Author: Catherine

So this past year has been busy busy busy both for work and also personally and I’ve also managed to fit a lot of crafting in that I’ve shared here on my blog. I did a few long stints of daily posting … think I even got to 100 days during the summer … and made so many projects! So strap in for a long post as I share some of my favourites from 2023!

I mainly stuck to card making this year and ended up with a very large amount of cards so ended up gifting some to charity and to my friend to sell for charity, as well as gifting some for Christmas to my aunties for their use or for them to gift to others.

As I put away the Christmas card basket a couple of days ago I actually took a pic and counted how many I had left (I know I took a few out after this as realised I needed to pop them in the neighbours letter boxes still!) and I was left with 27 … not bad as a starting place for next year!

My birthday card stash also reduced a lot but not quite to the same extent so perhaps have around 40 cards left in that box.

This year I started with the plan of not spending on new stash and completely went off that plan within a few months as I started seeing more and more card makers using stash I just wanted to play with. I had kind of fallen out of love with my existing stash and it meant the mojo went awol so spending money on new stash happened. I did sell a few bits of my old stash but nowhere near enough to compensate for what I ended up spending!

I fell in love with Altenew products in particular and made many cards using their fabulous stamps and dies. This is one of my favourite makes from this year which is actually quite a simple looking (but fiddly to make) card using the zero waste leaf die from altenew.

I also enjoyed using new stash from waffleflower and Avery Elle and Concord and 9th … basically all those American companies that Jennifer McGuire shows a lot of in her videos.

I think I would be understating it if I said I love Jennifer’s videos … they are the best. She explains what she is doing so well and is a very generous creative. Love them. I particularly enjoyed embossing the debossing technique and did quite a few cards with this technique … think this is one of the favourites I did with this technique.

I also have to thank Jennifer for the inspiration behind a series of shimmery master boards I made and then used in cards … these Christmas cards were so fun to make and made me fall back in love with mixed media and using it in a different way.

Thank you Jennifer! I could seriously spend a whole blog post on how this woman has inspired me but I need to cover more stuff in this post. I also want to pop a mention on here for Amy from Prarie Paper and Ink as I also love her videos. She comes across as totally my type of person. I love her different ideas for using products too and I can’t get enough splatter as a result of watching her create too.

This year has seen the start of the 18th birthdays with three of my daughter’s friends already reaching adulthood. In all three cases I ended up making two cards for the girls … one from my daughter and one from us (all our daughters friends are such special people and an asset to our lives as well as hers!) … I bought new stash for the purpose of these cards so have made some balloon and cake themed cards as well as flowery and butterfly themed ones …

I was particularly pleased with this green balloon one as I was chuffed to remember to layer stencils to create the patterns!

Watch this space however for more 18th cards as have quite a few more to make for those that have their birthdays in 2024!

This year I’ve invested more time on instagram in looking for ideas and having new to me creatives inspire me. I’ve had quite a few that have made me go wow … but the one that stands out in particular was Liane (@lilly7h) who inspired me to make this card …

And many other cards since… like these…

I am truly thankful that I found her on Instagram and for some of the other people I have also found and who have inspired me. It’s made me try new things, new techniques and occasionally made me also buy new stash! lol!

Going back to that new stash thing I have a current obsession (let’s blame Jennifer for this) … stitching on cards… specifically spellbinders stitching dies! I’ve signed up to the monthly kit for a few months now and been obsessed with sewing them in front of the tv over Christmas … so expect more cards to come … but for now let me reshare these four I made.

Also secondary note about these cards in particular … they have totally made me get back to a bit of mixed media and hope to do a few more collage and painty master boards like these in the new year. So much fun!

I’ve done a lot of design teams this year but already know I’m going to do a lot less this coming year. They can be quite a lot of pressure to do and keep to timescale, especially when the rest of my life gets busy, so although I am sad that Happy Little Stampers blog is taking a break, I am glad I’ve had the pressure taken off me. I am still keeping with Creative Knockouts and Addicted to Stamps and More might be coming back soon.

Creative Knockouts is my opportunity to do something completely different as it usually comes with a digital stamp which has forced me back into using digital stamps and thinking of ways to use them. I have particularly enjoyed some of the stamps I’ve been given this year … especially florals and often used them for other projects and not just the design team … I used one floral one for lots of cards in the summer

And then a Christmas one I used for a series of cards too …

Using a digital stamp makes me think about different mediums for colouring and pushes me to try different techniques.

