Rudolph Day and Funkie Junkie and Snippets Playground

Hello There!!

I hope you are having a good weekend, and have not encountered too many ghosts tonight!!

Our internet connection has been rather affected by all the witches flying hereabouts so it has taken me two hours just to load up my photos of my C Card which I am trying desperately to share before the deadline over at Scrappy Mos.  I also want to share it with the Funkie Challenge as I took my inspiration with Tag 4.

Here is the card.....

I really liked the "tartan" look of Linda's background, but I do not have the stripes stencil, nor a stripe stamp so I used my Wendy Vecchi background stamp and Festive Berries DI and grabbed a snippet piece of cream cardstock that was in the crapalanche next to my guillotine.  Then I took my Forest Green and Mustard Seed DI pen and a ruler and drew on the lines before taking a water brush and going over the stripes.  Once this was dried I took my TH holly stencil and bronze embossing paste and left overnight to dry.

While the background was drying I se to work on the rest of the card.  I took some dark green cardstock and cut the holly design using my Silhouette.  I cut a paler green card stock with a Joanna Sheene Ivy die and then ran my embossing tool over the back of the greenery.   I needed some red berries so I used some snippets of  glitter cardstock and my TH lamppost die to create the berries.

Next the Poinsettia for which I used some cream textured cardstock, edged with Gathered Twigs DI and then layered them, once shaping them.  I used some bronze embossing powder to make the poinsettia centre and edge of the green layer.

Last was the sentiment, which I used a TH stamp, bronze embossing powder, a piece of red MME background paper and my card was complete. 

Let's hope I can still link with the Rudolph Day challenge, Scrappy Mo being in Canada.  I am also linking this with Linda over at Funkie Junkie.  I do need to catch up with the other tags I have missed out.  And lastly, I am linking with my mate Di over at the Snippets Playground.  I hear there is a rather large bonfire party planned.  I am in charge of the marshmallows!!

I have just learnt from my friend Viv that this also qualifies for the Festive Flowers and Foilage challenge over at Sir Stamp Alot.  Thanks Viv!
 

Have a great week every one.  Don't forget that if you wish to buy any of the goodies I used for this they (and other things) are available at the Funkie Junkie Boutique!!

Hettie

Latest Journal...T stands for AdvenTure Journal!

Hello there.  I', baaaaaaaaaack!  What do you mean you hadn't noticed I was away?  Hubster and I took a little holiday over the large pond to celebrate our 25th Wedding Anniversary.   May I just say a huge Thank You to those kind folks who sent us a card to celebrate.  They were very well received and appreciated.  

Those who follow me will know that when I am going on a journey I like to make a journal in order that I can make notes as we go along, and put in photos off my phone, using a Pogo Printer.  Well, this trip was no exception. This time however, not only were we to celebrate a special Anniversary we were also going to meet up and stay with my Blogging Buddy who visited last year.  Gotta love WOYWW and Blogging!

So I thought you might like to see my journal, pre holiday....Before you start reading, I would go and grab a cuppa as this is a photo heavy post.

The spine was pretty devoid of charms as I didn't want to to be clunking around and also, I was hoping to pick some more up whilst we were there.

Here are the inside pages....Doesn't that pen clip well on there?  A design feature (cough) of course!!

This is one I wanted to show Debs. What I am holding is a square of paper, folded in such a way that it has two outside flap pockets and as I have stitched through the centre, I have joined it to add another journalling spot inside.  Tricky to explain this one!

This one on the left was made using a TH trellis die cut, adding embossing paste through it and pulling the trellis away.  It has a really lovely shimmer to it.

This is a giant TH tag turned on it's side, the rest of it forms a pocket.

Lots of tags and pockets!!

This took me quite some time to make but I thoroughly enjoyed making it.  I used a tonne of hints and inspirations from Pinterest, Laura Denison, Ashmita Roy (you tube) as well as ideas of my own.  The papers used are a plethora of papers I have collected including Papermania, Tim Holtz Destinations (been stroking the paper pad for quite some time so time to use it), Stampin Up, K&Co, Cosmo Cricket, as well as others with no name on it.  I also used some printouts and cuts from Silhouette, and the paper clips came from Ikea!

If you enlarge this one you can see where we went during our trip.  The pocket on the left also had the paste treatment but this time with Ferro.  After it had dried I popped another die cut out in there to give the contrast.

There are multitudes of Snippets used and I had a ball making this.   We thoroughly enjoyed our trip and over the next few weeks I will no doubt share some photos through scrapbook layouts and journal.  This journal did weigh a bit but and it was carried in my hand luggage so hey ho!  It measures 5" x 9" x 4".

As it is nearly Tuesday, I am going to share a cuppa with you while you read my post, after all I drunk a fair few during it's construction and link on up to my friend Elizabeth and Bleubeard, who I know likes books!

