Wednesday Wonderland

And we're off!

The wondrous girls over at Jingle Belles are back for another year of inspiration and merriment complete with a new logo. I think the header alone is enough inspiration to get me going on making those Christmas cards for the end of the year.

I didn't manage to make as many as I would have liked last year and ended up cutting some out with my Cameo - which was great but not the same as making them myself - so I'm determined to keep going with my weekly card creating as much as I can.

Anyway, this first prompt of the year is "No Time Like the Presents" or rather to use recycled gift wrap on our cards.

I came up with these two as a warm up to - hopefully - better cards to come!

I didn't have any wrapping paper itself to use so made good on the bits and pieces I had kept from the Scrapabilly Advent swap gifts.  I repurposed a small sentiment banner and the shiny, gold ribbon for card one and the deer's head was cut from a gold gift tag I just hadn't been able to throw away.

On this card, the tag and die-cut were originally on day 6 of my Advent swap and obviously inspired the tag on card one! The small sentiment was cut out of another of the Advent tags.

Both of these cards are simple and used up elements that were lying around - both from the Advent swap pressies, but also from the mini-card kit I made for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge post back in December.

I'm excited to see what ideas Lauren and Stephanie come up with for us over the next months and hope to play along more often than last year. I need to see that pile of completed cards growing!

Scrapabilly January kit shares (part 2)

Today I'm finishing off the shares I have for you with the January Scrapabilly kit (find it in the shop here).

As a reminder, here's the kit featuring a wide selection of BoBunny "Altitude" collection items.

I made a total of 6 layouts and 2 cards so if you want to see my previous shares, why not click back to Monday's post here.

For the remaining layouts, I added in purple glitter cardboard which came from a New Year's Eve cracker and coincidentally absolutely matched the kit, a small piece of Studio Calico printed vellum, a few gold and silver Thickers and mists.

This bokeh, snowflake paper was too pretty to cut up so I just used the full sheet as the background to this New Year layout #4. A small vellum pocket holds my journalling and I used my BigShot to cut the stars out of the smallest scrap of glitter which I salvaged from the cracker decoration at the dinner table. It matched so perfectly that I couldn't quite believe it!

Ah, there's the gold again! That feels better. Layout #5 again features such gorgeous bokeh, snowflake paper that just cried out to be used whole as my background. I layered up some remaining scraps from the kit and used a piece of vellum to tone it all down a little. The vellum snowflakes seemed a good way to add a little more embellishment without detracting from the background paper and I tucked the journalling round the edge which also acts as a sort of gold border to the whole page.

I think I need to invest in these two Martha Stewart snowflake punches - so perfect in so many ways.

Last up for layout #6, I again decided to use a whole sheet of paper as my background but added a small border of cardstock on two sides just to change things up a bit.

My November subject certainly didn't feature any snow weather but it was cold and crisp so the snow design on the paper isn't so far off! I added in a lot of little bits and pieces to layer things up and use up scraps but tried not to cover up too much of the gorgeous design.
 

So that's it for another month but I've had a sneak peek at February's Scrapabilly kit and you are not going to want to miss it. Another winner for sure.

As always, check out all this month's team creations over at the Scrapabilly gallery here or check out the team members' blogs there in my sidebar.

Thanks for dropping by and do let me know you were here! What do you think of me using snowflake paper for a page whose subject talks about the perfect weather on that day and not a single snowflake to be seen? Too much artistic license perhaps? :-)

Scrapabilly January kit shares (part 1)

I've been busy and it felt great.

The new January Scrapabilly kit (find it in the shop here) features some amazing items from the BoBunny "Altitude" collection (papers, alphas, stickers, buttons, film strip) as well as jewels, a charm, ribbons, veneer snowflakes, a bottle of Stickles, vellum, glitter cardstock and of course, regular cardstock. Phew, that was quite a kit!

Shades of purple are usually not the direction I tend to go but I have to admit, this collection of stunning papers and colours went together so well and worked so perfectly for a whole range of different photos and topics, that I am a lilac convert.

I really went to town with the kit and didn't stop until it was completely used up - 6 layouts and two cards. All that was left was a few tiny scraps of paper and a couple of the embellies.

For today's shares, all I needed to add in to the kit was a little cardstock, some silver thread that I found at my local haberdashery section, mists and a set of silver Thickers to complement the fantastically versatile sticker alphabet in the kit. I decided to create some glittery layouts in shades of silver and although it won't take away my love of gold, it was nice for a change!

For layout #1, it makes me happy to to see such recent photos (27th and 28th December) being put on a layout so soon. This, as I'm sure many of you will know, is not normal for me :-)

Layout #2 features yet another instgram photo steal of my über-gorgeous niece. She always looks like she's modelling for a magazine. My sister has such style.

