The First Christmas Card of 2016

I finally did it.  I jumped in and made my very first Christmas Card of 2016.  I don’t in the least feel anything like it’s coming up to Christmas, but there was a little niggle forming inside me telling me that I really should do SOMETHING,  and I think it was simply because other blogs have all started featuring their own Christmas cards.  It kind of made me feel like I was being a total lay-about.  Like that pupil in school who never turned in their homework.

So I did my first Card for Christmas this year …  but with a twist.  It’s not the normal ‘opening’ card with four sides (front, open left, open right and then finally the back).  Nope.  This one is made on a great big post card (as you can see) which measure 21cm long – or for those of us who still work on the fabulous, can’t be beaten, original measuring system in the UK – that’s 8.25inches.

The Post Card doesn’t open up.  Instead I cut a stand for the back of the card which folds out, and makes the card stand up all by itself.  If you can’t imagine what this looks like …  go back to your school photos, the ones which came in a mount.  On the back of those mounts was a fold out stand, with another little bit to it which then folded down, and locked the stand in place.  Well that’s exactly the same as the stand on the back of this card.

I totally forgot to take photo’s of the making, apart from one .… so this is all I’ve got to show you how it all came together …  so I’ll try to tell you, but if there’s anything I miss or anything you want to know, just ask away in a comment.

I began by tearing up some corrugated card, and then some paper which I’ve had in my stash for a while, pale beige with white snow flakes on it.  I distressed and inked the paper and fixed it onto the card next to the corrugated.  Added some Polyfilla in appropriate places and in order to give it all that frost appearance, I added, to the Polyfilla while still wet, some Mica Flakes;  Chunky glitter, and some very fine glitter dust.

I used a mixture of Polyfilla (yes the type you use on the walls – but buy the flexible Polyfilla in the tube – so that it doesn’t crack and flake) and in some places (along the top) a little dimensional paste, in order to achieve the snowy, icy look I was after.

The Father Christmas ‘postage stamp’ you see in the top right hand corner, is a stamped image, which I stamped onto some brown paper and then fussy cut out.  Then added the white berry twig, twisted into a wreath.

While that all dried I used some Buff It  (by  Pinflair) in red and gold, to the sleigh.

I cannot recommend Buff It highly enough.  It’s a fantastic product, which you use very little of, and mix it with a tiny bit of water.  If, while you’re working on your project, the Buff it on your plate, or tile or glass mat, dries up, you simply add another little tiny drop of water, and it all starts working again.  It dries super quick.  You then buff it with a soft cloth (I use a dried baby wipe) and it positively gleams!  You can find it HERE on the Pinflair website.

Then I began to build up the elements . . .  using the holly and berries (which are made from felt), and the red tinsel (which I curled) along the bottom.   The Poinsettia flower and leaves are made from a set of dies – (which I bought from a fellow blogger about 3 months ago).  I cut the flower itself out of red card, but the leaves were cut from three different shades of green card.

I wanted everything to have that crisp, icy look,  so after I put the flower parts together, I dragged a tiny bit of dimensional paste around the edges of some of the petals and leaves, and using some Tonic Glitter Accent in Fresh Snowfall I ‘iced up’ the flower & leaves.  This Tonic Glitter Accent in their Fresh Snowfall,  is ‘like’ a Stickles (only in a much bigger bottle) but this particular one, in the Fresh Snowfall, is very thick.  Very sticky, and sets hard.

While everything was drying I made some ‘gifts’.  These gifts took me ages!  Bits of paper and card.  Tiny bits of bakers twine. Sticking the paper down without sticking the whole thing to my fingers!  Ugh!  I popped the presents into the sleigh then turned my attention to making ‘snow’.

I found some fabulous little tiny round dots which twinkle like a million stars, in The Range (in the UK – sorry to folks in other places) when I went shopping last week and fell in love with them.  I wish I could show you how fabulous they are but I can’t get a photo of the twinkles.  They look more like sequins in the photos, but they’re really nothing like them at all.  So so lovely, and, would you believe, all made from a tiny bit of plastic.

I added Christmas Red Stickle ‘berries’ to the wreath surrounding the Father Christmas stamp and some Red and Green ribbon and string bows at the left hand side of the card.  A metal silver charm in the shape of a snowflake hanging from the berry wreath, and some more red tinsel around the seating area of the sleigh.  Aaaaand  that’s all there was to it.

