Driving home for Christmas..Quirky style

A bit of Chris Rea to get you in the mood!

I thought I could make a whole batch of Christmas treat or present boxes, when I looked for 12" x 12" Christmas paper I could only find a few sheets, and only one was double sided and I wanted the inside of my box to look pretty too!

I used the tall house from the 3d House set from The Cutting Cafe, this time the house is the opening version so one side of the roof opens.

I added the wreath, decorated with gems,  and one of the sentiments from the set with a bow made of some Crafty Ribbons ribbon (I have had it years so you might not get the exact ribbon but there is lots of gingham ribbon available), and a "Christmas" tree from the set which is decorated with flat backed pearls, tinsel, a sequin star and a wooden Santa. 

 On the back I used a Christmas Sentiment Shape tag attached to ribbon  and the house with tiny staples from my Tim Holtz Tiny attacher, the shape is inked with red ink. The door handles are flat backed pearls by the way.

Do you like my snow? It is Flowersoft Polar White which is the only flowersoft I have ever bought. There is even a little on top of the Chimney. 

All of this was cut out with the KnK Zing, I am really enjoying the machine. The chimney top was cut from a tiny scrap left from cutting the house and I had no trouble doing that. The only things cut by hand are the sentiment on the wreath and the sentiment shape which I tried for ages to get into MTC to cut with the Zing - I hate hand cutting. The sentiment shapes lost some of the words when I imported them bizarrely. I still have a lot to learn on the Zing, print and cut remains a challenge to be tackled properly. I found out today from the KnK Facebook page that there is a brand new machine due out which looks very exciting, I won't be able to justify buying it when I just bought the Zing, isn't it always the way, I spent years deciding and finally taking the plunge and buying (don't have as much to spend on such things now I am not working), then a new improved version arrives! I wonder if it will scan and cut?

This little old house is here to remind you that you have until Saturday 12th Sept to enter the Quirky Crafts challenge with anything home related, any project is allowed and we allow a little backdating too if you made something a few days before the challenge started!

Please hop on over to see some amazing projects by the rest of the team!

I've entered the following challenges:

TTCRD - 1st to 7th Sept anything goes

Anything but a Card - celebration

Inspiration Destination - #49 anything goes (Tues)

Simon Says - Wednesday challenge - make it colourful

Simply Papercrafts - #12 anything goes (Fri)

Winter Wonderland - add a sentiment (Fri)

Allsorts - lots of layers (Sat)

Creative Card Crew - anything goes (Tues 15th Sept)

ABC Christmas - R is for Red, ribbon, roof, round the back! (Wed 16th Sept)

Creative Fingers - #91 anything goes (Fri but which Fri?)

Crafting by Designs - anything goes (Sep)

Merry Christmas to you!

Well here it is, Christmas day and all of the fuss will soon be over. We are ready, just about. The dogs are bathed, the bathrooms cleaned and the towels washed, the rest of the house is clean, the beds are made. Shopping is as done as it will be, presents wrapped and labelled, I just have one box to decorate, a special box for a special boy. It will contain some second hand Thomas the Tank Engine track and a Sordor mine and is an extra present that will live here for when Kenny visits.

I think most of the presents under our tree are for Kenny, and Richard has added his presents, they are not all ours. Awaiting our visitors to open them.

This card is made from a Unity stamped snow peeps image that I stamped and coloured, with Promakers, last year and a Spellbinders die cut frame that I made when I got this die, they seemed perfect together. The paper is a freebie from a magazine. The sentiment came with the snow angel, and for this frame I attempted to add white through the die with my Sharpie white paint marker. This was the second attempt, the first was far messier. I think this will be a card for next year. The ribbon is from Crafty Ribbons, and I added snowflake eyelets to the corners to let the lime green card show through.

