Latest Craft style samples. Christmas 2016

It really does seem to get earlier every year.
It's been a while since I've had time to do any craft style samples but I can never pass-up the chance to make some Christmas ones, so here they are, they are from the cut and create range, which over the years has built up to include a large range of characters.

The first one is made on a large card base with scalloped edge.   I have layered a piece of red card, a piece of embossed white card with holly pattern and a backing paper of tiny holly pattern.
I have used all the topper of the carol singing children. Except on holly sprig which a saved to attach to the sentiment.  The toppers are such a good size you really don't need to add much else to them to easily create lovely cards.

 Here you can see the depth which can be achieved by using the whole topper, however it also shows how many layers there are in a full topper. The designs of them also lend themselves to being split up to make two of three cards out of one sheet if you want to.

I  caught a glimpse of this card on the Craft with Style show on Create and Craft yesterday (Sunday)  you can catch up with the show for 7 days here

 The next card is a smaller scalloped edged base. This one was pre embossed with stars so I decided to keep it as the card background and just add a few peel-off gold stars.

With this card I was playing with how these lovely chunky characters can lend themselves to being creative and maybe abit quirky. I didn't use the full topper just added some layers to the head and extra bits for the arms.

I cut the arms off one of the drummer characters and then reattached them with split pins with the arm behind the body and an extra shoulder piece in front of it to neaten it up. I attached strings to the arms and carefully positioned them between the foam pads which are holding the character to the card base. If you look between the two pictures you can see how his arms move when the strings are gently pulled.  Like an old fashioned puppet.

For my next card I took a gate fold base and covered the two fronts with a swirly green backing paper and added strips of matching pattern in red. This is a really lovely backing paper pattern and its lovely how all the different backing papers which are sold with the toppers co-ordinate making it really easy. To the fronts I added two sentiments one at the top on one side and one at the bottom on the other. And the middle is finished off with the Santa character. The photo doesn't show it very well but I've added glitter to his beard.These characters really lend themselves to this sort of embellishment.

The last sample I made was a double easel card which really showcases the toppers and shoes that you don't have to just make cards with them you could easily use them for creating home decor items which children will love to look at. Here a miss Christmas and Snowman are used and the stoppers have been made out of strips from a striped backing paper which is idea for using in the ribbon strips getting lots out of it and really value for money.  

 In my pack of sample stuff I did receive  this card blank which no mater which way I folded it I couldn't work out what it was supposed to do. I was abit disheartened as it was clearly a new shape and it would have been nice to use it.

After watching the show I now realize how it goes and that I was looking at it upside down. It makes this rather fun pyramid card which if the sides are joined together with velcro dots (I believe supplied with them when purchased) they still fold flat for posting. This shape would make some really fun Christmas cards as it is perfect to be a Christmas tree.












So there are my latest samples, Christmas already. I'm not quite ready to start me own Christmas card making thou, maybe in August.

Edward's menagerie family growing in size and number.

I'm continuing to work my way through the different animals in the Edward's Menagerie book. some I'm making for my own set and some are being made to send to family and friends having babies I like this idea of my menagerie family being like a real one with different members spread around the country. So here's the latest additions. 

This is Bridget the Elephant, who has gone to live with a cousin of my other half who has just had a little person. Bridget is done is soft DK wool in a gentle grey colour.

I love her ears and chunky tail. the pattern is quite straight forward with no colour changes, although she did cause me abit of an issue. I as I had been working on the separate body parts at work during quite times and had put them on a table awaiting stuffing, some how one of her legs fell in to a box of card making materials so when I came to assemble her she only had three legs and I couldn't find the forth, so I quickly did up another one convincing myself in the end that maybe I had only made three and the forth one was overlooked when changing to a new ball of wool.The missing leg as since been found and waits the possibility of becoming another elephant.

Here is Douglas and Donna waving her off on the way to her new home. They were wondering what new family member they might soon get at home.

And here they are this is Hank the Dorset down Sheep.
Isn't he massive? Hank is make using Aran wool which is the third size (there one more even bigger). His legs ears and nose are made using a dark brown and his body and fleece are done in a "tweed" cream which has flecks in it which I rather like as it creates a mottled look rather than then being bright clean cream. This pattern did take awhile to do as you have to make the body parts as normal assemble them then add the fleece which is done in chain loops and when spaced right means to do about three rounds of loops for every row of stitches on the body or head. I had to do the body twice as the first time I made the loops to tight this had pulled his body abit out of shape and the next time I do a sheep I will stuff the body more firmly to allow for softening as it is pulled and pushed about.

Here you can really see the difference between the different wool thickness. I think the aran was a good choice for this pattern as I cant imagine how fiddly it would have been to create it in 4ply.
I like how the same pattern can easily be adjusted in size with wool thickness and hook size. I do in the whole think most of my collection will be the DK size though as this creates a lovely cute animal.

When I brought the wool for Hank it was on a 3 for 2 offer so I also purchased this other "tweed" ball of Aran with a pinky tone I think this may become a hippo at some point in the future.


So there's my latest additions to the family. I'm sure there will be more before long.