Even more CAS cards.

I think I've become obsessed with finishing my main Christmas cards so that I can get my family cards made.  I think it would be nice if I could get my cards posted before the last recommended day for 2nd class. You wouldn't believe how irritating it is to work in the Post Office and have people coming in pleased with themselves because they're posting their cards and I haven't finished mine yet. So this year I'm determined things will be different! I've got 94 cards now so I'm optimistic lol!

Well I promised you CAS cards so here they are.

I used :- Spellbinders Holiday Ornament 2011,

Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder,

Glamour Dust,

Hero Arts sentiment,

Candi, pearls and Spica glitter gel pens.

Well I've got another idea so I'm off to try it out. Not sure if I'll get much done tomorrow. It's my Thursday for going out and in the afternoon I've got Messy Church. Unlike traditional Sunday School the children have to come with a parent or grandparent or childminder. They have a snack and time to play. We usually have various crafts for them to try, games to play and end up with a very short Bible story and a song. It's held in a village hall not a Church hall and we don't expect any of them to come to Sunday school or anything like that. The main idea is to get adults and children having a fun time and ending up sharing a meal. After lurking in the kitchen for the first two meetings this time I am in charge of decorating cakes and making donkey poo. Yes you did read that correctly. As you might suspect at this time of year we are dealing with the nativity story. Should be fun I hope.

Thanks for looking and I'm going to try out my new idea and catch up with my DT work and maybe even fit in a coffee.

Anyone for an embossed Christmas card?

Mmmmm thought not. I've got the feeling things are getting a bit repetitive here. This is the last 3. Well I'm not exactly promising that but I've had an idea for something different!

These were made with a Crafts too embossing folder. In real life the embossing is lovely. The first time I used  Liquid Pearls but it's a bit messy as some of them were too big  and they got a bit flat so I used gems in the second one! The first sentiment is Crafty Impressions and the second is Denami Design.

This "Snowman" folder which I bought from Crafter's Companion is one of my favourites. It embosses beautifully and just needs a few gems to jazz it up. I also went over all the  snowflakes with a Sakura clear glitter gel pen to make them lovely and sparkly. This sentiment is from Paula Pascual. And just a little of my favourite red gingham ribbon to finish it off.

Thanks for looking and I promise to stop boring you with my Christmas cards soon.

I didn't want this stamp at first......

but you know what it's like.....you see it a few times and it kind of grows on you! I've only made a couple of cards with it so far. At the moment I'm obsessed with getting my cards finished so maybe early next year I'll try to do more with it. I'm in simple quick card mode so that I've got time to make my special family cards.

I used :-

Image :- Stampendous.

Colouring :- Distress Inks

Glamour Dust.

Red Stickles.

Stampendous embossing enamel in Aged Gold and Shabby White.

Ribbon.

I popped up the holly on sticky pads for a bit of dimension.

This is the second one. This time I popped up the central part of the image on sticky pads.

I think I've added too much of the Shabby White embossing enamel. What do you think?

Colouring and embossing as before.

Berries :- Liquid Pearls.

Lace and gold twine.

I'll try to catch up tonight after my Guild meeting, we're never late as some of the members are quite elderly. I'm on teas tonight and we'll probably be choosing what we want for our Christmas meal in a couple of weeks time. Looking forward to it!

So thanks for looking and if you want to leave me a comment  please do, don't be shy.

Where has the day gone?

I can't believe the weekend's almost over already. So what have I achieved today? Probably not a lot unless I post this and suddenly produce a few cards! But I have done my washing and ironing so I suppose that's something lol!

