Santa Mitten

Yikes it’s been quite some time since I posted, but here I am back again after a fun but busy time for the craft fair.

After a very mild November the weather has changed here with a bit of snow this week and decidedly colder weather. So it’s back to the gloves, hats and scarves again. This reminded me of a pair of mittens I knitted a few years ago for a friend’s little one, which she always called her Santa mittens. Now she’s all grown up (12 1\2!) and I hope she likes her Santa mitten Christmas card.


Stamps (Hero Arts) – Holly Flourish, Stunning Snowflakes and Small Variety Alphabet.

For the background I applied tumbled glass distress ink to white card and using the same ink stamped the Holly Flourish Background. On another piece of white card I white embossed the snowflakes, applied barn door distress ink and cut out a mitten shape. For the top of the mitten I knitted a piece in single rib pattern using wool left over from making the original mittens - I really shouldn't hoard things! I made a little pocket at the back of the mitten to hold the gift card and attached the ho ho ho sentiment (stamped in barn door distress ink) to it so the gift card could be pulled out.

Hopefully it won't be another month before I post again!

Frayed Poinsettia

I’ve been following Jennifer McGuire’s brilliant Thinking Inking series on Two Peas in a Bucket and the challenge this week is to stamp or ink on different surfaces. I picked three fabrics for my different surfaces.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Holly Flourish, Music Background, Scattered Leaves & Three Holiday Trees.

Firstly I used a cream upholstery sample for the background. I white embossed it with the Holly Flourish and applied some antique linen distressed ink. For the poinsettia I used two pieces of fabric – a scrap of patterned fabric for the bottom layer and a piece of plain red fabric stamped with the Music Background for the top layer. I stamped one of the leaves out of the Scattered Leaves set onto a cream fabric.



To make the flower and leaf I put two pieces of fabric together and machine stitched around the pattern using a very small zigzag stitch. Then I snipped as close as possible to the stitching without actually cutting into it. I wanted a fuzzy look on the flower\leaf so I just frayed the edges a bit with my nail. The dotty ribbon made me think of snowballs so I added that, some lace, gold beads, twine and a red gem to finish.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Barb's 90 Minute Scramble

There was great fun again over at the Hero Arts Flick group yesterday when Barb hosted her 90 minute card making scramble. Scramble is the perfect word for these challenges as it's a bit manic trying to get a card made, photographed and uploaded to the pool in 90 minutes. But it's so funny at the same time running around like a headless chicken and it's brilliant to see what everyone comes up with in such a short time period. Barb's challenge was to add a flower or flowers not normally associated with Christmas onto a Christmas card or project.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Holly Flourish, Large Flower & Holiday Dolls.

As soon as I saw the word flower, I knew I had to use my all time favourite stamp, the Large Flower. I white embossed the flower on vellum twice and using an embossing pen added some stardust embossing to parts of the flower. To the centre of the flower, I added a red foil snowflake and a button which I had covered in glossy accents and silver glitter. I had great fun with this as when I had the card upright to take a photo, the glossy accents and glitter started to slide down the button as it wasn't quite dry! Today I'm going to add glitter around the edges of the button - it would have been too messy to do that last night.

The sentiment is also white embossed on vellum and I white embossed around the edges of the tag too. The red card was clear embossed with the Holly Flourish and I just added some silver gems to finish.



A big thanks to Barb for hosting such a fun challenge and also to Hero Arts for the wonderful group which I love being in. There are always great things going on there and it's packed full of amazing inspiration from everyone in the group!

Hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Happy World Card Making Day & little giveaways

Happy World Card Making Day everyone! I’m so glad I had a bit of time this morning to make a card.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Holly Flourish, Heart Owls, Holiday Dolls & Three Trees

To start with I clear embossed the Holly Flourish on green card and added some gems and dots of red glitter glue. Then I added some twine which the lovely Sue had sent me a while ago - thanks again Sue! The owls are coloured with watercolour pencils. I coloured the little Santa hats (from the Holiday Dolls set)with Promarkers and added some diamond stickles to the rims and a little pompom to the top of each. The sentiment is embossed in white. I'm submitting the card into the current challenge at Hero Arts and the Jolly Holiday Greetings Challenge in the Moxie Fab World.

Given the day that’s in it, I thought I’d have a couple of little giveaway. I really wish I had some Hero Arts products (my absolute favourite!) to offer but I had to make do with picking items from what a local shop had in stock yesterday. So there are stamps, stickers, buttons, chocolate and a couple of things that I knitted.





I had fallen in love with a little crochet owlet that I had seen on Lisa Spangler’s blog and as I still haven't learned how to crochet, I was delighted to come across a knitted version of the same owlet here. So this was my first attempt at knitting a little owlet. I’m trying to track down owl eyes here and if I get them there will be proper eyes on the owl when I send it out!

So to enter all you have to do is leave a comment on this post and next Saturday I will pick two names out of a hat. Hope you all have a great weekend and are enjoying World Card Making Day!