So there you have it  … I’ve made my first Christmas Card!  I have no idea who I’ve made it for as I didn’t have anyone in mind while I was making it, I just knew I wanted to make a Christmas Card on a big Vintage Style Post Card, with a sleigh on it and some tinsel.  After that I just kind of winged it!  But have to admit that when I stood back and looked at it once finished,   I loved it  …  and hope you like it too.

Have you made any Christmas Cards yet?  I’ve done a little Christmas Shopping, but making cards just …. well, it still feels too early for me.  Tell me what you feel about it.  I’d like to know that I’m not alone in this feeling … but I’m starting to think I am.  eeeek!

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Challenging myself to be Gorjuss!

If you’re anything like me, you will look at the freebies which come with crafty magazines, admire them and tell yourself that you’ll make a card with them, or scrap-booking page or do something wonderfully crafty with them … and you pop them to one side.  From there they make it to a drawer.  Then to the bottom of said drawer.  Then you find them when you’re looking for something else and remember you were going to make something with them, so you put them on one side ….  and the whole thing goes round and round like a merry-go-round.

Well I told myself that I was to actually make something with my freebies from now on, so I began with these Gorjuss images.  Now I’m not a Gorjuss sort of girl.  I like the images and think those little girls are just so pretty and so well drawn.  But they’re not things I would normally craft with as I don’t kind of have a real ‘feel’ for them.  I think they’re kind of ‘too sweet’ for me.  (My daughter is the total opposite.  She LOVES Gorjuss cards etc.).

I sat and looked at the images , telling myself that I HAD to make four cards or I was NEVER  leaving that craft room (not even for a visit to the little girls room).  So I did.  I made four cards.

All the cards are made on a 6×6″ card base, dècoupaged,  matted and layered. 

This first card is dècoupaged (although you actually can’t see that it is in this photo) has the addition of Black Lace Washi tape, and some black Stickles at the corners.  The envelope is decorated up with a bumble-bee on the flap.  I wanted to put a foxes head on the flap of the envelope (as a nod to the fox in the Gorjuss picture) but couldn’t find the darn stamp.

This second card (above) is again dècoupaged, and I simply drew the wriggly lines around the lovely pale mustard layer, to sort of frame the whole thing.  The envelope is decorated in the same way, with patchwork hearts to echo the little heart she has in her hair.

Card three (above), dècoupaged, matted, layered and decorated using a very fine nib pen, and I added some buttons using lilac Stickles to bring out the lilac in the Gorjuss girly picture;   a teeny mushroom picture which I glossed and added a ribbon too.  The envelope is decorated with a dragonfly.  (I couldn’t get the light right for this card.  The pink spotted background is actually more delicate and pale than it looks in the photo).

Finally … card four.   Dècoupage, matted, layered, with the addition of a little ribbon and some Stickles. The envelope has a rabbit’s head on it, to acknowledge that the Gorjuss girl obviously likes rabbits because she’s holding one!

They’re not my usual type of card and I was absolutely outside my comfort zone, but I’ve done my personal challenge and made something with some of my freebies instead of adding continually to my stash.  But I’m glad I challenged myself to do them.  However – the challenge is ongoing.  I still have more freebies stashed away, and I’m determined to use them! (You have been warned.) 

All that remains is to wish you a very Happy Monday, and I sincerely hope that you have a lovely start to this new week.  Make a memory today.  Find one good thing which happened during the day and think about it when you go to bed tonight.  Go on … make yourself smile

Have a truly blessed day, my fellow blogging friends and readers.

🎼 ♩ ♫ Daisy, ♫ Daisy ♩ ♫ ♪ . . .

. . . .  ‘give me your answer do.  I’m half crazy …..’  . . . .  come along now.  join in!

Aw what are you like?!!  What a place to leave me hanging! – “I’m half crazy”  indeed!  Mind you,  it’s about right.  fnar, fnar.

