Christmas Cards 2013 (19) Leftovers: 5 commissioned cards with reindeer

Finally, the last post about my Christmas cards from the previous year :)  These cards were made as a last minute commission from my colleague. She wanted some reindeer so to make it more varied I went for reindeer in different styles. 

Below my favourite combination: punched snowflakes in red and white on brown kraft card :) I love the simplicity of this card. 

A sampler-type of card with stamped images, including reindeer :) These were small cute stamps I managed to collect over time and it's a compilation of motifs.

Heat-embossed reindeer in red on a "jumper" background :)

Vintage reindeer with a cute Scandinavian girl ;)

And the last card - reindeer stamped, stitched, die-cut and glued :) Voila!

That's it! Finito! Thank you for your patience :-))))

Christmas Cards 2013 (13): Red and white once more

Although Christmas is technically over, I still got some more of my Christmas cards to reveal on the blog. I've been very card-productive this year so I've given some sets of my cards as gifts to those friends of mine who don't make their own but are appreciative of hand-made creations. 

This batch of cards is, again, revolving around the Scandi theme. I used my favourite stamps and scrapbooking papers of all various brands on them (Panduro, Papermania, Martha Stewart). 

The focus here is on the scalloped edges. I love scallops. So do the baker's twine and all folksy stripes :)

The card below is an attempt at making a hand-stitched patchwork card (a perfect way to use up the scraps of pretty scrapbooking papers you don't want to chuck away) and also the christmas tree with a 3D effect made by piping a white glass painting relief paste. Sort of a "gingerbread" effect.

The papers I used for these cards is Papermania "Home for Christmas" series from last year. They are one of my favourite themed papers available on the market. Their designs are so ultimately Scandinavian and they add a lot of charm to the cards. Think, after the New Year I'm going to look for some more of these papers and have an extra supply before they disappear from sale ;)

One more card with hand stitching - I really enjoy adding this feature. It adds that extra "hand-made, rustic" decorative touch.

So what do you think, huh? :) Enjoy the rest of the weekend. x x x

Christmas Cards 2013 (11): Red and White again

Hi all. How is everyone? Hope all of you are getting into the festive mood and enjoying waiting for those joyful winter days. I'm slowly starting to plan what I want to bake for Christmas and how to set up the whole decoration. Again, like last year, I'm dreaming of a real Christmas tree for my knitted julekuler from last year. How far have you been in your festive preps?

In the meantime I'm sharing with you a couple of my Christmas cards. Both reindeer stamped and embossed in red come from noolibird.com

For this card, I decided to make some hand cross stitches and add natural paper panels. I really like how it combines well with white and red cardstock.

On the card below, I used my favourite stamp with the reindeer in heart. It was heat-embossed and laid on a layer of white straw :)

Thank you for your comments and visits x

Stamps. Stamps. Stamps - Confessions of a stampaholic.

Crafters have a lot of their own sweet, "guilty pleasure" addictions. One of mine is collecting and using all sorts of stamps. I could have millions of them and I can never get enough :) I'm a real sucker for all sorts of quirky and whimsical stamp designs and I find the Yellow Owl Workshop stamps to be so. They are good quality traditional wood block-mounted rubber stamps, each set being sold in an attractive box. Perhaps you remember this stamp set from one of my previous posts.  And I've recently treated myself to these festive sets:

I love these simple geometric designs. It's the simplicity of the designs that captures my heart. The Christmas bauble is lovely but it is the bell I really really really wanted to have in my collection. 

The mistletoe and the pine cone have also been long on my must-have list. I fancy making some Christmas cards with floral symbols of Christmas. 

And this scenery building stamp set has been on my wish list for weeks. Finally it's mine! :) 

I couldn't wait any longer and I had to have a go at this reindeer set:

I also added 2 extra stamps for this scenery - the curly Christmas tree is a stamp from The English Stamp Company and the wording comes from The Waltzing Mouse Stamps set - Nordic Winter.

The designs of these stamps are so simple, yet the stamping possibilities are unlimited. The colours, the arrangement, the intensity, the whole composition - it all depends on you. Let yourself get lost in the stamping fever :)

And a version with a small mistletoe stamp (also from The English Stamp Company)

Experimenting a bit, I used some textured watercolour cardstock for these impressions. I like how this paper absorbs the ink and how the stamped images overlap with each other.

With these new stamping toys I feel like my crafting passion is being rekindled now. Good :) as I'm going to have more stamping fun later this week.

Have a good weekend and thank you for your comments. x X x
Linking to Hand-made Harbour tonight for a Hand-made Monday blog hopping party. 

(Early) Christmas Cards 2013 (10): Knitted jumper style (1)

Hi all. Long time no blog post. I know, it has become very quiet here. Two of my friendly readers asked me in their comments if I was ok (thank you Judith and Amy. Very thoughtful of you x x) I am ok and alive :) Well, a few things caused my absence. First, the kitten who is quickly growing up, requires attention and keeps very active most of the time, which in turn it keeps me active too. Secondly, my blogging mojo has somehow evaporated and I temporarily lost my interest in blogging (a blog burn-out perhaps? or maybe some sort of autumnal depression/laziness?) and thirdly lack of time and work stresses successfully got me out of my crafting mood (oh! perhaps I should blame the 50 Shades of Grey ebooks too!) I've been trying to hand-make something throughout all that time but it's not much, I must admit. Not very productive. However, I'm hoping to be back to my regular blogging now :) The build-up of the blogging material has been on my mind all the time. Time to get on with it. 

