Monday 26 November 2012

christmas wreath

I have been a week making this wreath...not because of the work, it was just having the spirt to do it. When I considered making my own christmas wreath I envisioned a ring of red and dark green flowers,all traditional christmas colours, but when I started to lay it out I didnt like it , to me it seemed too harsh, so I removed the dark green flowers and made some in different shades of a lighter green, and added some pink flowers to soften down the look.

To make the wreath firstly I bought a polystyrene ring, this one was 12"

It was only £2.00 in my local craft shop and so I bought a few in different sizes and I also bought some cone shaped ones that I shall enjoy playing with to make christmas table decorations with...

Then I cut out loads of scalloped circles in various co ordinating colours and made into flowers. Here is a tutorial showing you how to do this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3DZSEfEYPA

These flowers are so easy to make and the best thing is that you can cut the circles on your cameo and so it takes minutes to have 5 or 6 made!!


As you can see in the picture I dont make mine perfect they are usually a little hodge podge mix, but thats how I like it because a garden is never uniform and nature isnt perfected either!!

I then decide which leaves I want to use because sometimes the colours used in the flowers change the way you want to lay out your wreath....so my leaves always come last to cut but first to go down...

Here is a selection of leaves that  I most frequently use in my wreaths and they all come from the silhouette store. I tend to make 2 or 3 different types for each wreath in a variety of colours.

Then comes the fun time...I tend to use my glue gun to stick the leaves and flowers to the polystyrene as that way they are nice and secure and will withstand the tugging and playing with that they are subjected to by my family!!

The reindeer in this one was some cuts I had left from christmas cards I made!!
They just added interest and filled over some gaps left when the flowers were placed. I could have added more but the 2 I placed seemed to be enough....

The Father chrismas and Mother Christmas were my husbands find...he went to a tabletop sasle and a lady there had a carrier bag of craaft bits that she sold to him for £2 and right at the bottom there they were. The minute I saw them I knew they were destined for this years wreath!!


Thank you for looking
Love debby xx

Tuesday 20 November 2012

I went blank....

After completeing the toppers and Angels for my friends church group I decided to start on my christmas wreath and spent a whole day cutting fancy edged circles for the flowers...it is a big polystyrene circle I have to fill...and they have sat on my desk waiting and waiting...in the last week I have managed to just put 12 together...I am ashamed of myself lol :)

I keep looking at the piles of circles and they just sit staring back at me...then today it being tuesday I downloaded the free silhouette store file and its a tree and I looked at it and looked at it and couldnt think how to put it together other than to stick each layer on top of each other and I scratched my head and looked and thought I had lost the ability to craft!! Then they blogged about the shape and I found that my 1 tree was actually 4 trees and it was so easy to do that I shook my head at myself and instantly made one up....so I have mentally given myself a shake and hope that my crafting mojo is returning with a vengeance...Hope to be able to do something this evening to post tomorrow...I think I may start off with something simple like a snowglobe using this weeks file and then work up to my wreath..

Thank you for being here
Love debby xx

Saturday 10 November 2012

Im doing my bit!!

I havent been able to do any crafting for myself for the last week, as my friend approached me and asked would I please cut her some toppers so that she could make some cards for her church to sale in their christmas fayre...she said it wouldnt be too much just a few....well I said I would but that she would have to supply the card....mistake....she turned up with 50 sheets of card so that 'I could cut some toppers for the ladies at church' as Ihad already said I would cut her some I felt obliged....but now I am sick of snow men, nativity scenes and snowflakes... I know this will be a help with the church funds but it isnt something that I would want to do too often as I have found it sapped my mojo knowing that I had to do this instead of being something I wanted to do lol...

So today I have cut the last sheet and am sighing a sign of relief...although I didnt mind doing it I didnt realise how much stress it would cause because when you do something for someone else you always want perfection....I also didnt realise how much it would sap my inspiration., but its done now and I can start my christmas crafting...Im hoping to do a few pressies for the girls first..

Thank you for looking
Love debby xx

Friday 2 November 2012

November Card challenge

The November card challenge for the silhouette plus forum for this month is a simple phrase...A Winters Tale....I was going to write an intro to it but with all the things that phrase bought to mind it would have been a very long intro indeed and had a moment of genius?? and thought i would just write the phrase and see what happened...and of course I had to give some inspiration, because everyone gets blocked now and again and one picture can sometimes give you tons of ideas...

The first card I made for inspiration was taken from a painting by Thomas Kinkade and adapted for card making by Joanna Sheen and put in decoupage form onto a cd. My beautiful Mum bought the cd for me when she saw me umm and aaah-ing at it! So a perfect time to use it..

The background paper came from the same cd winter by Joanna Sheen. I used foam pads on the decoupage and dare i say it I actually hand cut the layers!! I used white flowersoft on the roof of the house with my tacky glue. I high lighted the roof with a glitter glue as well. I then used a silver ribbon to which I stuck a chain shaped peel off. I used a swirl that I cut with cammie and glued white ribbon roses to it. A very winter looking card!!

The next card I did for inspiration was a white wolf from a crafters companion cd titled traditional christmas. I keep looking at this picture and always thought it would make a lovely christmas card. So finally I made one and I like it though hubby is not sure...



I used a background paper that I had in my stash, but I dont remember where I got it from. The black border with the glittery stars was on the same cd as the wolf as was the other embelishments. In real life you can see a little colour on the front of the wolf and so I glittered the heart a couple of shades from that to help it pop out more. The photo edges were cut with cammie and covered with silver leaf. I deliberately didnt completely cover them as I wanted some of the red to peep out and add colour to an other mono chrome card.

The third card was another Thomas Kinkade painting adapted by Joanna Sheen and on the cd...

I used the background paper from the CD but alas I stuck it on wrong but with everything covering the card it doesnt really notice!! (I hope!!) Again I hand cut the decoupage and used foam pads to stick it with. I glittered the path infront of the church to accentuate the frost and snow. I added some leaves cut by cammie and some roses made from scalloped circles. I like how this one turned out.

I still had ideas for the inspirations and made this last card which I think can be suitable for children and young female teeens..


This card was made using the forever friends A winters tale collection...all the papers and decoupage came from that collection the only thing I added was the ribbon with bell and the gems. I thought this design lended itself to an easel card quite well and this is what I had in mind when I saw the collection, although I had originally intended to do the card in the red option when it came to making it I decided I liked the blue better for this particular card.

Thank you for looking
Love debby xx