Merry Christmas

Wishing you joy, health, love and peace this Christmas day.  May you enjoy good food, good company and good cheer!

 

With love from Glenda, Adrian and Lesley

Through the window (posted by Claire)

Hi there, Claire here with an altered art project combining the beautiful new clear stamps 'Terrific Treescapes' with some of my favourite stamps from Christmas Creatures and Home Sweet Home.

I recently had a Graze Box delivered and as soon as I opened it I thought it would be perfect for making a window scene so these stamps were just perfect to put my idea in to practice.

I began by painting the box with white acrylic paint. I've used lots of masking and coloured the images with promarkers, adding the deep blue sky with chipped sapphire and broken china distress inks. I've added a die cut icicle border along the top of the window:

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Here's a photo of the front of the box, again combining Terrific Treescapes with Christmas Creatures.

I hope you like my little window scene

thanks for popping by today

Claire xx

Snowy Owl Kisses for Whoooooo!

Hello, everyone!  This new set of stamps, just in time to use for Christmas, is just too cute!  I'm getting a head-start on my supply of cards for the holidays!   I was going through a broken plastic cardstock and paper container, when I came across this red and white background paper - perfect for these stamps!  The stamp set is called Christmas Creatures, (shown below) released this month by Chocolate Baroque!  (click on the name, and it will take you directly to the page on the Chocolate Baroque site)  I absolutely love owls, and I am a fan of the Snowy Owl.  I think this little guy is in need of a trip to the hair salon, though!

 

I went out into the backyard, and found a little stick to use as her perch.  I used a branch punch and cut just two sets of the three "toes" from the ends of the branch for Owl's feet.  I cut apart some white turkey feathers from my stash, and glued them in layers over the stamped image.  I found some shiny black rhinestones to use for her eyes.

Below, I wanted to show that the mistletoeflake had gotten stuck in the tree branches, and part of it was dangling down over the owl's head.  Am I overthinking this?  The snowflake is from the Gift of Christmas set, shown below.

 

I love the fact that this little bird even decorated her small plain tree with a beautiful bauble!

Christmas Creatures

The Gift of Christmas stamp set


I hope you've enjoyed your visit, leave with some inspiration, and ordered your new clear stamps!  You can save some money if you order the two sets as a "Multi-Buy"!  Click here to see this offer.

Poinsettia Joy

Hello!  Now, don't you just LOVE these images?  The Poinsettia flowers and the word "Joy" are from one of Chocolate Baroque's new clear stamp sets, called Joyful Christmas being released this month!  The chapel image is from a new clear set released last month, called Christmas Creatures.  That's one of the reasons I love, love, love Chocolate Baroque stamps - they coordinate so well with other stamps they produce!

The chapel image was heat embossed in gold, then colored in with
Stampin' Up and Copic markers.

This card was very easy to make.   It consists of two different styles of image, the shadowed chapel image, and the stylized poinsettia's.  The ribbon is 1" wide burgundy grosgrain.  I hope you've been inspired, and please come back soon for more new and awesome stamps and examples!

Deer at sunset (posted by Elaine)

I love silhouette stamps, so this deer image from the new Christmas Creatures stamp plate was one of the first stamps I had to play with.

I stamped the image in Onyx Black Versafine ink. I masked the image and then used strong Adirondack dye ink colours with my leafy background technique to make the sunset. I then added some transparent glitter to the tree and snow and a couple of amber transparent stars.

I framed the image with gold  and black matts, die cut with arch shaped dies and a gold embossed sentiment.

Thanks for looking and I hope you are enjoying the inspiration from the girls in the design team.

Elaine

Village Gate at Christmas (by Clare)

Hello!  Welcome to Santa's Village Gate!  Come on in! 

These stamps are going to be favorites of mine!  The "gate" is from the Chocolate Baroque Christmas Creatures stamp set, and colored with Copic markers.  I added the stepping stones at the base of the gate.  I found the perfect paper to use in the background, complete with the words to the song, "Oh, Christmas Tree".  I used my sewing machine and added some stitching, a little bit of sheer ribbon and some bling.  The door is brown cardstock run through my die machine with a woodgrain embossing folder.  It just makes me want some snow to go with it, some cookies, and a jolly fat man!  (I have that in my darling husband!)

Tri-fold Pastel Scene (posted by Judith)

Well it seems a little bit strange to be looking ahead to Christmas with the lovely weather that we are having at the moment. However, it is a pleasure to work with the lovely new stamp sets that are now available on the website. My sample uses a large gate stamp from the Christmas Creatures stamp plate, which I have stamped onto a 5" x 7" card. I masked the image, using Eclipse masking tape, and created a background using Pan Pastels. I used a second card the same size, and stamped a house from the New England Winter stamp plate onto the opposite side of this card, so that it would face the first image. I also masked this image, as before, and created a background with Pan Pastels. I then watercoloured both images with Distress markers and a waterbrush, adding more colour to the images directly with the pens for shading, and drawing it out with the waterbrush, until I was happy with the finish.

I cut the aperture out of the centre of the gate, added some gems to the large tree and some glitter to represent some snow.

I added some smaller gems to the tree on the second picture and more glitter.

I had quite a limited colour selection of blue Pan Pastels, so I put white Pan Pastel over my card first, so that the blue did not appear too dark. It gives quite a Wintery feel to the sky as well, I think.

I then trimmed a little piece from the inner edges of each card, and stuck the two cards together.

So now you can see the house through the arch of the gateway. Keep checking back to see the lovely samples that my Design Team mates have made with these stamps over the coming days. Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx

Getting ready for Christmas

I know it's far too early for many people, myself included if I'm honest, but we have just launched two fantastic Christmas stamp sets.  If you are one of the many who make cards for yourself, for charity or school fundraising, or even to sell, then you will be all too aware that you can never start too soon.

I hope these delicious designs give your creativity a boost and get you in the mood for some Christmas crafting.

First up we have Christmas Creatures. When I first revealed this on our weekly chat, there were choruses of "ooh, the owls" from which I infer that owls are as popular as ever!  I've just sent off a lovely card to Craft Stamper magazine featuring stamps from this set, which I hope they will publish this autumn.

Then we have  The Gift of Christmas, a very versatile set - especially the tower of gifts which is deliberately designed to be usable all year round and would work for birthdays and with the right colours you could possibly turn it into a wedding cake rather than a pile of gifts.

And of course, we love to make sure you have the chance of a bargain, so both of these sets are priced at Stamp of the Month introductory prices (for trade too) and there's a super duper multi-buy deal in our Stamp Promotions department.

(All these introductory prices go up on September 1st, so don't miss out.)


The card featured above has been coloured with Copics and Promarkers and sits on one of our printable downloads from the Spirit of Christmas collection.

And talking of Christmas Spirit, here's a flashback to 2007 when we had a bit of fun at one of our open days!

If that doesn't bring a smile to your face, then perhaps our little giveaway will.  Just leave a comment and tell us what the true meaning of Christmas is for you.

PS - it brings a huge smile to my face - that last picture really shows how much weight I've lost - woohoo!