-punch to cut a hole and attach some silver thread.

I hope this has given you a different way to make some tags for your presents this Christmas and if your thinking of purchasing any of these products, don't forget to use my special code to save yourself 15%!!

I also wanted to let you know that there are a lot of sets that are in the Retired Section and they are now all 50% off!!! And if you use my special code that will save you a further 15% so that's 65% off!! Quick, run!

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope your having more luck this month getting ready for Christmas and I'll be back here soon to share some of the millions of cards I've made.

Take care
Shona