Bah Humbug- Christmas Trees

Well, it's my last week as a Guest Designer over on the Bah Humbug Blog. The time has absolutely flown by! As you read this, I will be in Malta with my Husband having a weekend break, so thoughts of Christmas probably couldn't be further from my mind!
My first card was made using a couple of Tim Holtz stamps, stamped onto cream card, coloured with Distress Inks. I embossed the piece stamped with the music stamp, using a Tim Holtz tree embossing folder, and picked out the embossing, using Pine Needles Distress Ink. I matted both pieces of card onto dark green card, and used a lovely backing paper from Papermania. I then made a handmade flower from brown parcel paper, using a Nestability die. I added a red button and some paper string. Some leaves cut from a Magnolia die finish the flower off.

My second card was made by stamping an Elusive Images tree onto acetate with white Stazon, and glittering the back. I stamped a sentiment onto watercolour paper, and mounted this onto a green mirri card. I used a lovely Christmas paper from Artylicious, and added some red brads to attach the acetate to my card.

The acetate was so shiny, it was difficult not to get a reflection of myself in the picture!

Don't forget to pop over to the Bah Humbug Blog to see what everyone else is getting up to, and thank you so much for stopping by for the last four weeks. I have really enjoyed my stint as Guest Designer. Judith xx

Bah Humbug Metallics

The theme over on the Bah Humbug blog this week is metallics. I have made two cards using my favourite colours. Years ago, I had my colours analysed, and was described as a 'Winter' person, dark haired with fair skin, able to wear strong colours like Aubergine and Teal, Black and White. I hate the cold, so I am not a natural Winter person, but I love the colour Aubergine, and this is what I have used on my first card. I took a piece of metal that colour, and embossed it through my Big Shot with a Kabuka mould, and then refined it with my tools. After sticking the metal to a tag, I used the 'controlled squish' technique taught by Linda Brown of LB Crafts to create the harlequin pattern, and drew some squiggles on every other diamond. I aged my piece of metal by rubbing black acylic paint over it, and wiping off the excess.

I stamped my Elusive Images bauble onto pearlescent card with Versamark, and then used Moonglow embossing powder to give a lovely metallic sheen. I added two types of Burgundy ribbon through the top of my tag, and a burgundy bow to the top of my bauble. I embossed the sentiment using Versamark and Moonglow embossing powder again straight onto the Artylicious backing paper.

For my second card, I chose to use another Eluse Images stamp, which I stamped onto acetate, using Stazon. I then applied my adhesive, and metal leaf, before matting this onto silver mirri card. I used a backing paper with the matching image totie everything together, then added a ribbon with a metal snowflake charm. 

This is my third week as a Guest Designer on the Bah Humbug blog, only one more week to go, the time is just flying by! Don't forget to pop over there to see what everyone else is getting up tp. Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx

Bah Humbug Apertures

Hi folks, it's the second week of my stint as a Guest designer over at Bah Humbug. This week the challenge is to make a card or project using apertures.
For my first card, I managed to use three stamps that I haven't used before. I have had them for ages, and they have sat neglected in my box of Christmas stash, gathering dust. They would qualify for my other Friday post, lol! They are a set of bauble stamps from Great Impressions, with the words 'Peace', 'Love' and 'Joy' on the baubles. I chose to stamp these on acetate, and cut three apertures out of my main card. I glittered the baubles, and stuck them into the apertures, and then covered the back with another layer of acetate, to keep the glitter nice and tidy, then added a layer of card, to tidy up the inside of my card.

Apologies for the ornament in the corner of the picture, but I need a nice sunny position to take the photo, and the windowsill was handy!

My second card is a tri-fold card, made using a stamp from Elusive Images, stamped onto watercolour paper, and coloured with Polychromos pencils. I have placed it so that it can be seen through an aperture on the front of the card. I have added some flowers and leaves cut from Crealie dies.

Don't forget to pop over to the Bah Humbug blog to see what everyone else has been up to, and thanks for stopping by, I'll be back later with my Forgotten Friday post, see you then! Judith xx

Bah Humbug things that fly

This week over at Bah Humbug the challenge was to make a card or project incorporating something to do with 'Things that Fly'. I chose to use a lovely stamp from Elusive Images of a bird house and two robins. I coloured my image with Polychromos pencils, and mounted it onto a fabulous backing paper printed onto pearlescent paper. My paper design comes from the Essence of Nature CD, again from Elusive Images. I have used a Martha Stewart branch punch, and a fun sentiment to finish my card off.

