Anyone for turkey casserole?

Did you have a lovely Christmas?  I hope so! However, I have a feeling we'll be eating turkey in one form or another at least once a week until next Christmas!  The mince pies have gone, the cake has a good wedge taken out of it (and very boozy it was too) and we used up the last of the bread sauce and cranberry sauce last night.  How we still have so much turkey left, I'll never know, but I'll be on the Good Food website later to check out the various ways we can keep eating the same thing without anyone noticing!

Having been a very bad blogger in the run-up to Christmas, I thought I'd better try to make up for it while I'm on holiday.  This is the box I made for Mum and Dad's Christmas card:

I used papers from the Maja Design Christmas pad (from Live and Love Crafts) and matched these with some gorgeous ribbon from the Ribbon Girl.  The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts.  I stamped an older Tilda and coloured her with Distress Markers, adding some Glamour Dust to her halo and wings.  The banner is a hAnglar and StAnglar stamp and the sentiment is by Magnolia.

I put more of the gorgeous ribbon around the edge of the box.

The star pin and pearl stems are from my stash.

I'd like to enter this project into the following challenges:

Simply Magnolia - Gift Box
Deep Ocean - Santa is coming to town
Live and Love Crafts - Anything but a card

I'll be back to show you the card which went inside the box over the next couple of days.  In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your Christmas holiday!

Hugs

Tracey xx

Seeing Double!

No, I haven't been on the gin!  It's still a little early, even for me!  It's time for a new challenge at Sweet Stampin' and our theme is Seeing Double  - we want to see two of something on your creations!

Here's my DT card

It's a long story, but this isn't my original DT card, or at least, it isn't what I had planned.  Let's just say that my nearly finished original card met with disaster and I had to make something new - fast!

I used Basic Grey DP (Dasher) and added some jute and green ribbon.  I masked two Magnolia images, coloured them with Copics and added lots of Stickles.  The fence was cut with a Doohickey die and I added some Flower Soft in Polar White.  The two snowflakes were sent to me by the amazing Jacque Bedingfield a couple of years ago when I won one of her "sweet stuff" draws.  That lovely lady sent the most fabulous pack of goodies all the way from the USA and I'm still using some of the contents!

Hope you can join in our Seeing Double challenge this week.  As ever, we have fabby prizes up for grabs. Letraset are sponsoring us this week and Joanna Sheen is giving away a £10 voucher to one lucky winner at the end of the month. And if you're making a Christmas card, don't forget you can enter this in our Anything Goes challenge over at our other blog, Christmas at Sweet Stampin'.

Going to get the food shopping done before I tackle the housework ... yuk!

Hugs

Tracey x

A Lovely hAnglar Christmas

It's Christmas time over at Lovely hAnglar or Sweet Magnolia!  We're starting a new challenge today and it's an easy one - we'd like to see your Christmas creations!

I used this gorgeous hAnglar & StAnglar stamp and painted her with Distress Markers.  The papers are by Simple Stories and I love their homespun look.  I matched the DP with Kraft card; the image mat has been stamped with Walnut Stain using a Magnolia holly swirl stamp and the border was cut with a Doohickey die.  I just added some roses and pearls from Wild Orchid Crafts to complete the card as I wanted to keep the layout quite simple.

Why not pop over to LhoSM  to check out what my lovely teamies have made?  We'd love you to join in this fortnight if you can!  Instead of a sponsor prize this fortnight we're offering one lucky winner, chosen by the design team, the chance to guest design for us for two challenges.

I can't believe it's only a couple of weeks until Christmas! I really need to make a card for Mum and Dad, so I think a bit of blog-hopping inspiration might be in order after I've finished my marking.

Hugs

Tracey xx

In Full Swing

I'm now in overdrive on the Christmas card production line, especially now that I've discovered the joy that is CAS! 

However, this card does not fall into the CAS category.  It's my DT card for our latest challenge at Sweet Stampin' and our theme this week is dies and punches.

