Merry Christmas One and All!

Well here we are, the big day has arrived, (as this is a scheduled post I'm going to assume that here in the UK (or at least most of it) it isn't a white Christmas!), pressies are opened, bins are full of wrapping paper,  Christmas dinners are being cooked and in a few hours everyone will be stuffed full of turkey and chocolate.

Here is my final Christmas card of the year, made with a gorgeous Debbi Moore CD called 

Christmas Angels.

I printed out a topper sheet, paper and decoupage poinsettia from the disc and then made a bow fronted card, using acetate which was cut slightly wider than the card and fixed between the gate-fold sections of the card front to make the front bow out. I added gold mirri card swirls cut with a Sizzix die and added stick on pearls from Meiflower, a few gold seed beads in the centres of the poinsettias finished it off.

I truly hope you've had a wonderful Christmas, that Santa brought you everything you dreamed of and that you are now heading towards a happy 2014.

hugs,

Colette xx

Gift box card and Christmas village scene

Another scheduled post to show you a couple of cards I made as samples for Crafty Devils.

It's been a long time since I made one of these and I think the last one was a DL card, so I decided to make a square gift box card using a Hobby House topper and Papermania papers, and the village scene is made with lots of dies (mostly Marianne) lots of glitter, an embossing folder and another Papermania paper.

Everything used available from Crafty Devils.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look,

hugs,

Colette xx

Admiring the Star

I have scheduled this post to show you one of my favourite cards. The card is made using a pre-coloured Sassy Cheryl illustration called - Admiring the Star - which is available at Paper Creator. I printed him out several times and then decoupaged him with foam pads onto a snowy background, dangling the star over the front of the card on a piece of acetate, and adding tiny crystals from Meiflower, to the centres of some of the snowflakes. The sentiment is die-cut.

I love the simplicity of the design which is why it is one of my favourites, and it was so quick and easy to put together too.

Thanks for dropping by,

hugs,

Colette xx

Boy with Gifts

This will be my last "proper" post before Christmas, although I have added a few scheduled posts as I have so many Christmas cards made that I haven't yet blogged, and I wanted to showcase at least a few of them.

There is a lot going on here at the moment, my Father in law is very ill now, and the Macmillan nurses who are looking after him have told us they think that he has at most a couple of weeks left, but more probably only a couple of days, so you can imagine how awful each and every day is for the family.

They are all spending as much time as possible with their dad, my hubby is at work during the day (luckily he works only 10 minutes away from home so can get to his dad's quickly if needed) so is going around each evening and his two sisters are there for most of the day.

My daughter Meg, who idolises her grandad, is heartbroken that she can't visit him to say goodbye, but with George being upstairs in bed and Meg being totally reliant on a wheelchair and because of her condition not even able to be carried up the stairs, it's not an option. She can't even speak to him on the telephone as he can barely talk and doesn't know who you are even when he does.

It's probably very selfish of me, but I am glad that she can't see him this way as I don't want her last memories of her grandad to be of the way he is now, - it was only a couple of weeks ago that she was at their house having her Sunday dinner with Grandma and Grandad (she normally goes every other Sunday), Grandad was up sitting in his chair and still quite well at this point and I would prefer her to remember him like that.

OK enough of the doom and gloom, that's not what you came here for, today I have a couple of cards to show you made with exactly the same image, papers and embellishments, but just laid out differently.

I design my cards in Photoshop, bringing in the papers, cropping them to size and then laying them out exactly as I want them to be on the finished card, once happy with the design I arrange the papers and image on an A4 sheet of paper (depending on the design sometimes I need a couple of sheets), print, cut and put together, adding any embellishments as I go along.

For this particular card everything fitted on one A4 sheet, but when I was printing out the design there was a problem with the printer and I ended up with a smudge of ink where there shouldn't have been any, so I re-printed the sheet, which came out perfectly the second time.

It seemed a shame to waste a sheet of printing so I decided I would find a way of getting around the smudge and make two cards.

The first version of the card is made from the perfect print, and is laid out exactly as originally planned.

Image - Boy with presents digi - Lee Holland Etsy Store - Coloured in Photoshop

Papers - Jolly Days Digital Scrap kit - Just So Scrappy

Circle Sentiment - made by me

Lifestyle nesting circles die

Marianne Craftables die - CR1212 Ticket and Tags

Tonic geared punch - Diamond Scalloped border

Ribbon, metallic cord, stick on pearls and green jingle bells - Meiflower

This second card was made with the reject print - the ink smudge was close to the image so I decided to cut around the image leaving a narrow border - that way I could still use the image but get rid of the smudge. I cut out the papers and played around with them until I was happy with the layout and then made up the card, substituting Kraft card for the red I'd used previously.

All details same as above.

There will be a few more scheduled posts up until Christmas, but depending on how things go I am not sure when I will be back after that, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all

A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

and to anyone out there who is going through the same sort of thing as we are here, I would like to leave you with these words from one of my all time favourite Eagle's songs.

