Christmas Burlap Panels & Sleigh

I made these Christmas burlap panels and sleigh for a class I taught at Art from the Heart in November this year.

They are looking very festive on my wall at home.

I really love putting up Christmas decorations I've made, it makes them that little bit more special.

I've used the Tim Holtz burlap panels which are great because they have a hard panel behind the canvas so you can stick and stamp anything on the front of them.

I've used the gorgeous Graphic 45 12 days of Christmas papers for the panels and on the sleigh.

The sleigh has lots of Tim Holtz festive die cuts on it.

I really enjoyed teaching the class we had Christmas music, crackers and chocolates too :)

I'll be back tomorrow with another blog post, bring it on!

I have a lot of time to make up for.

Michelle x

Can't see the Christmas for the Trees!

I was at Art from the Heart on Saturday for an art journaling day with Dyan Reaveley. We had a great day singing Christmas songs and being creative. Everyone made these awesome trees and we swapped them with each other and put them in our journals. I love all my trees. Can you guess which one is Dyan's? I rounded the bottom of one tree and then after sticking it in the journal I realised that this was Dyan's tree! It was pure coincidence that I cut that tree to the same design as the trees that Dyan designs! AND it was the only one I did on the page. Mad that!

I think this is my favourite journal page I have done so far. It just makes me happy looking at it.

Made with Dylusions inks, stamps and stencils

I was at Art from the Heart the week before too, (see my previous post) we made a little bird house with Marie McCarthy, some bunting with Kate Crane and some 3D stars with Dyan. I've finished my little projects and put pics on Facebook, but I thought I would get them on the blog too. So here they are, I really enjoyed my day there making these lovely little makes below.

We made these in Marie McCarthy's class 

We made this bunting with Kate Crane

We made these 3D stars with Dyan.

There is something so satisfying about making and finishing small projects like these, it's quick gratification, and you have something gorgeous to hang up and look at.

I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas? I've had an amazingly craft-tastic Christmas this year. I must've been a very good girl because I got all these!

I think I'm going to be very busy.

Oh can you see in the bottom left hand corner is an arty bag, then a little journal with "123" on the cover, and a tag next to it? Well this was made by my wonderfully imaginative friend Mell Cooper.  

And I got another little gift from the equally talented Gemma Mags.  Gemma made me a bracelet and gave me a little owl stamp too. Thank you so much Mell and Gemma. xxxxx

I can't wait to see what 2013 has in store!

Inky Stampotique Christmas cards

I've been looking like a Blue Meanie all week at work with very blue inky fingers, I just couldn't get it off. (anyone got any tips on how to get it off, I'd love to know? Water takes some away, but not all)

But look what came out of that blue inkyness!

Some wonderful Stampotique and Dylusions Christmas cards.  These are for my Brother and my Son, both captions apply to both, mmmm now I've got to choose who gets what.

I love the liquid pearls on the fairy lights, they look so bright.

 This was Kate Crane's idea from one of the preview day workshops. 

And doesn't he look cute? I think he does.

I've used London Blue, Vibrant Turquoise & Crushed Grape Dylusions inks, and Dylusions Christmas sentiments. The Stampotique stamp is Tangled enthusiasm.

Only 2 more days left at work for me, I can almost taste the Christmas Dinner.

Santa is it too late to negotiate?

Only 9 more days left at work and counting! Can you tell I want it real bad?  I have the Stilton crock chilling, the grapes in the freezer and the vintage port waiting on standby. Oooo I can't wait. What's the best thing you like about Christmas?  Is it the time off work, the food, the family, or anything else?

I'm setting aside a day to make my cards on Sunday too....I'm looking forward to making them for my friends and family. I'm going to use my Stampotique and my Dylusions stamps this year, good job I bought some more Dylusions inks, I was running low. I'm gonna re-use my bottles on making some Dylusions shimmers though, get some mica powders in there! Bring it on.

Below is a Christmas card I made from a sketch we were given from It's Crafting Time. They have a great selection of Dyan's stamps, inks, stencils and her fab new journal. Here I've used the inks, the stencils and the stamps.

I've drawn the sides of his face and his nose, he looks like a 'What No' Christmas. Can you remember those 'What No's' from the 80's? They were everywhere.

Hope you have a great weekend

Masquerade, flooding & Christmas.

