Christmas for the Stampin Up Autumn Blog Hop

I am the one who said ... I won't be making my Christmas cards! Here I am in September making them! Well we are celebrating the seasonal Stampin Up catalogue - I have focussed on two stamp sets - Endless Wishes and Festival of Trees - perfect for quick, simple cards or make them more fussy too!

Usual stuff - follow the links below to visit the other blogs or all the links of our participants are at the bottom of this post.

Click HERE to go back

Click HERE to go forwards

Thanks for visiting our blog hop today - lots more to view on all the blogs below.
Thanks for looking
Nikki
xxxx

Tracy Hart Lawrence 

Pip Todman 

Eimear Carvill

Emma Goddard 

Caroline Thomas

Kim Fee

Lynn Clifford

Cary Buckham

Cat Herrington

Nic Parr

Diane Marlow 

Christine Widdowson 

Di Richardson 

Jamie Turney  

Sara Thornton-Bryar  

Natalie O’Shea 

Louise Sims 

Katie Jones  

Cayleigh May 

Nikki Acton 

Sue Bridge 

Cathryn Perkins 

Sarah Mcdermott  

Fiona Whitten 

Birthday Girl

An attempt to make something a little more feminine for a family birthday coming up. Quite simple with embossed card used for the white panel and the punched butterflies. Lots of distressed edges and inking. 

I would like to enter into:

Craft Cardmakers and more - Make an Impression

City Craft Challenge - Butterflies

Back tomorrow with something a little different again and then might return to my normal style!

Nikki

xxx

Seconds out, round 2.....

.....of the Speed Craft Challenge where we have just ten minutes to see what we can make. Now this may be a bit of a cheat this time round as I had been making a lot of Christmas cards for another project and had lots of scraps and bits left out on my desk! 

Ingrid challenged us to use turquoise and I was unsure I had anything and then realised Stampin Up Lost lagoon ink and paper would fit the bill..... so my products are all SU except my Tim Holtz stars stencil.

The card is A7 - I didn't get to mount it in the 10 mins (did that later!) - but managed to emboss, stencil, stamp, ink, punch, cut and stick.

Why not visit the other mad Speed Crafters - what is great about this group is we are all quite different in style!

Ingrid - Ingrid's Crafts Corner - a master of a diverse range of mediums and techniques

Donna - Inky and Quirky - of the wonderfully quirky creations and fabulous arty backgrounds

Keren - Kerenbaker's Blog - CAS at it's very best

Nikki - A2A - Addicted to Art - oooh that's me

Pamellia - My Little Craft Things - feminine, romantic, elegant and shabby chic loveliness

Thanks for looking
Nikki
xxxx

Summer Garden

Hi everyone and apologies again for not being around much, Craft and blog time been limited but have finally managed to finish this. A 6x6 panel of mountboard with various layers of textures and paint and ink. Flowers added with texture paste and some shadow stamping.

I would like to enter:

Frilly and Funkie - Summer Garden

The Mirror Crack'd - Anything Goes ( a fab new mixed media challenge - check it out!)

Hopefully be back soon.

Nikki

A Birthday Flourish

At A Vintage Journey we commence a new challenge today chosen by Jennie - the theme is 'With a Flourish'. As Jennie says have you ever noticed that much of Tim Holtz's packaging includes that fabulous flourish? So the challenge is to see what we can do with flourishes! Do check out the rest of the design teams creative flourishes over at A Vintage Journey.

I started two cards as I wasn't sure which was going to work! I took a piece of Tim's paper and some grungepaper and stamped my background with the wonderful images from the Papillon set. The paper version is still on my desk, but I loved the feel and texture of the grungepaper - so went with that one.

I also added some machine stitching and stamps from Stampin Up (from Gorgeous Grunge and Work of Art). My butterflies were back to Papillon and I used various techniques on grungepaper - embossing powder, archival ink and distress paint.

My flourishes are a Tim die, kindly cut for me by Chris Warner - as I dont have the die yet!

I matted my card on some grey and then black card, before adding to the actual card base.

My card is for a lovely colleague - her birthday is Saturday but she will get it today at work along with her little gift from as all - as long as she remembers the cakes!

I would like to enter into 'A Special Birthday' at Fashionable Stamping Challenge.

Thanks for looking

Nikki 

xx

My 100th Post !

My 100th post - or so blogger tells me! Started crafting in November my blog at the end of December and can't imagine life without it now!

Anyway a tag today for Sugar Creek Hollows - Tag you're it challenge. A distress paints background with some grungy stamping and stencilling. My heart is UTEE made in a mould. 

A few more photos:

Thanks for looking

Nikki

xxx

How does your garden grow

Firstly apologies for not being around much over the last week, back to work and lots of stuff going on has left little time for blogging and craft. So sorry if I haven't been able to comment on recent posts.

At Try it on Tuesday the new challenge is 'How does your garden grow'. I thought about doing a project around the word 'badly' but decided to focus on the garden I have in my head rather than the one through my patio doors! My aspirational garden would be full of wild flowers, a rickety old bench and a meandering path. My actual garden is clinical and low maintenance and this year I haven't even done any pots!

Do hop over to TIOT to see the rest of the wonderful creations from the design team.

Thanks for looking

Nikki

xxx