I’ve also done a few one sheet wonder type things using the Cards by Kendra templates … I think my favourite of these was the cards I made using painted Christmas papers … there are too many pictures for posting so just got this one of the mountain of cards … but I did enjoy using those papers for this project.

I have managed to use up quite a few papers this year by cutting them all up at the beginning of the year and using the images on the paper as the focal elements or to create something new. That has been my monthly post at the beginning of the month. It has been good to get some papers used this way.

Think that was one of my favourite cards this year using up papers … the black and white with the pop of colour is so cute!

Well there is so much I can say about 2023 but I think I’ve gone on long enough now! I am still thinking about what my creative plans are for 2024 … but for now I want to thank you for visiting my blog posts … special mention to Deborah Wheeler who has left me so many lovely encouraging comments through the year … thank you so much, they are appreciated.

I have spent a few days of the last week crafting so I’m ahead on a few projects for 2024 … but will sign off now.

Wishing you all the best so a happy and healthy and of course creative 2024!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Before I start …

Merry Christmas! Wishing you and your family a fabulous festive season!

I know I said last Christmas card yesterday but I had saved this one I made for my daughter to share on Christmas Day. So here it is!

I used a little cross stitch I had done quite a while ago and never got round to using as the main element and then built up the spray of leaves and berries (pieces of the patterned paper I fussy cut out) around the bottom section. I did consider going the whole way round but in the end just went for the bottom section.

I then added the die cut word Merry using Tim Holtz dies to the bottom.

I used Tidings and Trimmings dsp both for the main piece and for the frame and used an 8×8 card blank so it really is quite a large special card.

So once more wishing you a lovely festive season!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

So I have one more Christmas card to share before the big day tomorrow and it is this DL shaped card using the Christmas Season stamps. I made a similar card back in the summer and wanted to replicate it but this time with Cherry Cobbler as the accent!

I love these stamps and the way that you can quickly build up a background to make a unique but simple card. I also used the Colorado stamp company stamps and dies for that fabulous Joy sentiment.

I added the fab wide ribbon and then the very sparkly gems to finish off.

Love the Kraft accents too!

I am having fairly chilled day today crafting as we actually did Christmas Day yesterday as my daughter is working both today and tomorrow … only issue is I have is I am even more confused than normal as to what day it is than most Christmas periods! Ah well at least I’m having a lovely chilled out time and yesterday was fabulous for us to all celebrate together.

Happy crafting and merry Christmas!

Catherine

This year has been about trying to work through old stash and making use of it and trying my hardest not to buy new stash… let’s ignore the massive amount of stash I actually bought in the summer!

These two cards were half made about 12 months ago and have been on the pile of things I wanted to get used up so here you go … two festive cards!

Both are made from magazine kit papers and then some ribbons scraps from the stash and the bottom one with an added little reindeer wooden embellishment.

I suppose the other element that makes them go well together is the embossed background. I love this embossing folder as it provides a great bit of texture for any type of card and also means I don’t even have to add a sentiment if I don’t want as it says the sentiment onto it!

The design of the cards were originally from a sheet load of cards template but goodness knows which one now as it is so long since I cut the paper up and started assembling them! but if you check out cards by Kendra I am sure you will find some great templates to use.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I have loved grabbing these reindeer stamps since I bought them back in the summer… considering I originally bought the set for the Santa I have hardly used him but these reindeer have had a lot of love!

Today I have three cards made using one of the reindeer…

This one he is stamped onto white and then coloured with promarkers. I used a piece of Tidings and trimmings dsp and some green cardstock to layer and then scraps for the sentiment and the little red trim.

Kept it pretty simple and just added card Candi to embellish.

This one and the next I actually stamped the little reindeer onto Kraft cardstock so he looks a little different. I still coloured using promarkers to give shading and definition. As you can see I used more of the Tiding’s and Trimmings dsp this time with red and more of the cream cardstock for layers.

I again added card Candi for embellishment and on each of the reindeer I added glossy accents to the nose of Rudolph to make it shine!

This final card is a little bigger as it’s 5×7 in size. This time I originally was thinking of a square card but had run out of the 5×5 card blanks so added more dsp behind the square instead.

This time I added embellishment with the rose gold circles and kept it quite simple with all that patterned paper in the background!

So that’s three more fab reindeer cards done and dusted and also nice to get some more patterned paper used up!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Sometimes a project just needs sparkle! Well that’s what I think anyway.

