Round In Circles

Hello Craft Friends!

Have you seen the new additions to STAMPlorations' Digital Store? They got some really cute new printables suitable for easy and quick last minute Christmas makes. I've put some of them through their paces.

Here are my makes using the Black & White Christmas 1 inch circles and Nativity Tags/Labels/Journaling Spots ...

I really love the cute little circles from the B&W Christmas set. There are 30 of them on one A4 page. I grabbed a 1-inch circle punch and off I went ...

First up are a few last minute tree decorations for which I used gold mirri card, black pearls, glossy accents, gems, golden bells and wire. Twine would do too, but I didn't have any fine gold one in my stash. The colours were chosen to fit with our Christmas Tree colour scheme of black artificial tree (a real tree, as much as I love them, is far too big for our small lounge) with red and golden decorations.

The decorations are two sided and layered sandwiching the wire between layers.

Next up is a Christmas card using 3 of the circles in combination with the Merry Christmas Word Art Die and a little help from the Art Marks stamp set. I arranged them in a Christmas Tree shape and finished off with a confetti star and sequins.

Whilst making the first card, I had one of those 'I wonder, if' moments which led to making my second card. I used the grungy circles from the Art Marks set to stamp out my tree shape. The large ones were used to frame the images and the small ones filled in the gaps. I added some more stamped colour using one of the splatter stamps from the same set and a little pencil colouring to my images using my metallic pencils. To finish, I stamped my sentiment and added a few embellishments.

Next up is a card and envelope combination giving you a couple of ideas on how to use the Nativity Tags/Labels/Journaling Spots.

The envelope features a collage stamped background using the Joyful set with stars from Art Marks. I simply doodled a grungy border for my label to finish.

The card has a stencilled background and a bit of background stamping. The label was layered on matching red card. To finish, I added the fuzzy cut nativity scene, a few gems and a sentiment from the Kathryn & Christmas set.

As you can see, this card/envelope combination is for my friend Dianne. Dianne has been busy knitting herself a little nativity scene this year. Her work looks rather similar to the one from the label.

I shall leave you with a few close-ups.

That's it from me for today. Hope, you feel inspired to get some last minute Christmas crafting done. I am sure you can think of may more uses for these cute new printables.

Looking forward to seeing your makes. Have a lovely day!

hugs
Monika xxx


here is what I used from the ...

- STAMPlorations Digital Store
Black & White Christmas 1 inch circles, Nativity Tags, Labels, Journaling Spots
 

- STAMPlorations Shop
Joyful, Art Marks, Kathryn & Christmas, Joy
   

Merry Christmas Word Art Die, Oh, My Stars! Mini Stencil
 

Play Time

Hi Friends!

With Christmas cards all done, written and posted, it was time to play a little with my new Uniko Stamps.
Here is what I made ...

I stamped on Centura Pearl card with a bit of heat embossing with my sentiment and image being roughly arranged in a Christmas Tree shape.

My card will be entered at:
Craft Stamper Take It Make It - Anything Goes, must use stamps
Uniko Challenge #56 - Christmas, optional twist Tree


Day Of The Month Card Club Challenge - Poinsettia Day (thanks for the encouragement, Cornelia)

Time Out Challenge - Merry & Cheerful

Keeping it Short and sweet. Back later with more festive makes.

hugs
Monika xxx

here is what I used:
Season Of Beauty, Festive Sentiments - Uniko
Fire Coral, Red Brick, Smoked Paprika, Evergreen Prism inks - Hunkydory Crafts
Miel Izink ink - Craft Stash
Daffodil Delight ink - Stampin'Up!
white Centura Pearl card - Crafter's Companion
siver tinsel embossing powder, Versamark ink - my stash

TMR 11th December - A Box Or Bag

Hello Crafty Friends!

It is Wednesday and time for a new challenger over at The Male Room challenge blog where the bi-weekly challenge is all about making projects for the men in our lives. Our guest designer for the next fortnight is Andreja, you can check out her fabulous creations on here on Andreja's blog.

My DT project for the new challenge is a little gift bag ...

Each challenge, of course, has a different theme. As you can see, the theme for challenge #126 is A Box Or Bag. Lots of scope there!

#126 A Box Or Bag

This will be my last challenge as a TMR DT member as I am stepping down to focus on other things in life. I really enjoyed being part of this amazing team and creating masculine projects for your inspiration.

