Button Tree

 

I was looking at the Hero Arts website and Shari Carroll has a lovely idea for creating Christmas trees using clear buttons. I thought I would have a go. She used clear buttons that she glued onto patterned paper. I didn't have clear buttons so used some from my brown jar. These are all from a Woodware pack of assorted buttons called "Coffee and Cream"  When I cut out my triangle of card I stuck it on to double sided adhesive film. That made it even easier to stick on the buttons and pearls. Then I poured over fine crystal glitter to fill in all the spaces, giving me a lovely sparkle tree. The photos definitely don't do it justice ... but I am struggling to get photos done in daylight just now. I am sure many bloggers are the same at this time of year. I will replace the photos when I can take better ones.

Woodware Design Team - Gift Tags

This week we are all making gift tags. I also did a quick gift wrap to show off one of the tags. I couldn't be bothered to make the effort to bring down the Christmas wrapping paper from the loft. After all it's still November!! So I stamped some brown parcel paper with gold Staz-on and olive green snowflakes. I punched a strip of green scrapbook paper with the snowflake crafty edger on both sides, to create a wrap around band for my parcel. 

 
For my tag I made a snowflake from silver tin foil. This is a lovely way to create some lovely cheap embellishments. I have made a little tutorial on how to do it, rather than go into to much detail here. Just go into the tutorial tab at the top of the blog if you are interested.

The rest of my tags are all quick and easy and match some of the Christmas cards I have already made.

The border for this tag is from the elegant Stampendous set "Damask Chair" The snowflake brad was blue so I inked it with gold Encore and embossed with gold powder.

I am sure you will recognise this stamp of the Wise men by Stampendous

These stamps all come from a Stampendous set of Christmas messages

Be sure to check out the Woodware blog for product links and to see what the other girls have made!!

Siobhan

The Early Bird

What a busy week it's been. On Monday I met up with Rosie who used to work in the shop with me. We had a wander around the new Hobby Craft. Managed to buy a few bits and pieces !! Then we went for lunch and a good old natter. It was good to have some time out and catch up with an old friend.

Then yesterday was the first exchange for our Circle Journal. We met in Perth for coffee and had a quick "show and tell" of our themes and first two pages. Then we said goodbye to our journals as we will not see them again for about 10 months. There are 9 members in our group and I was so impressed by their individuality and creativity. It will be lovely to see the journals grow each month.

I will photograph all the pages as I go along to share on the blog at the end.

So not much crafting done this week. I am beginning to panic about Christmas so I got up early to batch another 4 cards for my box. To save time I am using designs I have done before. So this is all I have to show you this weekend. I am hoping to get back to my desk later to start work on the next round of DT samples.

Vintage Reindeer

I am off now to make a cup of tea and a bacon butty. Have a good Sunday.

Siobhan xx

Creative Expressions - Bon Voyage

We have just received our next set of stamps to work with. A complete change this time!! These cling mounted stamps are made by Just Rite and this set is called Bon Voyage. They are designed to match some of the Spellbinder dies. I excitedly rummaged through my stash of nesties only to find I didn't have either of the sets that matched these stamps...!!! Perhaps if I ask nicely Santa might slip them under the tree for me.

Bon Voyage

The images are beautifully detailed so should be a nice set to work with. For my first sample I chose to use the Fleur-de-Lis image.

I stamped the image onto pearlescent ivory card with Coffee and then Library Green Archival ink. I managed to find another Spellbinder Nestie ( Labels 17)  that fitted my design. I also found my Fleur de Lis Doily Accent set for the lovely Fleur de Lis border. After die-cutting and embossing I sponged silver ink through the back of the die and then embossed with silver powder once released from the die.

 

All the products mentioned are available from Creative Expressions and their stockists.