Festive but Flowery!

Hello friends

It is a Christmas card but with a difference - it is a little bit flowery too!

It is another project that is featured in the 2014 Make Christmas Cards magazine.

As mentioned, I was asked to use the papers that come free with the magazine and

the colours are non traditional Christmas and flowery.

I chose to mat the patterned papers onto three separate cards and then make a little

feature on the front one with Layered Poinsettia and Create A Flake Five.

The sentiment and oval (that puts me in mind of an Easter egg!) are within the magazine pack.

Not one hundred percent sure if I like it, it's different! 

A tip if you use these papers, adhere them first to some white card, 

so much easier to work with and die cut.

I'm back to London today for my City job, I'm noticing the evenings drawing in

when I'm travelling home - time really does go quickly.

Take care friends - back tomorrow for FDD.

A Crafty Space and Yvonne

Hello friends

Today featuring another crafty space for us to admire, 

today it is Sue Dunn's craft room in her conservatory.

It's definitely packed with some wonderful craft goodies.

Sue mentions that it is lovely to have the light all through the year, 

but gets a bit hot in the summer.  I used to craft in my conservatory so I totally appreciate this.

Thank you Sue for sharing your crafty space, I particularly like your

white wooden drawer storage, looks very swish :)

Not too late to submit photos of your crafty space, just email your

photos to hope-chances@live.co.uk

Other news:  I am currently stocking Card-io stamps,

these are the tiny stamps that you mount onto acrylic stamp pegs and 

they work beautifully with Versa Color ink pads.

My good friend and fellow Spellbinders designer, Yvonne van de Grijp

(check out her blog here) has used the stamps to create some amazing cards.

(It is no secret that I'm not a great stamper so when she kindly offered I bit her hand off!)

This one features Oriental Blossom.

 Love this one - especially those little candy canes - the stamp set is called

Poinsettias and Peppermints.

 And because she knows I'm a tag addict...

Poinsettias and Peppermints again and Greenery 1 - such elegant simplicity to this one.

I will be featuring more soon - huge thanks to Yvonne.

You can see the entire Card-io stamp range here.

Take care friends.

Tuesday Tip/Technique

Hello friends

I'm a day late asking if you all had a good weekend!

I hope you all did and the weather was nice to you.

It's already Tuesday and I can't believe how the days are speeding by at the moment.

Thank you so much for your Charity Kit purchases, each month the cheques

go off to Ronald McDonald House and The Royal Marsden 

and I am so proud that we are all doing our bit to help.

I must mention the knitted squares - I have fallen a little behind in joining all

the squares mainly because of the Summer and it was a tad warm sitting with a 

blanket on me!  But with Winter approaching I'm really looking forward to getting back to it.  

I will be sharing photos of the finished blankets before they get sent off.

Right...Tuesday Tip/Technique...

Today a reminder for using your dies to create apertures. 

Oh look it's butterflies!   

I've die cut three of the Les Papillions vertically on a manilla tag.

Stamped over the whole area to make a nice background. 

Placed patterned paper behind ...festive!

You could finish your tag here if you wish or...

Die cut the butterflies and insert them over the top. 

A trio of fluttering butterflies tag. 

Take care friends and I'm back soon.

September Charity Kit

Hello friends

It's here - this month's Charity Kit! 

This time it is two mini gift cards featuring the lovely Inspire dies -

Umbrella Trio and Nature's Window. 

 You will receive the following components in your kit:

Cream mini gift cards and envelopes x 2

Cardstock - buff, pink, ivory hammered

Die cuts - Umbrella Trio x 3, Nature's Window x 2

Twine

Gemstones

Lucky Number

Full instructions

As always, inside your kit is a lucky number and the draw will take place beginning of 

next month - prize is an assortment of dies, stamps, adhesive and more
so keep a good hold of your ticket!

The price of this month's kit inclusive of packing and posting is £5.50.

I have placed a PayPal button below, it is also possible to alter
quantities should you wish to order more.

£5.50

The kit is also listed on the website here at a different price as postage is added at checkout -

handy if you wish to add any other items to your order.

Again I must send out thanks to those special people for helping to organise the kit,

Mum and Sally for being amazing die cutters and Elliott who is chief kit packer!

Thank you everyone for your continuing support to both Ronald McDonald House,
Camberwell and The Royal Marsden, Surrey.
We are all doing such a great thing here!

Take care friends.

Friday Die Day

Hello friends

It's Friday Die Day and today I'm still on a festive roll!

The die set being featured this week is Heirloom Reflections.
You receive 8 die templates in the set.

The sizes are:

Round Ornament 1: 1¼ x 1½”
Round Ornament 2: 1⅝ x 2”
Kismet Ornament 1: 2⅛ x 1¾”
Kismet Ornament 2: 2½ x 2½”
Spire Ornament 1: 1¾ x 2”
Spire Ornament 2: 2⅛ x 2⅞”
Teardrop Ornament 1: 1⅝ x 2⅝”
Teardrop Ornament 2: 2 x 3⅜”

This how they look cut/embossed.

It is also possible to just use the outer dies to create solid baubles.

A Christmas card this week, it seems I'm a little hooked on untraditional colours right now.

I double matted the card base and placed a stamped sentiment onto white card.

I then cut/embossed two designs of the round ornament, strung them with twine

that I tucked behind the white card front.

These are so pretty!  You could use a variety of the ornament shapes to make your own gift tags.

They also look amazing cut from Craft Foils.
Have a wonderful weekend, I'm going to stop thinking about Christmas for a little bit soon!

Take care friends.
 

Festive Winner!

Hello friends

Today announcing the winner of the lovely 3D Christmas Tree die.

And drum roll please.....it is......

SUPERNAN SUE

Congratulations Sue - just drop me an email with your address -

hope-chances@live.co.uk and the die will be on its way to you.

Thank you for all your kind words regarding my Dad, he really is on the mend now -

in fact it is going to be difficult stopping him from doing too much!

It has been such a busy time recently, Elliott started college this week

which he is enjoying but finding tiring.  It is a real change of pace for him having

been at home and helping Mum for nearly a year! 

I've been busy with lots of things behind the scenes including this month's 

Charity Kit which will be revealed soon.

I am also producing the Christmas Advent Kit again as I have received requests,

I'm selecting some gorgeous new festive papers for this so keep tuned.

Okay...I ought to share something new with you (instead of all this waffling!)

The 2014 Make Christmas Cards magazine has just come out and inside I have quite a few

Christmassy projects inside to share.

I was asked to use some of the free papers, tags etc which were all lilac based, 

an unusual colour for Christmas but it was a nice challenge.

One of the projects was a little pyramid gift/treat box.
I do have a template for this which I tried to upload here but Blogger wasn't being nice!
If you would like the template to print out just drop me an email.

The dies used are Layered Poinsettia and Create A Flake Five.
Not too fussy and would look good on the Christmas table.

Take care friends - I'm back tomorrow.