Don't forget to go and see what everyone else has been up to this week over on the Bah Humbug blog, and watch out for Friday, as there's an extra treat in store!!!
Thanks for popping by today, Judith xx

Forgotten Friday Number 6

Hi folks, it's Friday again, and time to dig out your neglected stash again, to make something and play along with my weekly post. If you make a comment, post a link, and I'll pay a visit to your blog.

This week, I've been trawling through my embellishment baskets, and the stuff in here is seriously neglected! There's ten years worth of goodies stuffed in here; brads, chipboard pieces, buttons, all sorts of things. I got a packet of domino sized pieces of Stampbord out, and decided to use one of those.
I have chosen to use an unused stamp set this week, called 'Parfum de Paris' from Elusive Images. Hopefully this will be available again under the Chocolate Baroque label when the new Company starts up very shortly. I stamped the word 'amour' onto my coloured piece of Stampbord, and inked up a piece of card with Distress Inks, before stamping the large image in Vintage Sepia Versafine ink. I tore around the edges, and then inked those edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I used a Tim Holtz flourish die cut, and made a chiffon flower from my old chiffon scarves, another neglected item.

I added a flower from an old Primark necklace, and some very forgotten fibres were threaded through the tag at the top.

Thanks for stopping by today, Judith xx

More charms

Hi folks, I made another two charms yesterday, in spite of the cut finger! It is still really sore, but Buzz doesn't care, she just wants her dinner, ah well, I'll recover.

I bought these tiny wooden cotton reels on Sunday from Stamperama, and thought that they would make really cute charms. I painted the tops and bottoms with precious metal paint, added some  TH tissue tape around the middle, and glued a metal rondelle to the top and bottom. I've added a clasp at the top, so that they can clip onto a hanbag if the recipient likes, or they can take that off, and just use the jump ring. At the bottom, I've added some beads, and a little brass sewing machine.

A fellow forum member, who is an Art Teacher, put out a call, asking for us to make journal pages for her students, on the subject of 'Time' recently. I haven't made any completed journal pages before, I've prepared pages, with watercolour backgrounds, stamped on them, and inked them, but this was a bit of a first for me. I had two ideas, and wanted to make them while the ideas were fresh in my mind. They are a bit more scrapbooky in style than most journal pages, because I have treated them more like a canvas. I have kept them as flat as possible though, as they are going in a book.

For the first one, I drew an hourglass, and stamped lots of clocks, which I wanted to fall down the hourglass, like sand, and pile up at the bottom. I covered them all with Glossy Accents. I found a poem called 'Time for Now' on the Internet, which I wrote around the edges. I used Elusive Images ATC stamps, sequin waste, and bottle caps to make my background.

For the second page, I wanted to use the phrase 'Tempus Fugit' time flees, or more commonly translated as time flies. I took an Elusive Images clock, stamped it, and covered it with Glossy Accents again, added TH wings and a crown. I covered the wings with tissue tape. I cut a Birdcage from Grungepaper and painted it with green metallic paint, cutting away some of the bars, as if my clock bird had escaped. I did a bit of my own journalling on this page, keeping the background a bit simpler.

It's been fun making these pages! I'd certainly like to make some more. I hope you are having a good day whatever you are up to today, thanks for stopping by, Judith xx

Bah Humbug Crackers

The challenge over at the Bah Humbug Blog this week, is Crackers. I was a bit stumped at first, but I googled cracker templates. I downloaded a template that I liked, and decided to make a cracker and matching Christmas card.
I decided to go for a Kraft and red colour scheme, which was a nice warm blend of colours, and threw a little bit of green in there too. I stamped a swirly Elusive Images background onto brown wrapping paper for the cracker itself, and thicker Kraft card for my actual card. I made a couple of Poinsettias from sticky backed canvas mounted onto Grungepaper, after I had sprayed it with Adirondack colour wash sprays. I fixed the layers together with large brads, curling them a little bit. I used an Elusive Images sentiment for my card, and cut out a piece of cream card, using an oval Nestability. To get a fine mount for this, I drew around the same Nestability onto my red card, and cut this out by hand. I use the small curvy parchment scissors, which are great for cutting curves.

I really like the way the cracker turned out, so I may make some more of these for the Christmas meal, I just need to collect some useless cracker jokes, and the bits to go inside them, between now and December, and I'll be fine!

Thanks for stopping by today, any comments you care to make are really appreciated, Judith xx

Floral Tags

Hi folks, I've been making a couple of pieces for other people recently, and thought that I'd share them with you.

