Christmas Ornaments and Gifts
27 Dec

Christmas Ornaments and Gifts

Hi, everyone! It’s the 3rd day of Christmas and I have some gifts to show you today. As a tradition started a few years ago, I like giving handmade crafts to family and dear ones. This year, I chose to make some ornaments, bookmarks and Christmas cards.

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I made the first tree decoration, last year, for my niece, Antonia. She loved it so much and hung it in her tree right away. You can see and also read about it here. At that time I wanted a shaker ornament that is what I actually made. For this year, I wanted a bit of a more special one.

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So, I began with the same tag die from WPlus9 – Anastasia Tag. But, this time I went on die-cutting it differently while keeping a window into all the layers as I wanted to use it for the ornament. For the 2nd layer, I used some funky foam in different colours: 2 shades of red and 2 of green. I added a beautiful bauble in each of the windows.

The baubles are from Newton’s Nook Designs and they’re the most exquisite ones I’ve ever seen.:-) I die cut 2 of each, coloured them in with inktense Derwent pencils and added enough layers of Wink of Stella for a sparkly look. All the ornaments got a tag with my name on and a tied fancy Twine bow.

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The next handmade crafts I gave as gifts were some Gorjuss bookmarks. I used the collectable stamp and some of the small stamps that come with the same named stamp set: ‘Holly’. Gorjuss girls are really dear to me and I love colouring them so much. Avery Elle die set is what I used to die-cut the bookmarks. Inktense Derwent pencils and Santoro’s Gorjuss Watercolour dual-tip pens – Neutrals are the colouring medium I used for the girls. I applied generous layers of Wink of Stella on the hats,boots and the mistletoe. Then, I added some twine to each of the bookmarks.

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Now, some of the gifts had a set of cards to accompany either the ornaments or the bookmarks. I made quite a lot of cards this year and I went on multiplying them while making a great use of my new precision stamping tool.

Hope you enjoyed learning about my crafts and thanks for stopping by.
My best wishes,
Talida

26 Dec

With Love at Christmas

With love at Christmas starts the wish for you today! May you have a wonderful time together with your dear ones! While having a blast on Christmas days with my family, I’d like to share some more of my holidays’ crafts. I made more than 200 cards and it will be a true challenge to share them all with you.

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imgn0530The one here is a very simple but elegant one. I used a ‘Create Christmas‘ stamp to build the background. The ink I used is ‘Chocolate’ – Artiste dye ink. Sequins in white, gold and chocolate give the necessary sparkle together with some gold thread wrapped around the front card base. A white string bow is what gives some dimension and brings the focus to the top of the card. All these bits and pieces can be found at any haberdashery. I got mine from my neighbours’ store.

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imgn0547I’ve always wished to go for a look just like this one. And I was a bit not sure of the result in the past. But once I tried it, would definitely make me apply the pattern again.
Hope you like it too!

With all these said, I let you enjoy the second day of Christmas together with your dear ones!
Talida

Stockings
25 Dec

Were stockings ready for Santa?

Merry Christmas, everyone! If the stockings you hung weren’t filled with presents last night, hope they have been topped up this morning. You know – Santa’s been pretty busy!
I am one of the lucky ones, so Santa stopped by and left me some goodies. What can I say? I am beyond grateful!

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These cards showcase a die-cut from Stix 2 Anything and I bought a pack of these a while ago from Craftmall. I still love to use them on Christmas crafts. First thing I did was to decorate the stockings. I used my white gelly roll Uniball pen for this and when ready, I went on to create the backgrounds.

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imgn0555One of the cards has got a panel created with a Heidi Swapp chevron stencil using some distress inks in green. The front card has a first layer with a cream recycled card which has a sentiment stamped at the top. I adhered the stencilled panel, then the stocking and finally I added a red ribbon bow on it.

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imgn0551The second card has a background created with a sentiment stamp from one of the Create Christmas sets. I stamped it using an Artiste dye ink (Red) all over the front card base. A velum panel holds the stocking, some white sequins create interest and a cream string bow gives the necessary extra dimension.

Many thanks for stopping by my blog and Happy Christmas wishes to you all with the hope you enjoy these holidays together with family and dear ones!
Talida

24 Dec

Christmas Wishes

Hello, dear friends and crafters! I’m sending my best Christmas wishes to you all today!

imgn0089It’s the 24th of December and we’re all getting ready for the celebrations. While my favourite biscuits are baking in the oven, I’m trying to catch up with the posts on my blog.
This year I made a lot of seasons’ cards and I would love to share them with you.

imgn0086This card features another mini Xcut die from Docrafts – the stocking one. They came with a lot of new products this year and I love the mini dies, especially the filigree ones. I chose to combine two of the sentiments sets ‘Happy Christmas’ and ‘Best Wishes’ and use only two of the words.
The card front is embossed. I used the ‘tartan’ embossing folder and it (the card) has just a few elements on it in order to keep the CAS (clean and simple) look.

Christmas Whishes

Christmas Wishes

When I adhered the stocking, I chose to use the bits and pieces from 2 different die-cuts (red and white). My wink of stella clear brush came in hand and gave a bit of shimmer to the sentiment. Both, the stocking and the sentiment have some white gel pen dots for a nice finish.
Thanks a lot for stopping by.

Happy Christmas Wishes to you all,
Talida

23 Dec

Bells are ringing

Hello again, dear friends and crafters! Can you hear the bells are ringing? They are just letting us know that soon we’re all gathering in our homes and by our Christmas trees.

