Tree Skirt Tic-Tac-Toe with the Jingle Belles

Over at The Christmas Kickstart Challenge for the whole of August, I'm delighted to have Lauren and Stephanie aka the lovely Jingle Belles as Elves. I'm a big fan of their Challenge, but don't often manage to play along. However, somehow the planets have aligned perfectly and so I'm joining the fun for their Tree Skirt Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge!

I do love a Tic-Tac-Toe and decided to go diagonally across the grid from left to right, picking red as my colour option. I created the background with a Tim Holtz Layering Stencil (Merry Christmas) and coloured-up one of my favourite snowmen from a golden oldie set Paper Smooches Snow Dudes. 

The sentiment looked a bit unbalanced so I added 'Friend' and felt that made the card work on quite a few different levels!

The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #106 - Dreaming of a Pink Christmas

Welcome, welcome, welcome... I hope you had a very Happy Christmas and that the New Year is being kind!

We have a very talented Elf to get 2026 started at The Christmas Kickstart as we welcome the lovely Chris Lawlor. 

Chris has chosen a wonderful theme for our first challenge of the year...

Challenge #106 - Dreaming of a Pink Christmas

And you can see her gorgeous card by heading over to Kickstart HQ.

Here's what I made for our Challenge, and let me tell you I am totally smitten with this sweet gal and her polar bear friend.  

Just before Christmas I was delighted to find a UK stockist for Sweet November Stamps, and so, naturally, I had to have a little spend. I was good, honest... Just the two stamp sets. How abstemious of you, Jo, I hear you say! 

My second card for this challenge is this one, and to be honest, I'm not sure it's floating my boat or rockin' my socks. I like the Paper Smooches Wise Dies bow and the Concord and 9th Jolly Dies, but I think I should have chosen my paper strip combination a little better and also worked on not getting gaps. Never mind, we all live and learn!

 

Rudolph has a lovely prize on offer. And, he'd like you to know that he's had a little makeover. He simply cannot wait to hear your thoughts on his new look! Come and take a peek.

The Card Chain Challenge Reveal - December 2025

Happy New Year to you all! It's a cold one here in the UK as we've woken up to a fall of snow. However, the sun is shining so I expect it'll melt pretty quickly but it does look very pretty right now.

For our December Challenge Gail and I decided to make things nice and simple for our players...

 

Challenge Directions  

 

NBUS

(new, unused stuff) 
something from your stash that is unused
It doesn't have to be new, old unused stuff is OK too

 

AND

 

your favourite 3 colours

 

AND

 

an animal OR a flower OR a fruit 

 

I used a new-to-me Paper Smooches frame and a cute kitty from a MFT set I recently purchased on eBay. 

I picked one of my favourite colour combos as I love white and pastel shades against kraft. The little envelopes are supposed to link to CCC. I think the white swirly background is a Hero Arts stamp, but it's lost it's packaging.

I sent my card winging across the miles to Michaela in Austria, and I'm looking forward to receiving this beauty from Julia in Massachusetts:

As always, our Reveal is a thing of beauty, so why not head on over and take a look! 

Christmas Kickstart Challenge #86 - Reminder

 

Over at The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #86 we're currently 

Playing with Plaid

with Gail from Crafty Nomad, who very kindly jumped in to cover for Jen when she went down with Covid. You'll be glad to hear that Jen is now on the mend and recovering well. 

Here's what Gail created for our challenge... Isn't this just simply adorable? Do you love that bear, the tree and the fabulous drapes as much as I do? 

I decided to steal Gail's easel card format and her use of die cuts for my 'Inspired by...' card.

I do love Merry Moose from Sizzix and die cut him from a Gelli Press print I created ages ago. 

The fretwork die is from Sizzix and is called Holiday Cut Outs, sadly I can't find a useful link to any currently for sale. 

Here's my second card for this challenge using Waffle Flower Print and Script Merry Christmas and Stockings from Paper Smooches. 

Rudolph's Random Raffle Prize is a gorgeous two-fer this challenge...

Gail and I both hope you'll come and join the fun!

The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #78 - Chillin' with my Snowmies!

 

This month at Christmas Kickstart I'm thrilled to welcome the amazing Kimberly Wiener as our elf! This gals colouring is awesome - I wish I had even a quarter of her talent.

Our theme for this month is:

Challenge #78 - Chillin' with my Snowmies

You will LOVE what Kimberley has created for our challenge together! 

Here's what I whipped-up for my offering...

As you can see, I was in the mood for something very CAS. I'm still enjoying playing with new-to-me set Christmas sELFies from MFT. Aren't they cute!

My second card for this challenge is also on the CAS side. I do like this sweetie from Paper Smooches Swanky Snowdudes. Sadly, I can't find any links to this sweet set, but I guess it has been around a long, long time. It's such a pity Paper Smooches shut up shop.

