Thursday, 13 November 2014

The Funkie Junkie's 12 tags of Christmas, Jane's Journal style; week 7

I have tried to get a little ahead with this week's project as I won't have any crafting time now until next week. This is because we have a real treat coming up tomorrow afternoon after work....Daisy is coming to stay with her Nanna and Granddad aka my Hb and I for the weekend! We are so excited. Her Mummy and Daddy are going to have a weekend away which they are also very excited about.

Everyone is welcome to join in with The Funkie Junkie 12 tags of Christmas challenge. It closes on 21st December by which time you need to have submitted all 12 creations using Linda's tags for inspiration. You can make anything at all. The full rules are over on her blog here . Linda offers 3 very generous prizes of gift vouchers to spend in her terrific on line shop, The Funkie Junkie Boutique. Do have a look at the link here . I am choosing to make 12 Christmas cards instead of tags.

This week's tag can be seen here. For my inspiration I wanted to use the Tim Holtz Gothic stencil as this is one of my favourites. I also loved her ornament stamp but I chose to use my Memory Box ornament die instead of a stamp. Linda also added some holly leaves too and I wanted to include these on my card. I decided to go back to some more traditional Christmas colours for my card.

I made a backing card using ice spruce, evergreen bough and pine needles distress inks and then stencilled festive berry DI through the Gothic stencil


I decided that I wanted to get some extra texture on my card so I pressed some embossing paste again through the stencil and sprinkled fine gold glitter on top.
After tapping off the excess this lovely sparkle was left behind.
Now that I had a festive background I die cut my ornaments and decided to have a play with alcohol inks. I have only ever used one colour before but I had bought some more with a challenge prize win so it was time for some inky fun. A couple of drops of festive colours....
 I added some gold too...........
 I then swooshed my die cuts through.................. and this is how my ornaments came out.

I had so much inky fun.................
I decided to mount a couple onto gold vellum and cut them out.
Then it was time to put on my creative hat and put together my ideas for my card. I decided this time to make a rectangular shape for a change and mounted it on Kraft card................here it is.
and a close up of the ornaments. The gold and green holly leaves are cut using my favourite Cheery Lynn die. The sentiment and little tag are both LOTV.
Below is a close up of the glittery background, it's all so much more sparkly irl. I struggle at this time of year to get the best light for my photos.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

The Funkie Junkie 12 tags of Christmas #7
Simon Says Stamp Ornaments
Merry Monday Christmas Ornaments
Crafting with the Dragonflies anything goes
Party Time Tuesdaysanything goes
Creative Card Crew Christmas joy
Christmas cards all year round no patterned papers
The Artistic stamper Christmas is coming
Jelly Park Christmas
Stamping Sensations simply Christmas
Inspiration Journal Happy Holidays
Winter Wonderland Christmas decorations
That Craft Place anything goes

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, we certainly will....filled with special Daisy time.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Tuesday, 11 November 2014

Daisy Jane celebrations

Happy birthday to my darling Daisy who is 1 today...what a fantastic year it has been and how quickly the time has flown by. Thank you everyone for all for your birthday wishes which I have sent to her. We enjoyed the most wonderful family party on Saturday. My daughter and SIL put on a delicious spread and the house looked gorgeous, all decked out in a bright happy daisy theme. My little princess had a new party dress and is loving walking around with her new walker.
Just look at that cheeky little grin she is sharing with her daddy.

I promised you all that I would share the cake and card I made too so grab a cuppa as this is a photo heavy post today.
I decided some time ago that my cake would feature daisies (what else!) and spent some time cutting and making various daisy flowers out of sugarpaste.


I cut the petals out in white and then
rolled a small piece of yellow and pressed it
into their centres. I wanted to add some texture
to this and after a lot of searching I found the
perfect tool...the end of a thimble!
It worked really well.










I also made some tiny daisies as I wanted to spell out her name with them and I also made a fun Daisy face as the focal and a little daisy candle holder







My sponge was my usual all in one
Victoria sandwich and I put
the cake together after work on Friday
all ready for the party Saturday lunch time.
It was nerve racking transporting it in the boot
of the car in it's box but it arrived in one piece thank goodness.