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imgn0071The cards today feature a mini Xcut die with some filigree bells.
I used kraft recycled card in different colours and also some metallic/shimmery and glittery ones. The twine ties the bells and it is either simple in white, red, purple or in assorted Christmas colours. The inks match the colour combination of the die-cuts and the twine. And for these cards I chose two sentiment stamps from Docrafts Create Christmas series sets: Merry Christmas and Seasons’ Greetings.

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imgn0064These cards match the challenge of making at least 5 cards with the same stamp or die. They also go in the CAS (clean and simple) category of cards. The die-cuts are pretty intricate but I love them.

imgn0070Many thanks for stopping by and wishing you all the best,
Talida

19 Dec

The Trees and the Season

Hello crafters and dear friends! As much as kids love decorating trees, I love creating them on paper or card. These cards use some new die-cuts from Docrafts which come in a smaller size than their usual ones. They are intricate and I really like the way they look on my crafts.
As per lately, I used kraft recycled card for the card base, green recycled card for the tree and some cream cardstock from the scrap stash for one of the sentiments.

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imgn0099The first card has the front cover embossed with Docrafts”Tartan‘ embossing folder. I bought it a while ago from here. It has the mini die-cut tree adhered onto the card with glossy accents. It also hangs from the top fold and it’s got a bow. For this I used some green twine. There some metallic embelishments made with a gelly roll pen from Sakura.
The sentiment is die-cut using one of the latest Xcut dies from Docrafts.

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imgn0065The second card is a CAS (clean and simple) too. It has the die-cut tree, a piece of Fancy Twine tied into a bow and a sentiment stamped in Artiste red dye ink.
Both trees have a star on top: one is tiny and golden and the other is a bit bigger and silver.

Hope you enjoyed your visit on the blog and look forward to having you back,
Talida

18 Dec

Christmas Presents on Blue Kraft

Good morning, everyone! What about some early Christmas presents? Wouldn’t this be awesome?

imgn1108Today, I have a card with lots of them. They are stamped with a fast drying ink in Galaxy Gold onto blue recycled card. I enjoy crafting with recycled Kraft card a lot these days. It is of good quality and it gives you room for trying a lot of techniques. Read more

17 Dec

Reindeer Greetings

Hey, there! Reindeer greetings to you all! Santa is gathering all the last minute letters and I am sharing with you my latest cards. For these, I used the same stamps and created 5 different ones. Actually, that was my challenge for this Christmas: make more cards using the same stamp set. And well, I succeeded to make even more! Then, I mixed the sets, as in this case, and pushed creativity further. 😉

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I made the top-folded card bases from recycled card. This type of card became my favourite. I stamped with Docrafts Artiste dye ink (Chocolate, Red, Metallic Jean Blue) and fast drying pigment ink from Tsukineko (Gold Galaxy). The stamp sets I used are Docrafts Create Christmas (came with a Creativity magazine), Tall Urban Stamp – Craft Christmas and Krafty Christmas by Dovecraft.

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The snowflakes have dots added with a white gel pen. I think this gives a lot of interest. And I put some glossy accents from Ranger on the reindeer’s noses. This gives dimension and a lovely shine.
The reindeer are coloured with Docrafts Papermania watercolour pencils.

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Thank you for reading this blog post and look forward to having you back here, soon,
Talida

13 Dec

Peace and Joy

imgn0262Hello, everyone! ‘Peace and Joy’ is one of the many cards that are to be shown on my page during the following days until Christmas.
It is a clean and simple card (CAS). And I really like the way it turned out.

The card base is made of 280 g kraft recycled card. I have discovered there’s a Romanian craft shop where you can find it at a very good price and high quality. And I highly recommend it.
Onto the card base I stamped – using Docrafts Artiste dye ink pad in ‘Chocolate’ – one of the stamps from last year’s Docrafts stamp sets ‘Folk Christmas’. Once it was dry, I added colour using some Papermania watercolour pencils. When finished colouring, I wrote the sentiment ‘peace and joy’ using an Artiste gel pen in white. With the same pen, I added a few dots on the robin’s tail’s feathers to create interest.
In order to increase the focus on the area where the stamped image is, I tied some white twine in a bow, glued it with some glossy accents and I trimmed a thin piece of burgundy card and glued it as to look like a frame.

Hope you enjoyed reading this new post and look forward to having you back on my page.

All the best,
Talida

30 Dec

Hot Diggity Dog

Hi everyone,

The cards today are all having one character in common: Hot Diggity Dog. A stamp set designed by Andrea Jayne that has this lovely dog as part of it. The set was designed for an exclusive Docrafts set that came with one of their Creativity magazine’s issues.

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Read more

28 Dec

My Kind of Trees

Hello dear friends and fans,

Whether you were naughty or nice, hope Santa brought you all lots of cheer and presents under your Christmas trees, that your spirits are bright and all of you enjoyed this time with family and dear ones!

There were a lot of cards made for these holidays and I feel so grateful to those who chose me to craft them for. As expected, I haven’t had the chance to share all of them with you, so, I put some more together to present.

For today, I have some cards with trees. These are some die-cut trees, decorated with sequins from my mum’s stash, some tiny buttons and stars and others simply embellished with my glitter gel pens and star stamp for the top. Sentiments, ribbons and twine were added for the dimension.

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Many thanks for your comments and see you later with a post about Christmas stockings.
Talida