Another Sizzix pop house card. 

Hello. It's been a while. How are you? I hope you are well. I am well too.

Right, that's the pleasantries over with. Now, here is a video of my 2013 December Daily album. Shake your damn heads at my shonky camera work, nasal drone & crinimal misprounonciation of worms.

I followed Kathy Orta's wonderful December Daily 2 design for an album made of cards and envelopes, bounded with a hidden hinge. It's sooooo clever. (Links to the You Tube tutorials she posted below.) The paper kit is mostly Teresa Collins' Santa's List.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKSJJq0uOJY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ0YEr8ufSE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4snYoU6x0JM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4UrmpaT-SQ

Christmas bunting

 

Well. Clearly I'm ALL about the bunting at the moment.
 
This bunting project is easy peasy, but a bit fiddly. It took me the best part of a day to make. To be fair to me though, I AM very lazy and I DID have to keep stopping to watch TV, so you might find that you romp through it.

I made this bunting using the same Tim Holtz rosette die and Memory Box snowflake corner dies I used for the Halloween bunting. The only difference is that I layered up two cuts of the rosette die to make a bigger rosette. Tim's Youtube video explains how to do this. It's pretty straightforward.

DO stick tape of some kind to the back of the strip before you fold. It pretty much eliminates the problem of paper tearing and foul language that can happen when you fan the rosette out.
 
Also, keep the serrated edge waste from the die cut. You can use this to trim each piece of bunting in paper that matches the rosette (I used an old Cosmo Cricket Christmas range).

 

I secured the back of each rosette with the centre circle from the rosette die (because I'd made two cuts for each rosette, I had a centre to use front and back). Then I glued some vintage tiny tinsel to the back of the other centre circle, so that it peeped out round the edge. Then I glued that to the front of the rosette.

 
For the pennant, I hand cut some triangles and stamped them with a Tim Holtz snowflake stamp using distress ink. I used the second, third & fourth impressions (stamping the first impression onto scrap paper first, to get rid of the excess ink) as I wanted a faded background.
 
Light squirt of Perfect Pearls mist over the top (I used Heirloom Gold). Ink round the edges to give some definition.
 

The starburst at the back of the rosette is the Memory Box snowflake die. It's a corner die, so you need to cut four for each rosette. Line up the straight edges so that the right angles meet. Add glue to the back of the rosette and carefully place down. You might then want to fiddle a bit to get the best placement. (Be warned, these critters like to tangle and latch on to each other. A steady hand and low blood pressure are a boon at this point.)

Then glue the whole thing onto the triangle. I'd use a glue gun, you don't want that sucker falling off right when your visitors are standing before it, gazing in awe and wonder. The shame!

 

 
Hole punch each side and thread through some rustic twine.

Et voila. You got yourself a Christmas banner there, boy!

12 Tags of Christmas: tag 7

I didn't have Tim's holly die, but i do have his holly stamp, so I stamped it onto glasseine with a mix of acrylic paint and distress ink, then spritzed with Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls & cut out. The moon stamp is by Crafty Individuals.

Journal Your Christmas: Day 3

Christmas cards

I included one of the cards I'm sending this year (design taken from this year's Holiday Card Bootcamp which I signed up for last month)

Twelve tags: day 4

I absolutely loved making this one and I'm so pleased with the results!

I didn't have the snowman die that Tim used, so I stamped his retro Father Christmas instead and used the same technique for colouring him. I stamped a second image on white card, and cut out and layered his face and the white trim.

Journal Your Christmas: day 2

This time last year we had snow on the ground. It's gone cold here in the last day or so, but it's a drab, wet and windy kind of cold. The sort we're used to. Snow at Christmas is a relative rarity.

I thought I'd scrap this picture from this time last year. The cat clearly does not appreciate my need to document the minutiae of everyday life. The cat clearly wishes I would put the camera down AND  JUST OPEN. THE FRICKIN. DOOR. Do not feel sorry for her. We are locked in an constant battle of wits, me and that cat.

Incidentally, here are some names I have for the cat, whose name is Heather.

Heather Bear

Heatherington Bearbatron (or simply "Bearbatron", on account of the odd robotic beeping noises she makes)

Smelly/Smellington Bear

The Smelly Ballerina

Pusstina Smellybeara (after we lined her litter tray with a picture of Christina Aguilera. Who, incidentally, I have nothing against)

Kittymittens

Twinkle Fancypants

Hairy fairy

The cat does not smell. I feel, in fairness to her, that I should point this fact out.

Also, I have a voice for Heather WHICH IS TOTALLY NORMAL, AND NOT AT ALL STRANGE. That voice is Hartley Hare, from Pipkins. She sounds like him and she thinks a lot like him.

12 Tags of Christmas: tag 2

Another pretty slavish copy of Tim's gorgeous tag, but I don't have the time to exercise independant thought at the moment! It's so much easier & quicker when all the thinking has been dome for you.

I had the Kraft Resist, inks and Picket Fence stain. For the deer, I stamped one from one of Tim's seasonal silhouette sets using antique linen stain to get a softer look. I tried the splatter technique with the perfect pearls, but I only have gold and it doesn't show up as well as I expect the white does. The edging is a Martha Stewart punch painted in gold acrylic.

Really like the soft muted colours on this.