When we arrived we were delighted how pretty the house looked, there were photos of Daisy, flowers and pretty daisy decorations everywhere including a banner for the party girl. She adores giraffes (just like her Uncle) and her serviettes featured them.
The conservatory was opened up to give us more room for the celebrations
The spread was so eye catching and her Mummy had made some delicious daisy cup cakes to match my cake
Daisy looked like a little princess

She really has the cheekiest grin
After enjoying lots of chat and laughter and delicious finger food we sang happy birthday
 and her Mummy and Daddy helped her to blow out the candle
The cake went down really well.
The afternoon raced by and bath and bedtime soon approached, there was just enough time to play with a balloon.
Thankfully it didn't burst!


My card challenge today is her special birthday card. I made an easel card with the sweetest Lili of the Valley stamp called Petal. I coloured her with my Promarkers and highlighted with Prismacolor pencils. I used lots of glitter to add plenty of sparkle

I used my joy butterfly border and made some daisies with gold glittered centres.

 This is the inside of the easel with a button where the easel front rests when the card is opened.
and here is my card..........
made by her Nanna with lots of love xxx

We enjoyed such a wonderful family occasion and it is incredible that my darling girlie is now 1....................

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Country View bugs, bees and butterflies
Penny Black and More anything goes
Stamp and Create ribbons and bows
Crafty little Fairies not a square
Little Claire's shaped cards
Creative Inspirations easel cards
Papertake weekly 2 or 4 legs
Top Tip Tuesdays 3 or more papers
Crafty Sentiments anything goes
Party Time Tuesdays anything goes
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned papers anything goes

I would like to enter my cake into the following challenges;

That craft place anything goes
Crafty my life anything but a card

Enjoy the rest of the week.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Sunday, 9 November 2014

The Funkie Junkie's 12 tags of Christmas, Jane's Journal style week 6

I am back today keeping up with the weekly posting of the 12 cards I am creating for Linda's fun Christmas challenge. We are already  half way through. Everyone is welcome to join in with The Funkie Junkie challenge which closes on 21st December by which time you need to have submitted all 12 creations using Linda's tags for inspiration. You can make anything at all. The full rules are over on her blog here . Linda offers 3 very generous prizes of gift vouchers to spend in her terrific on line shop, The Funkie Junkie Boutique. Do have a look at the link here .

This week she went for a monochrome design which you can see here. She also featured a bold snowflake which I took my inspiration from. I was also inspired by the stitching she added to her card and the script background.

Now I'm really sorry that I hardly took any photos of my process this time, I just got engrossed in my own little world!
For my script I used the Christmas poem stamp by Visible Image, it's a great stamp. I just partially stamped it using my hand rather than a block. I also used my Tim Holtz alphabet script stamp and  stamped up my backing card with Archival ink. I love the way these all blend in together.

I then used the same colour distress inks as Linda and blended Vintage Photo and Brushed Cordroy until I was happy with my colours. I pricked out a stitching border


 and then hand sewed (yes seriously!) all around the backing card.

I then embossed a small piece of the same inked card with a snowflake folder and rubbed the raised area with gold gilding paste. I also inked a Memory box snowflake die cut and layered it up.with some other snowflakes, a gold star and a LOTV sentiment tag. I added a little gold gem too. I also cut  some gold card using my lovely Cheery Lynn sleigh die to put santa in the sky. 
Here are some close ups


and here is my completed card

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

The Funkie Junkie's 12 tags of Christmas 2014 #6
Cheery Lynn autumn colours
Visible Image favourite stamp for this card it is the wonderful Christmas Eve poem stamp. 
Natalie and Amy stitch it
Live and love crafts favourite Christmas colour combination I love browns and golds, very autumnal and rich.
The Artistic Stamper Christmas is coming
Bearly Mine Christmas cards
Penny Black and More anything goes
Stamping sensations Simply Christmas
Inspiration Journal Happy Holidays
Pan Pastel add some bling
Creative card crew Christmas joy
Loves rubberstamps anything goes
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas challenge keep it flat, cards which go through the post with no extra charge
Pile it on Special occasion mine is obviously Christmas

The Birthday Party yesterday was wonderful and the cake went down really well. I have taken lots of photos and will try to get back some time this week with a post.
Just as a sneaky peak........ here is the party girl. What a princess she was.



I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x