Christmas card set

I recently bought some of the new Taylored Expression winter/Xmas stamps (and one matching die), and decided I wanted to make a set of cards using the stamps & die, but keep them relatively quick and simple.

The die and one of the stamps is the Snow Globe set, which I thought was really lovely and quite versatile in terms of what you can use it to frame.  The stamp sets were the Ready Set Snow and Deck the Halls sets.  I used the Snow Globe set on every card, then chose images from the Ready Set Snow and Deck the Halls sets to go inside.  I coloured them all with Promarkers, then put all the cards together using papers from the Dovecraft Contemporary Christmas pack.  I kept embellishments to a minimum - I used a little ribbon on a few, and some Stickles, but other than that, nice clean, simple and quick cards.  I'm pretty happy with how most of them turned out - some I like far better than others, but isn't that always the way!

 There were 7 in the finished set.

 My favourites include the two at the back, and the card front and centre.

And I love the card on the right.  That fox is so cute!

I'm now looking forward to playing with the Snow Globe set in other ways - it would be perfect for shaker cards, princess cards....gonna have some fun!!

Baby cards

Here I've uploaded some cards I've made for babies. 

 

 This one goes back a bit.  I made this for my sisters first baby.  The teddy is made from Fimo.

 This one was made for the third child of a good friend of mine. I used wooden circles for the buggy wheels.

 I liked the effect sufficiently that I duplicated it recently for a relatives second child.  This time instead of using the wooden circles, I used a cog die, which I cut the teeth away from, then heat embossed the remaining circle with silver embossing powder.

 This card was for my second son's first birthday.  Again, I used Fimo to make the embellishments.  This was my first attempt at a board card (I'd seen one somewhere on the internet - I'm sorry, I don't remember by whom at this point), and I really love how the card looks.

 This final card is my second board card, which I made very recently for my daughters first birthday.  I really love how this turned out also, although I have to be honest and say that it wasn't nearly as much work as the first board card (three children, no time...).  The background paper is from DCWV's gorgeous Once Upon a Time collection, and was so pretty it took care of a lot of the card for me.  The fairy die is called Fairy Ariana - which I HAD to buy, merely because it's my daughters name, so I couldn't NOT use it on her birthday card!

 

Masked and inked cards - his and hers and........his?!

I inked these cards using a technique demonstrated by Theresa Momber.  The first couple were made in a deliberately masculine and feminine style, but the last could easily be either - I used it as a birthday card for a male relative, but could easily have altered it slightly for a female card, probably by using a little more purple & pink ink instead of the blue (forgive me for the stereotypes - I feel just as comfortable giving any card to any gender, but I tend to make cards directly for the audience intended, and for my family & friends, that tends to be relatively traditional!)

  

Apologies for the first image, the lighting is terrible!

A few more old cards

This one was done for my Mum, some years ago just after my eldest was born.  It's a little light on embellishments, and if I were to do it over, there would definitely be a little more going on to enhance (I'm thinking Stickles, a bit more done with the flower border punch, and definitely a little something to edge up the pink area), but I still kind of like it nonetheless.

This card was made for my OHs mother, the same year.

I don't include a lot of stitching on cards, mostly because I don't have a working sewing machine, and neat hand stitching can be somewhat time consuming.  But, when what you've got is quite simple, a little stitch work can do wonders to finish things off.

The focal image here was all small pieces, individually cut out with the Big Shot and arranged & glued down before adding the basket.

A sample of last years Xmas cards

I absolutely love my Martha Stewart pine leaf punch.  (I have a little hankering for the MS frond punch and the leaf branch punch too, but that's for quite another day!).  I also adore the little deer die, and have to hold back from using him on every card too.  I'm not using him at all this year - I'm mostly using stamping techniques for my current batch - I have more luck squeezing a quick bit of stamping in, in between activities with my baby, than I do getting out the Big Shot, choosing the papers, choosing the dies, then running through the whole cutting/embossing/inking/assembling......

I love papercraft.  Most specifically, card making.  I've been doing this since I was a teenager, which means for a preferably undisclosed but really rather high number of years.  I'm not terribly prolific these days, as I have a young family - my very youngest takes exceptional offense every time I try to sit down at my crafting table and my dearest other half isn't what you might call supportive.  He regularly comments that what I like to do (he calls it colouring between the lines!) is what he grew out of when he was 8, but I'm comfortable with his derision, and in fact, deal it back in spades thanks to his own little "childish" obsession of comic collection. 

But the passion remains, and slowly, new creations take shape.

Stylistically, I tend to make more simple cards, but that's partly a time thing.  I do like nice, clean cards, but then I also love wonderfully fussy and highly embellished cards too - I am happily a creature of two halves!

There are so many wonderfully clever and creative crafters out there, and I am often awed at the talent and creativity that I see, I don't pretend to come anywhere near that, and I am happy to admit that I take inspiration from many sources for the bits that I create.  With any luck, I will become even more inspired and eclectic as I move forward!

Happy crafting!