Christmas/Winter card

Sharing my DT card for the challenge over on Daisy Chains blog challenge for our Christmas/Winter theme this month.

 

Apart from my samples, this is my first Christmas card of the season and yes, its a Dreamees card (apart from a few bits and pieces).

By the fire

Whilst having a sort through my craft stuff I rediscovered lots of my favourite stamps and thought that I really needed to make more use of these.  With new craft designs constantly coming out, we are inspired to want to try something new and before you know it you are running out of space!

As crafters, we are constantly evolving and moving on to something new but I always come back to where my enjoyment of stamping started.

For this project I have used:-

• Dreamees By the Fire stamp set
• Dreamees Wonderful Wintertime (for the Holly)
• 6 x 6 square cream scalloped edged card
• gold glitter card
• Tattered Lace Christmas backing paper (from one of their magazines)
• red card stock from my stash
• red satin gingham ribbon
• green organza ribbon
• red bakers twin
• bead and christmas tree lights from a broken bracelet
• square nested stitched dies to layer up the square panels
• scrap of weathered wood backing paper from the Dreamees Textures cd
• Dreamees dinky inkies (sparkle and pearlescent inks)

For the holly I used the Dreamees Wonderful Wintertime stamp set  and the "Joy" stamp for the centre of the wreath from the Dreamees Reindeers and Rocking horses set. All these stamps work together.

I always have a stash of unusual or odd bits and pieces saved along the way and knew my (once) flashing Christmas lights bracelet would come in handy when it sadly got broken last year.

They made a handy Christmas light embellishment for my card.

A little frosted lace stickles on the stocking tops, glossy accent on my clock on the mantle and glitter pen on the flames and wreaths to finish of my Christmas themed card.

Pop over to our Christmas/Winter blog challenge this month on Daisy Chains blog challenge and take a look at the rest of the inspiration from the design team along with the creative inspiration from the rest of the entries.

Happy Crafting

ATCs For January 2018 Group Swap - Using Inkilicious & Dreamees Stamps

The theme for the January ATCs this months group swap is "The Elements" - rain/wind/fire/earth.
So I chose the first 3 as I had stamps for the theme.

I chose the Inkylicious Rain Drops stamp for my first ATC. I used T im Holtz broken china distress ink for the background.

I backed it onto cordinating card stock and Hunkydory rainbow mirri board,

I also added some glossy accent for texture.  The light just catches it at this angle.

For my second ATC I chose the little mouse from The Dreamees Autumn Days stamp set to represent wind. The mouse is holding onto the cocktail umbrella as its being swept away. T stamped the mouse with a memento dye baded ink pad in rich cocoa and coloured him in with the brown and pink dinky inkies. I used Tim Holtz broken china distress ink on the background to follow on from the first ATC and a green dinky inky for the grass. The grass stamp was a free stamp from a craft magazine.

I backed the ATC onto the same blue coordinating cardstock and ruffled the cocktail umbrella up to look windswept. I even broke some of the spokes as the always seems to happen to your brolly on a windy day!

My third ATC is fire and used The Dreamees By the Fire stamp set for this one. First I inked my cardstock with Tim Holtz spiced marmalade distress ink and a yellow dinky inky. I dried the ink off with a heat gun before stamping with the same memento rich cocoa ink pad. I used Tim Holtz spiced marmalade distress ink to bring out the orange in the flames and a brown dinky inky for the fireplace and logs.

I backed the card onto some cordinating brown cardstock and gold mirri board.

I added some glossy accent to the mantlepiece and a little shimmer to the flames with a spectrum noir sparkle clear overlay pen.

The wording was stamped with the Crafters Companion Classic alphabet stamp set;

https://www.inkylicious.co.uk/index.php

http://www.dreamees.org.uk/

Happy Crafting

Dreamees - By The Fire MDF set

I have been meaning to make this mdf set up for ages and this time I actually have it done in time for Christmas. I really enjoyed putting this all together.

I decided to paint my mdf with a matchpot as I really liked the colour and thought it was the perfect fireplace surround colour. I wasn't sure at the time as to whether I was going to stamp onto my mdf using the matching Dreamees By the fire stamp set or leave some of it painted, so painted it all as it would give the mdf a good base anyway.  This matchpot was one of the colours I bought cheap at Homebase (probably as they were discontinuing the colour) and it covered the mdf effortlessly
I like to paint my mdf with a sponge as  I find you sometimes get stray hairs from the brush and streaks, depending on the paint you use.

I printed off the paper I wanted from The Dreamees Textures cd.

I wanted a mantlepiece for my fireplace, so drew around the mdf base plate onto greyboard (if you don't have greyboard, save the back of your notepads as its more or less the same thing, just a little thinner.  I then cut some coordinating paper to match the fireplace and covered the greyboard on both sides.

I used Cosmic Shimmer glue to stick the paper to my mdf as its a good tacky pva based glue and edged them with my Dinky Inkies to soften the edges. I left the back plate of the fireplace painted.

It needed logs for the hearth, so made these out of some Kanban Kandi Core card stock that I still had lying around and as it had a wood grain, I thought it would do nicely. I rolled strips of card around a broken paintbrush ( I was going to throw it away but it has come in very handy) but a skewer or anything that shape will suffice.

I thought that they turned out really well and used my glue gun to stick them on.

Just to show you what the mantlepiece looks like from a different angle. Just goes to show that you can add to it with a bit of imagination.  I know you probably won't see underneath normally but I do like things to look finished from every angle. These papers from the cd are so defined.

The little wooden objects on top of the mantlepiece are actually a set of 12 little tree decorations from Poundland. I just cut the strings off.  The tree lights I had bought previously with the intention of putting on this fireplace when I made it.

http://www.dreamees.org.uk/

Hope you have found this inspirational.

Happy Crafting