UK Stampers Postcard Swap - January

For this month's postcard swap on UK Stampers, Sam has decided that to celebrate a new year, a clean sheet is called for and so the background needs to be white. I decided to go for an oriental themed CAS card in honour of the Chinese New Year (Year of the Horse) at the end of this month. I used an old favourite stamp from Simple Expressions with a Chinese script background in Adirondack red pepper. As this postcard has to go through the post naked it's a one layer card.

UK Stampers ATC Swap - January

This is the first swap I am participating in this year. The theme for this month's UK Stampers ATC swap is Time. I thought I'd make the main focus of the ATCs something other than clocks but still try and not deviate from the theme too much.
The first ATC uses an old Elusive Images fabric background stamp with Impress cupid pink. I then added some stamps from an old Carolines sheet. I made holes for the cross stitch border and used a button, a bead and a small pocket watch as embellishments.
The second ATC is a Crafty Individuals stamp in Archival teal. I added a bit of colour with coloursoft pencils and raised the bird on foam pads.
The last ATC uses a Katzelkraft clock background stamp with an Art Nouveau image from some wrapping paper coincidently from the now defunct Past Times shop.

Katzelkraft Sale!

Most of you who regularly read my blog will know that I am a big fan of Katzelkraft stamps. For the past 3 years I've managed to complete the 10 Weeks Before Christmas Challenge on the Katzelkraft Forum. I am not affiliated with the company in any way -  I just like their stamps and so I wanted to let you know that at the moment there are discounts of 10-30% on some of these great stamps. You can see all the offers here . As the stamps are unmounted, postage is very reasonable and delivery from France to the UK is pretty fast, you can even pay with PayPal so it is very simple to do. If there's a stamp you've seen me use that you've liked, this would be an ideal time to buy it. The sale is on while stocks last so don't delay.

Calendars

Having taken part in the Craft Barn Calendar Challenge in 2011 and 2012 I have got used to having a monthly calendar on the wall by my desk. In 2013 because of the ongoing Alpha Challenge there was no calendar challenge and I was missing my calendar. Mary Anne who organises the UK Scrappers forum has created some lovely calendar printables on her blog here which can be decorated as you wish. I think they are nice enough to leave as they are so I just matted mine onto coordinating patterned card.

 

Resolutions

I sometimes visit the craft section on the MoneySaving Expert forum and currently we are all trying to set targets of items we have to make using our existing supplies before we can spend on any other craft items. I have failed miserably (I just can't resist a bargain) but am still determined to use some of the things that have been languishing unseen for a long time. One of the suggestions was when using a sticker sheet for a particular project to use up the rest of the sheet straight away and this came to mind the other day when I found a whole sheet of Penny Black Stickeroos. The reason why I bought them is forgotten in the mists of time but having bought them many years ago I had not used a single one. I made a start with one of the stickers and came up with this:

 

It was loosely based on this card . I matted the sticker onto kraft card and used some scraps from a Crafty Individuals paper pad.
Next was this:

 

I matted the sticker on black card and added some Crafty Individuals paper and some punched shapes.

 

Then:

 

matted onto kraft card with a Katzelkraft stamped background.
Lastly this:

 

matted onto black card with a Papermania doily diecut and some Crafty Individuals paper.
I even used the last few bits to make some small tags:

 

although I think the page pebbles were perhaps a step too far. They were found in a ribbon drawer and have become yellow with age which is quite disappointing when you consider that they are a scrapbooking product.
So in the end all that I was left with was this:

 

which is going in the bin!



Katzelkraft S8 C1 - the last one

The last of my cards for the Katzelkraft challenge is week 8's waterfall card. I've never made one of these before from scratch - I've used kits in the past but I thought it would be cheating to use a kit for this. I used the instructions from here and although I've been putting this card off it was surprisingly easy (although the instructions seemed to have an extra piece of card that I didn't need). I used a Hero Arts stamp set for the 4 flowers and coloured them with coloursoft pencils. The embossing folder is secret garden by Papermania. Here are close-ups of the other flowers:

 

 

 

 

I really enjoyed the various tasks in the challenge this year and I would like to thank Christou and Dominike who organised it all. So ... à la prochaine fois mes amies!

Happy New Year - 2014

There's nothing like bringing in the new year in spectacular fashion.