"It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas.....

On every blog you looooooooooook"

If any of my family or friends are reading this, please look away now, as there might be a card that is on here that will be in the post to you shortly!

Every year I choose a theme/style of Christmas card that I am going to send to my family and friends.
Earlier this year I bought some waterfall cards in Christmas colours.
They were LOTS of fun to make and really easier too! So much so, I will probably have a go at make my own in the future.

I have already decided what next year's Christmas cards theme/style will be too, so I will start work on then in January, as I hope to have more time to craft and to be able to join in with more blogs and challenges!

As always, click on the images to enlarge and view in further detail.

The first four cards.

And the final 4 cards! I guess I am lucky that I don't have make 20 or 30 cards lol As I choose to only send hand made ones to close family and friends. Plus I have 8 green and 8 white waterfall cards left over for another year ;)

A close up of one of the cards.

A side view with the waterfall effect in place.

And again from a different angle.


Whilst we are on the subject of cards, here are the ones my son made for family and friends also. These were bought as kits. The funny thing is, you see the green ones? Well today we received a Christmas card from my Aunt, and it is from the same kit LOL But in red! What are the odds of that?

William's cards. He made 5 of each design, though he did mess 1 of each up as he put the stuff on upside down lol

I am going to leave it there for now, I have some other stuff to show but will post them in a new post as I don't want to clutter this post up too much!


Recipe for Waterfall Cards:

• Kit from local store
• Mini Christmas stamps from 2 different sets and both from different places
• Gel pens
• Glitter Pen
  
• ProMarkers
• Pieces of scrap card
• Red stock paper
• Designer paper is 'Tis the Season' by Dove Craft
• Double sided tape
• Gold Snowflake Outline Stickers
• Gold Border Sticker
  
• Black Ink
  

2 New Cards

Finally after not being able to access blogger for several hours (blogger's fault, not mine!), here are a couple of cards I finished making yesterday.
As always, click to enlarge :)

Both are Jolly Nation kits.
The female one is for my Mum and the male one is for my Step-Dad, when their birthdays come around that is ;)

You can probably just make out that they are découpage kits.
I also felt that the female was lacking a little something, so I dug out my newly acquired Smirk fibres pack, knowing I had seen something that could add that little something. So I wrapped this pink fluffy boa type around her and adhered a little glue to her hand to hold it wrapped in place around her wrist.

Sorry about the glare :(

The kits came with an A4 sheet of backing paper, so there was loads left over, which I decorated the insides with, along with a piece of scrap card left over from the découpage kit which I inked on the blank sides and adhered with Anita's Tacky Glue.

I also had enough left over to entirely cover the front of the envelope and there was enough scrap pieces left to cut out and apply to the back too, also there was quite a big ink mark on the female envelope that I needed to cover ;)
I forgot to take a pic of the backs so I will do that later and edit it in here ;)

I have also altered a notebook I recently purchased for taking notes in when I go visit my family next week, as I am currently researching the family tree :)
I will post pics later as it is still not 100% finished!


Recipe for both cards:

• Plain white card, pre-folded with matching envelope from a local craft store.
• Jolly Nation Kits both from madaboutcards.co.uk; Movie Star Man and Movie Star Lady (which I couldn't find again when I went to get the link, I'm sure it will be available again soon)
• Pink 'Boa' from Naughty but Nice Smirk Embellishment Tote from madaboutcards.co.uk
• 'Especially for You' and 'Happy Birthday' Tags from a Daisy & Dandelion collection from madaboutcards.co.uk
• Anita's Tacky Glue from madaboutcards.co.uk
• Scrap Card for the inside
• Scrap Paper for the tag ont he front of the envelope
• Whispers Inks Used: Port Wine (female card), Straw Mat and Whisper Vanilla (male card)
• 3D Foam Pads
  

Freebie Cross-Stitching Kits Part IV

Here are the last of my completed free cross-stitching kits that I got from magazines, along with a picture of all the unfinished free kits that I have.

All our Yesterdays Little Girl

All our Yesterdays Christmas Tree

And my favourite, Bluebell from the Flower Fairies collection. I absolutely love faeries, especially Cicely Mary Barker's Flower Fairies!

And lastly, my stack of unopened freebies. There are about 30 or so here. One of these days I will get around to finishing them lol


Recipe:

• Double sided sticky tape to attach the aida to the frames.
  
  

Sources:

• All our Yesterdays Little Girl - Free with Cross Stitch Crazy Issue #? (Month & Year Unknown)
• All our Yesterdays Christmas Tree - Free with Cross Stitch Crazy Issue #? (Month & Year Unknown)
• Bluebell - Free with ? Issue #? (Month & Year Unknown)

Coming up next, a few of the larger projects I have worked on in the past. Unfortunatly they all lay unfinished LOL But first I will post the remainder of my old cards.

Freebie Cross-Stitching Kits Part III

So I just have 6 more mini kits that were free with magazines to show you, and as blogger will only let me add 5 at a time, I will post 3 in this post and 3 in the next post.

As always, click on the images to view them fully.

Kipper

Strawberry Shortcake

And the ever so cute Tom Mouse


Recipe:

• Double sided sticky tape to attach the aida to the frames.

Sources:

• Kipper - Free with Cross Stitch Crazy Issue #? (Month & Year Unknown)
• Strawberry Shortcake - Free with Cross Stitch Crazy Issue #72 (May 2005)
• Tom Mouse - Free with Cross Stitch Crazy Issue #? (Month & Year Unknown)

The other three will be posted right after this one, along with a nice little piccie of all my unfinished free kits :)

Freebie Cross-Stitching Kits Part I

My love of crafting seriously, began a few years ago, with Cross-Stitching.
Like most newbies to the art, I started with the free kits that came with magazines, (which I no longer buy), though they were free, I really enjoyed stitching them and liked how they turned out.

I did quite a few and collected more freebies than I dare to say, but anyways, here are the first five. More will be posted later, along with a piccie of all my unfinished and unopened kits lol

So let me start at the beginning, (you might want to click on them to view them properly, as blogger failed to upload them as small versions lol and the pics get cut off cussa the template);

Cinderella, the very first cross-stitch I did.

Staying with the Disney theme, here we have one of the 101 Dalmations. I enjoyed doing this one, simply because it didn't have too much complicated details and very little to stitch really lol

Again, staying with the Disney theme, here we have Bambi, this is one of my favourites because Bambi was the very first film I saw at the pictures (cinema). I think I was about 7 years old when my Mum took me. Obviously not the original black and white, as I am too young for that lol, but the re-released version in the 80's!

That's it for now, coming up will be more cards, then some Pooh related Cross-Stitching :)

Recipe:

• Double sided sticky tape to attach the aida to the frames.

Sources:

• Cinderella - Free with Quick&Easy CrossStitch Issue #? (Month & 2004/5?)
• 101 Dalmation - Free with Cross Stitch Crazy Issue #? (Month & 2004/5?)
• Bambi - Free with Quick&Easy CrossStitch Issue #? (July/July 2004/5?)