Thanks for calling by.  Please let me know if it was worth the visit.  I have some blogs to catch up with now so please bear with me.

Hettie

Under The Sea...

Hello there

Last year I made one of my Stencil cards HERE for my friend for her birthday.  That started it!  Rachel started to ask me about the stencils and how-tos and I sent her to Sweet Poppy Stencils to have a look.at the stencils available.

Rather than let Rachel buy all the equipment I invited her up to my Craft Room over we had an enjoyable evening of pizza and stencils and fun!  Rachel was smitten!  Rachel ordered some paste and other paraphernalia the next day and kindly bought me a stencil to say "thanks". I am not sure her Hubby feels the same way.

Well whilst the equipment was out so I set to and made a card for my friend's daughter.  I was told quite categorically that she is no longer into "cute" so I hoped this didn't fall into the "cute" category!

 

I made the background by smooshing some DIs onto my craft mat (Mowed Lawn, Broken China, salty ocean) and then added some water and dipped a piece of watercolour paper in, dried it and then dipped again.  I had a tag handy so dipped that with the leftovers.  Once it was dried (and ironed) I stamped my Ryn stamp that Miss Di had sent to me some time ago, with Memento ink.  I also stamped the corners with Cavallini stamps in the same DIs used. 

Then came the fun bit.  I used my new stencil and Pearl embossing paste and left it overnight to dry

I stamped both sides of the card using some TH stamps and my Ryn stamp. 

I found a tiny piece of paper that was enclosed in a papercraft magazine many many many years ago that was the perfect colour aka a Snippet.  I die cut a silver edge die, layered it and hey presto, my card was born.  And it passed muster so it isn't "cute"! Phew!!

Thanks for calling by.  Off down to the Snippets Playground to share this.

Hettie

Happy Birthday to My Special Friend

Hello there Peeps

I hope you have had a good weekend.  Yesterday it was lovely weather here in this little bit of Wales and I had a Play Day with my Buddy Mandy.  Great fun was had and a lot of work was done amongst giggles and chatting.

Today had been a day of showers and greyness.  Nothing new there then!  

Yesterday was the birthday of a dear blogging friend of mine, and I hope her card arrived in time, having posted it two weeks beforehand.  Otherwise I hope she doesn't see this post!

So here is my card for you to see......

I cut the card from Bazzill and scored lines on the edges.  Having die cut a background using X-Cut dies, I used my Sweet Poppy tree stencil with clear embossing paste then sprinkled pink and brown Martha Stewart glitter and left it to dry for 48 hours.  

With some more pink cardstock I punched Tonic petal pairs to make the flowers and EK Success punched tag (stamped with Hero Arts stamps and embossed with WOW) and found some pink vellum to make some leaves.  Once I was sure the embossing paste was dry I made two slits either side of the trunk and threaded some ribbon through to make a bow.

As there are Snippets included I am off to the Snippets Playground to see my buddies.

Have a good week and see ya soon.

Hettie

Scrapbook Tuesday - T on Tuesday - Hunterman

Hello There

Happy Tuesday to you all.  I hope if the weather is very cold you are warm and if it is very wet (as it is right here) your wellies are not leaking!

Today is Tuesday so I am sharing with you my Scrapbook Layout which I created on the weekend.  I am also joining in with Elizabeth and Bleubeard on the T stands for ....  I have been meaning to for ages so today is as good a time as any.

Rightio, onto the layout......

This is my Man - Mr Hubbie.  He is down at the bottom of our garden clearing the undergrowth.  Except at this point he was fixing the electrickery cable which he had just cut through with the chainsaw.  This lead goes to the pump below which we need to pump water to our home!  By the end of two days he had redeemed himself of the little mishap as he actually cleared a LOT of the undergrowth - just need to go the other way now.  

Here is how I started.  I took a plain fresh piece of 12x12 SU VeryVanilla cardstock and masked some areas off using washi tape/tissue tape.  Now before you have the eeby jeebies, I often see people using these xpensive tapes to mask off and cried, but when you look at how much tape is on a reel, you can spare a lickle bit to mask off a masterpiece!

Once masked I flicked some acrylic paint which I had watered down a little to make flicking easier and then using my lovely shiny new star mask I masked little areas with my Sweet Poppy Embossing Paste (had it about 3 months and not used the black!)

Then whilst that was drying I had to think about what I wanted to decorate the page with and decided to dig in my Tin of Shame.  This tin is one of those that I just throw bits in that might come in useful.  There are die cuts (some sent to me), stampings, flowers, old credit cards, paper pags, old cards, you name it it is probably in there.  Well, my Aim for 2014 is to clear it again so I can find things.  And that is where I got all my embellishments from except the TH dangley thing!  Look away now if you are scared...

