Believe

I visited the Kuretake website  (crafty goodies manufacturer) a couple of days ago.  They’d updated their website and I couldn’t get into my account, so a quick call to their office sorted out the problem for me, and I got the new website address.  As the page loaded there was a handmade card on the site which caught my eye, and I thought I’d have a go at making my version of that card … and here it is.

The die cut word, ‘Believe’ was one of a choice of two different makes of dies that I have which say the same thing, but in different ways ….

I cut them both out so that I could actually see what each of them looked like on the front of the card.  I chose the Creative Expressions die – which I’ve had about a year and never, until this moment, used it!  (No idea why … it’s so pretty, and cuts really well).

You’ve heard me say before that I’m a crafter, not a photographer – and these photo’s prove that I’m telling the truth.  They do nothing to show you how pretty this card actually is.  So I’ve taken some close-ups to try to share some of the details...

Once I’d die cut the word, I used a fine nibbed glue pen and added some crystal glitter to the whole of the word.  I worried at first that it might look a little Christmassy, but I wanted something to ‘speak’ to the silvery painted feather – and this worked really well.

Painted in Gansia Tambi paints, in the  ‘Starry Colours’ selection.  These paints are all made by Kuretake.

Each feather is painted a different colour.  One silver (in the centre) and the remaining two feathers are painted in different colours of the Kuretake Gansai Tambi paints, ‘Starry Colours’.  The feathers were die cut using a set of Todo feathers dies.

I added gold sequins … and a string ‘bow’ (very fine string) ….

. . .  And that’s all there was to it!

I did share the link to the Kuretake a couple of weeks ago, but they’ve changed their website, so I offer the updated link just in case you can’t find it:—>  Kuretake.

I highly recommend this company.  Their products are second to none, and their customer service is the best.  I’ve been shopping with them for …  oh …  practically since dirt was invented, and I’ve visited the companies UK branch, when they used to have yearly sales there.  I’ve contacted them from time to time for information, help or advice and each time I was breathtakingly amazed at how truly wonderful all the members of staff are there.

Please know: …. I’m not employed by Kuretake, I’m not paid in any way and have not been given any products in order to recommend the products or the company. 

Everything I own is because I bought them in exactly the same way that you or anyone else can buy them.  I only recommend them as much as I do, because I’m SO impressed with the quality of all of the products I have (and I have a lot), and love the customer service I receive from this company.

I’ve been doing a bit of crafting this week and also trying to keep on top of all the blogs I follow.  I’m still having the odd problem with my reader — I’ll think I’m up to date and suddenly there appears a post from ‘A’ and another from ‘B’  in the middle of all the posts and blogs I’ve already visited!  eek!  So … if you’ve posted something and I’ve missed it and not commented when you know I normally would have, please give me a poke in the comments here and give me a link to the post so that I can catch up.

May I take this opportunity to say a warm  ‘Hello‘  to some new followers.  I won’t name you individually … but I welcome you in and sit you down at the table while I get you a coffee (or tea) and bring out the cakes and biscuits.  Please feel right at home to join in the conversations we have here.  We’re a noisy lot sometimes and we all like a bit of a giggle from time to time, but we love new people joining in.  Don’t be shy.  Just jump straight in and say hello … or comment on a post…  or include yourself in a conversation which is going on in the comments.  Please don’t be shy…  speak up and make new friends.  It’s how it works here.

Have a blessed rest of your day today, (Thursday).  Enjoy it – for it is the last day of August this year.  So make it a memorable day.  And … if you can at all ….  Make someone smile today.

Sending squidges your way ~

 

Trees of Three in Blue not Green!

Nearly at the end of Christmas Card making!  HURRAY! I hear you shout.    I haven’t bombarded you with them all, only the ones I thought might entertain you or, like this one today, were a bit different.  I can’t believe how late I am with the making of my Christmas cards this year . . .  and I still have family ones to make!  eeek.

Mr. Cobs is being aaahhhmazing!  He’s put the Christmas tree up all by himself.  Moved the furniture around so that everything flows. The tree still has to be decorated (lights and pretty things) but everything is in place and waiting.  He is such a blessing.  Quite frankly I don’t think, if it were up to me, I’d have bothered putting up a tree this year.  It all felt like an effort too far.  (Not me being a bah humbug, but just the back problem).