I have entered the following challenges:

I love Promarkers - anything goes (Jan 6th)

Creative Card Crew - anything goes (Jan 6th)

This is Kenny's card, he loves any sort of vehicle so Santa in his snowmobile by Dustin Pike seems like a good choice. I coloured the image with Promarkers, the paper is Papermania/Docrafts, the ribbon is from Crafty Ribbons.

Inside the card.

I have entered this card in the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday challenges, anything goes - Docraft paper.

I needed a couple of gift card holders and made them with perlescent card and the WR Memory Keepers envelope tool, which made the perfect size holders. I added a couple of images I had stamped and coloured with Promarkers last year. The geese are a Little Claire stamp, and the sheep is a Penny Black stamp.

I haven't decorated the back.

I have entered the following challenges:

Allsorts - last minute gifts (Sat 3rd Jan)

Happy New Year and a few cards

This was my last attempt at Craft Stamper of the Year, and this round was Indigo Blu. Having learnt my lesson from the previous round where I only bought one stamp that proved hard to use, for this round I bought a set called Wild Meadow and a Sunflower stamp and I had the freebie small butterfly from Craft Stamper magazine. I also bought black stamping card from Indigo Blu, as previous winning entries had used 3 or more elements from the sponsor. I actually got this one in a day before the closing date, or maybe it was hours as I was up to the early hours of the morning finishing it because we were leaving for Devon the next day. I stamped onto the black card with Brillance and the pad has three colours of blues and greens, and then heat embossed with crystal pearl powder, and I trimmed this and mounted it on some gold card then onto the card blank, I think I left the image a little long, however I had been stamping and practicing for hours and forgot to make it a little shorter and had no time to do it again. I stamped the sunflower onto white card several times and coloured them with Promarkers and Trias, then cut and decoupaged the images so each layer gets a little smaller, and I stamped and coloured the butterflies in the same way. I painted over the sunflower and butterflies with artists irridescent medium to give it shine, and finally I stamped the sentiment onto parchment paper and die cut it, edging it with the same brown ink I used to stamp it. I actually bought stamps to complete the last round but ran out of mojo, so got nowhere! I love the stamps and I am sure they will get a lot of use.

This card was also for Stamper of the Year but the round before Indigo Blu, which was sponsored by Crafty Individuals, and I have a lot of their stamps, however this all went horribly wrong! I started by trying to glue book pages together to make an altered book, but it was clear I wasn't doing it right and I didn't have time to look for the instructions - again this was the last day! So I carried on with the book theme and used a page from the book which is about a beautiful garden outside a house window, and I cut a window into the middle and used a Sizzix cut and fold window die with the top part hidden. Inside the window I stamped and embossed the bird cage and some blue birds. Outside I stamped branches and birds, and then went to grab the flower stamps - it wasn't until I had spent some hours colouring them in that I realised I had grabbed the wrong make of stamps for the flowers, I had stored Graphicus (Chocolate Baroque) stamps on the same sheet and the Crafty Individual stamps were right next to them - whoops! Again with no time to redo the whole thing I had to just finish off with some Distress walnut coloured ink painted onto and around the page, which is mounted on Kraft card on a lighter Kraft card blank. Oh Dear!

Christmas Eve make, delivered to a neighbour at 11:30. I was making quick cards by this time, and this was the Crackerbox Palace santa and sleigh stamped onto linen effect card which was embossed with the snowy village and I added Ice Stickles to highlight that image. Crafty Ribbons of course, and by the time I got to Boxing day and still making cards I had refined this a little but didn't take more photos so I need to make some more so I can!

This was inspired by the Crafty Ribbon DT, and used up some short ends of ribbon. I only had one of these card blanks left but I am sure I can reproduce this in some other way with the tools I have! Ribbons are Crafty Ribbons except for one tiny bit, black and silver which is Papermania. I sprayed the card blank with bronze Glimmer Mist and added a star and some wooden ornaments, and this was for Shaun.

Not a card, this is an insect hotel and was one of my Christmas pressies!

The Quirky Crafts challenges will begin on 6th January for 2013, and the winners of the last challenge will be announced then!