Winter wonderland

I resisted, I truly did, but the demand for christmas in the shop classes finally broke me, I crumbled and started my christmas card making this weekend.

I used gold embossing powder to frame the lovely wintery scene, I stickled the snow on each roof and added a little colour to the holly leaves before adding extra punched leaves for dimension.

The border is a Cart Us border punch and the lage poinsettia is a Marianne Die from last year, postcard stamp is by Stampendous and smaller sentiment stamp is by Stampin' Up, background paper is Tim Holtz.

Now I have started I don't want to stop !

I will be back tomorrow with another page from my photo scavenger hunt journal.

Photo Scavenger hunt

You might recall me signing up recently for a photo challenge, well I missed the deadline to have all the photos taken by, but I have made progress on the list and do intend to finish the challenge, albeit a little later than planned.

Here is the Moleskine notebook I altered to accomodate the photos

I used tissue paper , gesso and acrylic paints to create the textured cover.

I had this vintage camera on a sheet of patterned paper, so I cut it out and added it with Matt Medium.

The cute little camera charm was a gift from my dear friend Beryl, thankyou xxx

I added a stamp to the back cover and the metal spine was created with builders tape from a local discount store, which I used alcohol inks on to create a patina effect.

Number one in my book - A Pier

I took the photo on my last excursion to The Lakes. I fell in love with this tiny little pier which we passed each time we left or entered our campsite.

You can find the link in my side bar to the blog where the scavenger hunt originated.

As I have already missed the deadline I intend to take the majority of the remaining photos when we return to the lakes later in the year, as all but one are from there so far.

I will be back with more photos and pages from this book over the weekend and during next week.

Just before I bid you a goodnight to cosy up on the sofa with my snuggly socks, a good book and large mug of hot chocolate to watch the Ryder Cup highlights, I will leave you with a link to my new shop website, tonight we are sharing the cards made in Linda's Stampin' Up class.

Running With Scissors Shop Blog

NEW BLOG

Just a very quick post from me tonight

We have a brand new SHOP BLOG

I decided to renew the site as the old site did seem to be a little awkward to navigate, so we have a brand spanking new blog

Please stop by and say hello

HERE

Don't worry the blog you are on now will remain the same, I will just be sharing my own personal creations from now on and all shop stuff will be on the other new site.

Seventeen

I was commissioned to create this card for a 17 year old who loves music

I used stamps by Stampin' Up and Inkadinkadoo, the treble clef is a die cut

And the envelope which I tarted up just a little

I don't normally accept commissions, my time is pretty much taken up, but this one was special, the lady who asked me is a lady with a heart of gold and it was for her grandson who also means a lot to me, Dawn, I hope I did you proud, and Jay, I hope you had a fabulous birthday sweetheart - you are one in a million xxx

Anniversary wishes

I made this card for Margaret and Brian, who celebrated forty years of marriage this month

I am only half way there, Neil and I celebrated twenty years this year. In this day and age it seems special to get past five ! I hope I am able to share with you the Ruby Anniversary card I make for our anniversary !

Class act

Last weeks class cards

Keeping it short and sweet tonight, I have plans with my man

See you tomorrow xxx

Circle journal

The second set of pages I created for my own journal, depicting my chosen theme - love.

I created the backgrounds with gesso, acrylic paints and gesso, with stencilling and stamping over the top

The sentiment was stamped in Stazon onto tissue paper and then adhered roughly to maintain some of the wrinkles with gel medium

The butterflies were stamped in black Stazon and a little lilac was added with a Wink of Stella pen, the tails were adorned with white liquid pearls. 

The front and rear of the accompanying tag

My journal has now visited with Anita who has completed the next two pages and tag, but, alas I will not be sharing any more circle journal photos until all the journals are complete and with their respective owners as we thought the surprise element at the end would be worth the wait.

