The last ATC of the year ........

Happy Sunday evening .....

I hope you've had a nice weekend ..... although it's probably been a white one for some of you. 
We had quite a bit of snow here on Friday ...... this was what we woke up to .... so pretty 

And it gradually got worse as the day went on ......

Schools were closed for the day. Flights and ferries were delayed.  There were no cabs, no buses running and all the shops closed early .... but all that didn't matter ........ it was SNOWING!!!!

It did stop snowing for a while ........ Meet Frosty,  Alex's snow day friend

The only downside was I had to cancel the Christmas workshop yesterday.  It wasn't a good idea for everyone to travel with the weather conditions as they were.  It's all been re-arranged and fingers crossed, it will go ahead next weekend.
The snow has nearly all gone here now .... sigh.  It would have been nice to have a white Christmas

Anyhow ...... it's the 10th of December (only two weeks to go before the big day ..... eeek!) and it's time to launch the last of the Happy Little Stampers Challenges for this year ..... the ATC challenge

The theme is Christmas ....... and oh look! ..... it's a snowy one

I do love white on Kraft card. 
I've stamped and heat embossed some small snowflakes onto the background

Added in a few dots with a white gel pen and brush around the edges with Picket Fence Distress ink

A simple strip of white card, cut to create a snowy hillside, then heat embossed with the greeting using Liquid Platinum powder.  A touch of glitter adds a little sparkle.

To finish off I die cut a pretty snowflake from glitter card and a piece of white, layered the two together to add dimension and then attached it onto my ATC ...... all done!

The last ATC of the year!

Thank You to everyone that has played along with all of this years Happy Little Stampers challenges ..... your support means a lot.
Have a very Merry Christmas ..... and a Happy and Healthy New Year.  And we'll see you all in 2018 for more challenge fun!

Thanks for popping by ..... enjoy the rest of your day. And if you've got snow, stay safe and warm.
We were out and about today, and it was a little on the chilly side!  We went for a lovely Sunday lunch with the whole family ....... it's always nice when someone else does the cooking, and there's no washing up to do!  And this evening hubby and I are staying cosy and warm in front of the TV.  It's movie time and a little Christmas spirit I think ...... Cheers! 

Cheerio until next time .....

Welcome to 12 Tags of Christmas with Loll and Friends ..... Day 11

Whoo hoo! .... hello again

Welcome to Day 11 of one of my favourite Blog events of the year.  Yes ......Twelve Tags of Christmas with Loll & Friends is currently underway .......

When Loll invited me to be one of her Guest Designers again this year I immediately said Yes!
It's always a pleasure to be part of this fun event ....... and you all know how much I love making tags!

I'm loving Kraft card at the moment and I think it goes so well with white to give a real snowy look.

I cut my tag and heat embossed in white, some pretty snowflakes onto the background .....

and then added some texture paste through the Tim Holtz Speckles stencil .... I love using this to create the look of falling snow.  I sprinkled the texture paste with fine crystal glitter while the paste was still wet to add a touch of sparkle

White ink around the edges, applied with a stencil brush, finishes off the snowy sky.

I die cut some white card stock with the CUTplorations Stitched Snow Hills dies and layered the pieces onto the bottom of the tag, stamping and heat embossing the sentiment in gold

I finished off the tag by adding a beautiful die cut snowflake .... cut from white card and glitter card, layering them together to add dimension ...... isn't it pretty!  I think it's a Memory Box snowflake but I'm not sure ..... I haven't got the packaging!!

A simple white pearl in the middle adds the final touch.

I hope you're enjoying the Tag event as much as I am.  There's been some amazing tags created by Loll and her Guests over the last 10 days and it's not over yet.
There's still time to play along ....... just create a mixed media Christmas tag, any size, any style, which includes rubber stamping, plus two mixed media elements ..... that can be mixed media products or techniques.  Go on ...... join in the fun!

Thanks for popping by ..... enjoy the rest of your day.
I've been busy prepping a workshop today for the weekend ..... we're going to be playing around with Galaxy Backgrounds ....... it could be a messy one!

Cheerio until next time ........

Warm hands ..... Warm heart

Happy Thursday ........

I'm back!!!  and I thought last week was busy!! 

Welcome to the first of two posts today ....... first up it's time for a little more inspiration for this month's STAMPlorations CAS Card challenge

Anything CAS goes with the optional colour twist ....... and this month, that's BROWN

I think Kraft card is about as brown as I get!  

This was so quick and easy to do ...... great if you're like me and still have all your Christmas cards to make ..... well, nearly all of them!  

Both the winter mittens .... how cute are those! 

and the sentiment, are from the STAMPlorations Warm Hands, Warm Heart stamp set.

I've simply stamped them onto Kraft card and heat embossed in white, then coloured the mittens with Prismacolor pencils.

This is a great little stamp set, cute festive images and great sentiments.  There's also a co-ordinating set of dies too so if you don't like fussy cutting you don't need to, the dies will cut out the images for you.

I added a sprinkling of chunky white embossing powder ......

and finished off with a little bit of faux stitching around the edge

Told you it was quick and easy.

Check out the STAMPlorations blog for all the challenge details, and you'll also find more fabulous inspiration from the rest of the Design Team on there too.

Thanks for popping by .... enjoy the rest of your day.

It's been all go again this week although to be fair, Monday was a write-off.  We only got back on the island at 5.45AM!  so I just went straight to bed, and didn't wake up until after lunch.  

And I did go AWOL yesterday ..... it had to be done, one of my crafty friends is having a BIG birthday this weekend (Happy Birthday Gill!) and she's away, so we all had lunch with her yesterday and got the celebrations started early.

I will share more about my weekend away once everything has settled down a little ...... though I will just say I had a great time on the retreat ...... and it was nice to catch up with the family too.

Cheerio until next time ........ you won't have to wait too long!

And we're off ......

Happy Thursday ......

Just thought I'd pop by and say hello as I have a little time to spare.  We're on the boat, settled in our little cabin heading across to the UK.  Goodbye island ..... see you Monday!
At least we have sunshine, and calm ish seas ...... for now anyway.

It was a bit of a busy day yesterday but ...... I took a break from the packing and found time to make my second tag for the 12 Tags of Christmas with Loll and Friends
Inspired by the deer on Loll's tag from Day 1, and Nancy's tag from Day 2 this is what I came up with.

A tag cut from Kraft card, with the fir trees stamped using brown ink (those Clarity trees are back again), and the snowy hills created with white pigment ink brushed along the edge of a piece of copier paper
 

A touch of glitter to the trees and a sprinkling of chunky white embossing powder adds the look of  falling snow ....

The die cut deer was one from my stash ..... already coloured, I just added the glitter to his antlers
and a tiny bit of the embossing powder before attaching him to my tag

A piece of white card across the bottom with the sentiment on also grounded the deer a little.

Well that's tag number 2 done.  I'll have to catch up with the rest next week.

It's a special day on the blog today ..... quite the milestone, I think so anyway!  I'll be back later to tell you more.

Thanks for popping by ..... enjoy the rest of your day.
I'm going to have a little snooze as we had a bit of an early start.

Cheerio until next time ......

Good news ......

Happy Thursday ......

It certainly is a happy day ..... Lauren has just been granted her DO's licence ..... whoo hoo!!!

She's now a Designated Official for the brewery which means she can run her own place.  That's both of the kids official licencees ....... Chris has The Prospect in Douglas, and Lauren now has Artisan. Well done you!!!

We're off out for lunch to celebrate (more eating and drinking) and then it's Thursday of course, so it's Saddleoke tonight ......... this could get messy!!!!

Before all that though, I'm still busy with Christmas cards .... I was hoping to have all mine written and in the post by the end of this week but that doesn't seem to be happening!!!
Never mind it does mean that I get the chance to join in with the 12 Days of Christmas Cards Challenge hosted by the lovely Kylie from Happy Little Stampers

Each day, for 12 days, Kylie and her friends are showcasing Christmas Cards and you can join in the fun too.  There's a linky on the challenge for you to add your designs and ..... there's prizes up for grabs .... why not play along.

Here's one of my designs from the last Sweet Poppy Stencil TV show using the gorgeous Change in the Seasons stencil

Really simple to do ..... white ink and white embossing paste with a sprinkling of glitter ..... very wintry (brrrrr!).

I simply used the stencil with the white paste onto a piece of Kraft card, and sprinkled the glitter over the top whilst the paste was still wet ..... love the detail on this stencil

Once this was dry I brushed white ink onto the background using a paper mask to create the hills

I added a sentiment and the little bunnies using my MISTI so that I could repeat the stamping until I got a good depth of colour on the images

A few dots of white gel pen here and there, to give the look of falling snow, finish of the card nicely

Thanks for popping by .... enjoy the rest of your day.  I must dash as we're meeting Lauren for lunch in half an hour and I'm nowhere near ready.

Cheerio until next time .......

On the fourth day of December .......

it's challenge number 3

Happy Sunday .....

Yes it's challenge time ....... we're getting into the festive spirit again (oh no! so soon.  Still recovering from the Friday night party.  Only joking ...... we had a great night.  A few too many G&Ts maybe .... but hey! ...... it's Christmas!!!)

It's time for the Happy Little Stampers Christmas challenge ..... Ho! Ho! Ho!

As always the challenge is sponsored by the Happy Little Stampers store

and the winner will receive a fab $15 discount voucher to spend on HLS goodies.

This theme this month is all about ........ the Wreath

I love a festive wreath on the front door .... it always looks so welcoming.

Here's a little inspiration for you ........ using one of my favourite combinations,  white on Kraft card ..... love it!!

I stamped the wreath in Versamark ink and then embossed with a white, fine detail powder.

I added a touch of colour using red and green sparkly gel pens ..... very festive ....... for some of the berries I used a white gel pen and then added more sparkle with some crystal glitter ......

The bow I stamped again and fussy cut before attaching with foam pads to add dimension

And I added some glossy accents to the large red berries to give a little shine

The sentiment is from the brand new HLS Christmas Joy set ....... again embossed in the white

And to finish off I softened around the edges of the card by brushing a touch of white ink, and added a few dots of 'snow' here and there using a white gel pen.

I'll be out this week, hunting for the perfect wreath for our front door .... have you got yours yet?

I'm also linking this up to the 12 Days of Christmas Cards Challenge with Kylie and Friends.

Hosted by the brains behind Happy Little Stampers .... the lovely Kylie and 12 talented friends are sharing Christmas cards for the next 12 days .... so if you still haven't made a start on making yours why not join in the fun.

Thanks for popping by ...... enjoy whats left of the weekend.

Cheerio until next time .....