Mountainside

No crafting at all at the moment as I'm in New Hampshire for a week's skiing. The weather hasn't been great, with really high winds blowing the snow off the mountain and temperatures as low as -13Celcius. To say its all man-made snow though, its pretty good and we are having a great time.

Gina x

National Flag Colours

Phew, only just going to make it for this week's MDUC challenge to use your country's national flag colours.
Here is my entry, using Tilda with heart balloons from this season's sweet crazy love collection.

Better post quickly as links close in 8 minutes!!
Hugs, Gina x

Pretty Birdcage

I've finally got round to using one of the stamps from the Pretty Birdcage stamp set from Chocolate Baroque. Its a gorgeous set and I bought it almost as soon as it was released, together with the lovely Honey Bee set. Life has been so busy that I've only just managed to use it, and that was in a very quick make.

One of the ladies at card class has unfortunately had a minor stroke and I wanted to get a card made fairly quickly. This stamp is beautiful and doesn't need much in the way of embellishment so it was ideal. Its coloured with pro-markers and the bird glazed with crystal laquer.
I do hope she recovers quickly, so get well soon Pat, we really are thinking of you.


Hugs, Gina x

Black and White

This week at Magnolia Down Under Challenge, pretty much anything goes as long as the image is coloured in black and white. I thought this was a great challenge and here is my submission. 

I've used Tilda with Daisy from this season's Sweet Crazy Love collection.


The backing papers are a mix of computer generated and Magnolia. The border is a die cut done with Memory Box Cherish Border die. These dies are wonderful to use - coated in teflon, the intricate die cuts just slide out of the dies without sticking - brilliant.


The flowers and corners are from Wild Orchid.


A bit of ribbon and card candi finish it off.


Thank you for looking.


Gina x

Happy News

Just before Christmas, my son Sam announced his engagement to Heather. They have been together since 6th form and they are now 25 and 24.
 It was way too busy over Christmas to get a card made right away, but here is the finished article. I've gone for a pretty 'hearts and flowers' theme.

The image is Lili of the Valley and the flowers are from Wild Orchid. Die cuts are Marianne and Crealies and the paper is from my stash.


The insert was done on the computer and then stamped with stamps from Chocolate Baroque.  

We are all out to celebrate tonight, so I'm off to do a few jobs before then.


Gina x

White Christmas 2

A second card for the White Christmas Challenge run by Glenda of Chocolate Baroque. This one is a simple white emboss of the trees from Fat Robin.

The backing paper is from the Season's Greetings CD ROM which is on special offer at the moment - too good to miss.
Good luck to everyone taking part in the challenge, the prize fund is now up to £32 and the more entries we make, the more chance we have of winning and the bigger the prize fund gets. The challenge closes December 15th.


Hugs,  Gina x

White Christmas

Even with all of the lovely new Christmas stamps I have bought this year, I've gone back to a real favourite for my first entry for chocolate baroque's White Christmas Challenge. The house stamp is from the wonderful  New England Winter themeplate, as is the dark pine tree you can see in the background.

The house and Christmas tree are a single stamp and the pine tree in the background is separate. I've done a lot of masking and overstamping to create the garden scene, with trees from Village Life, bushes from English Cottages and fence from  Townhouses. These are available separately, but are a real bargain when you get them on multibuy.

The background is done using TH distress inks in tumbled glass, stormy sky and chipped sapphire, coloured over the masked stamping. It was spritzed with water for a snowy feel and then with Cosmic Shimmer in sunlight mist. 


The house, trees and fence are coloured with promarkers and the roof and trees decorated with glitter.  The ground is covered in pinflair's ice diamond for a wintery sparkle. 


Finally, I trimmed it to size and matted and layered it onto black mirricard and another sheet of hand coloured backing paper. The 'Merry Christmas' sentiment was from one of my favourite buys this Christmas, the gorgeous Fat Robin themeplate.