Shock, Horror!!!! Non-cute Christmas cards!!!!

Yes sometimes I do something other than cute LOL!!  I must admit more traditional Christmas cards are not my favourites to make, I much prefer to use all the lovely cute Penny Black Christmas stamps.

Here are some non-cute cards that I made in June.

The multi image of Santa is a Crafty Individuals stamp and the large Santa with snowflake beard is a Blue Moon stamp.  All the patterned paper is from a Papermania Christmas pack except for the last card which is DCWV.

Don't worry I will be back to making more cute cards but I do have to do the odd traditional card for those friends and family that are not fond of cute.

Meeting the captain

This is another scraplift from Sarah's Cards March kit and once again it is scraplifted from a layout by Rachael Elliott.

At the Captain's Welcome party which always take place on the second night of the cruise you get a chance to meet the captain and as always the ship's photographer is there to capture the moment.

There was no need to add a title or any journalling to the layout as it had all been done for me on the photograph.  The butterflies were punched using a Martha Stewart punch and the chipboard star has been covered in self adhesive gemstones.  The papers are October Afternoon 'Modern Homemaker'.

For now I have run out of cruise layouts but all being well we are now back from a 16 night cruise to Greenland and Iceland on Black Watch ( the last two weeks of blog posts were pre-scheduled), so I will hopefully soon share with you this year's cruise photographs.

Arctic Hot Tub

I used some of my cruise photographs from our last cruise in 2009 to do a couple of scraplifts from the design team booklet that came with Sarah's Cards March kit. 

This layout was scraplifted from Rachael Elliott but I cannot find the original layout on her blog.

The papers are October Afternoon 'Modern Homemaker', they are really lovely and as I love both sides of each sheet I have had to do lots of gutting so as not to waste any of the paper.  I painted the chipboard bunting with acrylic paint and then added the polka dots with white paint before giving it a coat of glossy accents to make it lovely and shiny.

Despite us being right up in the Arctic Circle we had some lovely weather and even a couple of days when it was warm enough for my mum to go in the outdoor pool.  I managed to snap her relaxing in the hot tub.

All Dressed Up - Anita's April Class

My niece did her first cruise last year and is now an addict too, so I have a big pile of lovely photos of her from that cruise waiting to be used on layouts.

I think the papers used are October Afternoon and the title was cut using a Sizzlet border alphabet die - Santa's Workshop.

Say Cheese!!

In 2006 we got my parents to join us for a cruise and they loved it so much that they joined us in 2009 on a cruise to Svalbard on Black Watch (Fred Olsen).

We managed to get a group photograph of us.

I haven't a clue what make this butterfly paper is as I bought it ages ago just because it had butterflies all over it.  Luckily I thought to buy two sheets so was able to handcut all the butterflies and mount them using pinflair gel.

Another formal night

This picture was taken on our second cruise in 2006 when we went to the Baltics on Braemar (Fred Olsen). It must have been the middle formal night halfway through the cruise as Richard would not have worn his white jacket on any of the captain's nights - that would have been very bad etiquette LOL!!

I can't remember what range of papers these are - I know it was a Sarah's Cards kit and possibly is October Afternoon.

Formal night

Since doing our first cruise in 2004 we have become a bit addicted to cruise holidays and try to do one every two years if we can.  I have a load of layouts from our cruise holidays that I haven't shared here yet so will put them up here over the next week or so.  Richard and I rarely ever have our photograph taken together as usually it is either one of us that is behind the camera.  The photographers onboard the ship are always taking your picture so it is nice to bring back some of the photographs of us together as a nice little souvenir of the holiday.

This was taken on the captain's welcome dinner night on our cruise two years ago to Svalbard.

I used Bazill cardstock and Basic Grey Porcelain.  The flowers are punched using EK Success retro flower punches.  The swirl and photo corners are a Sizzix die.

Penny Black Christmas in July

Last week on The Penny Black blog the challenge was to make a Christmas card - this challenge was perfect for me as I have been making them since January.

I used my favourite PB image as I already had a load of images already watercoloured and glittered ready for cards.

Supplies used -

Penny Black T for transparent set - The Wonder
Martha Stewart and Woodware snowflake punches
Mat cut with Spellbinder Nestability
Sentiment - Personal Impressions and Stampin' Up oval punches
Gold glitter cardstock
Gold ribbon from stash
Purple scroll paper - Craft Creations

The image was watercoloured with Derwent watercolour pencils and the tinsel was lightly glittered with stickles.

