My last Christmas card

Here it is my last card for this year and of course it is for my dear hubbie. I had great fun making it at my sister's yesterday - good isn't it when you can go visiting and get stuck in creating and making something.

It is an 8 x 8 card. The stamp is Kanban, which I painted with distress inks and vintage mica paints. I stamped the image twice and decoupaged the bird and berries to give them some 'lift'.

I foiled the edge of the card and the backing paper and also added a few bits to the image itself. The letters for his name were embossed die-cut in gold mirri card and I added alcohol inks over it.

The backing paper (source unknown) not only had the holly on but recipes too, which is perfect for Ken as he is the cook in the house (aren't I the lucky one?)

I hope he will like it. Just got to buy a couple more bits and finish wrapping, then I am there. 

Enjoy the last few days getting ready. The weekend will be upon us before we know it.

Take care.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

My News

OK I think it is safe to give you my news now seeing as my name is now listed as a new team member for

the 

PanPastel Uk Challenge Blog 

Yay.  I shall be staying with Fashionable Stamping Challenges and  The Stamp Man and have taken a sabbatical from Divas by Design for a while whilst I am still working.


Those of you who know me have seen my experiments with PanPastels and know I love working with them, so this is going to be a real pleasure for me. My thanks to Berni, Kerry and Pete for taking me on board with three other new members, including my buddies Gillian and Claire, so I am in excellent company along with Eileen, Lindsay and Linda. What a great early Christmas present.


I hope I will see you over at the challenges for PanPastels UK, you can use any medium for your entry it isn't just for using the PP product, but you could win some if you are the lucky winner any week. The new challenges start January 15th, so keep an eye open for them.


luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

PanPastels Gift Tags

Update Sunday night - I wrote this blog Friday night, ready to photograph my tags and get this up Saturday morning to enter the PP challenge . As you can see I missed it - I just got tied up in Christmassy bits and getting ready for guests Friday night. Oh well never mind. I have had some good news today , but can't share it with you just yet - hopefully soon.

Well I have broken up for the Christmas holidays and school is closed until the 3rd January so now I can get myself organised for the festive season at home and have a bit of crafty fun.

I have so missed both creating and making and visiting all you wonderful blogging buddies, so hopefully you will see me around a little bit for the next 2 weeks or so.

I had a little play with my PanPastels and tags as the challenge at the PanPastel blog last week was gift tags. I experimented with PPs, water and embossing ink. Take a look at the differences in these tags.

This first one has a snowman stamped with PPs misted with water. It is very light and misty - good for a ghost stamped effect.

The second one shows a tag lightly covered with PPs and then over stamped with embossing ink and PPs dabbed over the top.  (I misted the stamp with water before stamping it). Much stronger in colour.

The third tag has been stamped with embossing ink, PPs dabbed over it and then it was misted with water and heat dried.

As you can see each one created a different effect and all 3 are really gorgeous (the photos really don't do them justice) and all 3 were edged with Chipped Sapphire DI. No embellishments , just my experiments and already they are on pressies.

So I didn't get to enter into the PanPastels gift tag challenge this week, but never mind.

Have a wonderful week, my friends.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Travelling Around the World at FSC

Here we are again another Sunday with a new challenge at Fashionable Stamping Challenges. I can imagine that some of you have packed away all the Christmas craft stuff and are looking for fresh challenges to get your teeth into - well how about this one then? So long as you show us your stamping (not digis please) then come join the party as we travel around the world.

I have made a mini book and this is the cover. On it you can see the ticket to travel with. (I wish it really was that easy!!!)

A real key, TH token, frame covered with foil and coloured with alcohol inks, glass fragment and spinner, and TH tickets.

You can see the alcohol inks blended into the foil here.

Every page was inked and stamped in the same colours and the cover has the embellishing. I know just the person who might like this next year.

The lovely Stampettes at FSC have some amazing pieces as inspiration for this challenge and of course there will be a prize provided by Marina at Cottage Crafts. We would love to see what you create.

How are you doing with all your Christmas preparations? I need to finish a few more cards, buy a few more pressies and then get everything wrapped. So I guess I am getting there.  Off to see my sis tomorrow and take her bits and pieces up to her.

Have a wonderful week and see you soon.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxoxox

Vintage Santa Christmas card

I made some vintage Christmas cards a couple of weeks ago using MME 12x12 Christmas papers. The image is from a pack I bought at QVC last year.

I cut 3 strips of the paper and sewed them together and added white acrylic paint to the edges. I mounted the image and again painted the edge, then added a MS snowflake covered in glitter, a button and chipboard sentiment with ribbon.

Eh voila another vintage card.

I am sooooo sorry I am not about again at the moment. The end of term with all the Christmas activities and finishing paperwork etc has taken most of my time plus I have caught a very heavy cold which seems to be going down on my chest. So the little time I have had has been shared with writing Christmas cards, decorating the trees and snuggling up with a blanket on the sofa. So I am looking forward to Friday and getting more time to finish Christmas wrapping and time for creating and blogging.

