Exciting News!!!

Today I am showing you my fourth One Sheet Wonder for the Viva La Verve December Challenge. But before that, I have some really exciting news. I am so very excited to join the amazingly talented group of ladies over at the Crafts Galore Encore Challenge design team!!! What's so special about the Crafts Galore Encore challenge is that they embrace all sorts of crafts, not just cards so it will be a great opportunity to maybe get back into some other crafts besides card making again. There are two other very talented ladies who are joining with me in January 2015, so head over to the Crafts Galore Encore page to have a look. You also have a few more days to enter the December Crafts Galore Encore Challenge. The theme is the all-inclusive Anything Goes, so please come and play along with the current challenge if you are doing any sort of crafting in the days between Christmas and New Year. And of course there is a great prize for the winner, 3 digis from Beccy's Place which has the most adorable selection of digis. I'm thrilled to join the DT, and my first creation will be for the January challenge, so stay tuned.

Then on to today's card. It's the last of the four One Sheet Wonders for Viva La Verve. You can find the others here, here and here. I'm also entering That's Crafty Challenges where Anything Goes this week. 

Card: Stampin' Up Crumb Cake

Stamps: Stampin' Up Ornament Keepsakes and matching dies, KaiserCraft Merry Christmas stamp

Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Stampin' Up Chocolate Chip, Tim Holtz Vintage Photo

Paper: Stampin' Up All is Calm DSP

Other: Stampin' Up Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder, All Occasions Snowflakes dies, Stampin' Up Basic pearls

Viva La Verve One Sheet Wonder 3

I hope you all are enjoying a wonderful break, enjoying good company, good food, or whatever else it is you choose to do over the holidays. I was spoiled with too many presents, despite the "no presents" policy, which no-one can abide by, year after year. I got a beautiful silver horse necklace and some dishcloths with piggies on. They are adorable!!! I am stuffed full of good food and will soon move on from my Mum's place to spend a few days with Dad and his side of the family. Then I will meet up with a big bunch of old friends right before we head back home. It has been wonderful to see all my old friends and my family, but I can't wait to get home to my craft room. Two weeks without crafting is very hard. I bet I will not leave my craft room for at least 24 hours when we get home. 

This is what it looks like here right now
(well, about 10 minutes ago)

Today I'm showing you my third Viva La Verve December One Sheet Wonder Challenge. You can see my previous cards here and here. I really love the colour combo of brown, kraft and shades of turquoise. I know I have said it before, and I will say it again and again, but Tim Holtz Vintage Photo is the most amazing brown colour ever. The man is simply a genius. I'm also entering the following challenges in addition to Viva La Verve:
Penny's Paper Crafty Challenge Blog - #208 Anything Goes
Creative Moments - #58 Anything Goes, non-traditional Christmas Colours
Fresh Brewed Designs - Anything Goes Christmas 

I stamped the sentiment inside the card.

Card: Stampin' Up Crumb Cake

Stamps: Stampin' Up Ornament Keepsakes and matching dies, KaiserCraft Merry Christmas stamp

Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Stampin' Up Chocolate Chip, Tim Holtz Vintage Photo

Paper: Stampin' Up All is Calm DSP

Other: Stampin' Up Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder, All Occasions Snowflakes dies, Stampin' Up Basic pearls

Viva La Verve One Sheet Wonder 2

Crafting has taken a back seat for the moment as I'm now back home in Finland for the Christmas. I have a few more Christmas card posts lined up for the next week. It's a bit strange to be so far away from my crafting stuff, and I'm sure I will lock myself into my craft room for 24 hours straight when I get home. But for now I'm focussing on seeing family and friends and enjoying a very relaxing Christmas time.

This is the second of four one sheet wonder sketches over at Viva La Verve for December. You can find my first card here. Very much same theme, same colours and same embellishments. Might give some idea what to expect from the remaining two... But it's almost Christmas so a few quick cards certainly were needed! You can see the from the sketch below that I did exactly what I was told. These cards turned out to be real life savers as I quickly needed a few more cards. 

I'm also entering the card over at Addicted to Stamps where the theme is Snowflakes and Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge where the theme is "Anything that is urgently needed for Christmas" (what a great theme!!).

Card: Stampin' Up Crumb Cake

Stamps: Stampin' Up Ornament Keepsakes and matching dies, KaiserCraft Merry Christmas stamp

Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Stampin' Up Chocolate Chip, Tim Holtz Vintage Photo

Paper: Stampin' Up All is Calm DSP

Other: Stampin' Up Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder, All Occasions Snowflakes dies, Stampin' Up Basic pearls

Viva La Verve one sheet wonder 1

The challenge over at Viva La Verve for the month of December is to make four cards from one 6x6 in sheet of DSP. There is a nice diagram on how to cut the DSP and four sketches, one for each week. I loved the neutral colour scheme in the DT sample, so I decided to go with something similar. I chose to use the Stampin' Up All is Calm DSP along with heat embossed christmas ornaments. This is my first card out of the four. I'm also linking up over at Crafty Creations Challenges where the theme is embossing and at Christmas Card Challenges where there is a colour inspiration in hues of green, brown and grey. 

