Another small batch of Christmas cards; unlike recent batches, these are not all identical, but they are made with the same techniques and layout. I've used Brusho before, but mostly in the "add Brusho, spray with water and fingers crossed it looks okay" way. These were a bit more controlled. The technique was inspired by… Continue reading Christmas splash of colour
I picked up this clear stamp in the run-up to last Christmas, but I never got around to using it. I rarely buy "scene" stamps — I generally prefer to build my own scenes — but I thought this was cute. The card layout is simple: a layer of matching patterned paper, a strip of… Continue reading Winnie’s Christmas wreath
Well, my plan to have finished all my Christmas cards by the end of October was utterly derailed by me not making any Christmas cards at all in October. In fact, I only made one card of any sort in October and that one really had to be made as it was for my mum's… Continue reading Aurora Christmas hair
And this is my absolute favourite of all the Christmas cards I've made so far this year. Another thing that nearly went in the bin but ended up working out really nicely. I thought I'd have a go at doing a snowman on kraft card, after all, white stands out on kraft, whereas on white… Continue reading Snowman on kraft
This is probably my favourite of the batches of cards I've made so far this year. When I saw the poinsettia edger die I just couldn't resist picking it up and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. It's a simple design, though inlaying the poinsettia flower was a bit fiddly and… Continue reading Poinsettia inlay
This is another card made out of the bits left over from creating the small batches of Christmas cards (1, 2, 3, 4). The stencilled panel was originally going to be layered with the smaller panel on the holly flourish card, but I wasn't happy with how that was looking. Instead, I used it as… Continue reading Wooden snowflakes
For the first one of these I made, I stamped the tree as a silhouette in black. Now, I quite like that one, but my other half declared it to be "creepy and deserving of a ghost story", so I stamped the rest in green. Unfortunately, the colour change decision was made after I had… Continue reading Single Christmas tree
This was one of the last of the Christmas cards I made in August and it was based off the first element I made when I was playing around with ideas for the batches of cards. I'd inked and stencilled a sheet of card with holly and die-cut a couple of postage-edged panels. But I… Continue reading Holly flourish
This is one of the two Christmas dies I bought for this year's cardmaking; I do like border sentiment dies and there is enough detail in this one that the rest of the design can be fairly simple. I divided the card into three sections: sentiment, trees and snow. Because I was going to make… Continue reading Field of Christmas trees
There's this lovely detailed snowflake swirl in one of the Polkadoodles stamp sets I picked up for my Christmas card-making and I really wanted to use it for one of my batch cards. At first, I hit the white space problem, i.e. I am rubbish at placing single elements on a card in a way… Continue reading Merry Christmas swirl
Much as I hate the idea of even contemplating Christmas when the temperatures are hovering around 30°C, there is one thing I have learned from experience that I hate more and that is making Christmas cards in December. To be honest, I'm not that keen on making them in November either. Way too stressful. So.… Continue reading Latest work: Christmas in August
The first of my small batches of Christmas cards this year, and the simplest. It's very rare that I make stamping the focal point of a card; most stamping is quickly followed by colouring... But I wanted designs that would be easy to reproduce and that wouldn't take hours to make. I am okay at… Continue reading Happy Christmas tree
In an effort to make Christmas card making as low stress as possible, I picked up the Winter Flurries Collection from Polkadoodles — four stamp sets, four stencils and a lovely pack of paper (some of which isn't overtly Christmassy). And that, along with a couple of dies that caught my eye, is all I'm… Continue reading Snowman and stars
And this is the last of my festive creations for this year. I hope that everyone has had a pleasant Christmas and I promise I will catch up with everyone's blogs and comments — December has had more than its fair share of stresses this year, so I've been truly grateful for this few peaceful… Continue reading Stripy gift card
I have had this digi stamp sitting on my hard drive for a while now, just waiting for the right time to be used. And this Christmas was that time. A friend of ours builds robots as a hobby and I just had to turn this one into a Christmas robot for him. The original… Continue reading Christmas robot
Crafty Rat 