Undoubtedly, Christmas is approaching fast and although I haven't been blogging much for the last month one thing is certain: I've been shopping for some red and white Scandi stuff and oh God, how I much I've been enjoying it! Roaming from a shop to a shop I've been buying Scandi-themed cups, bowls, platters, bed covers, napkins, kitchen towels, candles, Christmas tree decorations (being in my element!). Nowadays the choice in the shops is so huge and the Scandi theme is still on! It must me the 2nd or 3rd winter when the Nordic patterns reign among the Christmas products. I still dream of lidded a mulled wine pot with a tealight warmer with a Scandi theme :) I just ordered a lovely set off eBay. I've already stocked up on some bottle of German mulled wine :)

Back on the craft frontline, here are some of my new cards. Embossed jumper-style with lots of white and frosty blue colour. (I really love this embossing folder from Sizzix!) I tried first with the square version and a decorative band from a lovely Dutch scrapbooking paper. It glitters and sparkles but I don't think the photo really shows this.

Then I went for the version with the rounded edges...

and some other decorative bands:

I really enjoyed making those cards. The cosy knitted theme is so Nordic'y - I so love it!. More cards and more crafty news to come soon. I shall keep you posted. Promise :) Will be catching up with your blogs soon too! Been wondering what you have been up to.

Hope you're all having a good week and thanks everybody, whoever stops here, for their comments. Missed blogging for you. xxx

(Early) Christmas Cards 2013 (9) & A new furry addition to the household :)

What a week and what a weekend! Each day of this week brought something new and  each was busy for me one way or the other. The weekend is just passing by. I really don't know where this time is flying. Day after day and night after night and we are already at the end of September. To be honest, I haven't done much this week - just a few cards in the evenings to add to the overall Christmas card collection So I'm showing you the two new ones :) This time a little more traditional take on Christmas cards with lots of green accents. I missed some green shades after such a long time making red and white Scandinavian ones. 

I absolutely love that lacey die cut Christmas tree (Cheery Lynn dies) and the red heat-embossed reindeer from A Muse Studio stamp set. The poinsettia on vine punched border is Martha Stewart's punch.

Little details - tags, strings, borders, charms is what I've always liked :) I'm still in love with bakers twines too. I keep seeing a lot of them on eBay and in craft shops. They add a lot to the festive charm.

And another go at Christmas greens but this time with a bit of yellow too :) The image is comes from a Noolibird stamp I bought last year and this cute folky bird in a festive wreath has always been one of my favourites in my stamp collection. 

This year another punch joined up my collection - a Woodware punch - Large Holly Leaf - how did I do without it before? I find it so useful and I just love the shapely holly leaves it punches. I feel tempted to use it on each of my cards! 

And finally, last, but not least - meet Cookie - our new addition to the household :-)))) We got her yesterday from a woman who apparently saved her life from an outdoor fire. She's full of beans and she's just trying to settle down. She's about 10 weeks old.

I just melted when I saw her photo on facebook. The white whiskers and the "milky" moustache simply captured my heart.

She's so little and so everywhere! I haven't had a little kitten at home for ages! I'm getting used to it again.

She's so sweet and she loves a lot of TLC. She is not liking our old cat Stinky though. She's very distrustful towards him and giving him lots of hissing and growling at the moment. I hope they will make friends in the end because Stinky is a real can't-be-bothered docile cat.

Linking Hand-made Monday no. 136 tonight. I'm really curious what other crafters have been up to.

(Early) Christmas Cards 2013 (8): Cards with washi tapes

Yay! Weekend finally! This weekend I won't be doing much, I guess. Just a bit of knitting and cross stitching. Perhaps I'll find some time to sit down to make some more cards. In the meatime I'm going to show you  some cards I used the washi tapes on. Washi tape is a relatively new product on the market. It's a type of a low-tack masking tape but as opposed to the traditional boring masking tape, washi tape is patterned and decorative and it can be used in scrap booking or applied to various surfaces like glass or plastic. I have a few of these tapes at home and thought they may look good on some Christmas Nordic cards ;) So here are my attempts at including the washi tapes in my cards :)

Mine are naturally (surprise! surprise!) Nordic-themed :) They are a bit translucent and your can layer them to get some overlapping shades :) For this card I used Himalayan Snowflake from Martha Stewart, stamps from Scandinavian Christmas set, also from Martha S. and the Norwegian star stamp comes from craftfun.pl :)

Moving away from reindeer to ... Scandinavian wreath hearts :) This lovely heart stamp is from Noolibird and it has been one of my favourites since the beginning. I wanted to create a red and white card with some green accents :) 

And finally a festive card with a mixture of red, white and turquoise. This time three snowflakes have been stamped and heat-embossed with some scalloped layers and washi tape. The snowflakes are a Noolibird brand again. I love how they come in various shapes. The Merry Christmas stamp is from Scandinavian Christmas stamp set from Martha Stewart (as mentioned above). The red paper is Scandinavian Christmas from Marianne Designs, the polka dot paper comes from the last year Hobby Craft Christmas paper set. 

And what about you? What are you up to this weekend?