Resurfacing with some Christmas Cards

It's been a long time!
I have been into creativity but not into cards. Crochet and cookery seem to have taken their place. I have also been tired, too tired to really come up with yet another idea. The thought of searching for the right stamp, the right paper, the right embellishments and then having to make it all come together was too much.
But I never lost the spark thanks to Pinterest. I love Pinterest! The Christmas cards this year I have seen have been inspiring, hence the desire to make a few. And why shouldn't I share them? Perhaps because I feel just a bit guilty that I haven't been leaving comments on your blogs. I have been looking and loving though!

Hero Arts stamps are still my favorite and go-too everytime.

and finally, I found some Christmas tags in an old magazine and turned them into a card centre piece:

with a little close up of the labels which I decorated with gold sentiment and embossing.

Wishing you all a very happy and BLESSED New Year!

Just sharing

I have to share this little find I had yesterday.... For a while now I had been missing eggs in the nest and I just thought one of  the three wasn't laying because of the heat. When I returned home from work I saw a chicken walk into the raspberry bush behind the Chicken Coop and I thought she was just escaping the extreme warm weather until I looked what she was doing and this is what I saw:

There were 17 eggs in the nest! Because this one was full, I discovered another nest a little bit further on that had another two eggs in it. They were all eatable because if an egg sinks in water and lays on it's side, it's o.k. to eat. If an egg stands upright in water it is o.k. but a bit old. If an egg floats it is stale and cannot be eaten. Another trick is to hold three eggs in your hand, one on top of the other, if the middle one rotates, it's fresh!

Just a day earlier I had another surprise, my hybiscus was flowering with seven beautiful flowers!  I felt so blessed.

OK onto a card, this Penny Black Blossom stamp was stamped and embossed in gold on vellum, cut out and adhered to a corner of a card. Sentiment is Hero Arts.

This card was posted on my Grid-card blog but I thought it would be nice to share here as well. It was a lot of work and took two days to finish. I used a Hero Arts scrapbook stamp, featured below:

And to finish a collage of some family photos having fun in this beautiful summer.

Signing off for now - enjoy your day and the rest of the summer!

Jacqueline

Keeping it simple

Sometimes, keeping it simple is nice to work with. I have a Pinterest Board called 'White Space' - I am drawn to cards that have lots of white space and yet I don't hardly do it myself.
So now I did... the flower stamp is Hero Arts. I just stamped a black square over the top.

the next one was inspired by a pin on my white space Board.

Last weekend we were in a beautiful resort in Roses, Spain for our 30th Wedding anniversary. I am so thankful to God for a wonderful husband, who loves and cares for me. I hope he can say the same for me :).

Happy weekend!
Jacqueline

Winner's wine labels

Hello ladies,
I have decided to send Connie Crafter and Nellie some wine labels as I know they haven't had the chance to use these wine labels before. My e-mail is cartes34@hotmail.com. Please send me your address - thanks.

Just sharing a card I made a while ago with Penny Black Butterfly stamp, stamped and embossed on vellum and colored with alcohol inks.
Jacqueline

New Stamps and little give-away

I was inspired by two special crafting ladies to purchase these stamps. I only try to invest in stamps that will bring lots of inspiration and are practical to make cards.

First one was inspired by Virginia, from her blog 'Yes, Virginia'. You can find her blogpost here. I will use these stamps for envelopes and cards. The set is from Simon Say's Stamp and is called 'Sending Flowers'. I bet you will love Virginia's envelopes. Funnily enough, I haven't seen them anyway else on the blogs.

 

This second card was made with the set from SSS called Spring Flowers. Sally Sherfield uses this set in such a beautiful way on her cards. Take a look here on her blog.

As you can see, I have used a wine label on both cards, because that was my idea before the stamps arrived and I stuck to it.

Speaking of wine labels... I still have loads and would like to give away a little package to somebody who would love to craft with them, including some of the labels I have used today. I will let random org. pick somebody from the comment section. 

Thanks to all who visit and leave such lovely comments, so appreciate it!
Jacqueline

What do you do with certain stamps?

Happy sunny Wednesday!
Yesterday I had put some stamps to the side, thinking, what am I going to use these for?

As I was browsing through Pinterest my eye caught a card and I immediately thought of one of the stamps I had put aside. Could it be - could I possibly find a use for this stamp?
Well this is the stamp:

and this is my card, collage style, using paper from my friend Maria, and snippets from my snippet box:

Sometimes its good to hang on to stamps and not be too quick on giving up on them.

Just above a shot from my snippet box.

This is Hanaë, my granddaughter, just to share some more sunshine!!
Enjoy Spring!
Jacqueline

Spring!

We are  having lovely Spring weather! Our Cherry tree has been in full bloom and will yield abundantly again this year.

 

I just wanted to make some cards with Spring as my theme. I have edited my first card because I was able to get a good photo with the light at the moment and it looks better this way! Have to mention my little chicken prop.. bought her in Spain a couple of years ago.

Jacqueline

Winner and some collage cards

Hi there! I have been away two weekends, had a lovely break in the Spainsh coastal town of Rosas and just this week I did a random org on my phone, not knowing that there were two more comments awaiting moderation - so I did 1-16 and got number 16 - believe it or not, it is Dee from England, a very creative lady. Sorry to the other two, but I think I will be having more give aways as I have lots of stamps that I don't use and I have passed the stage of selling things on the Internet. The work involved is just too much.
I am still having problems with taking photographs and it frustrates me so much that I just give up! So I do the best I can with scanning nowadays.

I just want to share a photo of my third granddaughter, Hanaë. She is three months now and such a joy!!

I love to create like this because I can use up so many papers that need to be used!

Hope to be back soon as I sold 14 cards last week and that motivates me to get some more done!

Many blessings to you all!
Jacqueline

Collage cards and a give-away

Hello everyone. I hope you are all well.
Yes, I'm still here but I just can't seem to make cards anymore! I cannot take a good photograph either! Even scanning a card looks odd and I don't know what to do about it!

I do have a couple of collage cards to show with my new little birdie stamp which I made a while ago.

I do have something I would like to send to somebody who is interested and really wants it. It is a Vintage Images CD Vol 3 from Tuscan Rose.

I will gladly send it to anybody in the world who wants it.

Please let me know and if I find out its quite popular I will have to pick a name out of a hat!

Sorry ladies but my head is just not up to crafting at the moment.

Jacqueline

Using up the patterned papers!

Happy New Year! So sorry I haven't been around. I have had a lapse in creating cards but have been crocheting and making some home decor projects for my family, even forgetting to take a photograph. My third granddaughter was born on 27th December. Her name is Hanaë. All is well. René and I visited my family in England for Christmas and had a good time!

Just lately I have found the need to use up some patterned paper which just lie unused. I usually use up all of my craft supplies but haven't had the needed inspiration to make something with them. A card on Pinterest sparked an idea to use up papers which have been in my possession for several years. I will show some of them and hope you might also find some suitable stamps to use on the papers you have. The simple solution is to stamp over the top of the paper and white emboss, that changes the whole outlook.

This is one example. A nice piece of paper, but on its own, or with a sentiment, not very appealling. The white embossing lifts it up and passes in my book as a suitable card to send to somebody. I have linked up this card to the a2z Scrapbooking Blog here.

The same goes with this one,

and this one, which comes from the same sheet of paper as the first card.

So I hope to have given somebody an idea today!

Nice to be back, so now and then.
Jacqueline