Monday 31 December 2012

2012 draws to a close ...

Well it's been a busy busy busy crafting year, but just as I did last year, I wanted to finish off the year with a special post documenting my year, and sharing a few of my favourite creations from the past twelve months.

A year in review :

I've been honoured to be part of some amazing design teams and have made some lovely friends both in my fellow teamies as well as some of our regular participants.

I needed to cut down my DT commitments last December due to work commitments, but seven months later I was more settled again and was amazed to be asked by Jacqui to join the Lili's Little Fairies team.  This was shortly followed by my Top Tip Tuesday co-ordinator and blog pal Samantha convincing me that the only way I was going to get my Christmas creations organised was to join her ABC Christmas design team.  

Thank you girlies for loving my creations enough to want me on your fab teams.

In September I was honoured to be invited by the lovely Janet to guest design for her shop The Stamp Basket.  Her shop sells loads of my favourite crafting goodies like dies, stamps, embellishments, gorgeous ribbons as well as some stuff that I'd been wanting for ages like pearl brads which I now use on nearly all my creations (you may have noticed!!!).

I've also guest designed for a few challenges throughout the year, but a special mention also goes out to my lovely pal Chris and her team at Incy Wincy.  Despite me having to give up being a full time teamie at the end of 2011 due to increased pressures in my day job (the one that pays for my crafting addictions!!), she's continued to allow me to guest design on occasions this year.  Thank you so much honey for letting me play along with you guys.

Finally I've like to thank you for following and visiting my blog, reading my regular drivel and leaving me such wonderful comments. I read every single one and love knowing what you think of my creations.  I also like to visit as many fellow bloggers as I can manage to know what you're getting up to, what creations you have to share, and what tips and inspiration you have taken the trouble to share with us.

Thank you to you all.

You make this blog worthwhile and I'm grateful for every single visitor (except for those anonymous spam ones who keep leaving me messages about where I might like to purchase Viagra or plastic business cards!).

Warning :
I'm finishing off with a plethora of pictures being my favourite cards and creations from the past year.   I'd planned to restrict my choices to just 1 per month, trying to show my journey of crafting experiments and (hopefully) improvements over the last 12 months, but as per last year, I've been unable to restrict myself to just one per month.

Hope you bear with me while I share some of my favourites.

Happy New Year

Hope to see you all again in 2013.


January 2012 

I've always liked shaped cards, cute bears and the colour pink.  Therefore this has to be my top pick for January.


February 2012

In February I made this super-size tag, and immediately regretted doing the stitching around the fancy shape.  I liked it when I'd finished it, but the stitching was a bit wobbly in places.


March 2012

In March I used this cute Stampfairy image of (one of) my favourite bears, Jake.  I just love his expression and huge nose!  (he might feature again yet before the year is out!!!).  I was also experimenting with pencil colouring with Sansodor oil for blending.

April 2012

In April I made this adorable bag (which I haven't yet been able to part with yet) using Stampfairy's Toby bear.


May 2012

May was a bit of a LOTV month, with these two cuties on card bases shaped with Grand Nesties dies.  Both cards also use one of my earliest freebie sentiments.




And I'm sneaking another Stampfairy Toby card in. I loved the shape, colour and simplicity of this baby card.  Again the card base was cut from a die, this time from Go Kreate.



June 2012

June saw me get a bit adventurous with these two 'timely' creations (get it?  *groan*).

And yes, it's Stampfairy's Jake again in both projects!






And I did manage to get a couple of Tilda cards in this year, although not as many as I'd have liked.  These two were two of my favourites, where I'd used lovely papers, and taken the trouble to do some stitching (one of my NY resolutions is to do more stitching)






July 2012

This was one of my favourite Christmas cards this year, the papers are ones that I've useed often, and of course it's the adorable James bear from LOTV.


August 2012

August appears to be another LOTV month through and through. 
I ventured making another giant shaped tag (minus the stitching this time!) ...



... a baggie with a matching card ...




... and an altered hanging wooden plaque which is currently hanging on my wall for Christmas.  (Although I was planning on giving it away as a gift, in the end I couldn't bear to part with this one.)





September 2012

A couple more baggies with matching cards, but this time I made the baggies too rather than just decorating shop bought ones !!!







October 2012

In October I was off the baggies and back on the cards (and getting addicted to Tiddly Inks).  




November 2012

It was about November that I realised that I'd got nowhere near enough Chrimbo cards, and the panic started to set in ... 




December 2012

Yeah, I know I'm hopelessly failing on the one card per month task.

But I've started, so I'll finish, and if you're still with me, I promise that this is the last month ....







Thanks for staying with me through my trawl of highlights from 2012.
I hope to see you all in 2013.
Happy new year and happy crafting to you all.
Annette
xx

Sunday 30 December 2012

Heffalump with Wand

Today I'm using Bella with Wand from The Stamp Basket and this time used some gorgeous Nitwit papers in dark aqua and purples.  These are not specifically Christmassy papers, but I think the rich colours look fab, and I've coloured the image to match.


See my cards available to buy on eBay
eBay


All items are from The Stamp Basket as follows:
Pop over to The Stamp Basket to see the lovely array of products on offer.



I've been inspired by:
  • Sketch n Stash - Sketch (old stash = corner dies, ribbon. new stash = papers, star banner, image)
  • Bunny Zoe Challenge - Celebration
  • Totally Gorjuss - New (star die cut, image, sentiment)
  • Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes
Happy crafting.

Saturday 29 December 2012

Hanging Gifts

I hope that you all had a lovely Christmas with your loved ones.  I've had a few days off from posting as we've been visiting the in-laws in Sheffield.  I know Christmas is over but I'm sharing another Chrimbo card today.  This one uses the reverse of my red and white ornaments border die that I shared last weekend, and I think the white and red looks really effective.


See my cards available to buy on eBay
eBay


All items are from The Stamp Basket as follows:
Pop over to The Stamp Basket to see the lovely array of products on offer.



I've been inspired by:
Happy crafting.

Wednesday 26 December 2012

Rudolf the brown nosed reindeer

Happy Boxing Day !!!  I hope you all had a lovely day yesterday and hope that Santa brought you lots of lovely crafting stash!

If you want to put it to good use, the theme today at ABC Christmas Challenge is Z for Zoo Animals.  I've made a cute little reindeer card (it can't be Rudolf though, as he's not got a red nose!).

This was a pretty simple card, just two papers covering the join with a satin ribbon, adding 4 holly corner dies and some red liquid pearls for the berries.

No bows, flowers, snowflakes, pearls.  Nothing!!!

Simples !!



Card Recipe:
We're also having a DT call at the ABC Christmas Challenge so if you want to apply get your skates on and pop your name down.  Full details are on the challenge blog, just click on the badge below.



I've been inspired by:
Happy crafting.

Tuesday 25 December 2012

...

Merry Christmas Everyone

Just a quickie post today to wish you Merry Christmas, remind you we're in week 2 of our 3 week "Anything Christmas Goes" challenge at Top Tip Tuesday, and while I'm here, to share the card I made for my hubby using lots of goodies from The Stamp Basket.  

I'm sure hubby will say that it's not masculine enough, but I stayed off the flowers and pink so in my mind this is as masculine as I get.

So whether he likes it or not, this is his card!



At Top Tip Tuesday we're also sharing our New Year's Resolutions.

Here are mine ...

Crafting Resolutions :

  1. Do more stitching on my cards, cos I love how it looks when I do make the effort
  2. Paint with my Distress Inks rather than taking the lazy option of copics
  3. Improve my colouring techniques and use more 'white space' (see Claudia, Dena, Nixe-Moni, Gretha and Elise for my colouring inspiration) because I feel that I'd receive a 'must try harder' badge if my colouring was being marked by a craft teacher!!!
  4. Improve my motivation for masculine cards
Non-Crafting Resolutions :
  1. Lose weight & do more exercise (as usual)
  2. Try to work a tad closer to the 37hrs per week that I'm paid for, rather than then 55-60hrs that I inevitably end up working (leaving more time for crafting!).
  3. Go to bed earlier so that I'm not as grumpy when it's time to get up.

Have a lovely day everyone.

Card Recipe:
I've been inspired by:
Happy crafting.

Sunday 23 December 2012

Snowflakes

Another Stamp Basket creation today and I'm sticking to the traditional Chrimbo colours. I've also used a gorgeous new die called Ornaments Border Die from Whimsy.  I've cut it out in both red and white, and then pushed out the centres of each and swapped them over, so that the white centres are in the red border (look out next week for the reverse colours!!! LOL).

