I am an on-the-side and increasingly up front papercrafter who loves nothing more than getting inky and creating pretty things with paper and stamps!
I am also a wife to lovely hubby and mummy to a wonderful 14yr old princess.
Today’s Christmas in July is also my DT contribution to this fortnights ATSM where the theme is handily Christmas!
But also the theme for today is sketch so here is the sketch I created …
Originally I was going to use a deer as the focal image but instead I went floral. I also swapped out papers for the strips and went for ribbon instead.
I added the floral stamped images that I had fussy cut along with the die cut leafy bits from the Frosted frames and then the frame and panels too.
I added a die cut sentiment for the Christmas and then stamped and embossed the wishes sentiment.
Today I have a heavy on the die cuts card! I think it is a special card that really makes an impact! A bit of a labour of love for today’s Christmas in July !
The die cut background and the pinecones is an old Stampin up one – there are two layers to the background and then two layers for each of the pine cones – and when you put them together they make a superb and very detailed card.
I added some extra fun by giving the green panel a spritz with the Lettuce Shimmer spritz – it is subtle but it gives it a lovely shine and texture!
I die cut and inked the label panel and added the gold puffy stickers from spellbinders for the Christmas sentiment and then the Lawn Fawn die cut for the Merry which I coloured with green alcohol marker and then gave a coat of the lettuce shimmer spritz too!
I finished then card with some of the gold puffy star stickers as embellishments too!
Really love this card – it is really special and I think will shine out when on display!
A fresh and slightly different colour scheme for today’s Christmas in July project and I ended up with two cards made mainly using patterned papers but also bringing in the fabulous copper coloured foiling!
If you watch the video of my process in putting these together you’ll know they went through a bit of a journey to get here!
But as soon as I pulled out the press plates and the foil I knew I had come to the right answer for these cards – until then I really wasn’t sure what I was doing!
I added the little holly leaves from the Merriest Moments set and then for the one that is mostly green I added some berries using the rust embossing powder to add some more copper!
Absolutely in love with these cards – and once again I am back to being completely obsessed with foiling!
In other news I have opened a Facebook group for sharing my Christmas in July projects and hopefully others that make some festive projects in July will share theirs too so there is plenty of inspiration around. Please do come and join us.
Today’s card was simple but took some time as it needed drying time in the middle! The theme was pretty poinsettia for today’s Christmas in July so I went with the waffle flower stencil to create the card front.
I started with the white panel and masked off edges to give a border and then added the green ink on the second stencil, then the first stencil with red ink – but then I decided to add the glitter glue through the stencil too.
It did seep under the stencil and created a halo around the flowers but I quite liked that so carried on with the card – albeit i then set it aside for about an hour to dry at this point!
Once dry I trimmed down the panel and then mounted it on the dark green and made a card blank from the same cardstock.
I embossed the sentiment using an old Claritystamps stamp onto the green and die cut it with a second one to stack it up a little.
So all in all a simple card but pretty and sparkly with all the glitter glue.
I also added some gems to the sentiment oval just to finish off!
Love how this came out and also wondering if I need things like those lunar pastes or glitter pastes in my stash? I’ve become a big fan of sparkle!
Of course the making of this is over on my YouTube channel – along with all the other Christmas in July projects! 😀🎄😀
So even whilst super busy with Christmas in July I have tried to continue with my #indexcardaday challenge … I just didn’t get around to posting about it last week as I was on my holiday and didn’t remember to do a post! So a bumper one for you!
Started with shades of pink and red for the stars for day 29 and some simple outlines for the doodles! Thought this Tim Hoktz sticker was the right one for the sentiment!
Day 30 was done late in the day (colour has been impacted by the lighting – sorry!) but using a pattern stamp of the circles and then adding the wiggly lines to create some shapes to give it a funky coating of colour! Then added white posca doodles.
Day 31 is the halfway mark .,, and I decided to change it up quite a bit from the previous card with a cutesy image and some soft neutral colours . So sweet! Decided to keep the doodled background outside the frame for the bear. Also just noticed I missed a tiny bit on the left hand side! Doh!
Day 32 … I decided to do some colourful leaves and lots of lines! It was nice to change it up from green leaves!
33 – and this time back to flowers with this cute hibiscus flower stamped in a circle and then went to town on the doodled background – by this time I was off work which is probably why I had the time to do this!
Day 34 … I changed it up by using a script stamp all over the background and then concentrated on the doodles so the stamping isn’t the focal element but the sentiment and colours are what draw the eye instead. And went for all the greens for my colouring!
Day 35 and I went with lots of heart stamps designed by Darcy for Paperartsy – I know I’ve used one of these stamps already but I love it so I used it again! Simple doodles to create panels akin to the Darcy heart in the background and a fun blue, purple and pink colours scheme.
Day 36 and the most obvious change is the background (the turquoise is the mat on my work desk!) as we were in Devon in the lodge at this point!
The next thing to note is I did all the stamping ahead of time and just brought a limited number of alcohol markers and some pens for the doodles with me! So first morning waking up in Paignton and I made my coffee and then did some doodling and colouring in the quiet!
Went for some lines across the card with different pen marks in them and then three colours of alcohol markers. Cute!
Day 37 and again I was up first so made my coffee and made my card … the inspiration for these doodles flowers came from the curtain fabric in the bedroom of the lodge. So doodled flowers and splodgy circles of colour and the odd little doodled circles are what I went with! Love this one!
Day 38 – there is a theme to our holidays – I get up first and make a coffee and have my mindful doodle/colouring time! this time the stamped words were all different directions so went with blocks and then filled in the gap with some doodles. Added the colour and then decided the background behind the blocks and the doodles needed to be grey. Another one I think might make a good fabric design.