I'm afraid all I have to show you today are more Christmas cards. Yesterday I got a few more made so I think I'm up to 89 now. I'd like to get 100 made before I make a start on my 6 family cards. Maybe for once I'll get them posted before the last recommended date for 2nd class! The snag is I have to type out all my labels this year since I lost my list when I had to replace my hard drive. Not to mention adding all the inserts and actually writing the cards. I'm going to a crop next Saturday so I think I'll be doing one of these things that afternoon. I've been trying to negotiate some time of as I still have 5 days to get and we're not allowed days off in December! I can see the force of that in the shop but in the post office part there are only 2 of us and only one working at a time. But who am I to argue? As a big concession I've got my boss to agree that I can have the first 2 Mondays in December off. This year I have a Christmas meal with the Guild and with the WRI on Mondays. The WRI is usually on a Wednesday but our President's daughter gets married on the 12th so we're going out the next Monday instead. I'm also hoping to get a Saturday, possibly the 15th to babysit for Catriona. I'm hoping to get this past the boss by working the whole day on the Friday and treating it as a swap rather than a day off. Wish me luck lol!

But enough waffle, I need to show you some of the cards I made the other day.

This one was made using a gorgeous Tri-Boss embossing folder from Papermania. All I did was add some gems and sentiments.

This one is made using an old favourite Cuttlebug folder -Lace Tree. Again I've just added some lovely gems and a sentiment.

Yesterday I made some more cards with more embossing folders. I tried to make these ones at the same time as the four above and the others I showed during the last week. I think I was jinxed with this folder. I embossed 2 and made a mess of the parcels on one and got ink on the other before I'd even done anything to it. So I ripped them up and embossed another too. This time I managed to get the red ink I was using for the parcels across the card. So I embossed yet another one and managed to get them both coloured before I did any more damage.

This is a Crafts Too folder and the colouring is Spica glitter gel pens.

I think this one could fit the challenge at Cards for Men which is Merry Christmas. I think this card is simple enough for a male card. It also fits the challenge at Stampin' for the Weekend which is Use some Texture. And is it pushing it to enter it in the challenge at ABC Christmas :- W is for Wrapping. It has two parcels on it!

I'm sure you must be fed up looking at my simple embossed Christmas cards. Tomorrow I've got something different to show you! Unfortunately I still have some embossed cards still to show you so I'll inflict them on you on Tuesday.

Thanks for looking and I hope you can leave me a comment. I know you're popping in so why don't you let me know who you are by leaving a comment? I'd love to visit you too. 

Totally Gorjuss 159 - Not Square.

Good morning, and I'm glad it's Saturday at last. It's been a long week at work, but then it usually is! Yesterday was Poppy's birthday. She's 5 already, I don't know where the last 5 years went.  Catriona made a cake for her. But....... yeah there's always a but isn't there! Catriona went to all the bother of hiring a cake tin in the shape of a five and making a cake. I think it was a bit of a bother between preparing the tin and getting the cake out of it. Then her young dog stole it. So she grabbed her and shut her in her cage and she had to watch the old dog eating it. I think there was a broken bit left that she hadn't got a hold of. So poor Catriona had to go off and make an ordinary chocolate sponge and top it with a 5 made of Smarties. Heaven knows how we're going to keep that little pest under control at Christmas. My dogs are almost saints compared to her!! 

I used :-

Image :- LOTV die cut.

DP :- Papermania.

Sentiment :- Hero Arts.

Gems :- Hobby House.

Glamour Dust.

I'll catch you all later. Have a lovely weekend and thanks for looking.

More simple Christmas cards!

Sorry to bore you with more Christmas cards but it's that time of year isn't it. I really want to get them all made pretty soon. I'm going to have to type out my complete address book for my labels this year. I had to replace my hard drive a while ago so I'm really delighted about all the things I have to re-do. Not my favourite job but it'll be worth it I suppose.

Anyway here's some more of the cards I finished the other day. The first four can be found here.

Isn't this a lovely embosssing folder from Crafts too. Well it is in real life, pity the photo doesn't do it justice. I added some gems and on the red one I added some Spica glitter gel pen.

This is a lovely Sizzix folder. I just added one gem and a lot of Glamour Dust. The sentiment on the turquoise card is from Hobby Art and on the lilac card is from Hero Arts.