The first one is a tag that I made for a swap on the Graphicus Guild. The theme was New Beginnings, and I chose the theme of Spring for my tag. I embossed a swirl design in white pearl embossing powder over my tag, and then blended Distress Inks in blues and greens all over the tag. I made a flower, using a Nestability Die, and some Artylicious DP. I coloured the back of the paper with Distress Ink, before scrunching the layers, and fixing them together with a large brad. I used a Marianne die to punch out the stem for the flower. I stamped out a large butterfly with Stazon ink, coloured this with Distress Inks again, and painted key areas with bleach, to highlight them. I added a Tim Holtz fragment to my sentiment, and a steampunk butterfly charm to finish the tag, on a piece of chain taken from a cheap necklace. 

My second make is a Birthday card for a friend who comes to my card class. She is a French teacher, so I chose to make my background paper from pages torn from a French poetry book. I stamped an Elusive Images rose over the top, and coloured this with Inktense pencils, to give a faded vintage look.

I ran my tag through the Tim Holtz postcard embossing folder, and coloured it with Distress Inks. and made my flower with left over paper, colouring that with Distress Inks too. I also edged the cream Prima leaves with DIs. A piece of cream lace and an Elusive Images sentiment complete the card.

Thanks for stopping by today, and any comments you leave are very much appreciated, Judith xx

Bah Humbug Stencils

The Challenge on Bah Humbug this week is to use stencils on your Christmas cards, either as a background, or main feature. I have chosen to use this lovely Dreamweaver stencil of winter trees as a background for an Elusive Images reindeer. I have chosen an Artylicious Christmas paper in Green with a lovely swirly snowflake pattern all over.

I inked through the stencil with Distress Inks, and then took a  clear Stardust pen down the left hand side of each trunk and branch to represent frost. It's hard to see in the photo, but it's very shimmery.

I've used one of my favourite Elusive Images sentiments to complete the card. I added a little bit of purple, (my favourite colour) in there for good measure, as the snowflakes on the backing paper are actually purple. It was refreshing to work with an unusual colour palette for a Christmas card.
Pop over to the Bah Humbug blog to see what everyone else has been getting up to. Thanks for popping by, Judith xx

Mother's Day and a Golden Wedding

Well, I've had a busy day today; I've been invigilating at the school, and making cards. It's my in laws' Golden Wedding Anniversary tomorrow, and we're all having a meal with them to celebrate. My MIL has just had a big operation so is not 100%, and it will be very tiring for her. Her family consists of three noisy sons, three daughters in law, seven granchildren, and there will be three boyfriends and a girlfriend tagging along with the older granchildren, Michelle who made the lovely card).

I'm putting some card pictures in this post of the anniversary card, made with two linked hearts created with paper sprayed with Glimmer Mists. (I used parchment scissors to get into the little areas for cutting out). The background paper is from a GG paper pack and I used a computer generated greeting, as I don't have an anniversary greeting that I like. I'm also including my mother's day cards, both similar but in different colour ways to reflect the different tastes of my Mum and MIL - My Mum likes turquoise, and my MIL prefers stronger colours. The Daisy collage stamp is another Elusive Images stamp, and the background paper is from the Damask Delight CD. I've used Inktense pencils, and decoupaged the butterflies and daisies. Finally, there is a card with a Ventian flavour to reflect my recent trip to Italy. I want to do some scrapbooking with these stamps as I mentioned in a previous post, but time is against me at the moment, so a card was all I could manage. Anyway, I wanted to show Michelle the joys of stampboard at the class last night, as she made an identical card.

We had a sad day yesterday, as a dog got into the garden, and attacked one of our chickens, and she died. This happened back in November as well, and we ended up losing three chickens as a result of the attack back then. We knew which dogs came into the garden before, but the police did nothing about it. We don't know what happened yesterday, so therefore, we can't do anything. Our chickens are very much like pets, and so it's sad for us when something like this happens; they have their individual characters and they are very quirky. All of our animals today appear a bit spooked, including the rabbit and the cat, and it will take them a few days to settle down. Life goes on, but it's sad.

I'm looking forward to Mother's Day, I won't have to cook at least. My poor hubby has just been diagnosed with IBS, and the dietician has given him a strict short-term diet taking away all of his favourite foods. He is not happy. He made her write down the bit that said he didn't have to eat vegetables as he told her that I wouldn't believe him! He is not allowed beer either, so there you go, you win some, you lose some! Have a happy Mother's Day everyone, Judith x