Yet more Iris Folding

Yes, I'm still using up the old Iris Folding kits! Today I have used a Candlestick one, ideal for Christmas cards.

 

Just look at all that sparkle! Once again I've dug out the very, very old peel offs to go down the old fashioned "traditional" route with this card.

 

Since every single thing on this card is at least 15 years old, some of it probably nearer to 20, I am sharing with Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge, which is always anything goes and this week has the optional theme of Upcycle or Use Something Old.

More Iris Folding

I'm still working my way through my Iris Folding supplies. This time I used the very last card from a Snow Globe kit. The deep recess caused by the folding makes it perfect for crating a scene, so that's what I've done.

I added some die cut trees and a tree, bunnies and robin that I stamped with a friend's stamps last year, knowing they were bound to come in handy some time! I can't remember the brand but they look to me as if they were Clearly Besotted or Lawn Fawn judging by the style. They're not to scale, I hope, or that is one scary robin, he's about the size of a golden eagle!

The dimensional snowflake stickers were a pre-Christmas bargain from Lidl.

I am sharing this with

Little Red Wagon - Winter Wonderland
Addicted to Stamps and More - Holiday 
Creative with Stamps - Snowflake

Rediscovering Iris Folding

As I do every January, I've decided that this year is going to be the year I get all my craft stash super organised. This year though there's a difference- I've actually made a start on it.

In the process of sorting some things out, I came across several part used iris folding strips and a pack of pre-cut sparkle and pearl strips for the technique, that I must have had for at least 15 years. I've not touched them for ages; I think I used one of them for a Christmas card a year or two back and they've not seen daylight since.

So, in the spirit of "Use it or lose it" I decided to have an iris folding session, using this sweet humming bird kit. I wasn't sure what colours to use so I tried doing a google search for "What colour is a humming bird?". I hadn't realised it was something akin to "What colour is a flower?" - I had no idea there were so many and varied colours of humming birds. Even so, I'm still nervous that Darnell may see this and, with her love of hummers, shriek "They're all completely the wrong colours!"

I used the card in the traditional style that was popular when the kits first appeared, leaving the card blank white and adding a simple peel off border and sentiment.

Then I tried using some of that white space - I sponged on some green ink and used a darker green to stamp tropical leaves here and there. The textured card means the images aren't very clearly stamped, making the bird stand out more, especially as I used colours that strongly contrasted with the background.

Now the card is intended to be used in portrait orientation, and indeed the humming bird looks most humming-bird-y used that way, but to my eye the apertures are a little too low down the card and it looks a little unbalanced, so I thought I'd try it in landscape instead.

And since it was the last card in my pack, I threw ink, flowers, leaves and pearls at it - why not?

I am sharing these with

2 Crafty Critter Crazies - anything goes with a creature

Watercooler Wednesday - Feminine anything goes


Crafty Gals Corner - Anything Goes

A bit more time to craft Extra - Anything Goes

Love to Craft - Anything Goes  

White on White Christmas at Sparkles Christmas

Happy New Year!  I hope you all had a good Christmas, and here's to a happy, health and peaceful year ahead.

Have you started thinking about Christmas 2018 yet? Over at Sparkles Christmas, we have - we're already making our cards, knowing that if we start now, we'll not have a crazy rush at the end of the year. Why don't you join us and make one card a month all through the year?

I've chosen our first challenge for the year, and the theme is White-on-White Christmas. Here is my card.

I used a Darice embossing folder for the background, and a selection of dies (the sketch circle is a Gummiapan die - the others have been in my stash for so long I don't recall where they came from) to create a wreath, then added a simple stamped sentiment.

I am sharing this with
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - something beginning with S  (snow)
A bit more time to craft - Anything Goes
Jungle Belles - Look What Santa Brought Me - he brought me a new Artbin die storage box, so I've been able to sort out all my dies properly, and although not a Christmas present, the sketch circle die I used for the wreath is new.

Rose Ring

Well, 2017 is drawing to a close - Happy New Year for 2018, everyone - so here is my final make of the year.

It is stamped with a very old Stampendous stamp - the date on the label is 1998 -  teamed with a brand new NBUS sentiment which was part of the November release bundle I won from Uniko, so it's a case of one of my oldest stamps meeting one of my newest.

I coloured the flowers with my brand new Prismacolor pencils (Thank you Santa!) - it's the first time I've ever had any "grown up" coloured pencils. Until now I've been using the old ones my daughters left here when they moved out, almost 20 years ago! I can see I need a lot more practise with blending and shading, but they really are a joy to work with after my old ones.

I am sharing this with Less is More where the theme this time is this sketch

I played around a lot with the placement of the sentiment but even when stamped on separate card, it looked all wrong overlapping the flower spray so I moved it to the middle of the circle.

I am also sharing with
Sweet Stampin' - Anything new  - the pencils and the sentiment
Inkspirational - Stamping only

Sorting out the Snippets Basket

My craft stuff is STILL packed away, and likely to be do for a few more days, but yesterday I was suffering from withdrawal symptoms so decided to sort out my snippets basket - at least that way I would get to stroke some paper! It had reached that overflowing stage that makes it almost impossible to find what I want, so I spend ages rummaging through it and it takes me longer to find the bits to make a card with than actually making the card itself. And all that rummaging makes some of the bits far too dog-eared to be any use even for tiny die cuts.

So I've been pretty ruthless and thrown away a lot of odds and ends, especially sheets printed out from CDs, where I've used the main image but the additional ones and embellishments are still left - they seem to hang around for months or years, usually until I'm looking for a bit of scrap paper or a shim, and just clutter the place up.

However a few of them just called out to be used along with some of the bits that had turned up  in the snippets basket, so here is a card I made using nothing but snippets, a paper trimmer, buttons and adhesive - everything else is still packed away.

Making this was very refreshing - it's reminded me that much as I love all my stuff - the dies, the inks, the stamps, the embellishments - that it's actually possible to really enjoy crafting using very little equipment at all.

The image and border are snippets from two separate design sheets printed from the Rachelle Anne Miller Collection CD and the turquoise is actually a lovely fine glitter card.

I am sharing this with

Pixie's Snippets Playground - I hope you've spotted that there is a wonderful giveaway going on there at the moment!
C.R.A.F.T. - Anything Goes
Crafty Gals Corner - Anything Goes

Quick Kit Makes.

I hope you all had a good Christmas. Although we didn't get a white one, it's snowing hard right now!

All my craft stuff is still packed away, as I normally use the dining room and it's been needed for our festivities, so at the moment I can only make very quick and easy items. Luckily I recently won a huge bundle of Hunkydory goodies from Quick Cards Made Easy magazine, and they included a few very simple kits that really needed nothing but adhesives and a scoring tool to assemble, so here are some of the goodies I made.