Sorry about the pics, maybe it would have been better if I had taken individual photos. Or I could blame the weather. It was very windy and wet and dark here yesterday when I took the photos so that doesn't help.

Anyway thanks for looking and if I'm not back later with the last of these cards I'll be back tomorrow with my DT card for Totally Gorjuss.

I'm getting closer......

Not many more cards now till I have enough! Well just because I managed to finish 12 cards yesterday doesn't mean that I won't still be rushing at the last minute. I think if I can get 100 made then I can make my special cards for my family. I've got 80 now. Sounds impressive but I had the embossing done and the coloured mats cut so I just had to put them together and add glitter and gems. I was quite pleased but today I have achieved nothing so far! I did go and buy 3 Secret Santa presents and a wedding present so I'm happy to have got that out of the way. I did have 14 embossed panels but somehow one of them got inky marks on it and I messed up the other one using liquid pearls!

So here's some of them. I don't want to spoil you with too many pictures so I've photographed them in twos.

These were just made with a Crafts Too embossing folder and some gems.

Another Crafts Too folder and I coloured with Spica glitter gel pens.

I've spent ages trying to upload these pics as I was suddenly informed that I had no storage space in my Picasa album. I tried to find out how to free up some space but I just wasted a lot of time and had to give up in the end and pay for more space. It seems to be so much per month. Does anyone know if I can cancel before the next payment is due and still have the storage space? I have to admit I don't know much about how this works. Well to be honest I don't know anything about how it works!!

So I've still achieved nothing. Never mind tomorrow is another day.

Thanks for looking and I'll be back tomorrow with some more Christmas cards.

The Christmas Story.

Not sure this works! What do you think?

I've achieved nothing all weekend. I spent last night die cutting but haven't used any of the things I cut out. Today (Sunday) I've done some stamping and catching up with blogs and doing my DT work but that's all. So just at the last minute I've thrown this card together!

I used :-

Sentiment :- Personal Impressions - Christmas Story.

Edges distressed  and mounted on some Kraft. Punched silver star.

Challenge :-

52 Christmas Card Throwdown :- Scripture Verse.

I have lots of cards ready to put together I just need to summon up the enthusiasm to do it. Maybe after a day at work I'll be glad to do some cardmaking. Not the sort of thing I can do at work. I can knit but only at lunchtime!

Can you later, hope you can find time to leave me some feedback. I like to be able to visit other bloggers to see what they're up to . Thanks for looking.

Totally Gorjuss 158 - Plain and Simple.

Good morning everyone, Saturday again....thank goodness. At least I'll be happy when it gets to 12.30 and my work is finished for the week!

This week at Totally Gorjuss our challenge is "Plain and Simple." This could be ideal for some quick Christmas cards so why don't you join us. As you can see I've made a very quick and simple Christmas card! We're sponsored by Heather's Hobbie Haven this week.

I used :-

Image :- Papermania.

Sentiment :- oops can't remember, I made the card about a week ago.

Ribbon.

Can't get much simpler than this can you? May have to make some more versions of this card if I get really short of time lol!

I may have to catch up this evening. My daughter is coming out to get her hair cut and we usually go out for a coffee after that. I need to get 3 Santa presents for the WRI, the Guild our monthly crop.

We had a very successful quiz on Friday evening. We had 10 tables of 4 and people very generously brought raffle prizes and bought raffle tickets. Our usual Quizmaster, was unable to come as he was in Estonia so he asked a friend to stand in for him. Considering he was helping out at short notice he did very well and I think he quite enjoyed his evening.

Thanks for looking and for your lovely comments. Catch up later.

You know what they say about checking first.........!

Some of us never learn do we? 

Before :-

After. Spot the difference?

