WOODWARE - White Christmas

This weeks challenge from Woodware is "White Christmas". I decided to make a button tree. I have made these before but usually with lots of colours. So here is a white one. 

These are so easy and such fun to make. Before cutting out my triangle of card I covered it with some double sided adhesive film. Peel off the top sheet and press your embellishments onto the sticky surface. I have used a mixture of buttons, pearls, snow domes, gems and nail heads. Then cover the whole thing with a nice fine glitter and you have a lovely sparkly tree. I used multi-crystal glitter from Stampendous. It has speckles of other colours in it which really catch the light.

I used some torn paper to create some drifting snow. This was edges with a glue pen and glitter as was the sentiment. So get raiding the button tin to make some great Christmas trees.
I am first up this week so be sure to pop back to the Woodware blog to see what the other girls come up with. At this rate I will have all my Christmas cards done by the end of November. Now that will be a first!!
See you next week.
Siobhan x

Woodware - Traditional Christmas

This week's Woodware challenge is "Traditional Christmas". What can be more traditional than decorating the Christmas tree. Stampendous have a lovely collection of House-Mice Designs designed by Ellen Jareckie. So I decided to uses these cute little guys decorating their tree but keep it more traditional with the colours.

There is not really much to explain with this card. I coloured in with brush markers and added a glittery finish to the berries and bows with a Sakura stardust pen. Sadly it does not show up well in the photo. I also added some red and gold nail heads.

I hope you enjoy the inspiration this week on the Woodware blog. Have a good week and keep crafting!! 

Siobhan x

WOODWARE - Christmas Decorations

At Woodware this week our challenge is to make a Christmas decoration. The decoration I have made was inspired by ones I saw years ago at a craft fair using ribbon. I tried it with strips of folded paper, a polystyrene ball or cone shape and some dressmaker's pins. I was quite pleased with the result.

First I chose some paper. This came from a new Christmas pad by Craftwork Cards. I usually try to pick something with a small pattern as this tends to work best.

I cut some strips of paper in 2 sizes. You need about 12 smaller strips for the top of the cone and the same for the base (2.5 x 5cm). Then for the middle section you need to cut slightly bigger pieces (3 x 6cm). The rule of thumb is that the length is twice the width.

Next you need to fold your strips in half. Then fold the two bottom corner points to the top centre fold. So far so good!!

Now take four smaller pieces to cover the bottom of the polystyrene ball making sure the points of the triangles all meet at the centre of the base of your shaped ball or cone.

See how the pins are placed at the base of each triangle. The next layer is using 8 pieces of the small strips. Think of tiles on a roof, you are overlapping each join of the previous layer. I always pin opposite pieces on both sides then fill in between those with the remaining 4 pieces.

As the circumference of the ball is now getting bigger I switch to the bigger strips for the next few layers. I did four rows this way and then for the last 2 layers I went back to the smaller pieces.

To cover the top I punched a circle of paper and added a loop of ribbon and some punched or die-cut foliage to finish off.

You can add glitter if you wish and I like to spray mine with a Christmas room fragrance for that finishing touch. 

The only difficult thing about making these pine cone baubles is putting the pins in so I use a thimble to save my fingers!!

I hope you are enjoying the inspiration this week on the Woodware blog, I know I am.

Have a good week and enjoy your crafting!!

Siobhan x

Craft Retreat in Beamsley

A couple of friends have asked to see what we did at the Beamsley Babes retreat this time. September is usually "Do your own thing". And usually I make some Christmas cards for my Dad. But this time I thought I would make a start on my own. I recently bought one of Tim Holtz's blueprints range and wanted to use all 4 in the set to justify having bought it in the first place!!
I really enjoyed using them as they are not my usual sort of Christmas stamps. And here is what I made.

So these are the stamps. My friend Liz had the snowman with dies set so I was able to borrow the dies to die-cut my snowman.

My next choice was the toy soldier. I thought this was my least favourite but I really enjoyed using it.

Next up was the Christmas tree and I did a few variations on this one.

The punched green strip was a new Woodware punch I had just been given. You can set it to punch just an edge or a double sided strip which I thought was a great idea!!
Then my final image was the snowflake.

The snowflakes in the background were embossed with a fine crystal glitter powder but sadly that doesn't show up in the photo.
Janet also lent me another Tim Holtz stamp of a Santa and this is the card I made with him:

Janet also had a little extra project to try of an advent calendar made from a small block of wood. This was a lovely fun thing to make and I was quite chuffed when I finished it.

The numbered tiles just flick over towards the bell as you count down to Christmas. 

So thanks Janet for the idea.They all looked quite different as people put their own twist on it.
Talking of inspiration, my friend Liz made me a lovely box. The image was a stamp I had previously given her and she had used pyrography onto the wooden box. How cool is that!!

We all had a great weekend. It just goes far too quickly. But we always come home with lots of ideas and things we want to try.
Thanks again Linda for being such a good friend and crafting buddy ... it would not be the same without you.
Siobhan xx

Woodware - Sketch Challenge 38

This week's Woodware challenge is another sketch. I have decided to stick to the Christmas theme as it is now October and I want to start filling my Christmas card list!!
This is the sketch :

And here is my interpretation :

 All the stamps are from Stampendous. The blended background was stamped with the snowflakes firstly with water to lift off ink then with inkpads. This helps create a nice layered background as a base. 

I then decided to make the centre piece my sentiment as it is such a lovely one. The snowman was coloured in then some glitter added.
If you go onto the Woodware blog you will be able to see some lovely samples for this challenge.
My good friend Linda and I had a really good time in Yorkshire for the Beamsley Babes retreat. We even managed to get some cards made. I will share them on my blog at the weekend. I am still unpacking the craft stuff!! Needless to say we managed a wee trip to Embsay Crafts near Skipton and bought some lovely new crafty goodies to play with. 
My most exciting purchase was a Gelli plate. I keep seeing all these amazing backgrounds made with a gelli plate and I can't wait to have a go with it. I think it will be great fun!!
Have a great weekend.
Siobhan xx