A few of this years Christmas cards

So far this year all my Christmas cards have been made using Elusive Images stamps. I think their range of Christmas stamps is second to none and most of the inspiration for these cards also comes from Glenda Waterworth and her talented design team. These are a few of the cards.

This first card is stamped onto acetate and then gold leaf added to the back. I then attached it with brads to a piece of backing paper from my Artylicious Season's Greetings cd which I had already stamped another image.



For this second card, I stamped with versamark onto semi-glossy white card and embossed with clear EP. I then used my brayer and the Adirondak Noel multicolour inkpad (now sadly discontinued) to brayer over the top and because of the EP resist, if you look closely there appears to be a shadow of each tree image which I really like. I admit this was a happy accident!
The image is then matted onto some Glimmer Misted card (from my bit box).


As you can see, this third card is really simple but I love the clean, classy look of it. I just embossed all the images in gold onto plain white cardstock, matted and layered the tree and sentiment onto gold mirri. Then cut out the partridge and the pear and attached them with 3D foam pads.

This fourth and final card for this post is on similar lines to the last one except I edged the images with Sakura gold Pentouch and used a strip of backing paper layered with gold paper underneath.

Just about all the products used on these cards can be obtained from Graphicus, but most importantly, the stamps and the Artylicious cd, Season's Greetings, for the backing paper. Anything else was already in my stash.

And finally a couple more cynic's quotes :-

Rock and Roll : The sound of grown men throwing tantrums - Bono

Pun : The lowest form of wit - unless you thought of it first - Anon

My little Rudolph???

This cheeky little sweetie is my youngest granddaughter, Alexa, wearing some antlers my DH bought when he went to fetch his daily papers. She's getting into the Christmas spirit nice and early.

Breakfast - The meal that sets you up for the day!

I just had to share this text message I received from my daughter this morning, just before I left for work.

"I've just caught Izzy (Isabella, my 11 months old granddaughter) with a lump of dog food in her hand and dog food smeared all over her face. Yum Yum!

Ugh, Yuk, Barf!! is all I can say

Nautical Birthday Card

I was asked to make a birthday card for a man who is a member of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution so I thought the Nautical Themeplate from Aspects of Design (available from TheStampman) would be perfect.

The main piece of backing card was made using Moonglow Inks and so was the piece of mesh effect paper which is actually Anaglypta. The galleon stamp was stamped with Versamark onto heat resistant acetate and embossed with Moonglow Emerald Obsidian (I think) EP and I then used a sheet of double sided adhesive to put gilding flakes on the back. I matted it onto dark brown card and then onto a piece of card from my 'bits and pieces' box which was sprayed with Glimmer Mists. I stamped the script using Sepia Versafine then tore the edges and 'antiqued' it with Ranger Distress Inks in Vintage Photo and Milled Lavender. The sentiment was from a QVC kit bought ages ago stamped onto a piece of cork. I used another sail ship from the Nautical Themeplate to stamp on the insert and also on the envelope and watercoloured them a little and tore and inked the edges of the insert. I also used a Krylon Copper Metallic Pen to edge several of the embellishments and added touches of Glimmer Mist to the sail ship with a waterbrush.

Nautical stamp themeplate, Moonglow Inks and EP and double sided adhesive sheet from The Stampman

Glimmer Mists and Ranger Distress Inks from Graphicus

This last photo is a bit of fun that turned out quite nicely. My son made me some paper roses from kitchen roll and I decided to Glimmer Mist them (if it stands still long enough it gets sprayed). I think they look lovely!

To finish off this post, a few weeks ago when I visited Fountains Abbey (see earlier post) I bought a little book which amused me -Wicked Wisdom : A Cynic's Dictionary. These are a couple of quotes from the book.

Appeaser - One who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last : Winston Churchill

Antique - Something that's been useless so long, it's still in pretty good condition : Franklin P Jones

BLOG CANDY ALERT!

Wow, I've just found this lovely blog by Debbie by following a link on Phree's blog. What a lovely lady with some gorgeous work and she's very generously offering some fabulous candy. Go take a look. The blog itself is candy with it's inspiration!