Christmas card challenge

I have been a very bad christmas crafter this year - most of the cards I sent were bought (shock, horror) and I have been so very disorganised that I still have near neighbour cards to deliver!!!  On Christmas Eve.  *sigh*

So.  I have resolved that in 2014 I am going to make one christmas card each week that can be put away for next year.  This should mean that I have  at least 52, right?  That should be ample.  And I will have no excuses....  I've set myself up a ticker *points up to just under the header* to track progress.

Let's see how long I can keep it up - my thinking is that even if I don't do it for the whole year it has got to be better than this!!

Winter Fun - Challenge 106 at Crafty Cardmakers

Welcome to our latest challenge, hosted by Marie who has chosen the theme 'Winter Fun'

Marie would like you to create something that portrays winter fun, but is neither Christmas nor New Year Related. In other words no Christmas cards/projects or New Year cards/projects, but some form of fun you might have during the Winter, skiing, skating, sledding.

For my card I have used a fun image supplied by one of our sponsors, The Paper Shelter, called Snow Angel.  My card is for a winter birthday - so hard to find a suitable card when Christmas has taken over!

I used a Kraft card base, and layered onto the top of the front some blue paper from my stash which had some small random white dots on it that looked a bit like snow.  To complement the theme, I stamped some additional proper snowflakes using some brilliance white ink.  

I coloured my image using promarkers and a spectrum noir and a Graph'it pen 

(Hair: SpecNoir FS1, Pro Henna, Burnt Sienna, Terracotta, Raw Sienna, Gold;   Hat, scarf and gloves: Pro Moss, Pear Green, Lime Zest, Lime twist, apple cider; Coat: Pro Tan, Cinnamon, Tawny Owl, Warm grey 3 and Skirt: Pro Mango and Graph'it 4175)

I cut the image topper to be square and then distressed the edges of it using distress inks and stamped a small motto in the bottom left hand corner.  I stuck the topper image onto my base layer at "a jaunty angle" and finished it off by doing some faux stitching around the edge using a thin nib on a promarker.  I added some glitter to the snowy lines using a quicky glue pen and some of the fine glitter I recently won in a blog hop run by creative expressions.

I did some more faux stitching around the edge of the card base using a black fine line pen, and finished the card by adding a round sentiment.  This was made using a circle punch, and a stamped image which was embossed with silver embossing powder.  Finally, I used the same distress inks as previously used to make sure it matched in colour.

This time we are sponsored byTHE PAPER SHELTERwith a $20 gift certificate for their fabulous store 

If you are looking for fun, cute and lovely digi stamps for your paper-crafting or web design projects, The Paper Shelter is your one-stop boutique! This growing catalog of high-quality digi stamps with many different kind of options offers a multitude of themes such as everyday items, holidays, special occasions, children, adorable characters and creatures. Stamps are available in standard black and white line art, as well as in pre-colored format. Images are wonderful for coloring and make perfect additions to greeting cards and scrapbook albums. In "The Paper Shelter" you'll also find great other resources for all crafts (or digital) projects, like Paper Packs, Printables, Accessory sheet, etc.

and  SIR STAMPALOT with this fabulous prize:-

In the Snow Ski Tilda 

  

Sir Stampalot is a retail shop and online website that specialises in stamps, die cutting and paper-crafting goodies.  We try to offer exceptional delivery times on your orders as well as keeping our stock fresh, new and exciting!  Our dedicated team of card makers means we have a wonderful, inspirational online card gallery with many more cards still to upload!  Sir Stampalot ships internationally as well as domestic so why not check us out if you haven’t already – www.sirstampalot.co.uk.

Haberdashery corner

So over the past couple of months I have been trying to sort out my stash.  One of the problems I had was that everything was scattered all over the place - a box here, a bag there - and one of the worst things was my ribbons and lace.  I kept finding I had bought more of some ribbon I already had because I didn't know I had it.

I decided that the best thing was to find it all and get it in one place, and I came up with this storage solution:

I bought a baby bookcase from Argos for £12.99 - it measures 25" wide, by 32" high and 6" deep.

When I made it up I left the backboard off - I needed to put it on my windowsill and wanted to get light through it where possible.  There is a risk that the sun will discolour the ribbon in places but I decided that was a risk I was prepared to take.

It came with two shelves, and I put those at the top and bottom of the unit.  This left quite a big gap in the middle...

I bought some 9mm dowelling from Homebase and cut 4 pieces to fit the opening. I tried to get some wardrobe rail fixings, but they were too big (and expensive!) and ended up with some plastic pipe clips that I hot glued to the inside of the unit equidistantly.

Then I slotted my ribbons reels onto the dowelling and clipped them in place.

Some extra reels are stored under the bottom shelf, and on the bottom shelf are some stick on lace borders.

On the upper shelf I stored some boxes of very narrow upholstery trimmings.

Lastly, the small rolls and loose lace in my collection were stored in some (amazing value!) jars I bought from Ikea for just £1 each.

I was really pleased with my storage solution - all I have to do now is keep it tidy!!!

The next task is to find what the heck I have done with my hotfoil manual and foils....