Month: September 2025

Red Poinsettia

Hello everyone. I have a card to share for the new challenge at The Holly & Ivy Christmas Challenge.

I again used the ‘Sketched Poinsettia’ from Waffle Flowers Crafts, but this time I used more traditional bold colours.

I first stamped then gold heat embossed the image, then used the layering stencils to colour it in. This was then die cut with the matching die, and put to one side whilst I thought about the background.

The striped red paper was cut to the size of an A2 card, and I then used some letter press plates from Pinkfresh Studio to hot foil the frame and the inner rectangular piece, cutting them out with the matching dies. This gave some subtle gold highlights to certain places of the die cuts.

The poinsettia was added, and then a hot foiled sentiment on the top. The final touch were some gold gems.

I hope you can come and join us in our challenge, and I look forward to seeing you in our gallery.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Colourful Options – any colour, any theme, any combination

Crafts Galore – anything goes

12 Months Of Christmas Link-up – anything goes Christmas – option of circles & squares not taken

Crafters Café – flowers

Beautiful Blossoms – anything florals

Merry Little Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Love Letters & Hearts

Hello again. The Alphabet Challenge has started a new challenge. Veronika is the host, and as we have reached the letter ‘L’, she has chosen the theme of:

Love Letters and Hearts

Here is my card:

I chose to use a Spellbinders die set for this card and wanted vibrant colours.

The dies set for the main heart and the flowers is called ‘Blooming Heart‘. I used a combination of Spellbinders card stock and Concord & 9th card stock to create the vibrant glowers and leaves, and added them to the dark blue background heart.

For the letters or handwriting part of it, I used a Spellbinders Letterpress plate twice – just moving it along to create the indents in the mustard coloured card stock behind the heart.

The sentiment was created using matt gold card stock, and of course, there had to be some addition of gems.

I hope you can come and join us with your creations following our theme. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Crafters Café – flowers

Ellibelle’s Corner – anything goes

Colourful Options – any colour, any combination, any theme

Crafts Galore – anything goes

Triple B – birds and/or butterflies and/or blooms

Mix It Up – anything goes – option of fancy fold not taken

Hello Friend

Hello everyone. I have just had a week in very warm Tenerife and now I’m, I can get to crafting and posting. The new challenge at Cardz 4 Galz has started. I am hosting this time round, and have chosen the theme of:

‘dies and/or punches’

Here is my card:

I chose to use some dies purchased from Simon Says Stamp, along with some dies from Pinkfresh Studio.

I first created the flowers by die cutting all the elements from the ‘Exotic Blooms’ die set from coloured card, then added some ink blending to the base of each of the floral layers, and then each of the leaf layers. The centre stamens were cut from gold card stock.

The florals were created, then I used the Pinkfresh Studio ‘Notched Corner Frame‘ dies. I first created the frame using a grey card stock, then I used the other layers of the frame to create the notches within the white card panel behind the florals to add a little interest to the background.

The gold foiled sentiment was added as you see.

I hope you can come and join us with your creations following our theme. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Ellibelle’s Corner – anything goes

A Cut Above – anything goes with die cuts

Triple B – birds and/or butterflies and/or blooms

Mix It Up – anything goes – option of fancy fold not taken

Love To Craft – anything goes

A Tree and Stockings

Hello once again. It is time for the new challenge at ABC Christmas Challenge. Helen is hosting this time round, and having reached the letters ‘S‘ and ‘T‘, we have the themes of:

S is for Stockings’ and T is for Tree’

I created a card for each of the themes:

S is for Stockings

This first card was created using dies from The Greetery – the stockings and the foliage. Once these die cut, and the stockings layered together, I created a background white panel using a Spellbinders embossing folder, and added the elements by creating a swag of greenery, hanging the stockings from that swag, then also adding ombre gems.

The sentiments is gold foiled.