Well, since last we met for coffee together,  many things have taken place here at the Cobweborium, amongst them:

• I had a Birthday.
• Mr. Cobs had a Birthday (it’s jealousy. He’s copying me.  He does it every year! pfft.);
• My littlest furry purry puddy-tat has been in a fight with we know not what or who, but the end result is a chewed ear, injuries on the top of her head and under her poor little neck.  However – she’s now proficient at detecting me approaching her by stealth, whilst holding cotton wool with antiseptic on it in order to bathe said injuries.  Boy oh boy can she MOVE!
• . . . and . . . my craft room computer died.  The Beast is deaded.  Totally.  Even the computer whizz kid son-in-law failed to give it the kiss of life.  I sat for days, in misery, mourning the loss of this wonderful machine.  It was the best computer I’d ever had.  SUPER DUPER fast – it knew what I wanted and had found the page before I’d finished typing the words in the search bar.  But …  brace yourself,  here’s the stoopid  …  I hadn’t backed up my stuff. [sigh – yes I know what you’re thinking because I’ve already thought it myself].  I’ve lost everything.  All my photo’s of family and friends, and pictures of things I’d made, and stuff I was working on.  Stuff for my albums, waiting for me to decorate up.  All gone.  There is a very small chance that I might be able to recover some things – and I will get some investigation done into that possibility.

I’ve now got a new computer which is an OK(ish) machine – but it’s not The Beast.  I’m loading things onto it and fiddling with it, trying to make it work for me in the way I like a computer to work.  I’m sure I’ll probably love it, one day, eventually, however, for now, it’s just a piece of machinery and I’m trying to make friends with it.

Anyway, – that’s what’s been happening in my corner of the forest –  and you’re not here to read about that, you’re here to see something crafty orientated, so I shall zip the lip and share some photographs of a card I made to keep myself out of mischief.

The Daisy, Daisy card

I started with white cardstock, cut & scored – but didn’t fold straight away, so making it easier to work on a flat surface. (This is to be an Easel Card – so an extra score line is added at the half-way mark on what is going to be the front of the card.).   I used some papers for the background which I’ve had in my stash for a good while, and printed out various bits from a CD Rom: Shabby Chic by Katy Sue – (I used the daisy set on the cd).

I fussy cut some of the daisies and a ‘postage stamp’, so that I could give depth and dimension to the card.

 Top tip  for fussy cutting:  Buy a DECENT pair of manicure scissors and use those instead of regular scissors.  The blades curve at the bottom and so you don’t end up cutting into your image.  You can hold the scissors curving in, or out – so can use them according to the ‘bit’ you’re cutting.

I got to work sticking and fixing. I ‘built’ the front of the card on a separate piece of 6″x6″ card stock, which matched the exact size of the card, but was flat and totally un-scored.

I added some cream cotton lace, in two designs and two paper doilies, and also cut a piece of grey/blue card stock, just a little larger than the postcard size, and embossed all around the edge, in a sort of scratchy, scruffy way. in gold embossing powder – in order to pick up the warm lemon shades in the papers, and also to give a nod to some Stickles, which you’ll see I’ve used, a little later.

In the ‘assembly’ stage, I added, from my stash,  some blue twine, buttons, a little wooden blue frame (from Docrafts),  and some paper butterflies cut from old book pages.

Once everything was in place, I then mounted this now made ‘front of card’ to the card itself.  But glued it only to the bottom half (below the score line I mentioned earlier) of the front of the card – in order for it to be an Easel Card.

I added Stickles – in a warm yellowy orange colour, to the centres of all the daisies (see the photo above) – to make them ‘ping’.  Once dry, it was time to work on the inside of the card.

Then, using some of the ‘daisy’ backing paper, again from the CD Rom,  I loaded it into Photoshop and copied and pasted a yellow based postcard [from the cd] onto the daisy paper.  I wanted a postcard so that the ‘greeting’ could be written on it, but I didn’t want to add depth, so doing it this way worked perfectly – as you see below: (you can click on any of the photos here and they’ll open up big size so that you can see them better)

To the bottom (roughly) third of the inside I added a strip of mottled card – again printed from the cd, but this time I fixed it in place with foam tape, so that when the easel card was opened, it would give the front of the card somewhere to buff up against, and keep it open.

The blue ribbon is rayon seam binding, the button was from my stash, and the beautiful white butterfly is actually an embroidered one, which  [I think]  I bought very cheaply from The Works (Britain’s leading discount book store – which also sells a variety of crafty things, amongst other ‘stuff’).

Yay …. an easel card is born!  Now to make a box for it to go into….

A matching daisy box – but with a difference.  I concentrated on more yellow tones for the box so that it ‘talked’ to the card, but was just different enough to make it special in its own way.  (Actually … after taking this photo above, I added a few more fussy cut postage stamps to the box, sprinkled around, in different sizes – which I felt gave the box a little more character).

