…but you won’t know it from here! Just a few festive photos, and a lovely shot of my oh so tidy desk. The lights outside are a job for The Hubster and Darling Daughter. They revel in it each year.
I am usually the one who sets up the tree, with DD and Dear Son adding the special ornaments that are their ones. It is a struggle to get them to help with the breaking up Christmas part before 12th night. Sharing the overall shot again…
and a few favourite ornaments, some new, some all time faves:
Christmas Pickle!Knitted starsweet bunnyColin the Catterpillarthis year’s heart
And of course there has to be a shot of Cat. She has been remarkable well behaved around the tree, but then we don’t let her in that room alone LOL!
In addition to her skating show, DD is helping out with the production by Angel Exit Theatre at Throngrove. Looks like a lot of fun, if you are in Dorset tomorrow….
What is perhaps less fun is my desk, which is not seeing any action this week, I’m afraid. Pretty static from last week. There might be a bit of something tomorrow and/or Friday, but no promises!
To all my WOYWW mates, wishing you the very happiest of Christmases, with friends and family all around (or via Zoom) with good food, warm houses and lots and lots of holiday songs, festive films, and a few mince pies around a roaring fire.
I always have a few versions of things I am plying with and I don’t always add them all. I figured this week is super busy so I might as well fill a day with something useful.
These were so simple to make, all of them basic shapes, no complicated drawing required. I also like how they are right-angle cuts. While I do like the tag-top shape of the cat ones, sometimes I jut want to guillotine them apart in a flash. Lazy, me… especially when time is tight. Last WOYWW before Christmas tomorrow so time to take some festive photos….
Perhaps. I seem to have embraced our wee feline grandchild fully, as has Darling Daughter. The Hubster is, maybe, still on the fence, but he is trying. Anyway, for me, feeding her seems to be the key. What a surprise! She did willingly jump up onto my lap the other day, so progress is being made. Hence the subject of this year’s Christmas tags are, unsurprisingly, cats!
I generally create these sorts of things from a resource that comes with a subscription I pay for. I am able to edit the basic designs to suit my purposes. As long as they are not for print-on-demand (like tee shirts or mugs, etc) I could even sell them. But here they are for you, for free, as usual. They make me smile, especially the slightly side-eye cats.
I have another set that I might also add, a bit more cheerful, but for now, these will get me thru the weekend wrapping! Hope you enjoy them. and you can download them here!
I created the Merry Christmas sentiment and when I tried to send it to my Scan&Cut, it refused to recognize the fonts! It was very strange. All the other elements seemed to be fine but not fonts used and saved as an SVG in my program. Now, I do need to try a different program to see if it is the program that is the issue or if it is the fonts but it was a bit annoying.
The workaround for me is to use the online SVG converter found here. I’ve mentioned it before. I waved the image as a .jpg then converted it to an SVG using the online tool, and that transferred
and cut just fine, even the fairly thin font at 5 1/2 inches
More experimentation is needed.
I just thought I would mention how I like to stick tricky, thin sentiments like this. I used to dot glue or matte medium on the back from a bottle, but it’s time-consuming and annoying to do. Instead I like to use my gel plate – I roll out a thin coat of the matte medium, lay on the sentiments. then pluck them off and stick them to the card front. Adding a weight over them will usually ensure a good stick.
You can do what you see here and take up the extra matte medium with deli paper but usually I cover the plate with sentiments and pluck them off one at a time. If the cards are all ready to go, I can usually get them on quick enough for it not to dry on me, even this sort of fiddly one.
The matte medium works great as a glue so they are well and truly stuck when they dry.
I realize I have not added any tags! Only because this weekend I know I will be wrapping a LOT of gifts so will need some new ones myself, I need to do some for me. And when I do, I always share. So look for them tomorrow, all being well. I have a few ideas for a design, but we’ll see if I can find the resources to make that vision real.
The original one I did, from the white-on-white paper turned out really sweet, I think.
I had a lot more to work with, frankly, because I had the foresight to scan the paper and work with that from the beginning. Note to self: even if you don’t LOVE it, SCAN IT! With the Green+Red I only had the bits trimmed off from the 12 x 12 sheet to create the weave. Now I think of it, if I could have cut a smaller card front, I bet I could have covered it – I just didn’t think of it!
I stuck the sentiment down too far to the left on the actual card so the white touches the white background, which is annoying, but this is one that goes in the emergency stash – when I need a card quick and am out of the top tier ones. It happens. Someone shows up with a card and you have to dash upstairs to “get the one you made” just for them but, well, you didn’t. A stack of pre-signed and with-envelope cards that one need a name scrawled on the front can be a lifesaver. So while this one may look a bit like the ugly step-sister of the group, it will do in a pinch!
I used one of the tips online for re-sticking the mat (spray adhesive) and it worked OK. Honestly, the more I read about how crap the Brother mats are and the more I use them, the more I agree. I am tempted by the tutorials that suggest using a Cricut mat cut and stuck to the brother one. I suspect you would need to do a test cut to get the pressure right but it sounds like it might work. I designed and cut a sheet of sentiments for cards using the Red & Green paper from last week. I think these will end my card-making or the holidays. I should have enough. These used the actual paper, not a scan. I really wanted the texture and painterly feel to be there, showing them as actual physical art, not an image of art.
