Boxing Day

No I have not gone mad in this freezing cold weather. I do know it's not yet Christmas despite having the right weather.  I shall reveal all later in my post.  The big chill continues here and we have had a little more snow. What falls has trouble melting as it is sooooo cold. Last night as we drove home the car registered -4c and it did get down to -7c....oowwch!

This was the view late this afternoon at the ponds. The ponds and river very rarely freeze but they certainly have at the moment.

Even the heron did not want to dip his toes into the icy water.

Just the graceful swan decided to brave the waters!

Other than a quick walk this afternoon we have spent the day in the warm. So now I will reveal why I have called today Boxing Day.....(just in case some of my blogging friends don't get the pun, Boxing Day here in the UK is December 26th). Well recently I bought a new piece of craft kit shown here on the right.


Swooooon, now if you are not a card maker this will not mean much to you so I shall explain. This is none other than a Martha Stewart Scoring Board. It was very difficult to get in this county as apparently it infringes one of the UK scoring boards patents. In the end I had to buy it and pay quite a lot of postage as obviously the supplier shipped it in from the States.
Now the first thing that a decent scoring board does is to make really good neat folds in cards. You just place the paper on the boards, run the tool down the groove and hey presto neat folds.



One of the main reasons I bought this (it was part of my treat to myself with my Christmas bonus from work)
was to try making boxes. As you know a lot of my cards have gorgeous mulberry paper flowers on and you cannot put them in an envelope. I looked at buying card boxes and they cost a fortune. So I decided I would make my own.

Ta-dah!

What do you think? I had loads of practises and decided what looked really cool was to have a plain white bottom of the box and make a lid out of patterned paper/thin card.
This was the card I showed you last week and it looks really cute in its box.

***EDIT ADDED SUN 12.2.12*** There is a lot of happy dancing going on here as I just found I have won my very first "Top 5" award for this card. This is not a win as in coming out of Mr Random Number but actually for the design and making of my card. I am THRILLED take a look here. I have a new blinkie in my side bar which I am proudly displaying :0)

Here is the lid in detail.








I played with lots of other designs including some for Christmas (well it is the weather isn't it?)

I also made a card for my challenges and decided I needed something very cheerful for this cold weather.

I inked up my first Tilda stamp I have ever used and loved the strawberry theme (yes I know I have a thing about strawberries).

Here she is coloured using my trusty Promarkers and highlighted with my Prismacolor pencils.





I added little gems to the strawberry centres to make them sparkle.

The backing paper features sweet hearts (yes it's nearly that time of year) and I added a strawberry button and some sparkly gems to the corners of the card.


I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;
Ladybird Craft Inks Loves me loves me not
Papertake Weekly Anything Goes
Divas by Design Love
Whimsey Stamps challenge blog Love themed
Joanna Sheen Love is in the air
Sundays's with Crissy  Birthdays
Scrapbook Sisters #70 Anything Goes
I love Promarkers Love is in the air
Stamp, scrap and doodle Saturdays red white and pink
Simon Says Stamp Love is in the air


So a Happy Boxing day it has been. My new scoring board opens up all sorts of new card possibilities. I hope you are all keeping snug wherever you are in the world? It's nearly time for dinner here...with a G+T with ice and a slice me thinks. Cheers everyone, thanks for visiting me here and for all the lovely comments you take the trouble to leave. At the request of most of the card challenge blogs I have turned off my comment moderation to make it quicker and easier for everyone to leave a comment. I will try it for a month and see.....?

 Meanwhile Billy as usual has the right idea in this weather,

Enjoy  your Boxing Day evening ;0)

Bye for now,

Jane x