Happy Boxing Day

I thought today I would blog a few of the cards that didn't make it into my daily posts.

 

I liked this one as far as it went, but thought it could do with something else and never could decide what (a bird in the bottom left??).

Loved the background on this one, but the house is too similar to a card I made last year.

Took about 5 minutes to make, and it looks it. What was I thinking?

Another one that needs something, a sentiment at the bottom? I couldn't decide!

Have a great day everyone. That's the end of the Christmas cards and I'll be taking a well-earned break until the New Year. Happy holidays! Maddy x

Happy Christmas

No card from me today, just a very happy Christmas to all my friends in blogland. I hope Santa has brought you everything you wished for. Maddy x

 

"Me in November"

Seven Swans A Swimmin'

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

 

"...Seven Swans a swimmin'..."

Two stickpins from my mate Lee and a host of sequins finish off this card.

"... Six Geese a Layin'..."

"...Five Go-old Rings...

"...Four Colly Birds..."

""..Three French Hens..."

"...Two Turtle Doves..."

"...And a Partridge in a Pear Tree!"

On the Sixth Day of Christmas

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

 

 

 

"...Six Geese A Laying..."

Well, I suppose geese lay eggs too! I couldn't find six geese to add to the card, so I added six goose eggs instead :-).

On the Fifth Day of Christmas

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

 

"...Five Go-old Rings!..."

I decorated this one with five gold rings and lots of gold dust aka Frantage. Couldn't resist adding a gold bird too.

"...Four Colly Birds..."

"...Three French Hens..."

"...Two Turtle Doves..."

"...and a Partridge in a Pear Tree!"

On the Fourth Day of Christmas

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

"...Four Colly Birds..."

I actually had to look this up on Wikipedia. I grew up in the South of England in the 1970s, and we sang "four colly birds", and then at some point I realised it should be "four calling birds" and thought I'd been singing it wrong. Then I saw this sentiment. It clearly says "four colly birds". I've looked it up. It really should be "Four Colly Birds". Colly is an old word for black, so this song is really about four blackbirds! You learn something new every day :-)

"...Three French Hens..."

"...Two Turtle Doves..."

"...and a Partridge in a Pear Tree!"

Oh yes, obsession, that's what I'm talking about ;-)

On the Third Day of Christmas

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

 

"...Three French Hens..."

Hens! Where do I start? We've kept hens for donkeys years. They are my husband's pets. He loves to hatch the eggs but is too much of a loveable softy to despatch the cockerels. As a consequence we currently have eight cockerels. Now, if you keep cockerels together they fight, so each cockerel has it's own shed. But then a cockerel in a shed on it's own would get lonely right? So the cockerels have to have their own harem of hens. As a consequence, we have a lot of hens and a lot of eggs! Ours are all pets, have names (yes even the cockerels), and eat like kings (have you ever seen that strange couple in the supermarket buying whole trays of lettuces? yup, that's us!). But chickens are great fun and I wouldn't have it any other way. :-)

"Eggs"

You noticed the three eggs right? Well, if you keep hens, you'll get eggs. You don't need a cockerel for that. And home grown eggs are nothing like the insipid tasteless things you get in supermarkets.  What a great present for anyone... three hens (they don't have to be French), a hen house, a run, a bag of layer's mash. a bag of poultry grit, some straw... oh and don't forget the lettuces!

"...Two Turtle Doves..."

 

"...and a Partridge in a Pear Tree"

On the Second Day of Christmas

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

 

"...two Turtle Doves..."

One of our lovely nieces came to stay with us years ago when we lived in Cornwall. She noticed the two doves that lived in our back garden and said "Auntie Mads, you must be blessed by God!". I don't know about that, but those two doves were randy little buggers and were constantly at it lol!We don't see as many here in Northern Ireland, but then again our garden is full of songthrushes so I won't complain.

"...and a Partridge in a Pear Tree"

Well, once you start the song, you have to finish it, right?

On the First Day of Christmas...

Well, I know that traditionally the first day of Christmas is Christmas Day, but if I left it until then to start this series of cards you wouldn't want to see them. I mean, you'd still be looking at Christmas cards into January and that wouldn't do, so I am starting today. At the time of writing this, I've only made the first eight, which will take us nicely up to Christmas day. If I get my act together and finish the other four, then we can squeeze them in on Boxing Day. If not, then I don't expect you'll be too disappointed to see the end of my Christmas cards this year. I mean, I'll have been blogging Christmas cards every day since the middle of October for goodness sake. Deal? OK then!