I must at this point add a couple of thankyou's to this post

To dad for once again working tirelessly to get my two new fabby card units built and ready for all the yummy new cardstock we took delivery of this week and for altering all the wallspace to make room for all the new hanging stock we have in store and coming soon

To Anita, Margaret and Beryl who spent all tuesday afternoon, sorting shelving and hanging new and repositioned stock

To Kate who bought me a lovely new bag to keep my circle journal in ( in my fave colour pink, which happens to also be Kate's least fave colour so I feel doubly blessed !) and for the bag full of choccie bickies

And finally to Margaret who presented me with an absolutely beautiful and thoughtful gift of trinkets, doodads and all manner of delish embellishments to craft with, especially the cutest book I have ever received. The gifts were lovely and I loved them all, but by far the most appreciated part of the gift was that Margaret had picked up all the individual pieces from her recent travels, I had been in her thoughts each time she had been away - that thought will be treasured forever, Margaret, you are one very special friend and I love you dearly xxx

I will leave you with one of the quotes from Margaret's little book, which is very apt to me

I am happy

Because I am loved

C. Warmoll

Birthday wishes

Apologies, long time no see - again ! You get the gist, life gets busy, blog gets neglected !

Anyway, let us dive right back in and start a little catch up

Tonight I have my bessie mates birthday card to share

Anita loves soft muted shades and I scoured all my stamps for the ones relating to friendship to help embellish the card

I added liquid pearls in tiny little dots to the diamond patterned card to add a little dimension

The card is made from DL envelopes and is constructed in a trifold manner, the photo above shows the 'backside' of each of the envelopes and the photo below shows the 'fronts'

Each of the envelopes has been attached in such a way as to retain pockets, into each I have inserted a tag with a quote

All papers are by Nitwit

I will be back tomorrow with an update on the circle journal and later on in the week with class cards, commissions and other bits and bobs.

Going around in circles

I have organised another circle journal, this time with some of my friends from the shop.

Each girl has chosen a theme and each of us in turn will create a double page and tag in their Moleskines along their theme.

This first double page is my title page in my own book

I used acrylic paints, gesso, distress inks and neocolours on my background.

The writing is done with a Pitt artist pen, stamping was done in Archival Ink

And the front of my tag

And the back of the tag, my theme was love

I have also created a second set of pages and tag for my own book, I will share them later in the week, my book is now in the safe hands of Anita and I am currently working on Kate's.

Creative Cardmaking and new class

Four cards made with the free papers from last months Creative Cardmaking magazine

All products except the ribbons were in the magazine, which incidentally has sold out now.

And for some very exciting news

We have a lovely new Stampin' Up demonstrator at the shop - Linda Gilbert.

A lot of my regulars already know and love Linda, but for those of you who don't, why not come along and enjoy one of her classes, I promise you won't be disappointed !

Linda will be teaching a class once a month, it will be the fourth thursday each month with the first one taking place on 27th September, 1pm -3pm, the class will be £6.50 and as always at Running With Scissors, there will be refreshments and a 10% discount on all purchases made in the shop on the day for all class attendees.

To have a peek at Lindas fabulous work and to see what stampin' up is all about, check out Lindas blog HERE and the Stampin' Up website HERE

Please pop into the shop or telephone to book a place.

Class cards

The more observant among you will recognise this image, I shared it on my ATC's on Monday.

I had intended a different stamp for my ATC's but when I was making these cards for class I fell in love with the image and decided it would be perfect for our Beach themed ATC swap also.

I did keep both cards fairly simple this week as I didn't want to detract from the image and I thought both could be used for men or women.

Life's a beach

This month, the monthly ATC swap a Running With Scissors was centred around the theme 'Beach' and the participants were asked to incorporate the colour blue somewhere on their ATC

Here was my offering

And a collection of all the lovely summery swaps ready to be sorted and packed off to their new homes.

And this months winner

The immensely talented Debbie - congratulations Debbie

I fell in love with this sweet and innocent stamp, it reminded me of many a summer exploring rock pools, building sandcastles and of course lots of ice-cream licking ! I loved the soft colours and the way Debbie stamped the wording - very clever !

As always, thankyou to each and every one of the players each month, it is definitely one of my favourite times of the month, sorting through all these inspiring little works of art.

A reminder that this months (sept) theme is of your own choosing, you have a free month to create anything you fancy and you get to choose your favourite colour

Halloween and the colours required are black and silver are the requisites for October

Jan is choosing November and Debbie will choose Decembers theme so I will be back with those shortly.