12 Brands of Christmas-Brand #1 *Hero Arts*

Hello

HELLO!

It's December 1st...so that means.....drum roll...... the start of our 

HUGE,

 MASSIVE, 

GINORMOUS,

 12 Designers at Christmas blog extravaganza!

Christmas is getting oh so close now!  Eeek

Its a this point of the year I start wondering what exactly it is that 

I have done with the first 11 months! 

Right up until Christmas Eve, we will be featuring a fabulous project by a guest designer, or showcasing an exciting big Brand every single day! Yep, you read that right.. 

Every. Single. Day!

So, bookmark the blog and check back often, we have loads to share in the run up to Christmas 2015!

Right..best get on with it then.....

This year we have the shop stocked full of goodies for making quick, 

or not so quick Christmas cards. 

One of my favourite brands for this is Hero Arts.  

They have such a great variety of stamps for this time of year, so here is a quick

 run down of some of my favourites!

Kelly Purkeys "Kellys Noel" set is perfect for simple graphic cards.  

if you have something a little more cute, then you cant go wrong with this set.  

Three Elves with a die. These sets are proving to be very popular.  

I've already had to stamp out a few sets of these as my daughter wants to spend hours colouring in. She has promised me they will make it on cards but I suspect she has an elf house 

somewhere in her room full of Santa's little helpers!

Don't fancy Elves... how about Penguins then? 

How about this 6x6 Hand drawn snowflake background to create some interest in your winter 

or Christmas projects.  It is cling mounted but it may be easier to lay it face up and place your cardstock on top of it. 

If colour layering is where your heart is at, then this layered Christmas tree set is perfect. 

All those extra little stamps in this set could be very useful, and with a To and From stamp great for gift tags as well. 

We've also got a few sets that are just sentiments.

The Merry Stamp & Cut set is a hot favourite with me this year. 

Pop back in a couple of days to see how I've used it on 

some of my Christmas cards for family & friends this year! 

Happy Christmas Card Making!! 

Vicki 

The Twelve Designers Of Christmas is back

I can't believe how quickly a year has gone by and it'll soon be time once again to celebrate the season by hosting our very successful Twelve Designers Of Christmas festival.

Between 1st and 25th of December, right here on the blog, we'll be bringing you inspiration and amazing creativity from not only ourselves but some fantastically talented designers too. 

As well as the Designer projects there will be Twelve fabulous products which we'll be taking a closer look at and there'll even be a little give away at the end of it so you really don't want to miss a thing. 

Join us on 1st of December for the launch of the festive fun, you won't want to miss it.

12 Brands of Christmas *Brand 12* Glitz Design

Day 24 and and we're coming to the end of our Designers and Brands. On this Christmas Eve I'm bringing you the fantastic Glitz Design.

I am a huge fan of the Glitz collections. They're amazing value for money with papers, stickers, alphabet sheets all co-ordinating, then there's the washi tape, the embellishments and vintage papers too so there's something for every taste.

One of my favourite collections is the Finnley collection

I used it here to create the cover for a Christmas journal but of course the beauty of this collection is that it can be used for so much more than just Christmas.

 I also loved working with the Yours Truly collection which has a gorgeous vintage feel to it,

and the Uncharted Waters collection is so fresh and summery,

Thank you for joining us on this amazing collection of inspiring blog posts. I hope you've enjoyed it. Don't forget that if you leave a comment on all of the Designers blogs you have the chance to win an amazing package of goodies, just perfect for after Christmas crafting. The winner will be announced on 12th Night (6th January) to keep up the 12 theme.

Have a fabulous Christmas Eve and don't forget to leave a mince pie and a little drink for Santa.

Jaine x

12 Designers of Christmas *Designer 9* Paula Whittaker

Welcome to our 9th Designer and it's the turn of the very talented Paula Whittaker.

Paula was part of our original Design Team line up and we're thrilled she could come back to join us for our Designer Christmas project party.  I love this container she's made for us, the little bunny is the cutest.

I love the wintery colours of Paula's container, what a gorgeous gift that would make? 

To make it paula used:

Simple Stories Clear Photo Stickers
Crafty Individuals CI-372 Crowned Bunnies
Simple Stories DIY Stamps: Journaling
Prima Wood Icons In A Box: Christmas
Hero Arts White Embossing Powder 

 Distress Ink Pad - Brushed Corduroy

Paula didn't just make us one but two projects and here's her second using the same bunny,

 

You can visit Paula's blog "Just For One Day" for more gorgeous inspirational projects.

Don't forget to leave a comment on all the Designers posts to be eligible to win an amazing prize.

Come back tomorrow for more. 

Jaine x

12 Designers of Christmas *Designer 2* Jaine Drake

That's me - ha ha. I'm so happy and proud to be a part of this amazing line up, I can promise the rest of the time between now and Christmas day is a true feast. 

Anyway, for my post I thought I'd share a spread in my Christmas journal. Whether I'm doing a December Daily or not I still have a special Christmas journal which I've had on the go for a couple of years now. It has Kraft pages which is perfect for a Christmas feel and I like to keep some parts of the page free from colour and embellishment just so I can still see the Kraft paper beneath.

