Fun Fold Friday - Joyful Holly

 Welcome back for this fun fold Friday.  The sun is shining but it's bitterly cold here today so I'm glad that I'm here indoors trying to warm myself up! Though saying that, my daughter in law says that she's warm! Figure that one out!! 😀😕 I must say that she is chasing my nearly 9 month old grand son Theo around! So I guess she may well be very warm! He's very active now, he stands and wants to be walked all of the time. If he's not walking, he's either crawling around at great speed, playing with the dog's water bowl or chasing the dogs! The dogs both love him too thankfully. He throws the ball for them and they nudge it back to him to do it again.                  

Anyway, back to my card for today. It is a very simple fold. I know that I say that a lot but it honestly is. I cut a piece of card at 14.85cm by the full length of a piece of A4 card, which in the UK is 29.7cm. I have again used the lovely Joyful Holly stamp set. At the beginning of this week I said that it wasn't for me but I have now changed my mind and will be making lots more holly based cards for this Christmas and other occasions too. More information on the stamps HERE

I scored and folded it at 9.9cm and the last part at 4.8cm so that the 2 edges of the card meet each other. Very simple! Yes it is a gatefold card but a slightly irregular one. I started with a Thick white card base and used Real Red mats for the front panels. I embossed them using the embossing folder called Brick and Mortar. I love the finish it gives on the card. I then stamped the image of Santa onto a white mat and coloured him in using the Stampin' Up blends pens. Once finished I die cut the image mat and some white frames using the same die set and made a frame to go on top. I added Foam Adhesive strips along the border of the frame where I had fixed a piece of acetate to. I sprinkled several pinches of Peaceful Poppies sequins from last years catalogue onto the Santa image and squished them all into the centre then adhered the frame over both the sequins and the image. 

On a separate piece of white card, I stamped and coloured in the Holly sprigs and again fussy cut them out. Using Dimensionals (foam shapes) I added them to the card. A couple of messages and some more holly on the inside and the card is complete. 

As I said earlier, a very simple, fun folded card today. 

That's it from me for this week, Cary will return on Monday to show you some of her creations. I hope you'll join her and see what she's been up to. 

Meanwhile, have a good weekend, take care, stay safe and keep well. Gill xxxxx 😘😍😘 

Throwback Thursday - Joyful Holly

 Today I decided to make a shaker card. Well, it didn't happen as I changed my mind half way through! After all, it is a woman's right to change her mind isn't it? Teehee! I started with some double sided papers from the Feels Like Frost papers which have carried over from last year thankfully. After I added the paper to the front of the card base, I first stamped and coloured the holly sprigs across the front to make it look like an arch. I then die cut the aperture using the Snow Globe dies which were also carried over from last year too. I added a few little embellishments from the All the Trimmings pack of coloured stars and dots. 

Stamping a deer on the inside mat and a fox on a scrap of card, I coloured them both in using Blends permanent marker pens. It should have been another easy card but because I kept changing my mind, It took me most of the afternoon! That will teach me to leave things well alone!

Watercolour Wednesday - Joyful Holly

 Hello, today's card I have had immense fun making! For a change I thought I would broaden my experiences in watercolouring. I have looked at lots of videos online and discovered the watercolouring  technique using salt and dropping other colours onto the wet card! Surprisingly though, I stayed clean! 

 I started by taking a piece of watercolour card from Stampin' Up! and spritzed it with lots of water. I inked a large block with Pacific Point, a really lovely strong bright blue. I spritzed the block really well too and then added it onto the wet card. Sliding it across the card to cover the whole piece, I left it for a few seconds to absorb all of the ink really well. Once the block came off, I added some table salt to the card, literally spraying the salt all over it. While it was still wet, I dropped 2 drops of re-inker in Yellow, Pink and Green onto a block, (also called Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo and Bermuda Bay). I added a few drops of water to each colour and just dropped each colour randomly over the mat using my watercolour brush. I then went and made a cup of tea while it dried a bit.

On my return, I stamped the Holly sprig onto a piece of white card using Memento Black ink pad and then stamped the leaves with the most gorgeous green called Granny Apple Green. I took another piece of watercolour card and repeated the wetting process and another block stamped Granny Apple Green all over it. After spritzing the card and the block with lots of water, I again sprinkled more salt over that piece too. More information on the stamp set used Joyful Holly, HERE

Tea now long gone, I helped the card pieces to dry a little bit more using the Heat gun. The holly was added onto the green mat and the Blue mat, I chopped up! I cut the piece into long, narrow, triangle shaped pieces and then mixed them up. I then started to glue them to a standard card mat which was 10.5cm by 14.85cm. As you can see, I left a little of the white mat showing below the coloured card to accentuate the shapes. Bruno Bertolucci calls it a scrappy card technique. 

 

I cut the blue coloured mat into 2 pieces and added half to each side of the card base. the Holly having been glued to the green mat was then fixed to the centre of the card on one side of the card only. 

2 little messages, some more holly stamped and fussy cut (yes, it has to be done) and then added one to each side of the card to complete. I know it's a very bright Christmas card but I quite like that it's really different and I know to whom I am going to send it too!

 

 

Technique Tuesday

 Today's card is another simple card but this time I added in some heat embossing. On navy blue card I stamped the holly sprig from the Joyful Holly stamp set using Versamark ink pad. Then I used White embossing powder and heat set it. As you can see I wanted a few mats on this card and went crazy with the red, white and navy blue mats. I just love using those colours together, not only do they look fresh but they look classy too! Well, that's what I think! 

More information on the stamp set HERE

As I said, this was a very simple card which once heat embossed, it was just a simple case of cutting each layer down to make another one. A simple message from the same stamp set again put onto a mat, decorated the inside and added another message to complete it.

 

 

 

 

I added some little dots of red card using the 1/8" hand held punch onto the berries to decorate. I love the way it adds a pop of colour over the card.

Tomorrow is Watercolour Wednesday, what can I do for that I wonder??

Make It Monday

#simplestamping 

Hello and welcome back this week. Well, just for a change Cary has once again excelled herself with all of last weeks projects, they are all beautiful. Well done Cary. So it's back to me, I have no idea what's going on with me at the moment as I am so busy with so many things and everything I get involved with seems like it's getting bigger and bigger and doesn't work the way I want it to!  Is it just me or do you sometimes have periods like that too? Crazy isn't it?

Anyway, more important things, today's card is a perfect example of this last few weeks. So far I have made this card 5 times! Why it wouldn't go right I have no idea as it is so very simple, it's crazy! Once I had eventually stamped the images in the right way round!

I have never really liked holly bushes so why I purchased this stamp set, I have no idea but I'm very glad now that I did! The set is called Joyful Holly from Stampin' Up! and it is such a very easy card to make (once I got myself sorted)! I stamped the tip of one of the holly stems onto the white mat several times around the edges and added a little colouring on the berries in red and it's complete. Simple! I stamped it in black ink and with the berries and the messages in red to complete this one. 

 

 

 Well that's my very simple card for today. Please try and make your own simple cards and share them with Cary and I as we would love to see them. 

As a result of this stamp set, I am now much happier about holly trees. Very strange am I not?