Boy have I missed the blogging world. I've had two weeks of bedlam at home. There's been flooding, spring cleaning, making a Thanksgiving dinner (for my American friend), and putting up the Christmas decorations. All of which are not conducive to crafting and blogging!   I'm happy to report though that all is done, I have no more jobs on my to do list, and that includes all the presents and wrapping. So all I need to do now is sit back and wait for my time off work and then its crafting galore! 

We've been sent our new stamps from Creative Expressions, I've used the Masquerade stamps below to create the mask on the journal page below. I was obviously in touch with my darker side with this one.

I drew the girl's face and used my Caran D'ache watercolour pencils to colour her in. I've also used Stampers Anonymous Classics & Papillon stamp set with a Big & Juicy stamp pad, to get the mixed ink colours.

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This was my poor back garden in the floods from last week!

I just watched the water get closer and closer to the back door.

Now it's an ice rink, and it's comedy watching the cats play on it!

After that came this!

Much better don't you think. Look at Felix getting in on the action. He's a right ham for sneaking in on the shot. I have my bunting up and my candle too. It just looks so cosy and warm.

Time for mulled wine and a Christmas film......probably Polar Express...love that.

Hanging Trees Christmas Decoration

This hanging decoration has kept me busy, by trying not to think of the rising water levels in my garden and watching it creeping ever closer to the house. Last night it was about 5ft from the back door! The rain has finally stopped this morning, but it'll only take one more big downpour to reach the house. Fingers crossed it will recede.

While I was waiting for my next design team stamps from Creative Expressions I thought I would make one more project from the wonderful Let it Snow stamp set. This is hanging in my kitchen and it looks fab, (you can just see my huge spice rack in the background, oh yes... its a thing of beauty).

I picked up the white wicker ring from the florist and adorned it with ribbons, bells and 3D trees.

Here is a closer look at one of the stamped 3D trees. I hung 2 snow charms (back to back) from the bottom to gave the trees a sturdy hanging weight.

Surely now I can put all the other decorations up???  Yes??

Michelle x

Christmas Dylusions & Holidays are coming!

Here's a Christmas journal page I made for a challenge Dyan Reavely set on Facebook last week. It's also tying in with a Christmas theme over at It's Crafting Time this week. Pop over and have a look at our very talented design team to see what they've made. 

I made a background using the London Blue and Vibrant Turquoise Dylusions ink just sprayed onto the page and then closed the journal to soak up the ink on the opposite page.

Then I use the large snowflake mask to spray water on the page and dampen off with a kitchen roll. This is Dyan's fab bleaching technique and works a treat on the snowflakes. It makes them look snowy white too, gorgeous. Then I used the small snowflake mask to spray the blue and the turquoise in small random places. I sneaked in a flying Santa sleigh stamp too from Inylicious!

 

I stamped the tree using the Christmas Accessories Dylusions stamps in various, green, brown and black  Archival inks.

I've outlined some snowflakes with a white Gelly Roll pen. I used a Tim Holtz Christmas music stamp with bright gold Distress Stain over the top of the page too. 

I used a mix of Dylusions stamps for the Snow King, Bits of this (skull head), Ruby Rainbow (body), Christmas Accessories (beard), and I drew the crown. I finished it all off by doing the black border and writing Ho Ho Ho and other Christmas related words in the stripes. I also got dotty happy with liquid pearls all over the page. Love these gorgeous beads of shimmeryness!

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On another note, I saw this last night.

I was on cloud 9!   How cool is this!

It will be coming to a town near you, check out the tour dates. (I think the website keeps crashing with all the traffic, but you should still be able to see a list).

But beware the roads leading up to it, will be gridlocked, park up and walk to it!

Holidays are coming, Holidays are coming!

Christmas Bunting

Everyone likes handmade bunting, and when it's Christmas bunting.. well that just makes it even better doesn't it! These last few weeks I've been making Christmas decorations left right and centre. I can't wait to decorate the house and use them all, it'll be nice to see my handmade crafty items put to good use.

The stamps I've used here are the "Let it Snow" stamp set from Creative Expressions. I've also used the stars from the TH Christmas Time stamp set too.

Oh it looks so Christmassy with the fairy lights on!

First of all I've used the back of a Tim Holtz Christmas Memories kraft sheet. I die cut the bunting triangles. Then used white Cosmic Shimmer embossing powder on the stamped images.