Thank you for your lovely comments yesterday, by the way. I am going to sit down tonight and make sure I visit each of your blogs x

Journal Your Christmas: Day 1

My first entry for Shimelle's class, done in a rush with poor light & tired eyes, right before bed. Exactly what I promised myself I wouldn't do.

Tomorrow will be different! Well, I mean it might. It probably won't be. It never is.

12 tags of Christmas : Day 1

So excited this has started. Never played along before.

This is my version of Tim Holtz's divine tag.





edited...


Sorry, I posted in a rush earlier. Here's a clearer pic.

I had Tim's Noel and pine cone dies, the rest I improvised.

My pine cones look a bit pneumatic.  Madonna's conical boobed Vogue period springs to mind. I like it.

Pockets

Shimelle has posted about the joy of pockets in your Christmas journal, and I couldn't agree more!

I am a pocket junky. I love bits that come out and unfold and then slot back in (The Jolly Postman is my absolute favourite children's book because of this). I've made  five for my journal so far, but it may end up that pretty much every page has some sort of pull-out element.

This one is my favourite. It's a 12x12 bracket sheet cut into quarters and stitched together. A card or tag fits in the middle.

The ornament and Santa stamps are Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous.

I love this one too. A tag slots in behind Santa (a detail cut from Paperartsy paper). That tinsel's a bit wonky. Have to go back & fix that.

This one has a vertical pocket, that something will slide in behind (not the paper shown below, but you get the idea).

Finally, this is a 6x6 page protector, stitched down the middle to create two deep pockets. I've cut a single sheet of 6x6 in half and attempted to stamp a similar pattern on the plain back. It'll mostly be covered in journalling or by a photo anyway.

Numbers

Numbers for my Journal your Christmas album

Journal Your Christmas - covers

Better pictures. I'm pretty pleased with it, it's quite glittery which doesn't show up so well on the photos

Supplies: Tim Holtz - Kraft Resist paper, Distress Stain (white), distress inks, grunge board numbers and blocks, curio knob, tissue tape, christmas stamp, vintage Noel Die, Clear Rock Candy glaze. Prima Crystals

Journal your Christmas

JYC album covers. They're a bit Tim Holtz-heavy this year. If you have a violent aversion to grunge, dinge & distress, best look away now...









I'll post better pics in a bit. Blogger's being a bit of an arse at the moment, this is my 3rd attempt at posting.

Festive banner

Hello. It's nearly Christmas. I made this reindeer banner.

As you can see, it looks delightful in a range of settings.













Words to use when looking at my festive banner: handcrafted; unique; charming; stunning.

Words not to use when looking at my festive banner: homemade; bum-sniffing horses/camels/dogs; therapy.

"Dead, dead artistic and good"

I've decided to take part in Journal Your Christmas after all. Here is my journal.

For the fact fans among you, I am embracing the oft overlooked 5.5 x 8 inch format. This is because I am experimenting with a more journally, notebooky sort of feel this year and consider portrait format expressly suited to a more textually biased approach. *strokes beard, sagely*

Meh, actually it's because I made the basic album two years ago, during one of my tedious grown up art stamper phases and, surprise surprise, never actually did anything with it. So I've titivated the front with a bit of Christmas stuff, et voila, one JYC album. Quick and dirty win, I think.

I expect 5.5 x 8 is going to open up a whole new world of pain when it comes to getting photos to fit right, but never fear, I do like a challenge*.

*No, I don't

Big. Letters.

Mmm, big Christmas letters. Bought them in Hobbycraft, covered them in book pages and threw some stash at them. Stop me if I'm being too technical for you.

Love the "L". The "L", I can't get enough of.

.

Not so that "O", though. That "O" may have to go.

Am buzzing along on 3 hours sleep in 36 hours. 4 year old has some sort of chest infection and can't sleep for coughing, bless him. Feel a bit jitttttery at the mo. Expect I will start being able to hear my hair growing soon or something.

Ages since last blog post,. Been so long Twittering, appear to have lost ability to speak in full sentences. Like Geoffery Palmer. In Reggie Perrin.

Journal Your Christmas : 1st December

I decided not to go with the official prompt for this one and just jotted down a few thoughts about how I was feeling. I wanted to get in a picture of our little advent snowman. He comes out every year and really signals the start of things, so it wouldn't have felt so appropriate on another day.

I took the photo last night, so it's really dark. I'm fighting the urge to re-take it in the daylight and paste it over. The whole point of this project, for me at least, is to do a little something every day, and to not beat myself up if it's a little raw or isn't perfect and not to tinker with it afterwards. That way I hope I'll stay in control of it and not start devoting excessive time to it when I should just be enjoying the festive season itself.

The Most Magical Time of the Year!

Now, I don't know about you, but to me nothing sums up the magic of the festive season quite like a photo of Runcorn Bridge on a cloudy day. Thankfully the ladies of the Cheshire Federation of Womens Institutes feel the same, as here is their calendar page for December. Look carefully and you may spot the petrochemical plant nestling quietly on the riverbank.

Matalan bargain buy of the week: 12 wooden tree decorations for £3 (they have a 3 for 2 offer on decorations as well, if you feel like really pushing the boat out).

They come as plain wood, so I painted them black then coated them in black glitter (they are much sparklier IRL than they look in these pictures).

They look like ones that John Lewis were selling for £2 a pop a few weeks ago, but for a credit-crunching fraction of the price. Trouble is I now need a £45 white feather Christmas tree to display them on...