Christmas Cards

I have been busy making Christmas cards the last week for family and friends. Here is a selection of some of my cards:

Christmas Gift

I am participating in a swap on CCSwaps were we are exchanging Christmas gifts. I made several items but just was not completely happy with them. Today I received a newsletter from Stampington and Company and they featured a little bird made using a small chipboard box with a clear lid. This inspired me to try something similar.

Of course I have no little boxes like that so had to improvise as usual!!! I had a small circular tin from some hand cream so decided to use the lid as the body. I covered it with moulding paste using an old plastic doily as a stencil to give it some texture. After it dried I sprayed it with Memories and Tattered Angels spray then added some Posh Impressions metallic ink in the same color family.

I took an embellishment that I bought at the dollar store and added a pearl to the centre and some little gems around the perimeter. Glued this to the body then attached the little letters to spell out "Fly".

For the head I printed off a bird picture, adhered it to some 130LB cardstock, cut it out and then covered it with some modge podge.

The wings were cut out of some silver embossing metal. I covered them with some Pinata`inks, then stamped a Magenta stamp on them. With my metal stylus I embossed the stamped portion. I felt it was too monochromatic and removed some of the red & orange, and added some yellow alcohol ink.

The legs are some coloured wire that I twisted to make feet. I covered the back with some cardstock to hide all the bits and pieces and attached a piece of ribbon as a hanger.

I think it might be a bit quirky for some people and am hoping the Debra will like it.

Flutterbyes (AKA Butterflies)

I am participating in another swap in the DCI group where we are creating butterflies for each participant. The only one who specified a colour choice was Lynne who wanted shades of purple.

I had no idea what I was going to do for this swap, but when cleaning up my craft room I came across my Gallery window paints and decided to use them.

I started by stamping and embossing a large butterfly (by Embossing Arts) on a piece of embossable window plastic. I did not want to do all of them in the same colour so chose a few different colour combos. I found that I had to do at least 3 coats of the gallery glass to make them more intense.

On the purple one I used iridescent violet on a portion which did not show up very well, so I got out my Ranger adirondack acrylics in Wild Plum and painted it on. This did not appeal to me, so I then sprinkled some fine light lilac glitter over the top.

On the blue one I had the same problem as the light blue glass paint did not show up well, so I used dimensional paint on it and sprinkled it with blue glitter. The green one was the same, (light blue) not showing up, so on that one I painted over it with some DecoArt metal/glass paint and then added crystal lacquer over the top. The remaining ones are fine as the colours were more intense, so I will leave them as is. These look much better "in person" than on the computer as the detail does not show well in the picture.

Mini Memory for Tracey

Tracey is the recipient of the DCI mini-memory for December and her colour choice was cream, gold and brown; no larger than 5" and any shape. Like some of the previous ones it went through some transformations.


I initially started out by making a clay rose and placing it on a coaster that was painted brown, embossed and stamped into with gold pigment ink while hot. I added some hearts and the clay flower. Attached this to a piece of cream paper with stamping and the heads of push pins around it. Not entirely happy with that and was concerned about it making it's way to Australia in one piece.

So I went back to the "drawing board" and started all over again. I kept the coaster and added some gold seed beads to it for more dimension. I then stamped and embossed a butterfly on 130 LB cardstock with gold embossing powder and coloured the open areas with a brown marker; added Crystal Lacquer to the coloured parts. I have a bunch of chipboard frames in my stash, so I took one of the white ones and painted it with cream acrylic paint and stamped a script stamp over it with Memories Artprint brown ink and attached it to the CD.

I printed a freebie image of a little girl from Elizabeth's blog and attached it to some cardstock to make it sturdier, then put it inside the frame. I attached the butterfly with some double-sided thick foam tape at the bottom, then glued one of the hearts over it with a bail underneath. I cut another bail in half and attached it to either side of the picture frame.

Inchie frame completed

I received the rest of my inchies the other day via Carol, who met up with some of the gals from OZ who passed them on to her.

I was in a creative mood today so I decided to finish up a couple of ATC's and work on my frame.

The frame is painted with gesso and blue acrylic paint, then sprayed with Tattered Angels glimmer mist. Unfortunately the "glimmer" does not show in the picture. After it dried I stamped my favourite corner flourish by Inkadinkadoo with Colorbox Goldrush pigment ink and embossed with gold embossing powder.

I colored the flourish piece at the top with purple acrylic paint then painted it again with
US Artquest Mica watercolour paints. Added a sun charm and a couple of gems to finish it off.

I then completed the other two inchies and the centre panel. The centre is done with Breezy Blue embossing powder as the base then sprinkled with purple and gold E.P., heated then stamped into it with a large background stamp. I then rubbed some metallic rub-ons over the top. The embellishment is an old button that I had in my button box.
The inchies are (top left-clockwise) Trizzy, Autumn, Carol, Me, Mel, Linda B, Me, Vicki, Chris, Rhonda, Lynne and Tracy. I am so thrilled to be the owner of these beautiful miniature pieces of art and to finally have them all in the frame.

Mini Memory for Carol S

Carol S chose a floral/nature theme for her mini memory and the colour choice was left up to the artist.

Now there are two things I know for sure about Carol; she loves her Cuttlebug and butterflies as she uses them a lot in her art. So that narrowed down my choice of items to use for her mini memory.

Carol did not want anything larger than 5X5 square or rectangle. I have some Magenta chipboard frames that were the perfect size. I took some handmade background paper and ran it through the Cuttlebug, then attached it to the frame. I then touched up the raised pieces with some green rub n buff.

I took a chipboard swirl and embossed it with some purple and green embossing powders then stamped into it while it was hot, and attached it in the corner. I added some polymer leaves that I punched out of green card stock and added some veins with my stylus. On top of this I glued a flower that I had from one of nieces' wedding.

I took some chipboard letters and embossed them with purple embossing powder and glued them to the frame to spell "nature". I then stamped and embossed some butterflies on vellum, and added them to the frame in a 3-d effect to make them look like they are flying.



After making this piece I discovered that the butterflies would not stay in place, likely because it is so dry here. So I revised it. I added a shrink plastic butterfly which I had saved from a card I received a couple of years ago made by Trish L. (hope she does not mind that I recycled it). I also added a few beads at the bottom.

Inchie swap

I have signed up for a swap on the Dream, Create Inspire group where we are using a frame from Blumoth Crafts. Eleven people joined the swap, and we create the inchies using a colour scheme and and in some cases a theme chosen by each person. We have two inchies, the centre and the frame to complete our own when we receive our inchies in the swap. I have decided to wait until I receive my inchies before completing the frame.

I coated the inchies with gesso then used Acrylic paints, Metallic Paints, Lumiere paints, Perfect Pearls, Pearlex, and some of my stamps and stamping supplies such as Smooch inks, and pigment inks to do the bases. On some I used molding paste, others I used papers and even some netting type paper.

The embellishments are scrapbooking pieces, old buttons, old pieces of jewellery, brads and other "doodads".

I am really looking forward to seeing all the tiny works of art that everyone makes and the completed frames.