Well, that’s me done and dusted.  What about you?  What have you been making or doing in the last three or so weeks?  If you’ve made a post on your blog that I’ve missed, then please add a comment to this blog post with a link to your creativeness (be it crafty or ‘bakey’, or written word) so that I can get straight to it and have a good ol’ read/look!  (And other readers can come and visit your blog too!)

Thank you SO much for coming and sharing a bit of your time with me.  I am, as always, very grateful to you for coming and when I say ‘thank you’ to you here, I really do mean it.

Sending love and squidges your way ….

Storing Stickles … it works! It actually works!

I found this idea on Pinterest about … oh, I dunno, …  a gazillion years ago? – maybe.  And although I thought it was a good(ish) idea at the time I found it, I put it into that category folder inside my brain of:  “Good looking Pinterest ideas which probably don’t actually work in reality”.

How wrong was I!!!

It really does actually work!
I can’t believe it!

I already had one of the required perspex/acrylic certificate ‘stands’ so all I needed was some velcro.  Do you think I could find this simple thing anywhere?  It was rarer than Gold dust here where I live.  However, a leaflet left in my mail box came at just the right time.  Lidl were having packets of it in their stores, amongst the crafting specials,  the following week.  I couldn’t believe my luck, neither could I believe how cheap it was when I went in to buy it.  They had white or black, and I could have either sticky backed self adhesive, or the unsticky type.  I decided upon the self adhesive and crossed my fingers that it was the ‘self adhesive’ which actually stuck to things!

I cleaned up the certificate holder so that it was sparkling clean (to make sure that I gave the self adhesive Velcro a fighting chance), and then sat working out where I should stick the Velcro for maximum bottle storage.  I’d noticed that the idea I’d seen on Pinterest had only shown three rows of bottles, but when I measured up, three seemed so very far apart, and had such a waste of space in between the rows, so I inserted a sheet of A4 into the certificate holder, but left just a smidgen of the edge sticking out along one side, so that I could make a little dot at the points as I measured them.

I worked out that on an A4 Certificate holder (which mine is – but check the size of yours or check before you buy one, as there are various sizes) – If you measured one centimetre down from the top of the paper and draw a straight line across the paper, then from that line measure 8cm down and drawn another line, and do it a further two times.  You should then have four lines.

Then … cut four lengths of the hooks side of some of your Velcro, in the WIDTH of the perspex stand.  (I used black but you can use any colour you like).  Insert your piece of paper with the lines on it, back into the stand and lay it on your desk.

• It helps to leave the ‘foot’ of the stand hanging over the front edge of your desk so that the stand lays completely flat.

Using your drawn lines on the paper as the centre marker for the middle of the Velcro tape, stick the hooks side of the Velcro to the perspex certificate holder/stand and press down firmly to make sure that it’s adhered in all the places along its strip.

• I would use the hooks side of the velcro on the stand, –  and the eyes side of the velcro on the bottles.  (The eyes side is much softer to the touch, so it will be more comfortable for your fingers, – so put the soft side of the velcro on the bottles.)

Do that four times, so that you’ve got all your lines ready and waiting for your bottles.

Now … get all your bottles of Stickles out and count them.  Cut that amount of little bits of the ‘eye’ side of the Velcro – roughly about one centimetre wide strips –  and when you’ve got them all ready … lay your ruler down on your desk in a comfortable place that you can lean over and look ‘down’ on the rule.  Then taking one bottle of Stickles, lay it next to your rule, with the bottom of the bottle at the 2.5 centimetre measurement.  Where the beginning of the 1cm measurement sits (not quite half way on the bottle), that’s where you’re going to put the bottom of the little Velcro strip you’ve just cut.  Apply it.  Press it down firmly, then hang it on your new Stickles Storage System!  Repeat for the rest of your bottles!

A slightly blurred, but closer up view.

VOILA!  A Pinterest ‘make’ which actually works!

This works SO well for me, as I’m one of those crafters who, if I put things away in boxes or cupboards, ‘out of sight’ means ‘out of mind’,  and I forget them.

• I know that the detailed instructions I’ve given to make this,  might make it sound complicated.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

This is the most simple thing I’ve ever ‘made’ in my life.  It’s so quick and easy that I really don’t feel I should be ‘pleased’ with myself for doing it.  And, I’m not.  I’m more ‘pleased’ to have found something on Pinterest which actually works, and I also wish I’d have had a go at this a long time ago.