I'm definitely putting more of these sweet Bildmalarna images on my wishlist.  This one was a joy to colour with the old Copics - I do like working with Copic reds as I find they blend really well. I stamped around the edge of the image using an Elzybells snowflake stamp and some Antique Linen DI.  The frame was punched using a Martha Stewart PATP and layered with Magnolia papers.  I cut the poinsettia and mistletoe with Doohickey dies and edged them all with Antique Linen as before.  The pearl centre of the poinsettia is from Wild Orchid Crafts.

I really hope you can play along with our Dies and Punches challenge this week - come over here and see what my fabby teamies have made to inspire you.  We have great prizes to give away as usual, so there's even more reason to join in the fun!


Hugs

Tracey x

Christmas at Sweet Stampin'

Good morning!  I'm so excited to tell you about our new challenge blog, Christmas at Sweet Stampin'!  We start our Christmas themed challenges properly in January but we're having a bit of a welcome party today by hosting an Anything Goes challenge!

The challenge will be a monthly one, so you'll have plenty of time to plan and make your creations.  And for this challenge blog, we won't be insisting that you use a stamp, so you can make whatever you like as long as it fits the challenge theme!

Here's my card:

At last I managed to ink up this gorgeous Tilda from this year's Christmas collection. I coloured her with Copics and added Liquid Pearls and Stickles for a bit of Christmas sparkle.  The die cuts were all made from Doohickeys and both the heart and the poinsettia have a Doodlebug glittery brad attached.  The papers are Magnolia and I got the stunning ribbon from Live and Love Crafts.  You can just about see a Doohickey tag sticking out from behind the image, but numpty-girl here forgot to take a photo with the tag showing!

I do hope you can join us over at Christmas at Sweet Stampin'!  We have great prizes - this time we're sponsored by Letraset and Funky Kits - and the most wonderful design team EVER!  And as we all seem to be making Christmas cards at the moment, you might as well play along!

Hugs

Tracey

And now for something completely different!

Oooh, look at me... doing CAS!  Whatever next!

After my panic at not having made nearly enough Christmas cards and my shame at having had to give Mr John Lewis the benefit of my custom in the card department, I suddenly had a brainwave!  This was in no small part due to inspiration over at Pink Petticoat.

 

 After parting with a very reasonable sum of small change, I printed out a number of  Pink Petticoat Christmas sentiments onto linen card, cut them out with Nesties and mounted them on a contrasting Bazzill base.   I cut some Magnolia Doohickey shapes, including the small star tag above, from white card. I embossed the star with gold powder twice, added a loop of gold embroidery cotton and there it was, a CAS card that I rather like.  Shame I couldn't get a decent photo!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Midweek Magnolias - Starlight, Star Bright  (Magnolia Doohickey Star Tag)
Simon Says Stamp Challenge - Anything Goes

Hugs

Tracey x

Pretty in Pink

I have to say that pink isn't the first colour which springs to mind when I think of Christmas!  However, I wanted to give my Distress Markers an airing and the pinky shades match the Magnolia paper quite well, I think.

I splodged the edges of the Magnolia paper with Picket Fence paint and put this on top of some Maja Designs paper from their Christmas pad.  There are two heart shaped doilies underneath the image with a Magnolia Doohickey lace die cut from white Bazzill.  I added some pink seam binding tied in a double bow, a Magnolia sentiment and a few flowers.    All edges have been distressed with Antique Linen DI and I added plenty of Glamour Dust to Tilda's wings.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Magnolialicious - Pink Christmas

Deep Ocean Challenges - Pastel Colours

Tilda's Town - Celebrate Christmas

Dieing for a Challenge - Christmas

 

 

 

I must also let you know that we have a new challenge at Sweet Stampin'!   The theme this week is Ribbons and Snowflakes and we've got some great prizes as usual; this week we're sponsored by Stampfairy (a $10 voucher) and Joanna Sheen is once again sponsoring the monthly prize draw.  Hope you can join in!

 

Hugs

 

Tracey xx