C4G - Black/silver or black/gold

Hi and welcome to that strange period between Christmas and New Year, nicknamed by some wag as Twixtmas!

Hope you had the best Christmas that you could with all the Covid restrictions and that Santa brought at least a small something you wanted. My OH bought me, amongst other things, a Tim Holtz Alcohol ink puffer, even though he had no idea what it was! We facetimed the offspring and grandkids but it wasn't really the same.

With all of us having to stay put perhaps you'll have time on your hands to join in our new challenge at Cardz4Guyz.  Our theme for the New Year period is :-

BLACK and SILVER or BLACK and GOLD

Here's a card I made towards next year's Christmas stash, I'm hoping that making SUCH an early start wont see me having a last minute rush!

I made this bauble from a card circle scrap found in my stash which I stamped with Altenew's Plentiful pine in grey, black and gold EP. I used the second layer as it has more open space, my art teacher said you should always leave spaces in your trees for the birds to fly through! I added a die cut hanger from gold mirror card using a bauble die and mounted the completed bauble on pads over a black base card. The thread hanger was drawn freehand with a gold glitter pen and the gold embossed sentiment is from Uniko.

For more masculine inspired inspiration check out the rest of the team here, then why not join in?

Sparkly Christmas

 Just popping by to share a card for a couple of challenges as its rather grim outside at the moment, dark and rather wet! So after walking the dog, blissfully before the deluge, and a bit of fettling, I'm in my craftroom.

Over at Allsorts they are all sparkle and shine and the pic over at Time Out is all silver and sparkly snowflakes too.

Quite a simple card, a die cut aperture cut with an ancient Sizzix original die and these cute bunnies, Nellie Snellen I think.

Lots of sparkly silver in the background peeking through and also forming a mount behind the Copic coloured bunnies. Couldn't resist adding some dimension to the bunny's tail with white puffy paint. I used the retained die cut snowflake, rotating it to lie in between the arms of the die cut background. All layered up on a 5"square base card. Sentiment is Uniko.

Joining in over at:-

Sparkle and Shine

Winter Wonderland

Color Hues #8

Afternoon folks, Christmas is getting nearer but if you are a little short of quick Christmas cards, how about this idea for the latest challenge at Color Hues.

A simple one layer card made using Uniko snowflakes and the colours from Color Hues! I made it along with a batch of other cards that featured here.

Using a selection of Altenew inks in blue and green, 3 blue and 3 green. I forgot to make a note of what I used but I think it Iceburg, Eastern Sky and Azurite for the blues and Bamboo, Parrot and Olive for the greens. I randomly stamped my base card with the snowflake stamps with a mixture of the shades to create the flurry effect. The sentiment, also Uniko, was stamped with the darkest of the blue inks.

For more green and blue inspiration, check out the rest of the team here.

Sending Christmas Cheer

Good morning all. Are your Christmas preparations on schedule or are you playing catch up?

I must admit that we are having a very low key Christmas this year. Usually we gear our celebrations around the grandkids but they are staying put as the Covid restrictions for Christmas in the UK make getting together rather difficult, there would be one set of Grandparents missing out so my daughter decided to stay at home with the kids and OH so that no one would have to choose. Hopefully we will be back to something more like normality by next year.  We are also not doing the full blown Christmas turkey lunch, my OH has requested fish finger butties, in his dreams!!! The trees are up though, including one of our home grown ones, rather misshapen as it was impeded whilst growing, but it does fit into the sung around the bookcase!

Anyway, its Tuesday so there's another challenge for you from Cardz4Guyz, just in case you need inspiration for a last minute Christmas card. Our theme is -

SNOWMEN/MAN

Here's my singular snowman!

I used this cute LOTV digi snowman, I bought the set last year but didn't get around to using them 'til now!

As the challenge over at the Male Room is for tartan and or plaid, I decided to paper piece his scarf, gloves and hat band with some red tartan NitWits DP, shading with some Copic markers. I used the same markers to colour the rest of him, then fussy cut him out.

There's a new challenge for lovers of embossing folders called Let's Squash it. I love EFs and have a box stuffed full with them and this card was the perfect opportunity for me to join in this month as the theme is to use fussy cutting or die cuts with an EF. Here I've embossed my base card with my favourite Cuttlebug folder, falling snow I think its called, die cut snowdrifts and the fussy cut snowman.

For the sentiment, I went with something different, using a mixture of Uniko sentiment stamps.

That's about it really, a simple design perfect for a masculine recipient. For more snowmen related inspiration, check out the rest of the DT here.

Here are my two trees side by side.

Joining in over at:-

Cuttlebug EF, fussy cut snowman and Avery Elle die cut snowdrifts

Cutie Pie White Christmas

 Morning all. Just popping by to share a card I made for my OH for Christmas using a freebie stamp of these two cute hedgies. They were part of a set free in a mag a couple of years ago, that I've already shared this year and although small, pack a cute punch! I was inspired to enter the latest challenge at The Cutie Pie Challenge where their theme is White on White.

This a 5 x 7 card and as the image is tiny in comparison, it took a bit of thought to get the layout to work. I used my fave EF folder to create the snowy background, after I'd cut out a heart shape for my sentiment. A few die cut snowdrifts courtesy of a set of Avery Elle dies were added to the base of the panel and the fussy cut, Copic coloured hedgies added on foam pads. The sentiment, also from the free set, was stamped in the heart and then popped back into its aperture, reminds me of a line from Last Christmas by Wham that was playing on the BBC red button channel as I turned off  the recoding box last night!  You know where he says 'This year I'll give it to someone special.' 

The completed panel was then added to the base card.

According to one of the local papers, we could get a sugar sifting of snow on Christmas Day, at least we wont be fretting about how everyone will get here as we are going solo this year, what with all this pandemic stuff, Christmas greetings will be of the virtual kind. 

It would be fun to have a little snow but I wouldn't want inches, the sheep have still to be looked after! We can get easily cut off as we live a good 1/4mile from the road, which in itself is only a lane. Our drive has a bit of a dip that fills up with snow, given half a chance!! We were cut off for days a few years ago and could only get out in the car by driving across frozen fields after the wind had blown the snow onto the track. At one point I did suggest that the OH could get the tractor out to visit the supermarket for essentials but we did manage without in the end.

Anyway there's sunshine and showers at the moment and plenty of time for the Met office to change their minds!

I'd like to join in over at:-

Christmas

White Christmas

Have yourself a merry little Christmas -option based on a song/carol