Yes you guessed I stuck it on upside down. Never learn do I? The last time my card could have opened from the left but this one was completely upside down. So nothing else to do but convert my card to an easel  card. No wonder it sometimes takes ages to make a card. I had to cut out another snowflake, well after I figured out which die I had used in the first place since I found the first one in a tub of snowflakes I'd cut out ready to use.

I used :-

Image :- Penny Black.

Sentiment and candi :- Craftwork Cards.

Colouring :- Promarkers.

Pearls :- Hobby House.

DP :- K&Co.
Corners :- Whimsy.

Snowflakes :- Marianne Designs.

Glamour Dust.

Challenges :-

Penny Black :-Cute Christmas.
Penny Black and More at Allsorts :- Any Die Will Do.
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge :- For a man or boy.
Pink Elephant :- Punches/dies.
Christmas Challenges with sketches :- Sketch plus add stitching.
Cards for Men :- Anything Goes.
Crafty Cardmakers :- More than one punch &/or diecut. Snowflake die, Whimsy corner die, nesties, reverse corner punch.
Stampin' for the Weekend :- All stitched up.

Thanks for looking and I'd best check up the last of this weeks entries at Totally Gorjuss since I've been out two nights in a row.

See you tomorrow with my latest DT card.

Getting Ready For Christmas.....................

Well the bear in my card is, not sure about me!

I found a great sketch at Cute Card Thursday and decided it was so nice I'd make a couple of cards with it. Sorry they're a bit repetitive but I've still got a lot of Christmas cards to make!

I have no idea why I thought I'd have time to write this post this morning but as you can see I didn't. I was getting my hair cut after work so I really thought I'd have time to spare since I didn't have to wash and dry it. Somehow time ran away from me, so here I am now!

 

I used :-

Image :- Box of Ornaments - isn't this Gruffie cute?

DP :- LOTV.

Sentiments and Candi :- Craftwork Cards.

Snowflake :- Martha Stewart punch.

Poinsettia, gems and Glamour Dust.

Challenges :-

Cute Card Thursday :- Sketch.
House Mouse :-Getting Ready for Christmas.
Christmas Stampin' All Year Long :- Anything Goes.

Well I'd best get a move on now. It's our quiz night at the WRI tonight. We have 11 tables booked which is really good as we probably have room for about 12 maximum in the small school hall where we meet. Apart from that there are only 12 of us to cater for them and 4 of us are involved in setting the questions and marking the quiz. I'm the treasurer so this afternoon I've been wrapping 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes times 3 each, the quizmaster's present and my own raffles. I drew the line at wrapping the raffles I bought for the WRI. We all take at least one each but since there are so few of us I buy some too. We're lucky too that some of our regulars always bring a raffle too. I also have one of our member's baking and raffle that her daughter brought to me at work and said her Mum couldn't go as she wasn't very well. It's always a good night and fun, especially since the quizmaster, a local councillor, is a bit daft. He can't  resist giving clues now and then. We also have a regular who can't resist arguing about at least one of the answers. It's all in good fun though, nobody takes him seriously.

Catch up later or maybe even tomorrow if I'm late home.

It's a Tree Thing!

I seem to be doing a lot of trees for my Christmas cards this year. I've done quite a few dry embossed trees but today I have two heat embossed ones. I rarely ever use my heat gun these days but I thought this would be a change.

I bought some lovely Inkylicious stamps at the SECC a couple of weeks ago and this is the first time I've used them. One of the things Inkylicious suggest is using the same stamp to make a border for your card so I tried that. Not sure if I've been very successful though!

I used :-

Image and sentiment :- Inkylicious.

Silver embossing powder, ribbon and Liquid Pearls.

The pearls weren't totally successful. Initially they were fine but somehow I managed to smudge some of them. I should have sat the card somewhere safe as soon as I added the pearls!

I used the same lovely image and sentiment to make another card. This time I embossed in gold and added some red gems from the Hobby House and gorgeous red ribbon from the Ribbon Girl. Have you ever bought ribbon from the Ribbon Girl? They have beautiful ribbons and other lovely embellishments and their service is amazingly quick.

