Christmas Bells are Ringing ...

Hello and welcome back crafting friends.

  We have a new challenge for you hosted by the Crafty Gals.

Challenge # 172 ~ Add a Ribbon and/or Bow

Our very generous sponsors this fortnight are ...

The Paper Nest Dolls

Prize ~ The 3 Digital Images used by DT

Digi Stamps 4 Joy

Prize ~ $10 Gift Certificate

Morgan's Art World

Prize ~ 3 Digital Images

If you're a follower of my blog, then you know that I love making Christmas cards and do take every opportunity do so :-)

With this in mind, I chose to work with this beautiful Christmas image from DigiStamps 4 Joy called Bells are Ringing.

Card base - 5.5" x 4.25"

Card stocks - GinaK.

Image printed on XPress-It card stock

Image coloured with Gold Wink of Stella Pen,

Copic Markers and Signo White Pen

Embossing Folder - Christmas Border - Darice

Distressed mat - Unbranded dies

Distressed mat - Unbranded dies, scanned and resized on Silhouette

Holly stamp - Stampabilities

Sentiment Stamp - Creative Expressions - Christmas Sayings

While making this card, I had a Christmas song playing in my head.  I thought I would share it with you, if you're interested :-)

Here's the link ....

Please Come Home for Christmas

I hope you enjoyed your visit to my blog today, and that I have inspired you to make a project to link to our challenge #172, Add a Ribbon &/or a Bow.  Remember there are fabulous prizes to be won.  You have until noon, CST, on Tuesday, 28 August 2018, to link your project to the  Crafty Gals Corner blog. And while you there, take a few minutes to look at what my teamies made for your inspiration.

Till next time,

Happy Crafting!

A little late ...

Well, maybe a "lot" late, but I would like to share the cards I made for Father's Day. I will be posting the few cards I made in the past couple of months in order to catch up.  This is part of my "try to" attitude right now :-)  If you read my previous post, then you know exactly what I'm talking about :-)

As with most occasions in my house, I have to make a card for me and one for my son. He always asks me to make a card for him to give to whom ever is celebrating something :-)

This was the Father's Day card I made for him to give Dad.

It is a Silhouette file (#192733). All cardstock is from GinaK., except the silver I used on the anchor. That one is from Recollections.

This was the card I made to give hubby. You may have already seen this card from a previous post. This was made using an svg file from Simply Crafty SVGs. For complete details on this card please go HERE.

Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope to see you again soon. 

Masculine Cards

Hello and welcome back, crafting friends.

I have three cards to share with you today, all of them were made for hubby's birthday.

This first card is the one I made to give him. As you know I love stitching on cards and often mix and match embroidery kits to get exactly the card I want.  You can't really tell from this pic, but the image is made up of 4 different layers all stacked upon each other. The dimension is beautiful!

For the inside I used a stamp set from Fiskars called Aged to Perfection to create my sentiment focal point.

This card was the one I made for my son to give Dad. 

Papers are from my scrap drawers. The image is from a cutting sheet by Amy Designs called Daily Transport.

For the inside, I used a design from the Silhouette store. Isn't it cool? This is design #49617.

All the card stocks are from Recollections. Thinking about it now, I think I should have used a piece of red card stock behind the scrip.  Live and learn :-) Next time I'll know better!

The birthday stamp is from the Good Times stamp set by Cardz TV.

And lastly, my mom asked me to make a card for her "favourite" son-in-law!
  Hehehe, he's her only son-in-law :-)

Again I took the opportunity to stitch a card.

Don't you just love the nautical feel of this card? I used 3 different shades of blue for the stitched "waves" that frame the image, which is also made up of 4 different layers for dimension.  This image was from the Maritime 3D push-out sheet by Amy Designs.

In order to keep the inside with the same nautical theme, I added a rope and life preserver die from Cottage Cutz.  The stamped sentiment is from a very old stamp by Hampton Art.  All the card stocks on this card are from GinaK. except the linen card stock which is from a company in Holland.

