November 'Winter' Challenge at Oakhouse Studio

Every month Lynnda of Oakhouse Studio (HERE) creates another challenge for the members of the Inkspired group on Facebook, the winner receives a voucher to spend on some of the lovely goodies in the shop :) and every month I try to do at least one entry (you can submit a maximum of 3 entries), here are my entries for the November challenge, the theme of which is Winter.

Entry 1:

This card took forever and a day, and there is not a single iota of exaggeration in saying that!!! The flowers and holly leaves are actually the Oakhouse Studio large christmas corner, stamped and embossed with their super fine detail gold embossing powder, coloured with distress inks (Barn Door and Pine Needles) before being very delicately cut out. I played with the arrangement of the flowers and the exact number of leaves for over an hour before I was finally satisfied. The finishing touch was to stamp in gold with a Woodware Merry Christmas sentiment in the centre of my wreath.

Entry 2:

I am slightly disappointed with how this card has photographed, it does not do the glittered snowflakes justice in any way, shape or form. I stamped, using a glue ink pad, various snowflakes from the Oakhouse Studio collection all over my card before adding a pinky blue tinged glitter to them all, that part turned out well (it is only my poor photography that lets this card down!). It was a couple of weeks before I decided how to finbish off this card (I'd had the inspiration for the background and had to make it straight away before loosing my crafty mojo entirely, at the wrong time of year for sure!). You may recognise these tress from the gift tags and price tags in my previous post, I had some spares made up laying on my desk and realised that this could be the way forward with this card. The middle tree has been trimmed (to be smaller than the other trees) so it appears to be further in the background. Finally I stamped Merry Christmas inside the card, in the same green as the trees.

Thanks for reading, sorry for slowing down with the frequency of posts, life is frantic, 2 and a half weeks until Christmas and still so much to do in the house :(

- Rebecca

Christmas Arts, Crafts and Hobbies Exhibition

No November posts...ooops! I do have my reasons!  On Saturday I did my first ever Craft Fayre, the preparation for it was far more stressful than I had ever imagined! I'm going to fill this post with photos and go easy on the writing, so if you want further explanation of anything just let me know.

Cards (some with co-ordinating envelopes):
(All cards that I have not blogged already, some cards from previous posts were also for sale)

More Owl Cards!

Cards (and card boxes for those that would not fit in normal envelopes)

These cards were made using a pack of co-ordinating cards, envelopes and sentiments I found in the bottom of a drawer, further embellished with ribbon, flowers etc from my stash.

Random cards made from kits I had (with no instructions so making it up as I went along!) in addition to a few embellishments from my stash.

These Robin cards are my favourites so far this year, the stamp is a beautiful one by Little Claire (stamped twice) and I love their individually glittered hats!

 

An ink blended background with a slight difference (masking off the 'moon' and then colouring the whole card), in a night's sky design (Faded Jeans Distress Ink, Dusty Concord Distress Ink and Dusty Rose by OHS) with stars of self-adhesive gems and Father Christmas and his reindeers

This idea was lifted from the December 2014 issue of Papercraft inspirations and then adapted to suit the items I had in my stash, I went a little crazy with the origami trees whilst watching television and consequently have plenty for more cards, gift tags etc (they may even make an appearance next year!)

Frames:

I don't feel the need to explain how these 'pictures' were produced as I have blogged about them previously, however if you would like an explanation please leave a comment and I will get back to you and also update this post to include my method.

Work in progress

Yet again apologies for the bad photos, I'm definitely not a photographer and Tom is too busy working on the house to help me (and that's not a dig, right now I'd far rather be helping him out there than crafting)!

A selection of gift tags (or Christmas Tree decorations if preferred):

All of the tags were created using items from the Stampin' Up Festival of Tree bundle (a set of stamps and the corresponding punch). The tag shape itself was punched using an old Creative Memories tag punch borrowed from my mum (it even punches the whole centrally in the tag as a secondary function!).

 

A lot of 3D foam was used in the making of these 2 layer tags (and they proved to be the most popular item by far on my stall!)

And the price labels which match the tags:

Gift Boxes:

My stall:

The fayre was very poorly advertised and I didn't sell much but I still enjoyed the making, a note to self for next year would be to ensure that any fayre I choose to do is well advertised so I don't waste my time! (Time I could have spent trying to get the house finished so we can be in by Christmas, only 3 weekends left!) Thank you for sticking with me through this long, perhaps slightly rambly blog post, at least it included lots of pictures!

- Rebecca