Christmas in July...

Our challenge this fortnight at My Time to Craft is Christmas in July.   I know it's some way to go to Christmas, but entering these challenges in July is a fun way of getting ahead with your Christmas cards - it's certainly helping me this year as my stash of cards is really growing.  This is my latest one using a beautiful Sweet Pea stamp that I bought many years ago.  Some stamps never go out of favour and this is one of them that I think I will always love.  

I coloured the image using Promarkers and then stamped the image again onto vellum and cut out the candle glow which I then attached to the candles on the main image.  A bit fiddly but I wanted to get the colours lighter around the glow of the candle and thought this might be a good way to do it.  A good artist would have just coloured it well, but I have to use these little tricks to get the same effect.

The black background is glitter card and in real life it really sets the image off, but it's so hard to catch the effect of glitter in a photo.

Christmas in July Challenges...

• One Sweet Challenge
• Daring Cardmakers 
• C.R.A.F.T. Challenge

Have a great weekend everyone and maybe even though the sun is shining you'll find time to enter some of these great  Christmas challenges.

Annie xxx

A very happy day to teachers everywhere...

Last day of the summer term and then six whole weeks to recover - phew teachers all over England will be breathing a sigh of relief today.
Yesterday I created (at break neck speed) these gift cups for my grandson to give his nursery teachers.  As usual all very last minute, but thanks to a really simple cutting file from the Silhouette Store it didn't take long to make all five of them.  Eli put one of each of the goodies in each mug and then we put them in a cello bag so that nothing got lost. I think they turned out really cute and when I was teaching I would have been really thrilled to receive one of these.  Hope Eli's teachers are too.

Challenges...

• Two Creative Chicks - no cards but anything goes
• Creative Moments  anything goes monochromatic
• Penny's Paper Crafty Challenge  anything goes

Have a good day all and teachers out there get ready to chill big time.

Annie xxx

The Grumpy Queen...

I'm part of the Sweet Pea Stamps Facebook group and this card was made for Part two of the monthly challenge.  It's great fun to join in.  In part one you use a current Sweet Pea stamp which means that you receive a digital stamp (FREE - don't you just love that word?) to use in part two of the challenge.

The digital stamp given this month was this amazing design by Sandra Caldwell depiciting the Queen from Alice in Wonderland.  Cool eh?  Not my usual kind of stamp but oh my I did enjoy challenging myself to be creative with her.

To begin with I created the background using a digi kit in Craft Artist.  I love the way you can plan out the design especially when using digi stamps as you can place the digi onto the design to get the correct size of image too.

I printed the image on to glossy photo paper and then printed the image on smooth white card and coloured it with my Promarkers.  Then it was mat and layered on to the card.

The sentiment is one of the quotes from Alice in Wonderland - not one of the most well known ones though.  I thought it went well with the expression on the Queen's face.  The inside of my card finishes the quote off and turns it into a birthday sentiment.

I hope you like my card as much as I enjoyed making it.  I would love to hear your comments if you have time or just tick one of the boxes - that would be cool too.

Challenges...

• The Sisterhood of Crafters - Happy Birthday
• Penny's Paper Challenges - Anything Goes
• Inspiration  Destination - Anything Goes
• Card Mania - anything goes
• Through the Purple Haze - Something funny

Thanks for popping by - hope you are enjoying this week's fabulous weather and your crafting time too.

Bye for now.

Annie xxx

Feeling very smug...

as I have just completed five - yes five Christmas cards.  Wowza maybe this Christmas I might even be able to do the Advent calender I bought to decorate about four years ago and just never got round to.
Another strange occurrence is the fact I've created a one layer card and dared to use a stamp at the very last minute to add my sentiment.  Phew brave or what?
The main image stamp is by Little Claire and the sentiment was a Spellbinders one which was given as a freebie on a magazine.

Challenges...

• Stamping Sensations - feature a creature (mine is a polar bear and her baby)
• Penny Black and More - anything goes with a sentiment
• Quirky Craft Challenge - Christmas in July
• Winter Wonderland - have a beary Christmas
• Crafty Hazlenut's Christmas Challenge - Deck the halls with boughs of holly or wrap it round the world in my case!
• Sweet Stampin Challenge - Christmas in July

Hope everyone is having a really relaxing Sunday. I'm loving mine playing on new desk and starting to be able to find things in my newly organised craft room.  Lovin it.

Annie xxx