Christmas cards for family friends

These are the cards for our family friends that we see over the Christmas period.

This first one is a Hunkdory design, and was very simple indeed: it just needed popping onto matts and layers.  The poinsettias needed a few beads in the centre and the leaves are an MS punch.  Some glitter and it was quickly finished.

The next two are again very simple Kanban designs with snowflakes cut with MS punches.  I'm usually a more is more kind of girl, but this time I think simplicity works better.  I love the red foiled card, found at Brushstrokes craft shop in Wokingham.  It's a beautiful satiny ruby colour which shines softly, and I've used it a lot this year on quite a few of my cards, and also made quite a few poinsettias out of it with a Marianne die.

Thanks very much for visiting my blog, and I really appeciate your messages and comments.  xx Jill

Christmas cards for the "girls" in the family

Here are the female Christmas cards for the family.  (Grandchildren's cards and family friends' cards will follow later.)

The first one for our daughter Louise, uses a Kanban image which was decoupaged onto an easel card, with some very sweet holly printed bp from Craft Creations.  The poinsettias were die-cut with a Marianne die from a lovely shiny red foiled card, and the punched leaves are EK (holly) and MS (gold fern).

The second one for daughter Melanie is another easel card using an LOTV image pre-printed onto squares, to which I added extra colour with copic markers.  The bps are from last year's Kars Christmas paper, which I really loved, with plain card from coredinations.  The peach poinsettias are white ones coloured with copics and were from the Hobby House, with diecuts again from Marianne.  I've heavily sprayed both with Glimmer Mist, together with the punched leaves.

Thanks so much for looking at my cards: it's much appreciated.  xx Jill

Cards for the family guys

It's always a challenge to make Christmas cards that aren't too girly, so I mostly used trees and snowflakes.

That docrafts freebie embossed tree has been much in use this year, this time for son-in-law Bruce, with royal blue mirror card this time.

I use some Dovecraft decoupage for son-in-law Garry, with background papers from an A5 Papermania pad

My husband's card again used royal blue mirror card, with a linen finish, some lovely star-printed card from my stash and a recycled cut-out scene from an old card.  I added some shiny gold card and a silver glitter die-cut star, with some peeloff stars in the corners.

The easel card for Danny was made from various die-cut stars put together, with some more royal mirror card and some snowflake paper from the Papermania pad.  All the smaller snowflakes on the cards were punched with MS punches.  Lots and lots of glitter too.

Thanks so much for stopping by to look at my blog, and for any comments you would like to leave.  xx Jill

Cuttlebug cards leading up to the big day

 Just a few of the cards I made using my cuttlebug.  They started out really simply with an embossed image, and then got more complicated as I went on: I really don't know when to stop!

They are all made using embossing folders, with the first one a freebie from the Docrafts magazine.  This folder is a real little gem, and embosses really easily and cleanly.  All it needed was several bottles of glitter glue, some bps and a couple of snowflakes with gems in the centre.  I love the new large snowflake punch from MS, and have used it a lot, with last year's smaller MS punches.  Unfortunately the little snowflake punch is broken (and rattling very unhealthily!!) as I tried to force it to cut card thicker than it could cope with, so I'm now having to use one that's not so neat.

The second card uses a cuttlebug embossing folder from a couple of years ago, with satin mirror card in ruby which is gorgeous irl (but not in the photo).  The third one is this year's Papermania folder on silver satin card, with some lovely blue shiny Kanban card in the background, with silver stars foiled onto it.  Very scrummy and very expensive, so I was quite sparing with it.

Thanks very much for visiting, and please let me know, so that I can come and visit your blog too.  xx Jill



Posted the last few cards off yesterday, so I hope they make it in time!  I still have a couple of birthday cards to do too, as well as five family Christmas cards as yet unfinished, so I'm still battling on.

