Last Rudolph Day of 2018

Well it's not long now till the big fella in the red suit turns up! Are you all ready for it? I'm not! Although I have got a few presents which I bought on holiday. Some photos of our first ever cruise will follow, but first the card for Rudolph Day.

I have used my favourite Snowy stamp, I just love this snowman. Rather than colour everything I paper-pieced his hat and scarf to match the background paper, and just a little bit of colouring with copics to add definition. I finished it off with some diecut glittery snowflakes and some glitter tape.
Edited - also entered into Crafty Calendar Challenge - thanks Liz!

Now for some holiday photos. I was very dubious about cruising and really wasn't sure that I'd like it, but I'm hooked! No airport hassle, didn't have to touch the cases, once they'd been put in the taxi, till they were in our cabin. It was just so easy and I wasn't seasick either in spite of it being a bit rough in the Bay of Biscay.

First stop after Southampton was Oporto and a visit to a port winery.

Halloween on board with pumpkins carved by the crew. No 15 won!

Next stop Gran Canaria

Brilliant sunshine followed in Tenerife.Who knew they had pyramids there?

Very wet in La Palma but I did get to see inside a volcano.

 Funchal next where we just had a wander into town rather than do a tour, as we had had a holiday there 16 years ago. It had changed a bit!

Next day at sea with a beautiful sunset over the water.

Lisbon next but only half a day which wasn't long enough. We'll have to go back!

And finally the ship

and seagulls seeing us off on the homeward leg.

We've already booked another two for next year!

Snowman at Cardz 4 Guyz

Well the house refurbishment is still ongoing! They keep telling me that it will all be done in time for Christmas! It might be but I don't want to try out the new oven for the first time with Christmas dinner, that's a recipe for disaster!  Anyway onto the card for the new challenge at Cardz 4 Guyz, and this time we want to see snowmen! How easy is that?

I have used Penny Black stamps and dies for this card.Love this new set of stamps and the snowflake frames.

snowman

Its time for a new challenge at Cardz 4 Guyz and this week it is Snowman chosen by Jane. I have loved this Penny Black snowman stamp for ages and eventually managed to track one down.

The paper was from the snippets box and is some retired SU paper. the snowman was coloured with Copics. Do go over to the challenge blog and see what the rest of the DT has done.

 

A Snowman snippet!

When I found the Santa die that I used here I also found a snowman one. Even more fiddly than Santa but it made another CAS card. So I'm off to see what mischief is afoot in Pixies Snippet Playground. Wonder whether there will be another record made this week after the 100 entries last week? 200 maybe?
Di has kindly reminded me that Less is More's challenge is Sparkles so I am going to enter it there too. Thanks Di!

 

Merry Monday Snowman

Rumour has it that it's not long till Christmas - so time to make a real start on those Christmas cards. I have played on and off with the Merry Monday challenge during the year so have got a few made already!  This week the theme is to use a snowman and it just so happens that I had some new Lili of the Valley stamps on my desk and this snowman was among them.

 

 I coloured him with copics then looked for a sketch to follow to make him into a card. Papertake Weekly challenge had just the sketch. After I'd finished the bottom strip just didn't look right so I added the white die cut border that was sitting in my snippets box. I'm still not entirely happy with it though, so just might have to change it a bit! Meanwile I;m entering it into the following challenges:

Merry Monday

Papertake Weekly

Rudolph Day at Stamping for Pleasure - my first trip here

Pixie's Playground

Merry Monday Snowmen

Hello from a snowy Hampshire! When I started playing with these snowmen for the Merry Monday challenge I didn't expect to be posting them while it actually snowed! But it is and looks like it is here for the day and tomorrow too. I decided to use two stamps that I've had in my stash and have never seen an inkpad.

The one with the holly leaves is a Kodomo stamp that I bough when I first started cardmaking! I stamped it in London Fog so the outline wouldn't be so harsh but not sure it works too well. The paper is from a pad that I think was a freebie with a magazine some time ago, but I've managed to hide most of the holly leaf pattern! The holly border I cut out of some scrap dark green card with a Spellbinders die.The second one is a Kanban stamp. The background gave me a chance to play with my latest acquisition - gilding wax! I think it will become a new best friend for adding some bling to cards. I found the embossed piece of card in my scraps box and rubbed first the red wax over half and then the pewter over the other half and blended them in the middle. It doesn't show up to well in the photo but it has added a lovely metallic sheen. As they have both used scraps I was also  going to take them to Pixie's Playground but I've realise I'm just too late!!

A Special Card

A special Christmas card for my grandson!

The dark blue cardstock was spritzed with a lighter blue cosmic shimmer spray. The snow is strips of card torn and the edges glittered (An idea taken from a Jayne Nestorenko demo -thank you Jayne!) The snowflakes are punched out of glitter paper. The Christmas trees were some die cuts left over from last year - possibly papermania. Father Christmas is some diecut decoupage and the snowman is a sticker stuck on card, cut out and then layered onto card with 3d foam.
I'm afraid the picture is a bit blurry!