The embossing folder background is Tim Holtz Simple Snowflakes and is still available from Sizzix. The sentiment is Waffle Flower Label Maker Holiday Sentiments. This is a great set and has a lovely selection of sentiments which you cut all at the same time and can then keep for future cards. I added some little black gems for his eyes and buttons.

Rudolph has chosen an adorable prize for his Random Raffle...

  

Kimberley and I both hope that you'll all be packing the linky gallery with your snow folk this month!

Let's Squash It! Challenge #5 - Reminder

We have another couple of weeks to run with this challenge until it ends on February 28th. Just because February 14th has come and gone doesn't mean we have to put away the red and pink card or the heart patterned embossing folders!

Meet Alice Girl from Picket Fence Studios and her heart embossing folder panel from Papermania called Checkmate. She was a joy to colour.

I also thought I'd share this masculine Valentine's Day card using the same folder to show how different colourways can create a totally different look!

The glasses and the sentiment are real oldies from Paper Smoochies. I was trying to achieve a slightly more masculine look for this card so kept the colour palette limited to just three colours. I had such fun adding the vellum lenses to the glasses.

Gail, GDT Joanne, and I really hope you'll come and join the fun before the end of the month.

Christmas in July

Thankfully, Christmas in July is the new theme over at Lost Coast Designs and not the latest shock/surprise from 2020!

My card is a sweet and simple combo of a cute snowman from Paper Smooches plus a snowflake and sentiment from WPlus9. Simples!

Turns out that it's Christmas in July at Shopping Our Stash too.

Happy Christmas... in July, everyone.

Inspired by Craft Stamper Magazine

I hope that you're all keeping well, and keeping occupied, as we enter another week of lockdown. I'm thankful for my crafting and blogging as hubby has gone back to work after being on leave last week. I'm a key worker, but at the moment am only required once a week at the school where I work and am feeling the lonelies a bit.

Usually I'm a big reader, but my head isn't quite in the right place just now so I decided to dip into my collection of back issues of Craft Stamper Magazine. It's been a real trip down memory lane and I've loved seeing how colour combos, techniques and styles come and go. I was inspired by two fabulous cards to try some new techniques and thought I'd share the results.

Here's card #1:

In the June 2014 edition Lydia Brooke Evans created a gorgeous card using a set called Leafy Greens by Paper Smooches, which I knew I'd got. I loved her original design, but wanted to make a slightly larger card.

I enjoyed using a favourite quote from Crescendoh Stamps (remember them?) which seemed just right for the shape and look of this card.

My second inspired by card is this one:

I spotted Lorraine Wood's card (based on Ellen Schrik-ter Haar's make) in the January 2014 mag and knew I wanted to give this arty, silhouette style a try.

For my version I used Distress Inks (plus a few splotches of pink paint) rather than using a Gel Press.

Using a photograph in a clothing catalogue, I got snipping to create a mask. After layering inks and stamped images, I added a sentiment which said exactly what I wanted.

Both of these cards were made for friends who are leaving work at Easter. It'll be strange for them as there won't be the 'big-send-off' that they both deserve after all their hard work. Hopefully, when all this is behind us we can we can celebrate them in style!

I hope you enjoyed my little crafting trip down memory lane. It felt good to borrow someone else's style for a bit and make something different and outside my cardmaking comfort zone.

Stay busy and stay healthy, crafty peeps - catch you later!

The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #18 - Get a Head-er start!

There's a new elf and a new challenge over at The Christmas Kickstart Challenge!

For the next fortnight we're in the company of the very talented Joanne from Ambrosia and Iron.

The challenge theme is to use the blog header as the inspiration for your card.

I decided to focus on the snowman and create a little scene for card #1. I discovered that I couldn't match the colours with my Promarkers, so just did the best I could.

The snowman is from Paper Smooches and the houses are from a Clearly Besotted die.

Card #2 focuses on the snowman's hat, gloves and scarf. I'm much more pleased with the colour match on this card, even if it's still not quite right.

I used this ink combo to create the clothing and dyed some white embroidery thread for the ties on the hat.

The hat, scarf and gloves are from an oldie but gtoodie MFT set (sadly, no longer available) and the sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp. 

Rudolph brings us a very sweet Clearly Besotted set as a prize for his Random Raffle for this challenge, so it's worth entering a card to be in the hat to win this sweet trio.

I hope you can come and join us!

The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers Challenge #133 - N is for Nerd

Edna makes a great nerd doesn't she! I love her expression which goes so well with the T-shirt.

I have to be honest and admit that I had heaps of fun with this challenge and could have kept churning out card after card once I got going!

Here are my 'His 'n' Hers' nerd cards:

Love these glasses from Paper Smooches.

And here's a little extra nerd fun courtesy of Google!

This just begs to be made into a card - possibly a pop-up of some sort!

The sistahs had fun with this theme too, and I know you'll love Queen Samantha's tea-spittingly hilarious card. So join us do and find your inner nerd!