Happy Birthday Wendy

I won't be able to get online today so I hope Wendy doesn't mind me wishing her Happy Birthday via my blog.

I am always taken out of my comfort zone when making cards for Wendy as she is not a fan of all my favourite things - cute, pink, glitter etc etc so I try to come up with something that I hope she likes.  This is this year's offering -

I used a Kanban stamp which I watercoloured with Derwent watercolour pencils.  The background paper was a magazine freebie and the sentiment stamp is Personal Impressions.  The pearls are from Sarah's Cards.

A close up of the stamped image -

Anita's July Class - Bo Bunny Gabrielle

Last month's class was using these beautiful papers from Bo Bunny.  Any papers that feature butterflies are always going to be a big favourite of mine.

This is the lovely layout that we did this month -

I used some photographs of my lovely little sister at her 40th birthday party.  Now obviously she isn't  my mum but this layout is going to be for my niece's album so that is why I have called the layout My Mum.

I cut out some of the spare butterflies from the paper but they just didn't look right and I needed to introduce some more peachy elements to balance with the blue so I stamped and embossed with gold embossing powder some Hero Arts butterflies to use as embellishments.

Here are some close ups -

The alphabet used is a 12" Sizzlet die - Santa's Workshop.  I have quite a few butterflies left over and some paper left from the class so watch this space as I will make some cards with them.

Thankyou Anita for another lovely class.

Almost Mrs P - August Scrapology Sketch

Once again this month there is a lovely sketch on the Scrapology blog and the theme is R for ribbons.

I rotated the sketch as I was using a portrait orientated photograph

I have done another layout for my wedding album.

Supplies used -

K&Co paper
Bazill and Papermania cardstock
Prima pearl and crystal swirl
Prima e-line pearls
Blossoms are a mixture of Prima, Sarah's Cards and Papermania
Cream organza ribbon from stash
EK Success butterfly punch
Martha Stewart leaf punch
Heart doiley from Ribbon Box

A close up of the embellishment detail -

There is still plenty of time to take part in this month's challenge as the closing date is 5th September.

Quick and easy cards

The August challenge on Penny Black at Allsorts blog is free and easy - so basically a do as you pleasey challenge so long as you use a Penny Black stamp on your card.  Also this week the challenge on the Penny Black Saturday Challenge is Anything Goes.

I am a bit pushed for time this month but needed some little cards to just send some quick messages so made these quick and easy cards by stamping and watercolouring directly onto the card base.  I enjoyed doing these and will definitely make a little stash of these for those times when I need a card really quickly.

And close ups of the cards -

Summer Picnic - Happy Birthday Mum!!!

A recent challenge on The Penny Black blog was to make a summer card.  I realised that I hadn't used this lovely slapstick stamp 'Hedgehog Birthday' that I won from the PBSC blog.  It was ideal for this challenge!!

 

Supplies used - 

Penny Black Slapstick stamp - Hedgehog birthday

Patterned paper - magazine freebie

HOTP and Cuddly Buddly sentiment stamps

EK Success flower punch and MS frond punch

Pearls from Hobby House

A close up of the stamped image which was watercoloured with Derwent watercolour pencils, the hedgehog and the mouse were stamped again and raised up over the base image with pinflair glue.

I'm giving this card today to my mum for her birthday - I hope the weather is nice and sunny as it is the summer garden party where she lives - it would be nice if we could sit outside like hedgie and mouse to eat our cake and drink Pimms & Lemondade

Christmas in May

I still haven't caught up with showing all my Christmas cards yet - here are some that I made in May.

 

All the stamps used are Penny Blacks and the patterned papers are a mixture of Doodlebug, Craft Creations and freebie ones from magazines.

Not a Square - Scrapology July card challenge

This month's challenge on the Scrapology blog has been set by SJ creator of Little Musings and is to make a card in any shape except a square.  I decided to have a bash at making a heart shaped easel card for my parent's wedding anniversary next month.  I used a Creative Memories shape cutter to make my base card and then decorated it with Craft Creations papers and a Penny Black image.

The mat underneath the hedgies was embossed with a heart embossing folder.  The sentiment is Stamps Away and the sentiment mats were punched with Stampin' Up oval punches.

A close up of the hedgies

There is still time to enter the challenge as it doesn't close until 15th August.