Some Christmas Medallion fun..

The other day I found myself down in our local library looking for some "War of Thrones" books and ended up coming out with a couple of Christmas crafts books instead - isn't that always the case hehehe!

The one that really caught my eye was a Vintage Christmas book and I was fascinated by a medallion in it and thought I'd try to recreate it.  I tend to keep the Christmas cards we receive year after year and thought this was the perfect project to use some of them.

These are the two that I made today.

The book that inspired me!

Project in the book

My first attempt - see how uneven the frill is!!??

This is the reverse side with a punched stocking decorating it.

Second attempt, frill much more even this time :>

I used the inside of the card for the backing so I still know who sent it originally.

A birthday card

Now I'm getting daring, combining two challenges!  


As per usual I've taken up the challenge across at 365 Cards and followed a "recipe" to make a card.  The "ingredients" were: 5x5 card, 3 patterned Papers, 6 rhinestones or pearls, 1 stamp, 1 sentiment.


I also happened across another challenge at Flutterby Wednesday who were asking for: the color blue (on my paper lace), lace (made of paper), 3 or more flowers (lots on the stamped branch), at least one butterfly.  

Just for the fun of it - a bush Christmas!

When I cut out the base tag for this project I didn't realise that there were two pieces of cardstock stuck together so there I was, with two tag bases when I only really needed the one...

I also had the green paper diecut sitting on my desk and it all started from there really!  The paper is of the New Zealand Ferntree, a great dinosaur of a thing, when I first saw them almost 30 years ago I was spellbound by their beauty, it was like being transported into the past....

This is when the kiwi theme started, the vehicle out in the bush, with a big fern frond on the back, the red diecuts reminded me a little of Maori carvings - it was so much fun to put together.  Of course I couldn't have an empty vehicle so rummaged around 'till I found a suitable photo of my little boy - he was tickled pink when I showed him the finished tag and told him he was driving a pick-up truck!

A real fern tree [in the grounds of Newlands College]

Black and White plus a dash of orange!

Found this [old] challenge over at the Play Date Cafe this morning, to use black and white with a splash of orange - and combined with the divide and conquer challenge over at 365 Cards this is the result!

As I don't have any black and white patterned paper, I decided to make my own using a cute wee set from SU! called Good Neighbours.

Baby wipe background technique - what fun!

I've been meaning to try the 'baby wipe' technique that can create such lovely backgrounds.  I had found a piece of card that looked semi-glossy to me so thought I'd give it a try - I used a couple of Stampin' Up! reinkers in Riding Hood Red and Chocolate Chip and my white card turned into a sunset...

Added Dasher looking over his shoulder at the silver comet, he looks rather peaceful just standing there which was the cue for my sentiment!

I also wanted to play along with the latest sketch at 365 Cards and I found it sooo hard!  So when the inspiration of a upwards tail added to the star finally struck I was on my way LOL!

Keeping it simple

I think I may have used a little too much on my card now that I've checked back with 365 Cards - if you consider the 'sentiment' to be the whole thing not just the words then I'm okay!

A little tag - Spin me a Yarn challenge

I think I'm going to start working on gift tags now as I have enough Christmas cards [I think}... so here are some I made today for 365 Cards which asked for "Spin me a Yarn".

Very simple to make, this technique called Spirelli was the tutorial at Splitcoast Stampers this week so thought I'd give it a go - I found the the gold cord was rather bulky to work with, the other two are made with crochet yarn which was much easier.  Also, you don't have to limit yourself to circles, just as long as you have the little grooves made by the scallops to wrap your yarn around it should work okay.