This started as a card using up bits of patterned paper and then I grabbed speciality scraps and added the handmade paper strip…. Which is lovely but I decided what the project really needed was sparkle…

So I die cut the stars from the Tidings and Trimmings set to add along with the sequins.

The sentiment is a mix of the Tim Holtz die cuts (I had that on the desk so it’s the one that got used) and the Peace and Joy stamps!

Fun and love the mix of the sparkly with the natural!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I had this old digital image coloured in and ready to go. I also had a piece of mixed media background left from a project from a few years ago… so I put them together!

I die cut a wonky circle and stamped on it with some random magazine sentiments to create the pattern and then added that to the blue background.

I then added the stocking with a little bit of twine off the top and gave it a mat of white before adding it to the little grey notecard.

The mixed media has lots of shine and texture so that didn’t need anything… but I added wink of Stella to the stocking toe, heel and top.

Love this little cute image.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

So I decided to make a couple of flat cards … not quite one layer as I did stamp panels but then I adhered them flat to the card blank rather than raising up and adding dimension.

I also added some embossing for the sentiment and some stickles dots for embellishment rather than gems and sequins … so for me this is a very flat set of cards!

But their shape make them interesting!

Plus the multiple stamping and inking and the way the sentiment panel is protected from the inking! Well that’s my thought anyway!

I used two different stamp sets for the images … Forever Fern and Christmas Season.

Clearly the Forever Fern isn’t a Christmas themed stamp set but I think it works fine like this to create a fun background.

I had masked off the sentiment area and then used the gold embossing to add the sentiment.

I lightly inked the background and because the stamping wasn’t 100% dry it did move it a little but I think that’s ok. I inked the edge too to add more definition to the panel edge.

This one has more obvious Christmas themed images with the holly leaves, pine cones and pine sprigs and this one I added brown into the inking too to blend in the cones.

Used champagne stickles for the bling and gold embossing to just add that bit of shine and sparkle!

I also finished slightly different with the Christmas season panel going top to bottom whereas the forever Fern was shorter than the card blank. Like how that looked slightly less than the top to bottom of the other one so will remember that for future projects.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Yesterday I shared the masterboard I made and three cards I made from it. Today I have the final piece and what I ended up doing with it.

I turned it into a very large card which I sent to my auntie and uncle for this year.

I teamed the panel of the masterboard with a piece of paper I had gone to town on with stamping using the Christmas Season stamps and some random text/script stamps and of course lots of splatters. I had also added some vintage photo ink to it too which meant it felt in keeping with the masterboard panel.

I added these together and onto a piece of cream cardstock. I added some brads to also keep them together.

Then I decided to add one of the spellbinders stitched trees as the main focal point. This time it was a green tree that I inked a lot with darker inks to make it in keeping with the colours already used. Then I used the ivory thread to add the decoration.

I kept the sentiment very simple with the cream panel that I inked with green and brown lightly to just distress it and help it look less bright against the backgrounds.

Love how this came together to create a big card. I also added a strip of the stamped paper on the inside of the card as it was leftover from the original piece.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I really enjoyed the masterboard I made using collaged patterned paper bits and ink and stencilling and stamping … so I made another one!

This was it mid way through. Again used dsp but this time a mix of sets with browns and greens. Added distress ink on top and then stamped a few words. Next I added the stencilled snowflakes and then started with splatter in both the white and then a gold shimmer watercolour and a green shimmer watercolour. Perfect to tie in the different colours in the background.

Next I took three distress oxides and three snowflake stamps and added those before chopping apart the panels into card topper sizes. I then sewed around the edge of the toppers with wonky lines but didn’t do the whole sewing over the top type thing this time.

I decided to separate one of the toppers out as I wanted to do something different with that which I will share on another day. The other three I decided to keep similar as landscape cards.

I added some white die cut snowflakes which I positioned so they would poke out of the edge of the focal image I had planned.

The focal image I white embossed onto Kraft cardstock and then used the shimmer watercolours to add the colour. I should have stamped with a pale colour then painted and then embossed to make this easier but never mind … it still worked just meant I kept having to wipe off the embossed line art.

Once they were dry I then fussy cut them out and glued them flat to the card.

Next I embossed the sentiment onto the Kraft and then added a white mount to each of the strips.

Obviously these are all very similar but clearly unique as the backgrounds are randomly put together and the image slightly differently placed.

Love how they look and it was great fun putting together another masterboard.

I’ve still got that one piece leftover … but that I used differently and so look out for that on the blog tomorrow.

Happy crafting!

Catherine