Day 39 – went for a full on patterned background with the stamped words being in one panel. Quite liked this bit of fun! Specifically like the one where I added extra black to make the green ovals/circles.
Day 40 I decided I hadn’t done many circle designs so made that the theme! Went with all the red and pink colours of the alcohol pens I had – plus a bit of shading with grey. I’m not great at circle shapes but liked the end result.
Day 41 we were straight out so didn’t have time to do the card until late in the day and inspired by the boat trip we had been on and the many fish we saw in the water … this is what I focussed on!
And my final card for the holiday and week six was done just before we packed up the car and left for home after our holiday – went for this fun pattern and coloured design.
Home safe and sound now and full craft room restored to me for the rest of the icad season but I am really pleased I managed to carry on with limited supplies and really did enjoy my few minutes of creativity whilst on our hols.
I went a little OTT with today’s card for Christmas in July! It was definitely a case of more is more!
Love using those holly stamps Darcy designed for Paperartsy. I stamped my wreath using the wreath builder and then went a little crazy with adding decoration to it!
I love the bow I added, the very shiny stars and then of course the pine needle foiled background .
With hindsight there were a lot of points where I could have stopped and gone for a simpler card but hey sometimes I just can’t stop myself!
Yes it is time for another Scrappin Saturday! I am back to sharing the city breaks album I made as my design team project for Kingston Crafts using the Hello Life kit for the Everyday stories album.
These 8×8 pocket pages are so easy to do and quickly document and put together pages. I have so many building based photos from when we visit cities I thought this was a good way of keeping them!
This time the city is Liverpool! Now strictly speaking we didn’t go for a break to Liverpool – it’s 30 mins from our home – but we did spend a day being tourists and it isn’t somewhere we think to come to very often – but really was beautiful on this sunny day!
As the album will be filled with many cities when it is finished I again used my 4×8 flip its8 to create the section divider – again I used the Spring slimline cardstock for this as the colours coordinate so well with the Hello Life kit colours.
I removed the adhesive and then punched holes and it becomes a fun different sized pocket for the album.
I actually only took a few photos of the buildings the day we went to Liverpool – I took more pics of our food and drink (& the Disney Dream cruise ship which was actually the reason we chose to visit Liverpool that day!) but the genius of this kit is I can always add more when I visit again and build up my Liverpool section – I’ve just started doing that with Manchester photos in readiness for when I get round to starting that section!
So a shorter post than normal today but I did so many pages in this album that I’ve already shared and I have another city yet to share with you – but that can wait for another post!
The theme today for Christmas in July is Follow that star and I decided I wanted to use the new die I bought a few weeks ago from The Greetery. I then ended up making a lovely shimmery night sky background to place the die cuts on and adding the other colours of foiled cardstock too!
The background I made using three bright colours of distress ink and then added black soot. I then added a light mist of the shimmer spritz using the lambs wool colour of the Kingston Crafts shimmer spritz! Perfect for a fun background!
The die cuts I started with the black foiled cardstock from Kingston Crafts and then added the gold, green and pink too for the star inserts.
I used a foiled and die cut sentiment from the stash – I added that to disguise the join across the two die cuts.
I also added a border of the foiled cardstock which helped to frame the panel.
A simple but very fun card!
I really love the pops of colour against the dark!
I knew for the mistletoe challenge for today’s Christmas in July project I wanted to use the MFT cover die but that was as far as my planning went!
Once I had cut it from the Kingston Crafts foiled cardstock (such a gorgeous green) I then decided to also grab the mistletoe stamp from a magazine kit and create a nice bright cluster.
I used my promarkers to colour the stamped image four times and then fussy cut them out and added some scrap strips behind them for a bit of dimension, I chose to add the cover panel onto the black base and then added those stamped ones to the topper panel.
I stamped and embossed the sentiment onto a black strip and then cut the banner element. I added that too with a little dimension so it fit nicely over the stamped sprigs.
I then decided to stamp the same image onto the card base but with second generation ink so it was paler.
Really love this modern and fun card – love the bright mistletoe images and that shiny background die cut!
Today’s theme was to use a sketch – and the sketch I came up with was heavily inspired by a card Martin made a few years ago which I did CASE at the time and I wanted to revisit!
So thank you Martin for the inspiration!
I ended up making three cards using the sketch … which you can see come together on my video
Making the circle elements was so easy – nine circle die cuts with the same size die – a bit of ink blending with the moon mask and then cutting the hills to size from the other two patterned paper circles.
And then glued the layers together – perfect for a quick and easy landscape element! (Please note Martin’s original took more effort and had lots of beautiful blending and die cutting! Mine is the lazy version!)
I then had to decide what to use for the other elements of the sketch – this one is probably closer than the others with the die cut tree. I chose to cut it from glitter paper and then added the die cut sentiment.
For this one I flipped the sketch and used a stamped and fussy cut tree which I coloured with the stampin blend markers. This time a larger die cut sentiment to cross the whole front.
This final one I used one of the leftover My Favourite Things cute images of the polar bear and the Santa. I then added a stamped sentiment.
For all three I added glitter glue – just in a few different ways – with hindsight I should have added the glitter glue before adding the focal elements – that would have been easier.
I also added the little die cut stars as embellishments – I kept these white and simple rather than adding more glitter glue.
Really love these cards – certainly they are easy to replicate over and over – and the sketch lends itself to different designs.
So once again a big thank you to Martin for the inspiration (as always!).
Inkyfingeredcat 