I hope all of you, my blogging friends, are keeping well and I look forward to catching up with you soon.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

My Christmas Angel

I just had to share these tonight. I went to the Nativity Play at our local school this morning (where I am a governor), not expecting to see my granddaughter, Ella, as she is really quite poorly with a cough and cold. But I got a text from Bev saying she wanted to go in as she was in the play as an angel, so I just couldn't resist posting these pics. You can see she looks very peaky but she did everything she was supposed to do so beautifully.

How lovely to have your own Christmas angel. She brought a tear to my eye watching her.

Thanks for letting me share my angel with you.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Memory Box dies on Vintage Christmas card.

When I was teaching at the Art of Craft, I was shown some Memory Box dies, well I just loved them and bought several (ahem oh dear).

 I used this lovely family of deer on some shiny metallic card and laid it over a stamped and painted snowy scene. The papers are from MME - a Signature Christmas by Jen Wilson and what fabulous colours and designs each 12x12 is. I have used three of them on this card, added a border punch strip, a bow and snowflakes (also by Memory Box) to achieve this vintage look.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Tim's Tags of Christmas 2011

Well I have managed to make 2 so far.

Please excuse the photography -  didn't manage to get them finished in time to take them in the daylight. But I hope you can see the similarities.

I don't have any kraft resist paper so I made my own with a piece of brown wrapping paper, music stamp and embossing. In the top left corner is a Poinsettia, but you can't see that now. I also don't have the edge die and again improvised using a spellbinders border and using the cut away.

I am quite pleased with the outcome though.

I loved making the background for this one - great technique, but more improvisation as I don't have the coredinations. I also have to admit that the pinecones are off of an old decoration.

Maybe I will be able to make some more soon, but I will certainly try when both school and Christmas preparations are finished.

Have a wonderful week and thanks for stopping by to take a peek.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Grandma's Sewing Room

Hello there. Welcome to another Sunday and a new Fashionable Stamping Challenge. Our entrants are showing us some of the most amazing art ........... we're definitely having to work hard to keep up with the superb quality.

Today we are asking you to show us some dressmaking, corsets and/or accessories on your work, and as most of you know this is one of my favourite themes. I have gone the altered art route and changed a wooden box shelf into Grandma's sewing room. Would it have been like this do you think?

I picked up some of these great box shelves at a carboot recently. It started life looking like this

so you can see the great change in it now.

I have given the wood numerous coats of gesso and white acrylic paint and finished off with picket fence crackle paint. It has been sanded down, edges exposed and inka gold applied over it to give it an even more shabby look.

The background is where I did most of my stamping, using stamps by Wendy Vecchi, Andy Skinner and Hampton Art. I printed the main shapes onto fabric, masked them off and added collage text and other stamps over them. I painted in the larger items using distress inks.

The table (made from Wendy Vecchi Art Parts) has miniatures on it and there are other bits and pieces strewn across the floor.  The wooden hanger is hooked to an old zipper that has been stuck to the ceiling. The set of rickety shelves I made from greyboard and painted, cutting fabric to go on them.

 I also used numerous moulds which I covered in Panpastels and then sprayed with 'spray and shine'.

 The frame has three dress forms all covered with tissue paper stamped with the TH Haberdashery set.

I hope you like my piece of altered art - please go over to the challenge blog to see the team's fabulous interpretations,

This is a great opportunity to make something very feminine and as long as you show us some stamping (not digis) you are in for a chance to win a great prize from Marina at Cottage Crafts.

I can't believe 3 weeks and we will be celebrating Christmas Day. I hope your preparations are gong well. I feel as though I have still got lots to do but I did get the living room decorated yesterday and we will get our trees next weekend.

Enjoy your day.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -
Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes
Stamps and Fun- Distressing
Sunday Stamper - Love and/or life    As this theme is a real love of mine does that count Hels?
Craft Your days away - buttons or bows

Vintage Reindeer

You know about my love for PanPastels and much of it stems from the art course I did when I was in college and the teaching of art to my pupils when I was in the classroom. So I couldn't resist another Christmas card using the PanPastels Challenge Blog theme of Animals.

I used the reindeer flight die with coredinations card to cut this gorgeous animal out, sanded him down to get that 2 tone effect and added antique linen distress stickles to him.

The mount he is sitting on was covered with some PPs sponged lightly with lots of white to keep it toned down then music score stamped with walnut stain.

The background paper is from this gorgeous stack of MME papers I bought last year and I love the way the design of the deer reflect the die-cut. So some distress edgiing, inking and little embellishments and done.

I am only just going to make this by the skin of my teeth this week and I haven't been able to make any of Tim's tags yet. Oh well I still love looking at them and being inspired by his creativity.

Have a wonderful day whatever you are doing and thanks for visiting me.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Other challenges to have fun with -
Artistic Stamper - Christmas
Christmas cards all year round - Anything goes
Joanna Sheen - Christmas
Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes