The Last of The Foiled Brigade

Hi I'm back with the last of the cards I made for Christmas 2017... finally and hooray I hear you say.  

The first one today uses a lovely background die cut. 
I cannot remember the name or supplier of it... I have had it for a few years and this is the first time I've ever used it (unfortunately it is no orphan in that department!); if you know the supplier let me know and I'll note it on the cover sheet of my die storage

I used gold foiled card as a background and mat for the image and gold Deco Foil to foil the image... which is a sentiment :-)  Again I've included a pic for shine demonstration purposes, lol
I popped the centre panel up on foam dots for a bit of dimension

The very last card of this batch is one I was quite pleased with... especially considering how quickly it came together!

The patterned paper is a scrap from a really old pad, Basic Grey "Jovial", the red mat was cut with Nestabliities Scalloped Ovals, the "image" (again doing double duty as the sentiment) was yet another fabulous freebie from the equally fabulous Paulette at Create with TLC  printed on linen card
I added the shadow to the words (so easily done using Word) and foiled with Gold Deco Foil - the shadow doesn't "grab" the foil, so the sentiment looks pretty clean.... that said I sponged some ink around the edge of the image panel to help it tie in with the grungy style of the patterned paper.  I added dimension by once again layering the oval on some foam dots
... and that is IT for 2017's Christmas cards, promise!
I won't put up a Christmas card for a while, and I won't leave it until more than a year after the event either!  At least that way we won't get Christmas card overload :-)
I am entering these cards in the following challenges:

The Paper Shelter Dies and/or Punches

Pixies Snippets Playground Snippets (that Basic Gray paper, sadly now all gone, sob)

Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge Use Patterned Paper

Jingle Belles Look What Santa Brought Me - Use New Stash (the snowflake background die is on its first outing)

Winter Wonderland Snowtime (Snowmen or Snowflakes)

Sweet Stampin' Christmas and Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge have Anything Christmas, Aud Sentiments has Anything (plus a sentiment) Goes and Tuesday Throwdown, Gem of a Challenge, Through the Craftroom Door,Digi Choosday,  Crafty  Creations, Crafting With Friends  Challenge #78, Creative Fingers, Li'l Patch of Crafty Friends, Polkadoodles, Creatalicious Challenges and Corrosive Challenge All have Anything Goes

 I will - if I stick to the "plan" - be back in a few days.  The "plan" is to post at least once a week.  Of course, I've already fallen behind, and there are no excuses as I have over a year's worth of projects on hand ALREADY - AND I had this post typed up and ready to go weeks ago, sigh.  
I am also spending a bit of time at the vet... Rocky has had his ACL surgery and is doing really quite well - with his general health taken into consideration... of course, because of the medications he is on for his doggy-lupus he has developed alopecia... with all the shaved spots from various tests, infusions and surgeries now not growing back the poor little chap looks like a very boring, very low-quality quilt!  and now he has developed yet another problem (ruptured anal gland) so he's on MORE medications, such a sweet little boy he really doesn't deserve any of this, and he takes it all with such good grace, still happily wagging to greet us
Anyways, until I do get back, Happy Crafting, Donna

Happy New... Baby!

Hello everyone... hope you're all settling into 2019, I know I am; it's like the Holidays never happened, lol.
The card I have to share today celebrates a New Beginning too... one of our work colleagues (a scheduler for one of the companies we contract for) had a beautiful bub called Ryker and I made this card in a box to celebrate the event

I love this style of card, they fit flat for posting (and/or...hopefully... storing as a keepsake!) yet provide a "lot" of card for your buck when open.  
I used this gorgeous Lee Holland digi called Elephant with Flower, available here, coloured with Prismacolor pencils... I love the soft pastel effect pencils give for baby images.  There's a little bit of glittery goodness in the flower centre.... just because :-)
I fussy cut the image and mounted it on little grassy mounds made using a Dienamics border die (Grassy Edges, I think)
I cut the letters of Ryker's name from the same blue card used for all the matting (sorry can't remember the die set, think it's Cottage Cutz) and added them to acetate "stalks" at the back of one of the "cross bars", leaving them dancing merrily away behind the image to the left.  On the other side I added a cute little acrylic blue dragonfly to balance it out.
I used multicoloured cube beads to spell out the word Welcome and strung that up on twine on the back upright panel.
The Ten Little Fingers verse on the front flap is from a Kaisercraft 6" pad "Lullaby"

The rest of the papers are just gorgeous in real life... they're from First Edition's It's a Boy pad, there's lots of fine detail and plenty of foil.  I actually used five different patterns of this paper, but that was because I only had a few snippets left of the butterfly pattern, they all go together so well though that it doesn't look like you've run out of one pattern!  It does mean I can enter the challenge at Pixies Snippets Playground, always a bonus :-)
 I added a velcro closer to the bellyband covered that with a rectangular panel and decorated that with a cute laser cut wooden rocking horse.
I added little silver flatbacks to every corner of every panel... which took a surprisingly long time!
As I do with all these cards I put the jotting panel on the back, I added a small panel of patterned paper at the bottom trimmed with some spotty gros grain ribbon from my stash
 .... and THAT's it for Ryker's card.  I'd like to enter in the following challenges

The Paper Shelter and Fab'n'Funky Challenges have New Beginnings

Cuttlebug Mania, Die Cut Divas and Cute Card Thursday have Something New

Crazy 4 Challenges has Favourite Type of Card (shape, theme etc) I LOVE cards in a box

Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge Use Patterned Paper

As You Like It,  Through the Craftroom Door, Digi Choosday, Crafty  Creations, Crafting With Friends Challenge #77, Li'l Patch of Crafty Friends, Polkadoodles, A Perfect Time to Craft, Creatalicious Challenges, Crafting With Attitude and Corrosive Challenge All have Anything Goes

Ona personal note, thanks to those who left me best wishes regarding my little friend Rocky... he is still with us; he had surgery last week and came through it really well; we did do an assessment re quality of life with the vet and he scored surprisingly high - a long way off euthenasia being "the" only answer.  Of course it may eventually come to that, but for the time being he is ticking along quite nicely (about which I am very happy and much relieved!) 

Until next time, Happy Crafting, Donna

Happy New Year

So.... here we are in another New Year!
I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year - who can believe it's 2019 already?!  This is one of those "zero" years for me... I turn the Big 6Zero in April ... so "already" really does have extra significance for me this time around!
I thought I'd share the last of my 2017 Christmas cards as I did get a few Christmas cards made this year (woops, last year, in 2018!) and those, added to the "unblogged" projects I made through the year add up nearly 60 projects still to share from my drafts -so time to get 2017 out of the equation :-)

They are mostly foiled cards as they were definitely "Flavour of the Month" for December 17.  

The first uses yet another as yet unused digital image I can't even remember getting, never mind where from, foiled with gold Deco Foil (I know, hard to see in the pic, the small pic is for foil-showing purposes, lol) The sentiment is computer generated and foiled using the laminator the same way as the image.  I love this paper, it's from Wild Rose Studio "Annabelle's Christmas" pad, it is quite lightweight but as long as you use a nice sharp blade it's nice to use.  I used MFT Stitched Circle dies to cut the image panel and mat and Paper Roses Scalloped Squares to cut the large red mat... I actually cut it as a frame, leaving a white border around the patterned paper... I used the centre cut out part as a red mat on another card.

The second card uses the same image, but this time I foiled the bauble in red and the string in gold, I foiled the sentiment in the red Deco Foil too.  No patterned paper on this one, just kraft card and gold foil matting.

Third one for the day is the simplest of all... though really quite effective in real life.  Another lovely digital image - whose pedigree I cannot recall - Foiled in green Deco Foil with red gems in various sizes representing baubles, I didn't even add a sentiment to the front of this card, only the inside.

That's it for this post... I have another post written up with the (very) last of this batch of cards... honestly... that I'll share in a day or so.   In the meantime I'd like to enter these cards in the following challenges:

Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge Use Patterned Paper

Tuesday Throwdown Winter Sparkles (They're Christmas cards and sparkly gems)

Crazy 4 Challenges Tree-mendous

Christmas with the Cuties Carols or Songs (Oh Christmas Tree)

Sweet Stampin', Die Cut Divas, My Time to Craft and Simon Says Challenge, Something New (all the images are newbies to me)

Cutie Pie Challenge Add Some Sparkle… those gems again :-)

Sasayaki Glitter Happy Holidays

The Paper Shelter, Sweet Stampin' Christmas, Winter Wonderland, Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Christmas
As You Like It,  Cute Card Thursday, Through the Craftroom Door, Digi Choosday, Crafty  Creations, Li'l Patch of Crafty Friends, Polkadoodles, Creatalicious Challenges, Crafting With Attitude, and Corrosive Challenge Anything Goes

That's it for today... I'll be back in a few days with those last few Chrissie cards.  I have to take my poor darling Rocky to the vet tomorrow, he has "done" his other knee now and has to have it reconstructed.  Of course it happened after hours and we had to take him to the Emergency Vet ($224 thanks very much!) and now nearly $2k for surgery!!  It was a tough decision to make whether to put him through it, he is not as happy a little dog as he was before he went blind and it is quite a tough recovery, but after discussing with the vet it has been decided that it is worth a try for him... he can't NOT have it done as the recovery to a reasonable state of movement without intervention would take too long (mainly because of the medication he is on for his Lupus) and he is pretty miserable being unable to see and barely able to move.  
The only option is to put him to sleep.  If he was not such a sloth of a dog anyway I don't think we would be going down this route, and euthanasia would be the only option, but he spends his time just layin' around and has for years... he's not "missing out" on a lot of activities so much as being spared them!
Of course, the alternative is so unpalatable for US... it is hard, we want to do the right thing by him and not keep him going for us, with scant regard for his well being but don't want to "end his suffering" if he's not suffering but just chilling.  My last little darling boy did the right thing by us and died after climbing onto my lap after going for his daily walk - heartbreaking but at least we weren't forced into that pet-owners Sophies Choice.  We'll see how it all goes
Until next time, Happy Crafting, Donna x