I hope you enjoyed your visit today and that I was able to provide a little inspiration on making masculine cards. If you haven't trying card stitching, I highly recommend that you give it a try.  It's very relaxing and gives you a great feeling of accomplishment when you're done :-)

Till next time,

Happy Crafting!

Catching Up ...

Hello my dear crafting friends. You may have noticed that I'm not posting projects as much as I used to and I'm sure you've noticed that I have not been visiting your blogs and leaving you some love.

Unfortunately, life has not been very cooperative with my crafting time lately.  I've had to reorganise my priorities and crafting had to take a back seat.  I've had to leave a number of DT's due to lack of time to complete my DT projects. It was putting so much stress on me that crafting was becoming a chore rather than the pleasure it always is for me.

I just came back from a week's vacation by the seaside. It was so relaxing and rejuvenating that I came back with this great attitude about adjusting my sails.  You know that saying ... "When you can't change the direction of wind - adjust your sails", well that is what I'm going to try :-)

I'm going to try to post more often, not DT projects, just my own projects, as I feel that trying to join more DT's at this time would still be stressful.  I will continue to post my DT projects for Crafty Gals Corner and for Christmas Crafts All Year 'Round on their due dates. I'm also going to try to manage my time better in order to have a few minutes every night to come visit you and admire your beautiful creations. I really miss that.  I think that it is also one of the reasons my mojo is not what it used to be - lack of inspiration :-)

There are a lot of "I'm going to tries" on this post.  Unfortunately, I cannot commit, but I'm definitely going to try :-)

Signing off today with loads of hugs to all of you and thanking you bunches for those of you that have come to visit and have left me some bloggie love. You have no idea how much that has meant to me!

Lena

Santa was spotted over the Serengeti :-)

Welcome back crafting friends. My apologies for the delay in putting up this post. I was on vacation for the last 10 days and only today realized that I forgot to schedule this post to go live on the 1st of August.  But as the saying goes ... "Better late, than never", so here is my card for the August challenge at Christmas Crafts All Year 'Round, hosted by the Gingerbread Gals.

August Challenge ~ Warm Colours

Prize ~  please visit the CCAYR blog

To help you choose your colours, Deanne, our fabulous DT Leader, came up with this colour wheel.

So using mostly the oranges and reds, I came up with this card.

Let me tell you ... the sunsets over the bushveld, on the southern part of Africa are the most luscious of all sunsets.  There are no words that adequately describe the warmth, the vivid array of colours, the mood and the serenity that happens during those moments of just sitting there and watching the sun go down. I have such wonderful memories of sitting on one of the many private game reserves around the Kruger National Park and experience one of Nature's most beautiful moments.  So I tried to bring one of those wonderful memories onto this card.  And, no, I've never seen Santa fly over, but I would imagine that if I had, this is what it would have looked like :-)

To create the sunset, I used various inks from Memento.

Stamps used to create African scene - GinaK.

Christmas sentiment stamp - Creative Expressions - CEC839

Santa with sleigh die - Cheery Lynn Designs

Black card stock - GinaK.

Orange card stock - GinaK.

Thank you for stopping by today and sharing a wonderful memory with me. Now it's your turn to join in the fun.

You have till the end of the month to link your project to our challenge.

Looking forward to seeing your warm festive creations.

Till next time,

Flip Flop Fun

Hello and welcome back crafting friends.

  We have a new challenge for you hosted by the Crafty Gals.

Challenge # 171 ~ Tropical Colours

Our very generous sponsors this fortnight are ...

SheepSki Designs

Prize: 3 Digital Images

All Dressed Up

Prize: 2 Digital Images

Creative Bug on the Loose

Prize ~ 5 Digital images

Using the Birthday Cocktail image from SheepSki Designs and a SVG file from the Silhouette, I created this fun summer card. Flip flops and fru-fru drinks ... can't get much more tropical than that :-)

I hope you enjoyed your visit to my blog today, and that I have inspired you to make a project to link to our challenge #168, Anything Goes.  Remember there are fabulous prizes to be won.  You have until noon, CST, on Tuesday, 14 August 2018, to link your project to the  Crafty Gals Corner blog.