I've also used the white pompom trim again. I've seen it around other people's cards quite a bit this Christmas and it is lovely.


All items are from The Stamp Basket as follows:
Pop over to The Stamp Basket to see the lovely array of products on offer and the sale now on.



I've been inspired by:
Happy crafting.

Saturday 22 December 2012

Annabelle with Gifts

Another Stamp Basket creation from me to day using a pretty image called Annabelle with Gifts.  I've used traditional Christmas colours, pompom trim and some lovely snowflake dies.


All items are from The Stamp Basket as follows:
Pop over to The Stamp Basket to see the lovely array of products on offer and the fab pre-Christmas sale now on.



I've been inspired by:
Happy crafting.

Friday 21 December 2012

Mimi Frames

There is a new release and freebie today at StampFairy called Mimi Frames.

Those of you who visit me often will know that I'm not a 'C&S' kind of gal, but this image just seem to demand that I give the C&S approach another try.

So, no fancy shaped card base, no pearls or flowers (OMG!!!) just a simple (but gorgeous) rich plum coloured ribbon, one of my favourite pearl brads (I love these brads to fix a gorgeous satin ribbon on my cards) and a charm.

That's it.

Simples !  .....






See my cards available to buy on eBay
eBay


Card Recipe:
Please pop on over to StampFairy to see the newly released digi images.


Here's a preview of the set being released today:



    I've been inspired by:
    Happy Crafting

    Wednesday 19 December 2012

    Jake (again), I think I love this bear !!!

    We're half way through the letter 'Y' at the ABC Christmas Challenge which is Your Favourite Die or Punch.  But as well as the dies, I've used a few more of my favourite things on this card too.

    As last week, I've used my favourite bear, Jake, flowers, pretty papers (and they're pink this time too!!!) and of course (some of) my favourite dies.  This corner bow is one of my new favourites  and my lacey circle nesties are one of my oldest nesties and still a firm favourite.

    Hope you like my card.  He's currently making his way to a friend who I think will look after him safely!





    See my cards available to buy on eBay
    eBay



    Card Recipe:
    Please pop on over to the  ABC Christmas challenge blog to see the other creations by the talented design team, and to enter our challenge.  I look forward to seeing your creations this week.

    I've been inspired by:
    Happy crafting.

    Tuesday 18 December 2012

    Take-out box

    There's a Christmas themed challenge at Top Tip Tuesday for the next 3 weeks so I've made a cute little gift box using holly papers.  Although they're not poinsettias, I thought the flowers were festive as they are in traditional Christmas colours. I've also added a little tag tied on with green bakers twine, and popped a little bit of twine around two of the panels for some added interest and texture.  It's quite a small gift box, so I'm not really sure what I'm going to pop inside it now that I've made it.



    Project Recipe:
    I've been inspired by:
    Happy crafting.

    Monday 17 December 2012

    Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

    I like to match my cards to the recipients, trying (maybe failing) to send something that I think suits the recipient's taste rather than just my own taste.  However, today's post pretty much says it all.

    Those of you who visit me often will know that most of my creations are girlie; pink, glittery, flowers, ribbons, bows, lace, pretty papers etc.  So when I sat down to write out my Christmas cards this weekend (yes I know I've left it to the last minute!!) I tried matching up my stock of cards to my intended recipients but ended up with a fairly long list of names which didn't seem to match any of the cards I'd made already.  I think you can probably guess that those who were left unmatched were all of the guys on my Christmas card list.

    Dilemma : 15 guys without Chrimbo cards and one day to go before I needed to send them.

    Now I know that if they're anything like my hubby, most of the guys probably couldn't care less if they didn't even get a card, but that's not the point and it's important to me to send them one (whether they like it or not!!).   And I refuse point blank to buy a shop bought card instead of spending time creating something personally.

    So, 15 masculine cards in one day ... What I came up with is probably the most C&S card I've ever made.  But I thought it looked effective, elegant and gender neutral.

    Ok, I admit these ones didn't take my usual 2 to 3 hours to make, but each one is still made individually, not on a commercial production line.




    And for a bit of variation, here it is in gold .......





    See my cards available to buy on eBay

    eBay

    Card Recipe
    • Gold & Silver card base
    • Gold & Silver mirri card
    • Dieversions Merry Christmas Die
    I've been inspired by:
    Happy crafting.