I started with a base layer of Picket Fence Distress paint and Dylusions White Linen ink spray. Then I added some Golden Crackle paste through a Crafters Workshop stencil called Punchinella and threw on some glitter before it dried.

I layered up a few paper off cuts, used a bit of scrap paper which had been used for spraying on to create a tree and brought in some details like the number 3 stenciled with a Tim Holtzs layering stencil called Numbered.

Here's a closer look at the details.

 I think the splash of red thread brings the page to life.

I emphasized the number with a white journaling pen. 

I hope you liked my inspirational pages. Stick around for the rest of our Designers who'll be bringing you some gorgeous projects. Leave a comment here and on the other Designers projects to win a prize.

Jaine x

An event not to be missed.

We are very happy and excited to announce our big Christmas extravaganza called

The Twelve Projects of Christmas.

I cannot believe what an amazing line up we've got for you with twelve crafters and twelve products to tempt you as we go into Christmas. Each day we'll be bringing you inspiration and  gorgeous projects to look at.

So make a date in your diary starting on the 1st December to stop by.

Let It Snow...

Or, bring on the weird Christmas assemblages!
Hello!
Remember back in the summer when I created an Art Doll with a glass vial for a body? No? THIS one....
Whilst I was creating her, I had an idea for something else..but I've had to wait until it was the appropriate time of the year to show you!
My snowmen......

I used the smallest three vials in the Craft Medley set to create my snowy scene...
Filled with 'snowballs' (i.e the filling from a beanbag!), with tiny dotty buttons and some printed out words..

I wrapped some red cord around the neck of the bottle to resemble a scarf..

The heads are felt balls that I created months and months ago to use as beads for another project. Felting your own beads/balls is a palaver and a half, involving lots of soapy hot water and squeezing and rolling. I would recommend doing an online search for white felt beads!!!!!
The eyes are tiny seed beads, and the nose is the pointy end of a bamboo skewer, painted orange..

I had fun with these, and they have now been kidnapped by my youngest daughter who thinks they're very cute! Which is odd...'cute' wouldn't be my number one aim when creating anything! *note to self* must be weirder......
See you soon!
Trish xxxx

Christmas journal

For the past couple of years I've kept a Christmas journal but I'd decided early on that this year I wouldn't bother. I've seen friends posting pictures of their December daily's and journals and actually I felt quite jealous. 

As you can see I gave in and decided to make one at the last minute. As this is posting (hopefully) I'll be in the car on my way to England for Christmas and the journal will be with me. 

The inside pages are simple sewn watercolour paper and the covers are hard cardboard with binding tape. 

I used the Glitz Design Finnley collection to cover the book and cut the decorative elements. This is an absolutely gorgeous collection of papers, so bright and funky yet one or two of the papers like this red rose paper and the grungy green are perfect for Christmas layouts. I used some Ranger silver foil card to cut the frame and the stickers also come from the Finnley collection. The stamp in the frame is from Christy Tomlinson and is from the Create Your Canvas Words collection.

I think I may have gone a bit over the top with the glitter but it is Christmas, right?

Have a wonderful Christmas and I look forward to catching up in 2014.

Jaine x

Have a Great Christmas!

Hello!
For my last project before the big day, I want to share a Christmas themed piece, but not in traditional tones!

Lots of bright colours, and some text shapes as Christmas trees.
I painted the card with bold streaks of colour, then sprized with water and blotted off whilst still wet. This led to a happy accident! The paper towel I was using to blot just happened to be embossed with dots. Some  have squares or other shapes, but this one happened to be dotty. When I gently pressed on the background to blot, some paint transferred itself to the towel, so when I moved it about I was in effect using it as a large stamp! I noticed tiny white dots first...

and then when I looked closer, I saw blue and green dots too!

I may have to look closely at the paper towel design before I buy them from now on!
I gave the background lots of layers, printing and stamping and splatting along with all the paint...

The trees were cut roughly from French text, then sewed on.....yes, you can see where the machine jammed slightly!!!

The trees had spindly stitched trunks, and then a little black printing just to 'ground' them on the page.
A little rub on greeting and it was finished!

Have a fabulous Christmas everyone, and I'll see you back here on New Years Eve with my top three projects of 2013!
Trish xxxxx

Pretty in pink

 After creating a house in a jar I've now created a tree on a plate. A pink tree too, well why not?

Underneath that pink frosting is a plain bottle brush from a Tim Holtz Idea-ology Woodlands pack. I sprayed it with Dylusions Bubblegum pink spray and Mr Hueys Color Shine for some sparkle. To give it some extra sparkle I touched the fronds with some glue and rolled the brush in Ranger Distress Glitter in Picked Raspberry. It's so sad I couldn't get a good picture with the glitter because it really does shine beautifully.

To trim my tree I took a cheap decoration and cut off the little beads, using gel medium to stick them to the tree. 

I used Idea-ology Tinsel Twine to wrap around the tree and base and finished off with a chipboard star from Tando.

I stood my little tree on an old wooden cotton reel and finished with a pink bow.

We've all fallen in love with these trees here and I'm sure you will too. 

See you soon

Jaine x