I wish you peace when the cold winds blow 

Warmed by the fire's glow 

I wish you comfort in the lonely time 

And arms to hold you when you ache inside 

I wish you hope when things are bad 

Kind words when times are sad 

I wish you shelter from the raging wind 

Cooling waters at the fever's end 

I wish you peace when times are hard 

The light to guide you through the dark 

And when storms are high and your dreams are low 

I wish you the strength to let love grow, 

I wish you the strength to let love flow, 

I wish you peace when times are hard 

A light to guide you through the dark 

And when storms are high and your dreams are low 

I wish you the strength to let love grow.

Hugs,

Colette xx

Christmas Elegance

Here's an easel card I put together using toppers and papers from the Debbi Moore CD Christmas Elegance, which came as part of the Art Deco Christmas bookazine. The card design was in the accompanying magazine, but I changed it up a little by using red card for the base instead of white, printing out and making up the red Poinsettia decoupage, also from the disc, sprinkling some small gold seed beads into the centre of each and adding them to the card with red feathers and holly from the topper sheet.

Thanks for dropping in,

hugs,

Colette xx

Bauble card with template

Phew! what a busy week it's been and now a busy weekend too. Our car was returned to us Thursday afternoon all fixed and ready to go, which has put a smile back on Meg's face because we can get her out and about again now.

We are off to see Boyzone on Sunday evening so it's a relief to have the car back and know we don't have to mess around with taxi's (which Meg isn't too keen on)

Today is the start of our last Paper Creator challenge of the year and this time around the theme is

Shaped Cards

Just pop over to the challenge blog and link up your shaped cards to be in with the chance of winning a £10 voucher to spend in store - you don't need to use Paper Creator products but if you do you get two entries into the draw.

I decided to make a bauble shaped card using one of the new Sassy Cheryl illustrations, Snowmen in Love, from Paper Creator. For my shaped card I made myself a template in Photoshop which you can snag from further down the page if you want it.

Image - Snowmen in Love - Sassy Cheryl at Paper Creator

Background paper - Winter Whimsy - Just so Scrappy, Crazy 4 Monograms collab

Glitter card - local Range store

Lifestyle nesting circles dies and nesting lace circles die

Joy crafts Winter wishes Ice Crystal dies 1, 2 and 3

X-cut palm punch Snow Crystals punches large and medium

Sentiment - Cuddly Buddly freebie

Ribbons, jingle bells, white metallic cord and stick on gems - Meiflower

I printed the template out onto the reverse of an A4 piece of vintage gold card, given to me by my friend Karen, I was originally going to use Kraft card and when I came across the vintage gold in my stash thought that it was very similar to Kraft in colour, but with a pearly metallic finish.

I cut out the bauble shapes scored along the top of the circle and used double sided tape to stick the top sections together giving me a bauble shaped tent card.

If you trim a small piece from the back of the card it should stand up.

Here's the template, just left click to make larger and then right click and save as

Don't forget to pop over to the Paper Creator Challenge blog and check out the fabulous inspiration from the rest of my teamies.

Thanks for dropping in,

have a lovely weekend,

hugs,

Colette xx

Teddy Bo Tuesday

Last week I took the very sad decision to step down from both the My Besties and Teddy Bo design teams, with all that I have going on here at the moment, I felt I couldn't give them both the commitment needed. Anyway, the Teddy Bo team have refused to let me go, and I am now lurking in the background and just doing what I can when I can, which I was soooo happy to do as I have been on the team from the very beginning and it was such a hard decision to leave the mad bunch.

I didn't for one minute think I would find the time to do a card this week, but thanks to our car having a major breakdown on Friday evening and my hubby spending most of Saturday sorting things out and getting it transported to the garage, instead of going Christmas shopping  (mmm... I'm wondering if he planned it that way hehe!) I ended up with the day free, so the first thing I did was colour up one of the new Teddy Bo images and make up a card.

Image - Bo Bea Nativity - coloured in Photoshop

Papers, star and word art - The Reason for the Season digital scrap kit - Just So Scrappy

Grosgrain ribbon and brown stick on pearls - Meiflower

The car is at the garage, transported there by the RAC, as the rear suspension has completely gone and they deemed it unsafe to drive. The garage can't look at the car until at least Thursday and then they may have to order parts to repair it, so we have no idea how long it is going to be off the road and as it is a Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle (WAV) poor Meg is stuck in the house until it's repaired.

Luckily it's leased from Motability, so no repair costs, and they are trying to sort out the loan of a similar vehicle, until it's fixed.

Meg is in a panic as we are off to see Boyzone on Sunday and she is worried that if we don't have a car she won't get there, she is petrified of taxis due to a bad experience with the wheelchair in a taxi when she was younger, so we are keeping everything crossed that either the car will be repaired or we will have the use of another WAV before then.

Thanks for dropping in,

hugs,

Colette xx