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

 

"...a Partridge in a Pear Tree"

I couldn't resist this sheet of images from HunkyDory at the last Craft Fair. It's not something I normally buy, or use, but I've had a lot of fun with these.

"Pear"

Did you notice the pears in the tree?

Gold

I tried to make a card using only gold, but needed a little white to make the sentiment stand out.

 

"Happy Christmas"

Gold is always elegant, but I think I prefer yesterday's cards with the darker backgrounds for more contrast.

Gold embossed backgrounds.

One of my favourite techniques this year has been to use gilding waxes on dry-embossed dark card, and that is used on the backgrounds of each of these cards.

 

"Wonderful Christmas"

A panel of gold patterned vellum is fixed to the front of each gold card blank with gold brads.

 

"Merry Christmas..."

The embossed and gilded panel is fixed over the vellum with PVA, or Pinflair if added dimension is required.

 

"... and a Happy New Year"

A sentiment panel is placed over the embossed panel with Pinflair glue, and some diecuts cut from the same card aas the blank are added as a final decoration.

Black and Gold

Today's card has a similar layout to the last one from yesterday, but it looks so different in a black and gold colour scheme.

 

"Happy Christmas"

The image was sent to me in a swap and it took me a long time to come up with this card, but once I settled on the black and gold colourscheme the rest fell into place easily.The gold string ties it all together (ha ha!).

Green and Gold

Today's cards are in the colours of green and gold. I often work with a limited colour pallette, and these cards were the result of an experimental day when I set out to use some sentiments.

 

"Enjoy the Spirit od the Season"

The bow is a Christmas tree decoration and can be removed from the card since it is just attached with the star brad.

 

"With Love to You Both this Christmas"

I bought a huge reel of this Christmas ribbon from The Works for £1, it makes a great background for tradional colour schemes.

 

"Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year"

The background for this card is embossed then rubbed with gold "Buff-it" to bring out the detail. I couldn't resist adding a splash of red for a truly traditional look!

 

"May all that you wish for at Christmas come true"

I found one A4 sheet of the background card with the gold presents in my stash and cut it carefully to make the backgrounds for the first two A6 landscape cards and this A5 portrait. I've had it for ages and can't remember where it came from. I do think the Tim Holtz deer is perfect for this size of card.

DCWV

Recently, I won the most amazing prize from "Quick Cards" mag and "Die Cuts With a View" which was a huge box of DCWV card stacks, frames and so on. This is the first card I made using some of the stash. You'll have to wait a good while for more cards using it because I am still in stroking mode (those of you who are true papercrafters will know what I mean lol!).

 

"Make it Merry"

The image is from the "Make it Merry" paper pack by October Afternoon, but look closely at the background.

 

"Townhouses"

The houses are cut from the DCWV corrugated stack using a Memory Box die, and coloured with a picket fence distress marker. The snowflakes are cut from the DCWV pearlescent stack using Spellbinders dies. Both cardstocks cut beautifully.

Some odds and ends

These are a few cards I made with odds and ends of stash lying around and bits and pieces I received in swaps.

"House Chipboard"

 

"Joy"

 

 

"More Joy!"

 

More Coloured Dry-Embossing

Here are a couple more of those embossed images coloured with distress inks and promarkers.

 

The flash on the camera has washed out the blue colour on this one which is my mil's favourite card this year.

 

I like the way the pearlescent card lends a shimmer to the inks.

 

A length of satin ribbon is wrapped around the card and tied in a bow as a finishing touch.

Docrafts Christmas

I've been on Docrafts forum for a few years and have made some great friends there, so I like to make a few cards using their products now and again (it's only fair :-). Anyway, these are made using the Christmas Tidings range.

 

The background snowflakes are stamped in Brilliance White.

 

Diecuts in blue and white are adhered with Pinflair to raise them and add some dimension.

 

The tag frames are lifted above the sentiments in the same way, with dabs of Pinflair.

 

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I do like the images in this paper pack, which feature traditional winter scenes.

 

Some of the scenes work best with blue and others prefer a more traditonal setting!