That's 63 cards now, well 64 really as I made another one last night that I'm not showing just yet.

Thanks for looking and thanks to the kind people who leave me lovely comments on my poor efforts. I'll catch up later after work. Have a good day even if it is Monday!

Hope it's not going to snow any time soon!

Looks snowy in both of today's cards but I don't want to see snow for a long time yet!

I'm back today with another two quick cards. Well at this time of year and with lots of cards still to make what's a girl got to do except try to make quick cards!

I used :-
Image and DP :- LOTV.
Sentiment and candi :- Craftwork Cards.
Corner :- Memory Box.
Martha Stewart punch, Glamour Dust.

Challenges :-
Creative Inspirations :- Red for remembrance.
St Lukes Charity Cards Challenge :- Traditional Christmas card.

I was going to enter at Stamping Sensations but I realised that would be wrong since I haven't actually stamped anything!

And my second card.

I used :-
Image :- LOTV die cut.
Sentiment and Candi :- Craftwork Cards.
Swirl :- Marianne.
Embossing folder :- Cuttlebug.
Glamour Dust, ribbon, Ranger Liquid Pearls.

Challenges :-
Crafty Creations :-No flowers.
Papertake Weekly :- Anything goes.
Everybody Art :- Embossing.
ABC Christmas :- V for Vibrant colours.

I'm hoping to get some crafting done later today. First of all it's the annual Remembrance service then lunch. If I can do some crafting in the afternoon I'll be happy but later on I'll need to do my ironing as usual.

Enjoy what's left of your weekend. Catch up later.

Looks like present time.....

Wonder what's in those interesting parcels?

Amazing my second post today. You can find my DT card for Totally Gorjuss here. I'm still in Christmas card mode as you can see and I couldn't resist this cute LOTV die cut image. Not to mention the gorgeous paper also from LOTV.

I used :-

Image and DP :- LOTV die cut.

Sentiment and candi :- Craftwork cards.

Icicle border and snowflakes :- Martha Stewart punches.

Glamour Dust and Sakura clear glitter gel pen.

I'm entering the following challenges :-

Pile it on :- Make it Sparkle.
Paperplay :- Snowflakes.
Charisma :- Feeling Blue.

I'm off now to see if I can get some more Christmas cards organised since I've still got a lot to do and even two weeks later I still haven't managed to do much with the new goodies I bought at the SECC.

Thanks for looking and I really like to read what you think of my cards if you have time to leave me a comment. I also like to visit other blogs so don't be shy, tell me what you think and I'll come and visit you too.

Enjoy your weekend. And if you're going to the NEC don't spend too much lol!!!

Totally Gorjuss 157 - Pastel Christmas.

Good morning everyone and since we're getting ever closer to Christmas and I'm up to my ears in Christmas cards this challenge is right up my street. Hopefully lots of you will find it useful too and join us this week. This week we're sponsored by Crafter's Companion. They've usually got some good offers so it wouldn't be difficult to spend your prize voucher.

I had an idea for a quick card. Well it had to be a quick card because I was rather late getting round to making it. I've lost two evening this week to meetings and was out all day meeting my friend. She lives in Lanarkshire and I'm in Aberdeenshire so we decided to meet at Dobbies in Perth. Unfortunately the traffic in Aberdeen was horrendous so I had to text her from Dundee to say I was running half an hour late! I was lucky it was only half an hour as when I reached Aberdeen I sat in a queue for 45 minutes to go about half a mile. Altogether to get through Aberdeen took about an hour and twenty minutes. This is ridiculous as at a quieter time of day it takes an awful lot less time. All I can say is that the clowns who object to the Aberdeen city bypass don't have to drive through Aberdeen!!

Anyway enough waffle. Here's my card and it's not a very good one from me this week. Luckily my talented teamies have made gorgeous cards to inspire you.

