Christmas Card Club - Christmas Food

A new year it may be, but Christmas card making for our club challenges do not.  However the challenge set by Margaret our lovely organiser, is one that has challenged me today.  I don't have any Christmas Food stamps and so my trusty friend punch art has saved the day.

I love turkey at Christmas, but then I'm a bit of a traditionalist and our turkey usually comes from Field Farm Organics locally and cooked slowly overnight in the Aga is always delicious.

This card also reminded me of when our cheeky Border Collie stole what was left of our turkey on Boxing Day morning a couple of years ago.  Olivia caught him dragging the serving plate down the hall with the turkey on top neatly wrapped in tin foil.   Caught just in time me thinks!

The turkey is punched using the Stampin' Up! bird punch and I fashioned a cooking tin with silver foil card and made a table for it to sit on.   The window is in two layers.  I cut two matting layers one to be the backdrop for the scene which I cut just a rectangle out of the size of the inner window frame.  The second layer was smaller and I cut the whole frame out.  Before cutting I embossed both pieces using the Hardwood embossing folder, but inked it on one side with my brayer before putting it through the Big Shot just to add some toning.

A sprig of holly from some tag toppers I bought in the M&S a year ago and a simple sentiment and Christmas food is on the table.

Please do pop by the other ladies blogs in our group for lots more styles and inspiration on Christmas Food.

Zx

Weekly Christmas Card Challenges 6 - Anything goes 

Stampin' Up! The Wilderness Awaits for Male birthday cards

Stampin' Up! The Wilderness awaits great for male cards 

We have a handful of birthdays coming up and it's mainly the men in our family so I've been playing with Stampin' Up! 's set The Wilderness Awaits.  This first card is very simple, but quite effective with the Hardwood background stamp, stamped tone on tone in lost lagoon as a base card, followed by mint macaron as the top layer stamped again with a tone on tone effect using Gorgeous Grunge and the magnificent stag from The Wilderness Awaits.  

I'm rapidly moving my way through boxes of  the Expressions Natural Elements and you don't have to keep them with the natural wood look! You can colour them with a sharpie pen or Staz On black in  pad and make them the colour you want.  To add a little more interest to my card I've rolled back the corner of my matting layer, having first broken the card fibres with my bone folder and held it in place with some linen thread.  A bit of 'smudging' with tone on tone inks and a sponge dauber or two and you have a great card for one of the men in your life! 

So this one is a happy birthday for my brother-in-law.

More soon Zx

Challenges 

Pixie Snipets - must use snipets 

Anything goes for Christmas Card Club

My first job today is to say HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to each and every MUM out there.  I know I'm in for a special treat with my family and my parents so I hope you all have a very special day too!

As time marches on to Spring, you'll find me in another seasonal world i.e. Christmas for my card share today. Sylvie has set our challenge this fortnight and the theme chosen is 'Anything goes'. Not as easy as you might imagine with daffodils beginning to bloom in the garden and although cool several days of sunshine brightening everyone's spirits.

I was inspired by one of the Stampin' Up! Artisan Designer's cards fro my layout.  You can see her card here  I've used materials from the Stampin' Up! UK Spring catalogue including the Adventure Bound Designer Series Paper which is a mini stack and home to lots of prints including the log stack, pine needle with wooden board back drop and tartan and I've also popped in a stamped circle using the hardwood stamp.  The popular Festival of Trees is still in the spring catalogue along with the matching Tree punch which I've used to punch out my trio of trees.  I love adding texture so I've added some wooden cut out stars which were left overs from the Hooray It's Your Day project kit and a cute heart (essential wooden elements) with an epoxy star.  One of my all time versatile and useful stamp sets is Gorgeous Grunge which you can use to add speckles, spots or splodges.

Have a lovely day!
Hugs Zx

Challenges
Crafty Hazelnut's Extra Christmas Challenge - Anything goes
Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge - dies and punches

Technique to make your Stampin' Up! Flower Bundle Pop!

I run a quarterly shoebox swap training event for my team of Stampin' Up! demonstrators and other demonstrators are welcome and join us for these events.

A shoebox swap?

It's lots of fun and very inspirational as everyone who attends designs and makes a card with a given recipe and sometimes a theme.  The materials, tools and embellishments are put into a box roughly inline with a shoebox and we all come together to pass our boxes around a table and everyone makes one of each card around the table.

We all have lost mojo days and we are always looking for other ideas and designs so this is an excellent way to see other styles and techniques.  Recently my lovely friend Michelle Bryant came along to one such event and she showed us a fab technique with masking tape and ink.  Her gorgeous card is below, but for my recent workshops I made a simpler version as the make and take for the parties.  It highlights that you can upscale and downscale designs and make them for girls or boys dependent upon the colour scheme and embellishments you use.  My version is with soft sky, so saffron and primrose petals.  Michelle used early espresso, crumb cake and soft sky.

We both used sentiments from the Wetlands stamp set which is one of those all round stamp sets ideal for male and female cards.

If you'd like to have a go at this technique along with a few friends please contact me and we can fix a date for your party where even beginners can make a card to take away with them and possibly find a new hobby.  Alternatively think about sharing techniques with your friends as a demonstrator and coming to our team shoe box swap.

www.zoetant.stampinup.net gives you more details about joining and my contact info.

More soon. Zx

Christmas Card Club - Stampin' Up! UK Punch Art

Christmas Card Club Penguin

Another fortnight and time for another Christmas Card Club Challenge, set this time by Carol.
The challenge being to incorporate a penguin on your card.  I found this cute little fellow and adapted him slightly to what I had to hand, by googling Stampin' Up! Punch Art Penguin.  This is a great way to find images for punch art and often there are some explanations of punches used.

I've used the Hardwood stamp on my signpost and Happy Hour for my holly.  The decorative dots embossing fold gives a fab snow effect;  you might remember it was a gift during our annual Sale-a-bration promotion, but if you missed it you'll be glad to know it's going back online in our new annual catalogue which goes live on 1 July. If you haven't got your copy yet please contact me to make arrangements to get one.

Colours used above include soft sky, silver, garden green, real red, pumpkin pie, chocolate chip, whisper white and basic black.    The punches are numerous but to name a few circles, mosaic, scallop circles, owl punch and elegant butterfly.  Can you see where they all appear?

Please now visit all the blogs of the other lovely ladies in our Club as they have lots of gorgeous inspiration for you.

Have a great week and back soon with my Father's Day Card.  Can't show today as my Dad will get it on his return from a weekend with friends.

Hugs Zx

Challenges
Crafty Hazelnut's Extra Christmas Challenge - Anything goes