And of course, how could I resist featuring the ever-gorgeous Pam on layout #3 to record how we stay in touch across the miles.

I stretched the vellum by punching some snowflakes which I scattered across a few of my layouts. I love the dimension and detail they add but in such a subtle way,

The "Altitude" filmstrip was so gorgeous, I really wanted to cut it up and use it on more than one layout but I loved the look of the full width so much, I went with the whole strip being used at once. I really like how working with a kit pushes me to go for what I love rather than trying to "save" the best parts of the kit for later (which we know never comes.)

I was left with a few scraps and some bits and pieces as well as a larger piece of cardstock so I just decided to make two really simple cards to send out for the New Year. There are one or two people I didn't get around to sending Christmas greetings to so these will be really useful for that.

Sorry for the poor photo quality of these last two cards - I was chasing the fading light.

I'll post the remaining three layouts on the blog on Wednesday so do make sure you come back to check out my shares. As always, you can find all the items created with the Scrapabilly January kit over at the Scrapabilly gallery here and the links to the rest of the team's blogs are up there in my sidebar. I'm sure they'd love it if you dropped by to say hello. I'm sure they have some amazing layouts to show you and their card-making is truly inspirational too!

Counterfeit Kit Challenge January kit reveal blog hop

Welcome to 2015!

I'm thrilled to be kicking off this new year with a new Counterfeited kit and am looking forward to getting back into the swing of counterfeiting, kitting and of course, scrapping.

I have the pleasure of being first on the blog hop this month but I've got the full list of hoppers at the end of this post. After you've finished here, you need to hop along to Julene down under who's enjoying the middle of summer while we are freezing up here in the north!

We were given a lovely kit by the Hip Kit Club full of the Amy Tan Stitched collection along with a dash of Heidi Swapp, Pebbles and Evalicious. 

First off, here's the gorgeous original... 

The Hip Kit Club December kit

This was really my kind of kit and I am delighted with the results. So, a new kit for a new year - Welcome!

I commenced by creating a Pinterest board with all the items in the inspiration kit and was pleased to see that I had a few of the Amy Tan items to base my very own kit on. You can find my Pinterest board here. I had a few of the papers and some leftovers from the December Scrapabilly kit. I took all those papers and added in some a birch tree print to match the Heidi Swap September Skies design as well as a cut apart sheet that seemed to feature a few of the same colours as the original and then Lisa'd it up a little by adding in a gold print vellum from Crate and a gold glitter ball paper from Webster's Pages.

The colours in my kit have come out a little more vibrant than the original kit but with all those papers being double sided, I know I'm going to have some great combinations to work with.

The original Hip Kit Club kit had a set of die-cuts and some veneers so I added in the left-overs from the Stitched die-cut pack and mixed in a handful of various veneers I thought might be useful.

Of course, I added in some other things I know I'll use up like the few left-over puffy stickers, some twine and some enamels to match the various colours in the kit. 

Several handfuls of sequins were a must as well as a few sets of alphas - both large and small. This could prove challenging as I don't think that either of the sets of Thickers have and e's left so I'll have to get creative with titles!

The feathers and bows seemed pretty and useful additions to this versatile kit so in they went.

The inspiration kit also featured a pack of Dear Lizzy gold word Thickers so I got my Cameo working for me on some gold foil cardstock and was delighted with the outcome!

Look at all that intricate detail. I can't wait to get these used up and maybe some of them can double up for titles to compensate for my lack of vowels!

So there you have it! A large kit to start the new year with the best of intentions. In fact, before I made up this kit I decided to disassemble all the other remaining kits I had on my shelf and put all those supplies back into my stash. My kit shelf now looks nice and clear and this kit has me itching to get going. I have big plans for this collection of goodies and it might even turn into something bigger so watch this space for that development! But for now, it's New Year, New Start. :-)

It's been lovely to see you here today. Next stop on the hop is Julene and the rest of the hop can be found below. I'd love you to let me know you were here and what you think about my interpretation of that gorgeous inspiration kit!

Lisa: http://lisahausmann.blogspot.com

Julene: http://julenebydesign.blogspot.co.uk

Stephanie: http://skylinepaperie.blogspot.ca

Jemma: http://just-jimjams.blogspot.com

Susanne: http://snapsandsnippets.blogspot.com

Lesley: http://ohblogitifyoucantbeatthem.blogspot.co.uk

Angela: http://colestoucan.blogspot.co.uk

Lynnette: http://www.sassyscrapper2010.blogspot.com

Leslie: http://lcsmithsaved-outofthemire.blogspot.com

Margie: http://scrappinmargie.blogspot.com    

And don't forget that we love it when you join in and share your own Counterfeit kits and creations. The more the merrier! Check out how you can get involved at the end of each of the Counterfeit blog posts - kit reveal, counterfeit tutorials and challenges - and let us know that you want in!