My newest crafty purchase is the Sissix Bigz Word Play alphabet die. 

The die cut letters were the perfect size for the bunting.

But they did need some jazzy colour,....... that's coming up!

Before I put the colour on the letters, I distressed the edges of the bunting with Vintage Photo DI.

Look at these shiny bad boys!

I used green Colour Wash and Cosmic Shimmer spray

I punched holes into my bunting triangles and threaded red ribbon and jingly bells though them, I then linked them all up to make the bunting.

I really love those letters and the bell in the middle of the ribbon.

I've dotted some areas of the bunting with glue and stuck down some Cosmic Shimmer mica flakes.

They catch the light, which adds a little bit of sparkle.

I really wanted to leave these up!

It won't be long till they go up for real.

Michelle x

Ordinary Candle Holder to Sparkly Christmas Candle Holder

Everyone who knows me knows I'm a big Christmas fan, and if I can turn an ordinary everyday item into a Christmas decoration, I will!

Here is a large glass candle holder, very nice and elegant.......but Christmas is coming and it can't just sit there being all elegant and having no reference to the festive season can it! 

So I decided to use my gorgeous Heartfelt Creations bauble stamps, from Creative Expressions to add some Christmas cheer to my candle holder.

What a transformation! Not ordinary any more.

I stamped the candle too.

It looks so pretty with the heat embossed baubles around the glass.

I used a mixture of white and gold embossing powder.

I'm really pleased with how this has been transformed. It's unique and I made it.

I love that feeling.

Make something that makes you happy today.

Bye for now

Michelle x

Creative Expressions are recruiting. They're looking for a Regional Accounts Manager to cover the Midlands and South East area. If you're interested and want to find out more information check their job vacancies page. 

Beautiful Christmas Baubles

These Heartfelt Creations stamps are so beautiful and I'm so proud to be showing you how I've used them for the Creative Expressions Design Team this week. I'll be making crafty projects for November using these baubles stamps and the Creative Expressions "Let it Snow" stamp set too. I'm looking forward to seeing what we all come up with from these wonderful Christmas stamps.

I wanted to show how they look with different colours, and I really like how they've turned out. You can't see the sparkles so well on these pics but they shimmer lots and they look very Chrismassy.

Each card has a coloured centre bauble with the same colour inked around the edge of the card.

I've heat embossed each bauble with a gold and a silver bauble on each card, and then dotted them with the Stickles glitter.

Here's a close up of the gorgeous Cosmic Shimmer Persian Sea Aurora embossing powder, it has mica powders in it, so it has a beautiful metallic shimmer. The gold and the silver are also Cosmic Shimmer's embossing powders.

I've also used some silver acrylic paint which I've stamped onto the cards to add some subtle silvery highlights.

The bauble strings are made with gold cord fed through the eyelets of the baubles.

The inside of each card has the 3 smaller baubles and a Merry Christmas greeting stamped in the same colour as the ink on the front.

I'm well and truly into the Christmas spirit, drinking mulled wine and waiting for Christmas 24 to start on the movie channels! (Christmas films shown 24/7 and starts on the 1st of November).

Is this wrong?

M xxx

Handmade Christmas Wrapping Paper & Tag

Stamps can be used for so many things, it's easy to forget how versatile they can be. When I was thinking about what I could do next with my Tim Holtz Christmas Time stamp set for Creative Expressions I thought about pretty wrapping paper and a tag.  Homemade wrapping paper looks and feels so much better than commercial wrapping paper, and it gives such a unique personal touch too.

I stamped the Santa and the sentiment on TH Kraft Resist paper, coloured it with TH Distress Markers, used red Stickles on Santa's clothes and puff paint on his furry bits! I matted them onto black card and stuck the sentiment to the bottom of the Santa image to make a tag.

I've just used plain parcel wrapping paper and stamped it with the star burst stamps. In the centre of each star burst I've put some red Stickles glitter.

On the top of the parcel I have die cut some TH Tattered Florals and Tattered Leaves from Kraft Glassine, scrunched them up and then distress inked them with, Festive Berries, Mustard Seed & Mowed Lawn.  To give them some festive bling I've rubbed them all with mica powder.

I stamped the star burst stamps all around the parcel.

There is actually a present in there, and my OH wants to know what it is, 

but they're just gonna have to wait!

Michelle x