Merry Christmas to you!!

A very Merry Christmas to you!! I hope you've had a wonderful day of spending time with family and friends and maybe some relaxing along the way too. For us Christmas started with Midnight Mass and then some early morning Skype calls to NZ to chat with family and share in the lovely nephew and nieces opening their presents...such fun!! Then it was lunch with friends and a surprise flying visit from an Aunty from out of State and a long overdue catch up with more family and cousins etc. So a busy day but a lovely one :-)

Today I have two cards and a few other related projects to share with you to finish the Christmas theme for this year. This first one is clean and simple and sparkly. I teamed the Winter Wonder EF with the Swirly Snowflakes Thinlits and a little blue and copper.

The sparkly snowflake is inked with Distress Inks to add some colour and interest.

Card stock: Whisper White (thick and standard), Dazzling Diamonds Glitter Paper, Copper Foil, Vellum

Accessories: Big Shot, Winter Wonder EF, Swirly Snowflake thinlits, Christmas Greetings Thinlits (retired), Metallic Sequin Assortment

Non SU: Distress Inks - Salty Ocean, Blueprint Sketch, Frosted sequins (SSS)

The last card is in honour of this being Sally the Lab's last Christmas as she has cancer and is going out to our vet family in Hallam without whom Sally would not be here several times over. Later versions of this for family and friends are without the gold tree.

Along with the card are a few little gifts with mainly the same photo - my first attempts at using Waterslide Decal Paper.  The process is simple but not always so in practice so I have a couple of hints for you.

I found that one coat of Clear Acrylic spray wasn't quite strong enough to prevent the images from cracking on transfer - especially on the mug. Other sites I found suggested up to 3 sprays and I'd recommend that too if your object isn't flat like the tile coasters. After they are dry, you can coat with more acrylic to make it all shiny and smooth and heat resistant in the case of the coasters. Be aware though in the case of mugs and glasses that it's not dishwasher safe.

And yes, the other side of the mug here features Sally playing with her good mate Monty - a happy snap from years gone by.

Card stock: Real Red, Whisper White, Silver - and gold Glimmer, Garden Green, Whisper White

Accessories: Big Shot, Softly Falling EF, Christmas Greeting Thinlits (retired), Peaceful Pines Thinlits, Metallic Sequins Assortment

Non SU: Square Stitched Framelits (SSS) chocolates!!

Thank you for stopping by today and I hope you can take some time to enjoy the rest of the holidays and I look forward to journeying with you in the New Year!

Happy stamping  until then,

Jan

Christmas Tags for JAI #391

It's the ( Friday) before Christmas and all through the house not one thing is moving not even a mouse...or so the carol goes :-) It sure has been a busy week in our household with not enough hours in the night or day - but such is the life of a card maker come Christmas :-) Every year I say I'll start earlier (and I did!!) but some late decision projects have taken more time than expected...

Perfect to help you with last minute Christmas projects is this week's Just Add Ink Challenge suggested by Kim. With a choice of two of either Twine, Trees or Tags there are so many ways in which you can use the above ideas. This is the last challenge for 2017 and will last for two weeks to give you some time during the Christmas holidays to complete your projects. Our lovely design team have created projects that will wow you this week so I hope you can take a moment to pop on over and join with us :-)

I decided to create some tags using trees and these lovely cards from Last year's Hello December Project Life kit. So here are 4 tags that I've used for my nephew and nieces. These were very quick to make once they were all worked out.

This card features the little red deer from Carols of Christmas:-)

And this one the tree from Christmas Pines 

Of course the reindeer from Santa's sleigh had an outing too -twice!!
All have a little To/ From stamped on the back with room to write a good sized message

And they did look good on top of the presents too  if I do say so myself :-)

Card stock: Whisper White, REal Red, gold glimmer, Emerald Envy

Inks - Momento Tuxedo Black ( on the back )

Stamps: Merriest Wishes (retired I think...?)

Accessories: PL Hello December (retired), Big Shot, Pine bough Framelits, Christmas Greeting Thinlits, Gold twine, red ribbon

Thanks for stopping by today and a big thank you to everyone who has stopped by throughout the year and left comments. It is so appreciated and your encouragement helps me to continue to keep creating.
 I hope you all have a very happy and wonderful Christmas celebrating with friends and family and have time to relax and enjoy the little things amongst all the busyness and celebrating and Christmas services. I will be stopping by over the next little while to share some extra card ideas and little projects but the next Just Add Ink challenge is not until January 19 as the team are taking a little break so I hope you all have a Happy and safe New Year and may 2018 be a special year for you and all your family!

Happy stamping until next time,

Jan

Peace Branches for JAI #319

Happy Friday to you and welcome! We are half way through the mid winter school holidays here in Melbourne and I have been blessed with a catch up with an aunty and cousin visiting from New York and have some lovely friends from Nelson in NZ arriving  in the next week too. Hopefully the weather might improve so they can see something other than grey skies,  rain and puddles....the dog park is looking more like a lake!

And its time for a new challenge at Just Add Ink. This week,  Di has suggested a great photo for us all to use. It gives such an instant 'Christmas" feel and so is a great opportunity to get ahead on starting towards the busiest time of any card makers year :-) Our fabulous design team have all created gorgeous cards to inspire you so I hope you can take a moment to pop on over and take a look.

Here is the photo:

And here is my card:

With inspiration photos I find it easiest to go with what first jumps out at me from the photo - so in this case it was the wreath and how full it was with added elements, and also the elegant door it was hanging on. So I decided to use some DSP from the new Serene Scenery stack for my "door" element, and to create a wreath effect using the Flourish Thinlits which contain both the leaf and berry dies - so fabulous for Christmas :-)

"Peace" from the Christmas Greetings Thinlits is cut 3 times using white card stock and then the  top layer in gold. To create the "be with you", I masked a stamp in the Reason For the Season set and stamped directly onto the rustic looking DSP. It feels so strange to create a card using only one stamp but no more seemed to be needed :-)

Card stock: Island Indigo, Whisper White, Garden Green, Real Red, Gold Foil

Designer Series Paper: Serene Scenery Stack 

Ink: Island Indigo

Stamps: Reason For The Season

Accessories: Big Shot, Flourish Thinlits, Christmas Greetings Thinlits, Brights Enamel Shapes, White Perfect Accents (with stickers removed they are clear )previously

As previously mentioned. the dog park is looking more like a lake currently - it's only the first week of July and we already have had 3/4 of our average monthly rain....wonderful for the birds but not so great for dogs and people currently - bags not playing rugby here this weekend :-)

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you can take a moment to pop over to Just Add Ink and see what the rest of our talented team have made to inspire you and I look forward to seeing what you will create inspired by this gorgeous wreath image this week too!

Happy stamping until next time,

Jan