In the run up to Christmas I wanted to keep things easy and made a simple bag from a 6" x 6" piece of paper. To finish I simply added a tag and little sentiment strip. I thought it would be fun to use a little peg instead of ribbon to 'tie' everything together. The vintage-y colours in combination with the peg give my little bag its masculine feel. What do you think?

Fancy creating something for a male person in your life, pop over to The Male Room for more inspiration and to link up your masculine makes.

That's it from me for now, back later with more festive makes ...
Have a lovely day!
hugs
Monika xxx

Quick Tags

Hello Crafty Friends!

It's Tuesday and this means it's Inspiration Time over at STAMPlorations. Remember the tags from my last Spotlight Project here? Well I finished them for today's post.

Here they are ...

The tags are on a ready printable sheet in PDF format and fit with the Stitched Tags Nesting Dies.

TIP!: Our A4 format in the UK is slightly different from the page size of the PDF. I simply make sure that the Fit To Size option is un-ticked before printing. That way the original formatting of the PDF file is retained and the images still fit with the appropriate size nesting die.

I simply added some colourfully embossed sentiments and ribbon.

The cups from the Holiday Lattes set make lovely tags too, they need re-sizing first. For those who've never used digi stamps before, I got a little screenshot tutorial at the end of my post using Google Docs. No need to have special photo editing software.

Again, I am keeping it short and sweet today. Pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog to check out the fabulous projects my teamies made.

That's it from me for now. Have a lovely day!
hugs
Monika xxx


Here is what I used form the ...

- STAMPlorations Shop:
Christmas Elf, Christmas Reindeer, Christmas Cookies & Cheer, Stitched Tags Nesting Dies
   

- STAMPlorations Digital Store:
Holiday Lattes Digi Stamps

Here is my little step-by-step:

I like making 'master pages' with a few images on using the rulers at the top and the side to judge the image size, see the pink arrows. If I want multiple of the same image, I simply copy and paste the adjusted image until I got as many as I like to have.

I am using Google Docs on my Chromebook which is very similar to Word on Windows.

First I open a new document and set the margins to 1 cm. I then use the insert image option to get my digis on the page.

To start with they are rather large, and I use one of the corner points to resize them. Simply point your mouse on one of the points and it will turn into a double pointed diagonal arrow. Click, hold and move towards the middle ...

... until you reached the desired size. You are now ready to copy and paste your image multiple times. This way you always have the right size image to cut masks from, if needed. Enjoy!

Giving you a little heads up on STAMPlorations latest promotion ...
Take advantage of their last sale of the year. Get 25% off nearly all products in the store*.

Christmas Collage

Hello Crafty Friends!

I recently stamped some collage backgrounds for cards I made for my Spotlight Project here on the STAMPlorations Blog. I didn't use my original trial ones at the time, because I didn't like the way they looked with the images I intended to use. Today I turned them into small square cards instead.

Here they are ...

Just giving you a little heads up, STAMPlorations are their last sale of the year and there are still a few days left to bag yourself a bargain, for details feel free to check out the graphic at the end of my post.
You can check out all of STAMPlorations' current promotions here.

Keeping it short and sweet ...
That's it from me for now. Have a lovely day!
hugs
Monika xxx

here is what I used from the

- STAMPlorations Shop:

Joyful, Merry Christmas Word Art Die
 

this is the graphic for STAMPlorations current sale

Using Left-Overs

Hello Crafty Friends!

It's Tuesday and this means it's Inspiration Time over at STAMPlorations. For today's project I am sharing a couple of cards made from the bits I had left over after my last Spotlight Project here.

Here are today's cards ...

I used the Layered Petals stencil to sponge my background for the strip of white card I had cut the skinny sentiments from.

My next card uses the stencil print from my first card.I simply added the pink panel from which I had cut the shadow layer of my sentiment. I felt it need a bit more definition hence I added the skinny sentiment too.

You could of course always add some embellishments, I am a bit od a plain girl and rather liked them the way they are,

Just giving you a little heads up, STAMPlorations are their last sale of the year and there are still a few days left to bag yourself a bargain, for details feel free to check out the graphic at the end of my post.
You can check out all of STAMPlorations' current promotions here.

Again, I am keeping it short and sweet today. Pop over to the STAMPlorations Blog to check out the fabulous projects my teamies made.

That's it from me for now. Have a lovely day!
hugs
Monika xxx

here is what I used from the STAMPlorations Shop:

Skinny Sentiments, Basic A2 Panels Nesting Dies, Layered Petals Stencil
  

this is the graphic for STAMPlorations current sale