T is for Tree

For this second card, I used this fabulously fun die set from A Pocket Full Of Happiness – ‘Happy Rexmas’. There is certainly a lot of die cutting for this image, and I also used an embossing folder on the tree to create the added details – the same embossing folder I used for the background, from Spellbinders.

On the die set, the words came directly from the dinosaur mouth, but I didn’t want to create a larger than A2 card, so I added them above.

I hope you can come and join us by sharing your Christmas creations following one or both of our themes. If it isn’t clear which theme has been followed – then please let us know. There seems to have been a few entries to our challenge which do not match our themes and had to be deleted……

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Die Cut Divas – anything goes with die cuts

A Cut Above – anything goes with die cuts

12 Months Of Christmas Link-Up – anything goes Christmas – option of circles & squares not taken

Merry Little Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Teal Poinsettia

Hello once again. The Holly & Ivy Christmas Challenge has started a new challenge. The theme is always ‘anything goes Christmas’. Here is my card:

To create this card, I used the Waffle Flower Crafts ‘Sketched Poinsettia‘ stamp, die and stencil set. I first gold heat embossed the image with Altenew gold embossing powder, used the matching stencils to ink blend and colour the image in, then used the matching die to cut it out.

I used Pinkfresh Studio inks for the main floarl element.

For the background, I wanted a bold back-drop to the flower, so I used a dark blue card stock, and a Spellbinders embossing folder. This panel was cut slightly down to create a white edge.

The Spellbinders sentiment is gold foiled and die cut.

the elements were added as you see, and some dew drops added around and about.

I hope you can come and join, and I look forward to seeing you in our gallery. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Die Cut Divas – anything goes with die cuts

A Cut Above – anything goes with die cuts

Stencil Fun – use stencils – option of nature taken

Merry Little Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Inlaid Greetings

Hello again. The Alphabet Challenge has reached the letter K, and Helen has chosen the theme of ‘keep it simple’. Here is my card:

To make this card I used a die from ‘A Pocket Full Of Happiness’. This company is now being stocked in one of UK stores, and this die set is one of a few I bought.

I used the die, then with each of the pieces which fell out, I ink blended, and then inlaid them back again. This was actually quite easy when using the Waffle Flower grip mat, and took very little time at all.

I chose to mat the white panel with black, and added to the front of the card base nearer the top, to make way for the sentiment.

The sentiment is also from the same floral die set, again die cut, then the fall-out letters ink blended and inlaid, matted again with a black piece of card.

As you know, this is about as simple as I get – no embossing folder, no gems or jewels…..

I hope you can come and join us in our challenge with your ‘keep it simple; creations. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Lil Patch Of Crafty Friends – anything goes

Everybody Art – anything goes

Addicted To Stamps & More – die cuts and/or stencils

Beautiful Blossoms – flowers – optional mood board

Die Cut Divas – anything goes with die cuts

Stitched Armchair

Hello everyone. It seems the more time I have, the less time I spend crafting…..it seems I have been getting out and about more than usual, so I am glad I manage to keep well ahead in my DT duties.

The new challenge has started at Cardz 4 Galz. Billie A has chosen the theme of ‘stitching – real or faux‘. Here is my card:

I wonder how many of you are like me and have some stitching dies, and yet rarely use them. This challenge theme gave me the opportunity to grab one from Spellbinders and have a go at it.

I first die cut the chair from Kraft card, then stitched with a darker brown thread. I wanted a more vintage look to the chair. I did try a red chair, and a darker brown chair – but once I started to stitch them, I didn’t like it.

The cat is also from the same die set, and die cut very simply from white card stock. This cat has certainly got that nose-in-the-air look, hasn’t it?

This is one colour of cat I have never had. Our first cats were two black brothers, and now we have two old black and white cats, one tabby, and one torty….but never a white cat….

The background panel was created using a Spellbinders embossing folder, the gold frame was die cut from a Pinkfresh die set, and the sentiment is gold foiled.