Christmas Banner

Have you see the Christmas banner tutorial I have up over on the Crafting Ireland blog? I had great fun using my eCraft and Sarah Hurley papers to create a fun Christmas banner. You can see the full tutorial here.

 

Happy Holidays!

This week at PaperPlay Challenges our theme is holidays. You can pick and holiday you like, be it Easter, Christmas etc. Then just create a project based on your holiday. Super simple and fun! We are sponsored this week by Destination Art..

For my project I decided to create a bright and fun Christmas tag. I started off with a blue card stock tag and added torn strips of white at the bottom to look like snow. I then added a penguin I die cut and a added a scarf to him with some ribbon. I stamped the background of the tag with a snowflake stamp, and then added a sentiment.

It is a very bright and fun tag, not my usual style, but its fun to switch things up sometimes right!!

Santa’s Workshop

Eek, talking about Christmas and it is only September?! Shame on me!! However I did want to share another project I had in the debut  Sarah Hurley Lookbook. It uses the Santa’s Workshop collection that you can find here.

I had an old sweet tin I liked the size and shape of but not the colour and pattern so much! The tin was painted with gesso to give a primed base then painted blue. The lid was all bumpy with an orange (fruit)  pattern so I used paints to make these look like Christmas baubles. I added some paper and trim around the sides of the tin. On the top I used lots of elements from the CD and a feather and some snowflakes die cut from white felt. The edge of the lid has been edged with picket fence stickles to give some sparkle.

Before:

 

After:

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by today, and I hope I have not brought up Christmas too early!!

Santa’s Workshop….

Today Sarah (Sarah Hurley Designs) is launching a new range – Santa’s Workshop. This is a fantastic fun Christmas line full of cute images, and bright colours. I love that the colours are very non-traditional and use very trendy patterns such as chevrons etc. You can fine the line in Sarah’s store here.

 

I loved the distressed snowflake papers in the line so I used it to create this card that I mounted on Kraft card stock. I love how the colours work on the kraft! The sentiment is from the embellishment kit and I added some ribbon and some bling. All the papers were edged with the Martha Stuart Doily Punch.

I used a Photoshop mask from here for the words. I layered this over the teal snowflake paper. I love that the mask allows the papers peek through the words! I then used the advent banners to make a advent poster type thing. I can see myself putting this in an A4 frame and using a dry erase marker to cross off the days on the Christmas countdown! I love creating digital projects like this and I love how easy Sarah’s kits make it to do this!! My advent poster turned out very fun but modern looking I think, and who doesn’t like colour at Christmas?!

Thanks for stopping by today, make sure to check out Sarah’s blog for more information!

 

Happy Christmas & Blog Hop!!

Happy Christmas everyone!!!!

Sentimental Sundays is having a New Years party Blog Hop on January 1, 2012.  We will be having some fantastic giveaways and lots of inspiration!

Head on over to the Sentimental Sunday blog to get more information.  Also, mention the blog hop on your blog and be entered to win a free $20 gift card to the online store of your choice!!

Day 10!!

I loved Tim’s tag today, it was very vintage Christmas looking. I had fun with the technique for making the baubles that he did also. I didnt actually have packaging tape that was wide enough for my images so I just slightly overlapped smaller strips of tape. (Note: if you dont overlap the smaller strips of tape when you remove the paper backing your tape will come apart and your image will be in separate strips!!)

I also didnt have adhesive foil tape so I just used mirror board and spread a very thin layer of glossy accents on the mirror board. I used my finger to spread it out very thin.

This was a real fun technique to try out and I shall definately be trying it again in the future!!

Day 8!!

Day 8 is here and you can see Tim’s day 8 tag here. It is a fantastic Steampunk inspired tag today and very untraditional Christmas tag, but fantastic none the less!!

I got very inspired by Tim’s tag and used some of the techniques he used on his tag. I didnt have any of the stamps, cog charms, pen nibs, light bulbs etc that Tim used on his tag. So as usual I improvised.

I used a paint dabber as a resist on the tag and then inked it up and fade stamped a clock stamp. I cut some cogs out of light card and inked them up to look old and rusted. I added some antique tickets and a hinge die for a bit more steampunk effect. My ’25′ and ‘Joy’ were inked up and then added glossy accents to them for more dimension.

Its is not very Christmassy but it was great fun inking and painting all the elements and again working with what I had!

I loved getting inky with this tag today

Christmas tags and wrapping….

This week at Paper Play Challenges we want to see you create your own Christmas tags and wrapping! The prize up on offer is sponsored by Simon Says Stamp:

(Please note: This is a voucher code that entitles the winner to a $15 saving off their order in Simon Says Stamp,  P+P charges will still apply unless the conditions are met to earn free P+P,  please check here if you would like to see these conditions)

I created a gift box that would fit a gift like a beautiful scarf, or pair of gloves, or even some home made short bread or other goodies. I kept the box fairly simple with just a few snowflake embellishments and some rustic twine to wrap it all up.

My tag tucks under the twine and is nice and big so that I can include a nice sized note for the recipient. I used kraft for the tag base and stamped with a wonderful background stamp from Market Street Stamps (Punched Tin). These background stamps are huge so it is easy to get great coverage. I added some snowflakes stamped at the top of the tag. I used a Tim Holtz on the edge die to create the row of houses and then just added a stamped sentiment. The ribbon is from Ikea of all places and the ‘cherries’ on the ribbon are from last years Christmas crackers, they were on the ends of the crackers. Me being the hoarder I am just couldn’t throw them away

Make sure to stop by the Paper Play blog, the rest of the design team has come up with some absolutely AMAZING tag and wrapping ideas!!

Brrrr, winter chills!

This week at Sentimental Sundays we would like to see your winter themed creations. Make sure to include a sentiment though!!  The prize for this challenge will be four INDIVIDUAL sentiment sets from theRaindrop Echo Designs Whimsy Stamps Digital Collection AND a custom watermark/signature set from the Custom Designs at Whimsy Stamps.  If you like the weekly freebies offered here, please visit the store to see even more! We also offer custom digital designs at an affordable price with tutorials on how to use them.

For this theme I made a winter wall hanging. I love the snow we had here in Ireland and this is my wish for more snow to come back I used the Warm winter wishes sentiment set for this. This is a lovely winter set and its can be Christmassy, or not, so super versatile!

Make sure you head over to Sentimental Sundays to check out the rest of the design teams stunning work, and of course share your work with us!

Christmas cards all around!

Just a quick post of some of the cards I have made that have been received by the intended person. This means I can finally share them up here!!

For my brother, a big kid at heart and refused to let go of Santa as a child!!

For my parents – my mum has something of a snowman obsession!!

Another one – a great way of using up paper scraps and ribbon scraps! Thank god  for my bow easy, I would never have been able to make bows this small with out it!!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you are all enjoying a break over Christmas!!