I’ve tried to keep most of the cards I’ve made for Christmas this year, very simple, and also flat enough to go into a normal envelope as I really didn’t want to be making boxes on top of making the cards.  This one fills the remit of simple and ‘flattish’.

The trees are made using the left over ‘hole’ from a die cut tree.  I used the left over cut out as a stencil in order to make all three trees.  Using three different coloured ink pads, and some dried baby wipes, I built all three trees by simply dabbing the dried baby wipe onto the ink pad and then dabbing the inky wipe onto my glass mat in order to distribute the colour so that I could gently rub the inky pad through the ‘stencil’.  Once you’ve done one tree, either find a clean bit of the dried baby wipe and use it for the next colour of tree, or simply use another wipe.  Once you’ve got all three in place, you could leave it right there if you wished to.

The sentiment reads ‘Oh Christmas Tree’ – but it looks a little fuzzy on the photo because the camera was focused on the trees instead of the sentiment.  (my fault I’m afraid because I told it to do that.  (A case of eyes wide open but without supervision,  and the brain was closed for lunch.)

The ‘snow’ effect is made used Sweet Poppy glossy white texture paste, along with Pinflair Snow – which you need so little of that I’ve had my pot of snow for a couple of Christmas’s and still have half a pot.  It goes a long way.

The sequins, in silver, blue for the trees and some clear but iridescent ones used for snowflakes, I dotted around and fixed in place using Pinflair Glue Gel.

The lovely twinkly stars atop of each tree …  I found in the crafty section of my local charity shop.  There were hundreds of them in a bag, and I couldn’t believe my luck when I found them.  I think they cost me something like 50p (I think that works out at about 60 cents USA).

To give the card a little interest on the inside,  I inked up another blue tree, using the same method I used on the others – only on this one, I used a fine nib glue pen and squiggled all over it, then shook a little glitter dust over it so that it caught on the squiggly bits, added an iridescent sequin to the top and voila!  Finished.

So … how do you fancy a bit of “Things you might not know about Christmas”?

It may not be as popular these days but in the times of Charles Dickens, and as far back as Washington Irving, telling ghost stories was a Christmas tradition.  One of the most famous – “A Christmas Carol” – was written by Dickens himself, but he’d already had some practise. In “The Pickwick Papers” (1836), his first novel, he includes  “The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton,”  a Christmas-themed horror tale.

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Denny’s, the US diner chain famous for being ‘Always Open,’ decided to close for Christmas in 1988 to give hard-working employees the day off.  Amazingly, it turned out that many of the restaurants actually had no locks.  Well, they’d never needed them before.  According to the New York Times,  700 branches needed to be fitted with locks so the staff could spend Christmas with their families.

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Wondering what to with your Christmas tree after the festive period?  Why not see if your nearest zoo wants it?  Many animals find them great fun to play with. In 2014,  a zoo in Cambridgeshire, UK,  compared the trees to “catnip for lions.”

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Although the modern image of Santa Claus – the “right jolly old elf” of popular culture – is now widespread, he hasn’t always been seen that way.  Earlier depictions of Saint Nicolas have him as a serious, religious man (the original Saint Nicolas was Bishop of Myra, in modern-day Turkey).  Sinterklaas, a holiday celebrated on Dec. 5 in the Netherlands, Belgium and parts of France,  portray him as an elderly man in bishop’s clothing.

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And finally . . . .

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and their Christmas Tree.

Thank Prince Albert for your tree.

The Germans are credited with first bringing evergreens into their homes and decorating them,  a tradition which made its way to the United States in the 1830s.  But it wasn’t until Germany’s Prince Albert introduced the tree to his new wife, England’s Queen Victoria, that the tradition really took off.  The couple were sketched in front of a Christmas tree in 1848 — and royal fever did its work.

Well … that’s me done and dusted!

Hope you like the blue Christmas Trees card, and that at least one of the Christmas ‘Factoids’ taught you something you might not already know.  You can go off and impress friends, relatives and anyone you happen to run into today, with your knowledge of Useless Information About Christmas Taught to you in Mini Lessons from Cobs.  (And you didn’t even have to pay for the class!  lol)

Have a truly lovely last Monday before Christmas. 

Sending squidges from my corner to yours ~