Thursday 31 December 2015

Place Mat Present: Part 1

I made many of my family's Christmas gifts this year.  For my two sisters I decorated each of them a set of MDF coasters by Creative Expressions.  I made them double sided, so that they had a choice of which side up to show.  This is the first set.



Wednesday 30 December 2015

Door Hangers for Boys: Last Part

The final door hanger in the series was for my youngest son, who enjoys writing and is a typical teenage boy!  I initially wasn't going to include the pen; it was a late addition, which is why the stamping is not as well spaced as I would wish.

Tuesday 29 December 2015

Door Hangers for Boys Part 3

Going in order of age from oldest to youngest, the third door hanger was for my nephew who is really into cycling.  As I didn't have anything suitable for decorating it, I had to order a couple of items (a stencil and a stamp) to make this, but as I loved the result it didn't really matter.

Monday 28 December 2015

Door Hangers For Boys Part 2

Today is the turn of my middle son, who runs his own ICT business (uHostPro) from his bedroom.  He takes lots of meetings over Skype so he really needs a door hanger as he keeps strange hours at times!

Sunday 27 December 2015

Door Hangers for Boys

I decided to make my sons and nephew their own personalised door hangers for Christmas.  I already had suitable stamps, so it was just a case of deciding on the background colours.  Today's door hanger was for my eldest son who has several game consoles and supports the local football team; they play in red and white, so the background colour was an easy choice!





Saturday 26 December 2015

Teenage Football Fan

Here's the second of the Christmas birthday cards.  I am heading for the football match later (Stoke v Manchester United) for the early kick off later, so decided to blog early today.  This card is for the young man who sits next to us every match - so Happy Birthday!

Friday 25 December 2015

Aged To Perfection

The one good thing about having three Christmas birthdays in the space of four days is that you get a break from Christmas crafting.  This card was for my husband's birthday on Christmas Eve.

Sunday 20 December 2015

DIY Christmas Presents

I can't show you what I'm making in case someone in my family decides to check my blog; suffice it to say that I have spent the entire day working on presents for the family.  I decided to make it a home made Christmas this year and I'm still glad that I did - it's a chance to personalise gifts and it means more to me to give my loved ones something that I've hand crafted.  However, next year I shall definitely not be leaving things so much to the last minute.  I did make an early start on one of the gifts (my mother's birthday present for the 27th), but was then ill over the previous school holiday and everything got shoved onto the back burner.  Now it's none stop crafting between now and Thursday (Husband's birthday!) except for a day off tomorrow, which I will spend at the shops for all the extras.  I don't think that I've bitten off more than I can chew; I'm mostly on schedule and have allowed a little wiggle room on my list of jobs.  It might mean an early start for a few days, but I'm sure it will all be worth it when the presents are opened.
I'm sure you'll understand if I don't manage to blog for a few days; I've taken loads of photos as I've been working so will be able to reveal all after Friday.  Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate it and Happy Holidays too.

Saturday 19 December 2015

Secret Santa Door Hanger

I was so pleased when I picked the name of the Head of English out of the bag for the Secret Santa at work.  I knew immediately what I wanted to make for her gift.  Every day at our middle school we Drop Everything And Read (DEAR) for 15 minutes at the start of one lesson, so the theme of the door hanger was an easy one to come up with.



Tuesday 15 December 2015

Sepia Arches

This card was inspired by a demo that I saw on TV by Sheena Douglass - the designer of the stamps and embossing folder that I used for my main focal points.  She is such a talented designer and crafter that I could watch her for hours.

Monday 14 December 2015

French Retirement Card

 This card was made for a colleague who was retiring.  Although she taught French and German, she was planning on spending some time in France after she retired, so that became my theme; the colour scheme was therefore an easy one!

Sunday 13 December 2015

Clean and Simple Christmas

When I first started card making, I bought some packs of ready made cards and envelopes.  These days I tend to make my own base cards most of the time, so when I came across these packs of red and green cards in my stash, I decided to create some clean and simple cards and use up some of my scraps. 

Saturday 12 December 2015

DIY Decorative Tape

This card was directly influenced by the 'On Trend Tape' card by Sarah Engels-Greer in the June 2013 edition of Craft Stamper magazine.  I used the same colour scheme, but as I didn't have any of the stamps that were used in the magazine article, I substituted ones that were in my stash.  The other difference was that I used an A5 landscape layout; the original card was square.  I also chose not to machine stitch round the outside edge of the card.

Tuesday 8 December 2015

Cricut Anniversary - St. George and the Dragon

Once again I used my favourite Cricut cartridge - Paper Doll Dress Up, to create this card and use up some of my scraps.  It's not just a cartridge that can be used for children's cards.  My sister and brother-in-law were married on April 23rd which is St Georges Day in England (our patron saint), so the theme was an easy one to pick!  Apologies for the quality of the photographs - they were taken on an ancient mobile phone before I got my digital camera.

Monday 7 December 2015

Cricut Princess

I used to use my Cricut machine a lot more frequently, but I won't let it go because I have so many cartridges; every so often it comes in really useful for a quick card using up scraps from my scrap box.  This card was made several years ago for my Great Niece (she is now four and becoming quite the budding artist).

Sunday 6 December 2015

Butterfly, Butterfly Sympathy Card

This card was made in memory of a fellow crafter who finally lost her battle with cancer after many years of battling the illness.  It is coming up to the anniversary of her death in the new year, so I wanted to share this card in her memory.

Saturday 5 December 2015

Large Pop Out Card - Black and White Cogs

I made this card to say thank you to colleagues when I finished a temporary, two term teaching job at a University Technical College which specialises in Engineering.  I already had the stamps and dies, as I make a lot of men's cards.  I decided to make it a pop out card to add to the engineering theme.

Tuesday 1 December 2015

Concertina Card

I remember when these types of card involved lots of measuring, careful cutting and folding; thank goodness for dies that take the hassle out of the whole thing.