I bought these tiny Christmas cards, which I've used as toppers in the ASDA sale last year at the bargain price of 10 for 10p: we crafters love a bargain don't we!!  I decoupaged and then glittered them very liberally, then matted and layered them onto scrummy red pearl card, from Crafty Ideas in Burnham.  This is a tiny craft shop in the Bishop Centre, near Maidenhead, packed full of interesting craft goodies including lots of needlework supplies: heaven on earth!  I also bought the lovely shiny red foiled card there to die-cut the poinsettias, and the little gold beads in the centre.  The gold stamens are punched with a Nellie Snellen punch, and the ferny leaves with a MS branch punch.  The red tartan card was horribly expensive (over £1 for an A4 sheet!), so I was very frugal with it, and didn't cover it up too much.  Two very traditional cards, but they were quite quick and easy, apart from the flowers which took a while, so I made five of each.

 

Thanks so much for visiting my blog.  xx Jill

On the home stretch with the Christmas cards!

I've almost finished the cards for delivery, so just the home ones to complete now.  Yes I know some of you finished in August, but I'm not that organised (or motivated) so I didn't start till mid-October.

I've loved the new Papermania classic Christmas papers this year, especially the red-foiled ones.  I found some really lovely ruby red satin foiled paper in Brushstrokes, which goes with it beautifully, and I sprayed gold glimmer mist over the flowers to match.  The toppers and robin sentiment came in the paper pack, which was very handy.  The poinsettias are mulberry paper from Jill at The Hobby House, or some old glittered Prima ones from last year, now sadly finished.  Shedloads of glitter again: I just can't keep my hands off the stuff!  The sentiment in the card below is from LOTV; these come in a set and are very useful to tuck in behind flowers.



The holly leaves are punched with an EK punch, and the fern is an MS branch punch from Wendy at Stamps and Memories, which I've had for a while, and is my absolute favourite.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog, and for any comments you would like to leave: I love to hear from you!

xx Jill

Christmas Cards take 2

Another couple of cards made last week, and delivered, both for friends from the ballet school. 

Dps and toppers are from the new Papermania Christmas papers from The Range, with some more shiny red card from Brushstrokes in Wokingham.  The photo doesn't show the red foiling printed on the papers and toppers, but actually it's really pretty.  The MS branch punch is from Wendy at Stamps and Memories, and the poinsettias are from Jill at The Hobby House, who also supplied the stickles glitter glue.  I'm on to my sixth bottle of the stuff in this current set of Christmas cards: I really should be buying it wholesale in large cartons!  I've used some gold Glimmer Mist on the flowers too.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog, and for any comments you would like to leave.

xx Jill

Christmas Cards coming out of my ears!!

I've made so many Christmas cards in the last couple of weeks, and I've not been near my blog.  Small excuse in that I've also had a rotten cold, we visited Alastair in Huddersfield for his 40th birthday, and we've also been off to Bournemouth for a couple of days. 

Our son's Christmas present to us, was a pair of tickets to see "War of the Worlds" at the BIC.  What an AMAZING show: just totally spectacular, and we've always loved the music.  So we just had to stay over a couple of nights and have one of the Mandarin restaurants superb Peking Feasts.  Perfect!!

Any way, enough waffle and on to the Christmas cards.  These cards are for current Jazz teacher Scott and former jazz teacher Danyl, who did so brilliantly in X-factor last year and who is now travelling around doing live gigs for a living.  Nice one Dan!!  These are both made from last year's left-over cards from my daughter, which I decoupaged to make them 3D.  The dps are from Forever Friends and the new Papermania set.  The snowflake punches are from MS and EK, and the sentiments are also Papermania.  There's more glitter glue than you'd believe, and the odd few stick on gems from Jill at the Hobby House.  There's some nice shiny red card too from Brushstrokes in Wokingham, which is difficult to see, but quite eyecatching irl.

Thanks very much for visiting my blog.  Please leave a comment and your blog address, so I can come and visit you too.

xx Jill