Countdown to Christmas - Day 4

Evening,

I hope that you have had a nice crafty Saturday. We had a great time in class playing with the Gelli Plate and Acrylic Paints. It's such fun, but also very easy to end up with a huge pile of backgrounds that just scream out to be used. I guess that's my homework for the next few days lol.

Another fun class that led to a rather large pile of backgrounds was playing with ink sprays and cling film.

So many fabulous colour combinations,

which worked really well with these beautiful silhouette die cuts.

A really quick and easy Christmas card, but quite striking I think you will agree. 

I have also treated myself to this fabulous trio of dies from Crafter Companion. 

Another fabulous silhouette die, it seems that I have quite a few of them!!

And they don't just have to be used for Christmas cards.

Thanks for stopping by again.

Hugs Kimx

Countdown to Christmas - Day 3

Evening 

It's Day 3 of my Countdown to Christmas, and another Friday. It really is quite scary how quickly they come round, as much as I look forward to them.

Here is a lovely floral Christmas card,

made of lots of tiny die cut flowers.

I added a die cut sentiment

along with some tiny stars and hearts.

Thanks for stopping by, have a great crafty weekend.

Hugs Kimx
 

Countdown to Christmas - Day 2

Evening,

We had a light sprinkling of snow in our neck of the woods this morning. As far as I'm concerned that's enough of that for the year lol.

So here are a couple of small Christmas cards made using some chalked panels and pieces from my bits box.

I also added some faux stitching,

and some tiny gems or peels-offs.

Let's hope that the weather ignores the sentiment on the cards, I really don't want it to snow.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs Kimx

Countdown to Christmas - Day 1

 Hi All,

Sorry I've been MIA. I really do need to get back to blogging my cards regularly. They are starting to build up again, and I was doing so well sharing them with you.

So with that in mind I thought that I would try and share some Christmas cards in the lead up to Christmas Day.

Definitely one of my favourite techniques to emerge over the years has to be Chalks. I love the soft colours that you can achieve and how beautifully they blend.

They work with any type of stamp, but particularly the more solid style of image seen here. Chalks will stick to any versamarked image so I added some text to the back of this card.

I used the same fabulous old Holly and Mistletoe sprig on the next couple of cards, only this time with inks.

I love these solid style images, they are lovely to work with, and a lot more detailed than you might think from first glance.

I used my small distress ink cubes to add several colours directly on to the stamp. Once inked I spritzed it lightly with water before stamping it onto a piece of pale mop up background. You can often get a paler second generation print once you have spritzed the stamp with more water, but with out adding more ink.

I added a stamped and embossed sentiment, a faux stitched border and some glossy accents on the berries.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs Kimx

We Will Remember Them

Evening,

Today is Remembrance Day. 

On the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month 1918, the treaty to bring to a close 'The War to end all Wars' was signed.

The Poppy has become a symbol of respect and support for the Armed Forces, Veterans and their families, and of the lives lost during WW1 and all conflicts since.

One of the embossing folders that we played with last Saturday was this beautiful Poppy from Lisa Horton, so here are a couple of cards to celebrate this special day. The 3D embossing folder also comes with a matching die which makes it so easy to cut out.

This first card uses an image cut from white card stock and then coloured with Distress Inks, blending brushes and a little gilding wax.

The background uses another Lisa Horton 3D embossing folder, black card and gold gilding wax.

The poppies on this second card are actually cut from frosted parchment/vellum. 

They are coloured using the same Distress inks and blending brushes, but the vellum gives a softer colour to the finished panel.

Once again the background uses the small floral 3D embossing folder and gilding waxes, only this time it uses some pearlescent gold card stock.

My third and final card uses the same poppy 3D embossing folder and white card stock, only this time I didn't die cut the image.

I used some black acrylic paint and a blending sponge to colour the background and then red distress inks and gilding wax once the paint had dried.

I added some assorted black pearls and a sentiment to my panel and layered it over several pieces of cardstock from my stash.

I hope that you have worn your poppy with pride today. Lest we forget.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs Kimx

Spellbinder Christmas Extravaganza

Evening,

Last weekend was a busy one craftwize. Not only was I teaching, and finishing off a few projects, but it was also the Spellbinders Christmas Extravaganza which was run by the lovely Janice from SirStampalot along with Deanna and Kourtney from two American stores.

I was asked to help out with some samples, so here are a few cards that I made using just a small number of items from the kit.

It contained loads of pre cut and coloured paper and card pieces along with card blanks and envelopes, plain, glitter and metallic card stock, paper pad, stamp set, embossing folder, and a fabulous train die set, all neatly parceled up in a box.

Everyone seemed to have a great time crafting along with Janice, Deanna and Kourtney,

and there was lots of inspiration and tips to follow, or you could do your own thing with the kit if you wanted to.

The die set was particularly popular, if a little bit too fiddly for my liking.

Janice shared my samples on one of her Fun at One Facebook posts, so I figured that they must be safe to share with you.

I wonder what my next challenge from them will be? Perhaps I had better get a few more things finished before they contact me again.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs Kimx

Chalked Florals

Evening,

I hope that you have had a lovely weekend. Mine has been a nice crafty one, with classes on Saturday, and then finishing off bits and pieces from previous projects. I still have loads to wade through, but at least I've made a start.

So if I am ever going to catch back up with all the cards that I need to share with you, I had better get a move on.

Probably one of my all time favourite classes involves Decorators Chalks,

and nothing works better with them than these fabulous solid image stamps from Hero Arts.

Very old, and wood mounted, but I just love the panels that you can create with them.

Some, like this one have a stamp with the postitive image available, as well as the negative square.

As you can see I like to use the two images together before adding them to my cards.

I also like to add a stamped and chalked border.

This can also be done using a torn paper mask and some peel-offs.

Well that's a few removed from the huge pile of cards under the bed lol. Let's see if I can share a few more tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs Kimx

Inchies

Evening,

Just a quick post tonight. I'm back at work tomorrow after a couple of days spent catching up with a few crafty projects.

So here are a couple of cards made a long time ago using an Inkadinkadoo Inches stamp and some chalks.

I managed to find a couple of pieces of background paper in my stash that matched rather nicely and I also added some stamped and embossed bamboo on this one.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs Kimx

Monochrome Congratulations

Evening,

Where on earth is this year disappearing to? How can it be November already. It was definitely 'Dragon's breath' weather this morning. That is what the kids call it when it is so cold that you can see your breath as you walk along.

I've tried very hard to blog every day this year since I have so many cards still to share with you, however I seem to have failed miserably last month. I have to say though that I have felt so much less pressured as soon as I missed a couple of days lol.

I hope that you managed to catch Jane on the TV a couple of weeks ago with more of her Bubble Bloom stamp sets.

I still have quite a few cards made using them,

so I had better get my act together and start blogging more regularly again or the unblogged cards pile will start to get out of control again.

The background to these cards was created using ink sprays and clingfilm. I decided to add a little colour to this second one, although I think that the monochrome one is probably my favourite.

I'm going to get an early night I think. Chloe wasn't very well yesterday, and was very restless during the night, so I have some sleep to catch up on lol.

Thanks for stopping by.

Crafty hugs

Kimx