I used :-

Spellbinders 2012 Holiday Tree.

Sentiment :- Cheery Lynn.

Tree and sentiment embossed with Stampendous shabby white embossing enamel.

It was really fiddly trying to heat the embossing enamel. I put the tree and the sentiment on a sheet of paper and heated from underneath. The paper got a wee bit singed but the embossing worked!

Thanks for looking and if I find any challenges to enter I'll come back later and add them.

I'm Still Embossing.....

and still making Christmas cards. These are the last two I made at the weekend. Embarassingly simple again.  Just a Sizzix embossing folder, some gems, ribbon and a sentiment. I love this sentiment from a Paula Pascual set.

Do you like the colours? I do. Very untraditional but sometimes I just like to be different!

I think I said before that I had to see about cards for my great-niece's 21st and my grandson's 3rd birthdays. Well lazy me I found two I had in my box that I thought were just right. Oliver loves dinosaurs and I found a card with a dinosaur that I'd made earlier this year. Hope he likes it!

Thanks for looking and as usual any feedback would be very welcome. I'm off to do a little DT commenting and visit my favourite blogs.

Nice and Simple!

I've seen this beautiful Spellbinders Christmas tree around the blogs. Erika has some gorgeous cards on her blog using this die. So when I saw the die at the SECC on sale for £13.50 it would have been rude not to buy it lol! I made these 2 cards with it at the weekend. Hope you like. I'm also getting good use from my Cheery Lynn Happy Christmas die.

I'm also getting good use from my Cuttlebug embossing folders just now and the lovely Glamour Dust. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Glamour Dust!

Well it's a full day at work for me today so I'll have to catch up later. The only thing about working all day is that in quiet spells I can read my papers and at lunchtime I can get some of my knitting done.

Thanks for looking and if you can tell me what you think of my cards that would be great.

Bears Love Christmas!

Well these ones certainly do!

Is it cheating to use these gorgeous LOTV die cuts to make your Christmas cards? No, thought not! Since it's now November I'm quite prepared to take the odd short cut. I was at my local crop yesterday and between yesterday afternoon and evening I managed to make 6 cards. These two are both very simple and quick to make. Some glitter, embossing, ribbon, candi and die cut sentiments and we're done.

I used :-

Image :- LOTV die cuts.

Sentiment :- Cheery Lynn.

Embossing folders :- Cuttlebug.

Candi, Glamour Dust and ribbon.

I've done a lot of embossing this year and a lot of red and white.

I think this card fits the challenge at St Luke's which is "Traditional Christmas." This is their last challenge so I hope they get a lot of entries.

Thanks for looking and I'm looking forward to hearing what you think if you've got a few minutes to spare. Now I need to see about a 21st birthday card for my great-niece and a birthday card for my grandson who'll be 3 on Friday.

Totally Gorjuss 156 - Anything Goes With a Button.

Good morning everyone and it's been another really quick week. I can't make up my mind whether it's an age thing or a time of year thing lol!

But it's time for another challenge at Totally Gorjuss. This week it's a really easy one. "Anything Goes With a Button." Sponsored again by Joanna Sheen. I've made yet another Christmas card. Quite a simple one. Again. I was inspired by a card I saw on Kath's blog. I've done lots of embossing this year but I hadn't thought of using it in a circle and not doing much more. Thanks for the inspiration Kath. I was going to use more buttons but it looked a bit busy so I left it at one. One naked button lol!

I used :-

Cuttlebug embossing folder, cut out with nesties.

Happy Christmas :- Cheery Lynn die.

Poinsettias :- no idea where I got them!

Glamour Dust, button.

I'm going to enter :-

Creative Inspirations - Let's Celebrate.

I said it had been a quick week but now it seems it's been a quick month as it's our crop again today. I'm hoping I've got enough supplies with me to make a few more Christmas cards.

Thanks for looking and I'll try to catch up later.