I'm ba-ack... with a Christmas card

I can hardly believe it's been two full weeks since I posted anything on my blog, but to say things have been manic is an understatement.  The new challenge starting today at Here Come The Boys is Die Cuts and Punches.... too easy! I thought that I would make a start on my Christmas cards for this year as my DT project.

We're being sponsored by Bugaboo Stamps this time around (you could win 7 digis!!) so I thought I'd give one of my favourite Bugagoo characters, Gus, an outing.  This is Gus Be Naughty, and he comes with the sentiment too.  Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge has Here Comes Santa as it's theme, so I'm entering there.

Sketch and Stash had this fab sketch this time around, nice and versatile :-) Having Dies and Punches as the theme at Here Come The Boys was a nice easy one for me... I just about always use dies, and often punches.  I thought I'd make the effort to use both for the occasion so I cut the image panel with my new Nestabilities Labels One dies, then cut some snowflakes with my Martha Stewart punch... then forgot to add them to my card, duh!  Oozak has Die Cuts as their current challenge theme, so I'm entering there.  I've coloured with Copics and added some extra shading and highlights with Prismacolor pencils.  I added Platinum Stickles to the sleigh, Royal Coat Gloss to his glasses and Fun Flock to the fur trim... but it looked grey, so I added White Opal Liquid Pearls, which at least helped it look white again! 

The card is dark green pearl, the glittery card (which was really hard to cut neatly, even with my fab new Fiskars Cutter) and starry card are from my stash, the stripy paper is from Kaisercraft - 'tis the Season collection, I think!   The ribbon is also from my stash, Paper Crafting Journey wants us to use Ribbon or Twine, as is the Card Candi.... Creative Craft Challenges theme is to Use Three of something, so I'm in!  The Crafty Pad has and Anything Christmas challenge.  Fashionista Challenge and Stampin' for the Weekend both have Anything Goes challenges running so I'll be entering those too.

I used the negative of the mat I cut for the image panel, on the inside of the card, backing it up with some of the starry paper and adding a jotting panel to the centre.  The "Merry Christmas" is (are, correct grammar??) stickers, I added an eyelet and some gold cord to this little tag for two reasons; a) I was going to "hang" it from the edge of the card, and b) I wanted to use my drove-miles-to-get Cropadile ... 'twas fun and soooo easy to use (in the past I've avoided adding eyelets with my old Fiskars eyelet setter; bang, bang miss, curse!) 

Well, as they say, that's the end of my story for today.  I hope to be back in the swing of things this week, though there is still much going on in my world that is both time and energy sapping.

My folks continue with their run of not-quite-poor but could-be-better health, and with my Dad being currently unable to drive, my Mum being too nervous to drive to "new" places and my Sister having moved 400 km away essentially full time,  I find myself being taxi again (those of you with teenage kids will know what I mean!) A LOT.  

We have had some new building regs passed here too that impact on our business; it's taken a few months for everyone to be on "the same page", and now we all are, our workload has exploded.  

In the midst of all this, oh and Menopause... which is a whole other ball of misery, I decided that the new kitchen we were planning for early next year had to be brought forward so that it is complete before "the twins" arrive in March... (I want to be free to help out if needed, twins... what do I mean "if", lol) 

Of course the kitchen itself will only take a few weeks to do, but we have to lift the kitchen floor tiles because the slightly different layout will leave a gap and as the kitchen abuts the casual living area and we can not match the floor tiles there, we have to re-tile the meals area, family room, passageway, Entry and Study too - 80m2 - that lovely seamless open plan living idea is looking like an expensive option now, I can tell ya!  Hopefully my new kitchen will be STUNNING, and this will all be viewed as a minor inconvenience in the pursuit of perfection.... well, you can dream, lol.  I will be getting a skylight in my craft room at the same time, and new carpet there too, so (apart from having to move a quadzillion bits of craft stuff out of the way), that's something to look forward to :-) 

Meanwhile I hope you'll join in the Die and Punch (well, it's better than Punch and Die, lol) fun at Here Come The Boys, do pop over and see what my lovely teamies have come up with... if you fancy being a Guest DT member, just put GDT after your name when you enter the challenge ;-)  Until next time,Happy Crafting, Donna