In one area of the mat I had some bubbles from the spray adhesive, and that sentiment cut perfectly but would not let go of the mat. Not bad to have only one sacrificed to the cutting Gods. The big sentiment looked good on the background and there was enough to cover four cards
Simple enough. I designed the MERRY to be straight across, and used that to keep it aligned nicely.
It can be really hard to get them straight sometimes. Anyway I added a trio of gold sequins as well, just for that little bit of extra bling
If this had been a die, I might have cut a fun foam duplicate to pop it up a bit, but these might well be mailed (yeah, takinga chance there, given the state of the global post services lately) so lat is where it’s at!
There are some strips trimmed off to get to the 5 1/2″ square chunks I wanted to fit the card fronts, so I will play around with them to create a 5th card, I think. Might be OK, I’ll have to see. I did make a woven background from strips of the white-on-white scan and I really liked that a lot, so if I can, I may try that. I’ll share both if it turns out well. If not….crickets!
Dithering over what I will do over the holiday week between Xmas and New Year. I might go dark, I might bring back some old posts, I might have a massive spurt of creativity. I honestly don’t know. This year more than recent years, with Dear Son in residence, I feel like it will be precious family time to enjoy together. Between that and surely a ton of family Zooms or Facetimes, arty time might be in short supply. Not gonna lie, I’m looking forward to chilling out with a ton of sappy holiday movies (and Die Hard, much to Darling Daughter’s chagrin LOL!) and getting some cat cuddles in front of the tree. One more skating event before the big day, a Teams meeting for DD about a new project she might work on, a Holiday lunch with friends and a Dr. phone call. so not the most restful week.
Been a while since I did a colour challenge, but I wanted to play with traditional Christmas colours so I did.
Mostly Green + a bit of red. I allowed myself a metallic, gold.
I always begin with good overall coverage on the sheet, then touches of darker and/or lighter. I am loving brayer work too.
When it came to the red. I had a lot to choose from but I knew I wanted only one
For me, that was Pebeo 50 Primary Magenta. It’s not what I think of when I think of Magenta but hey ho… I added it using the scribbly circles from PMAS. Lots of them. And finally my favourite grid circle, the biggest one this time, for the touches of gold.
I really liked how the brayer skittered over the white dots (used punchinella for those in a previous layer) and really seemed to highlight them
This one was always destined to be cut up for cards, I just need to consider the topper. They are so chaotic with colour and pattern it feels like a simple word is all that is needed. I don’t need too many more, the postal strike means it is best to stick with hand delivered cards this year where possible, and increase my stash for another year.
Another skating performance – outside, in the cold, the Mixed Ability SPICE Synchro team were are the Windsor ice rink for a night. Brrrr. Cold just looking at the photo, but how festive!
Crikey. This worked so much better than I expected it to!! I scanned the piece and printed it on my laser (left, a bit pale) and inkjet (right) printers and they looked pretty good to me.
Now, the laser only prints A4 and because I wanted to capture a different piece of the whole, so I could play with the different areas, I flipped it. Clearly I forgot there are letters on there. But to be honest I’m not sure it really matters, as the letters are more a design element than actual text IYKWIM. I did then tart up each piece with gold paint, as the shimmer of the original gets totally lost in the scanned and printed version.
Love them so much. I cut them into chunks to top the card bases I really want to use up, then stitched around the edges. Where the first card had a lot of elements, these came together in a flash. The only slightly tie consuming part was the stars. I used a combination of gold mic powder and some old UTEE in gold, to give a really distressed look to it.
The final card is still really pretty but a lot less work and a lot less textured, because the scan is flat. Obviously LOL!
And just a quick side-by-side
I do think I really prefer the simpler one. Quick to make but still really nice and less…cluttered maybe. And using scanned papers, I can make a ton of them because I am not limited to how many I can get from my single 12×12.
Result!
Tree goes up this weekend. Worried about the cat – will she want to scale it? Not sure. Son tells me they never put up a tree in the States so it could be interesting…
I have never been one to send out stacks of cards. I just never really go into the habit of it and carried on the same. Recently, I feel the draw of holiday cardmaking more than before. I have a small (and I mean very small, probably less than 10 people) list that is 90% family (and not even all of them) and a couple very very close friends. So the cards from my one masterboard will probably make 80% of the cards I need. The design is pretty simple, but with a lot of parts.
The card bases I have that I want to use up are actually embossed with a large rectangle in the middle. I am covering that with a bit of the W-on-W sheet
The sentiment is a die cut from a sheet of cardstock covered in sparkly gold tissue.
The tag has some gold stenciling then is topped with a couple of stars. The smaller stars are hand cut using the same stencil as the stars on the masterboard and the bigger ones are a punch.
That goes on top of the card front and… Ta Da!
I really like it, and while it is perhaps more time-consuming than is ideal for someone making 50+ cards, for someone making 10, it isn’t so bad.
I am still hoping to experiment with my scan, to see if I can print something that looks decent enough and embellish it. I don’t have enough of the sparkly paper the stars are cut from to make a lot more, so I need to consider altering the design. I might hold that for the weekend, and work on that long sheet of packaging paper. Still not sure what to make of it but something will reveal itself at some point – or someone will suggest something and I will slap my forehead and say Of course!
I will be adding a number of 2022-2023 One Sheet calendars over the next week. That lets me spend precious time with my family. I hope your Christmas is a happy, healthy, and festive one!
scrappystickyinkymess 