The tea of today is Camomile and Spiced Apple.  Due to the antibiotics I can only tolerate one cup of normal tea first thing in the morning before said antib.  So I tend to drink a plethora of herbal teas during the day.  That cup is the last one of a set of 6 that Simon's Nan bought us when we got engaged.  It is pretty special to me. 

I have used a plethora of trimmings.  All boy (top left) is Cosmo Cricket likewise the Go confidently under the picture and the chipboard letters.  The dark star is one left over from a scrapbook kit of many years, the birdie on a branch was donated as was the branch and picket fence.  Paperclip was from Ikea, the chipboard star was a piece of packaging, the brad is ancient, the ribbon was out of the snippet ribbon basket.  The arrows were in a pack of assorted punctuations bought at least last century and never used!   The little stars stampings are Lavinia Stamps inked with Mowed Lawn DI (NBUS)

Off to the Snippets Playground for a little play with my buddies.  Hopefully the fence is fixed now and the goat has come home!

Thanks for calling by.  Enjoy your tea!

Hettie

Funkie Junkie - Christmas Tag - Tag 3

Hello There!

Before this Challenge runs off without me I thought I had better share my third tag in this series with you.  As you know I am taking part in the Funkie Junkie 12 Tags of Christmas Challenge again, having taken part last year.  As last year it is being sponsored by the Funkie Junkie Boutique stockists of my favourite stamps and the most exquisite lace!

Rightio.  Onto the Challenge.  If you want to see Linda's Tag click HERE.  I took her idea of stars and stencils for this tag.  I realised I did not have a stencil so I made my own using my trusty Silhouette.  However, it was a long job as I have now discovered that I need a new blade.  Hurrumpf! So I ended up cutting all the perishing stars by hand.  However, I do have a fabby stencil to use again so no problemo!

I first of all stenciled ink with Brushed Corduroy DI.  Wasn't quite sure what stamp I was going to use, but when I was rummaging through I came across this stamp.  A nearly NBIS.  I inked it once to see how it was and coloured the image in pre Distress Pen and not many Copic pens days and decided it was a PITA so never used it again.  However, I now have Distress Pens and more Copics so decided to give it another go.  This time I am much happier, but if I use it on a card, it will be a special person who I give it to let me tell you!

I then worked out roughly where I was going to stamp this image and then using my stencil with some Poppy Stencils embossing paste I added more stars on and left to dry over night. Once I knew the paste was dry I stamped the image with Archival ink and then set about colouring in the image. Not the easiest but I kinda like the rough and ready finish as it suits the tag generally. Well I think so!!

I then used a Lavinia stamp with teeny tiny stars and blue-grey Archival ink and randomly stamped the tag.  I used some Rock Candy Distress Stickles on the Santa, roughed up the edge of the tag and coloured the edge with bronze DS.  It does look better IRL. Then added some wooden stars with the little TH wordies.

Some ribbon and a Santa charm (VOS) and it was complete.  Yeay! a quarter of the way through and a stamp that I had put aside now in use!  (Note the stars on Santa's sack!  I only noticed them when I was colouring in!)

Thanks for popping in.  

Hugs

Hettie

Happy Anniversary My Love...

Hello Friends

Today xxxx number of years ago Mr Hettie and I were married on a beautiful sunny day.  So I thought today I would share the card I have made for Mr Hettie to mark the Special Day.....

This really is a heavy weight card on which I have used a plethora of stamps including Artistic Outpost, 7 Gypsies, Tim Holtz as well as my favourite honeycomb stencil with some Sweet Poppy embossing paste (NBUS - in copper anyway).

This is not an ordinary folded card.  I had already made the panel and laid all the elements I wanted included but knew that an ordinary square card would possibly not hold the weight (and anyone who knows us will know we are anything but square!).  So I went on to Splitcoast Stampers to see if there was any other design that might still stand and came across a tri fold shutter design.  As usual I had to put the "Hettie Spin" on it and change the sizes but this is what came about.

On the original design the back closes but as I used a 12x12 sheet, mine didn't but to be honest I like this as it leads the recipient to look inside at the message (I wrote it after I took photographs!)

Here is the back opened up.  The red ribbon (a Snippet) is only there to hold the card together to make it easier to put it in the envelope and get it out.  

 

Some close ups for you to see the details.  Inks used were Archival and DI in Vintage Photo and Aged Mahogony, some gold embossing powder and "Stuff" from my collection.

And here it is standing up in the bay window.  The papers used were Papermania Elegance which I have had for ever and the little stamped pieces were all from white cardstock from my Snippets drawer.  So I shall be taking this along to the Snippets Playground. 

Thanks for calling by.

Hettie