I embossed the background cardstock and inked the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink. I cut out the pieces from the DSP and inked the edges of each piece using the same ink. I stamped the christmas ornament in Versamark and heat embossed using copper embossing powder. I die cut the ornament and inked the edges. Last, I die cut and inked a snowflake, and added some pearls. I stamped the greeting on the inside of the card as I couldn't find a good way to incorporate a sentiment on the front of the card. 

Card: Stampin' Up Crumb Cake

Stamps: Stampin' Up Ornament Keepsakes and matching dies, KaiserCraft Merry Christmas stamp

Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Stampin' Up Chocolate Chip, Tim Holtz Vintage Photo

Paper: Stampin' Up All is Calm DSP

Other: Stampin' Up Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder, All Occasions Snowflakes dies, Stampin' Up Basic pearls

Christmas Ornaments

This is a quick card inspired by this week's Freshly Made Sketch and Colour Throwdown colours. I'm also joining the Christmas Card Challenge where Anything Goes. I think I have more than enough Christmas cards by now, so I'm hoping I can move on to non-Christmas themes again soon. And it's only two more weeks until I go back home for a long visit over Christmas, which will mean no crafting and probably a bit of a quiet time here on the blog. But it's good to take a step back from time to time and re-charge the mojo batteries. And there is still two dreadful weeks of work to get through before that. Like a whole day meeting in London today, making it really late before I get back home, hence unlikely to find any crafting time... Sigh! Oh well, less moaning and more crafting!

Card: Stampin' Up Whisper White, Real Red and Crumb Cake

Stamps: Stampin' Up Ornament Keepsakes, Papermania 12 Days of Christmas Word Banner

Ink: Stampin' Up Pool Party, Real Red, Crumb Cake

Paper: Stampin' Up All is Calm

Other: silver ribbon from my stash

Christmas baubles

This is one of my designs for a Christmas card I have been mass producing. I think the key is a simple design so it doesn't get too tedious when you are on your 20th card, but at the same time there should be enough on the card not to make it boring. The Christmas Bauble has a matching die, so die cutting them was a joy compared to last years fussy cutting marathon (as I didn't have my lovely Big Shot last year). I'm being very frugal and using up some leftover papers from last year instead of buying new ones. I love buying new crafting stash, but at some point you also need to focus on using up your old ones and as currently due to some life events my crafting budget is a bit strained, I have a good excuse to focus on decimating those piles of stashed up paper.

I am entering my card into the Completely Christmas challenge where anything goes. I am also entering the Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge where the theme is R, E or D. I have R for Ribbon, R for Red, E for Embossing (of the heat kind...), D for Die Cut. That should be plenty! The Holly Jolly Christmas blog is also on the lookout for new DT members, so if you like making Christmas cards all year round, maybe that would be something you would be interested in?

Card: Coloured kraft 240 gsm card Ruby Red, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card

Paper: Dovecraft Back to Basic Christmas Designer Paper Pack

Stamps: Stampin' Up Ornament Keepsakes, Papermania Urban Stamps 12 Days of Christmas Word Banner  

Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Stampin' Up Real Red

Other: Papermania Tinsel Silver embossing powder, Stampin' Up Holiday Keepsakes dies, cream ribbon from my stash, red bows from my stash

J is for Jingle Bells

Not long to go to Christmas! Well, I know it's a while still, but I had promised myself I would keep making Christmas cards through the year but of course I haven't... So last night I did put together two simple but elegant christmas cards using the Stampin' Up Ornament Keepsakes dies and some Christmas paper. I also stamped a greeting inside the card. I really love the Sentiments in the 12 Days of Christmas - Word Banners stamp set, they make a really pretty greeting. 

I like this card idea as it's really quick, so I may just put together my Christmas cards for work colleagues in this way. Last year I chose a much too complicated setup for the work cards, and was struggling to get them all done. Not going to make that mistake this year again!

My inspiration was this week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where the theme is J. And for me J is for Jingle Bells. I also made another card with the same idea but a different sentiment. I really like these letter challenges, it's so much fun to look at the gallery and try to guess what the J is for each card. I'm also entering the card in the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where everything goes this week. 

Card: Craft UK 300 gsm kraft card, coloured 240 gsm craft card in Ruby Red, Dovecraft 110 gsm premium vellum
Paper: Dovecraft Back to Basics Christmas Designer Paper Pack
Ink: Tsukineko Versamark
Stamps: Dovecraft Clear S'Jingle TTS, Papermani Urban Stamps 12 Days of Christmas Word Banner (for the inside of the card and the card with vellum), gold and red embossing powder from my stash (which are so old they don't have the label left on them anymore), Stampin' Up Ornament Keepsakes dies