And while you there, take a few minutes to look at what my teamies made for your inspiration.

Till next time,

Happy Crafting!

Christmas in July :-)

Hello and welcome back crafting friends.

  We have a new challenge for you hosted by the Crafty Gals.

Challenge # 170 ~  Christmas in July

Our very generous sponsors this fortnight are ...

Scrap N Dipity

Prize ~ 3 Digital Images

Rick St. Dennis

Prize ~ 2 Digital images

Bugaboo Stamps

Prize ~$12 Gift Certificate

I've been wanting to make one of these "Impossible Cards" for a while and when I saw this cute BugSnowman by Bugaboo Stamps, I decided that now was the time.

To my surprise, it is actually a very easy card to put together. Nothing "impossible" about it😀

I used the cardbase file from the Silhouette Store - #267289

Image - Pre-coloured BugSnowman - Bugaboo Stamps

Navy Blue cardstock - GinaK.

Snowflake DP - Winter Wonderland - The Paper Studio

White cardstock - Neenah

Icicle Border die - Cottage Cutz

Trees die - Cottage Cutz

Sentiment & hearts - Winter Cheer - Cardz TV

As you can see, there is a panel on the back of the card where you can write your personal message.

I hope you enjoyed your visit to my blog today, and that I have inspired you to make a project to link to our challenge #170, Christmas in July.  Remember there are fabulous prizes to be won.  You have until noon, CST, on Tuesday, 31 July 2018, to link your project to the  Crafty Gals Corner blog. And while you there, take a few minutes to look at what my teamies made for your inspiration.

Till next time,

Happy Crafting!

Disc Ornament Boxes

Hello and welcome back dear friends.

I'm sharing my final project for Simply Crafty SVGs today. It's with a sad heart that I leave this amazing team, but life has a way of interfering with crafting tine and it's doing that to me right now.

This post is picture heavy, so grab a cuppa, take a few minutes and enjoy 😀

I made a few ornaments to send overseas with my mom when she leaves next month. I will share the ornaments with you on another post.  For today, I want to show you the awesome gift boxes I made for the ornaments.

 These are the 4" Disc Ornament Boxes and you can find them HERE!

Let me show you one of them in detail.

I used the round window box for all of my boxes. This file comes with the option of having a round window, a square window, or totally windowless. Because mine are going to be stuffed into a suitcase, I added a piece of acetate to the inside of the box to add extra protection, but let me tell you that they look amazing with the open window look too.

My red cardstock is from Bazzill and the patterned paper is from the Graphic 45's St. Nicholas Collection. This particular pattern is called Bells & Bows.

For the top, I made a little Christmas floral embellishment using a poinsettia from my stash and a variety of dies from Marianne Designs and a punch from Martha Stewart.

I could have gone to town decorating these lovely boxes, but since they are going to be bubble wrapped and stuffed into a suitcase, I decided to keep them CAS.

Let me show you this gift box from all sides.

Front and back.

 Right and left sides.

If you go to the Simply Crafty SVGs store, you will also find these boxes in the 3 inch version.

Now let me quickly share the other two boxes I made.

Blue cardstock - Bazzill

DP - The Paper Studio

Merry Christmas die - Yvonne Creations

Skates die - Cottage Cutz

Green cardstock - Bazzill

Gold Mirror cardstock - Marianne Designs

DP - Recollections - Say Freeze Fige

Bells die - Marianne Designs

Added green - MS punch

These boxes are very easy to put together, but if you feel a little lost, Sandy from Simply Crafty SVGs, has wonderful tutorials for each of her files, so help is just a click away :-)

I hope you've enjoyed your visit today.  If you're looking for some beautiful cards, boxes or 3D decor items, please visit Simply Crafty SVGs. There you will find loads of wonderful files available for purchase and a few freebies too :-) While you there, take a few minutes to visit the blog and meet the rest of  the  wonderfully talented design team.  For your convenience, I have listed all the important links below:

Store

Blog

Facebook Page

Instagram YouTube Channel

Pinterest

Twitter

Till next time

Happy Crafting :-)