Oh … and if you look closely, you’ll see that there are two bottles of Dovecraft Glitter Glue hanging on the stand too … which shows that even with slightly bigger bottles than the Ranger Stickles, the measurements I’ve given still work.  I think that because the stand (and most of these types of stands)  tilts back slightly, it means that the bottles actually hang just a little proud of the stand at the bottoms of the bottles (yes, the bottoms – not the upside down tops, – if you follow me),  and this means that taking a bottle from the stand is easy to do.

Before I go … 

I know my blog has been rather quiet for a couple of weeks … life just kind of gets in the way sometimes.  But I’ve been crafting and do have a few things to share.  I just have to find the time to load the photos and crop/re-size them.

Thank you so much for coming to share a bit of time with me.  I’m so thrilled that you’re here, and I thank you from the heart of my bottom for coming.  It reall does mean so much to me that you pop by for a visit, so: Thank You. xxx

Wishing you a truly blessed rest of your day!

Delivering: A Bunch of Roses – via a vintage style card!

Although I know it’s a little early for Roses to be popping up in the garden (at least, it is here, in England) I simply couldn’t resist these papers any longer and had to get my hands on them.

The papers  – beautifully named: “You Were Never Lovelier” – are acid and lignin free scrapbooking papers.  All of them are of the ‘oooooOOooo’ and the ‘aaaaaaAAaahh’ type of paper!

I knew I wanted to make a cross-over type card, so set to work with my cardstock and guillotine.  I LOVE cross-over cards – I think because it enables me to really ‘dress up’ a card.  I also adore embellishments, and I particularly love making tags, so making a cross-over card gives me chance to almost have a party with embellishments strewn all over my desk!

Once the basic shape was built, I cut and added the papers and the beautiful vintage, crocheted lace.

The card itself has three large soft, pink, (fabric-type) roses, some paper roses, and some filler flowers.  The little wooden bird-cage (available in almost all crafty outlets) I painted with Gesso and then tinted over the top of it.  The string of pearls which winds itself along the card and around the flowers – are just ‘craft pearls’ on a string, and you can buy these for very little, again in lots of place, but I recently saw some in The Range (here in the UK) in a bag filled with a choice of either white or cream; LOTS of pearls and I’m almost sure that they were less than £2 (English pounds).   To fix these pearls into place – I use Cosmic Shimmer glue – sparingly.  You don’t need tons of glue.  Just a bit here and there.  (You can click to view the photographs in a larger size – but don’t forget to click ‘back’ so that you can come back to continue reading).

The crocheted cotton lace I used on the card is genuinely vintage lace.  I bought it as part of a bag full of lace on Ebay about five years ago.  The lady I bought it from was parting with some of her Grandmothers sewing stuff after Grandma had been called home.   She told me that her Grandmother used to keep any lace from things which had worn out, got damaged etc, and due to be thrown away (or used as dusters/cleaning cloths etc.), and she would use the lace on other clothes or all sorts of things.  But the Granddaughter wasn’t a sewing gal and had no room to keep things, so she put the bag filled with lace on eBay and I was lucky enough to win it.  (I was thrilled down to my toes when it arrived and wrote a thank you email to the lady who I’d bought it off, telling her how wonderful the lace was and how honoured I was to be the new owner of Grandma’s lace.).

I made three inserts for this card, and all three can be ‘viewed’ on both sides.   You can see one side of the tags in the photograph above, and the other side of the tags in the photo below:

The long, tall tag in the centre of the photo above is a bookmark.  The little tag laying to the right hand side of the photo (on your right as you look at the photo) is a postcard on both sides of the card.  And the final tag – the large one at the right of the centre – has an ’empty’ postcard on the one side – which is blank so that  a message can be written from the sender of the card – and on the reverse side it has a beautiful poem by Helen Steiner Rice – which I ‘built’ on the computer using the fabulous image of the roses and the poem.

close up of the large ‘fabric type’ roses

Close up of the butterfly. I hand stamped onto some cardstock then glazed & once dry I added the tiny gems.

The tags fit neatly inside the fold over card, and the card itself has a stand on the back of it, (die cut on my Big Shot) – which stands the card in the same way children’s school photographs stand up.  They have that fold out stand on the back, with a little curved piece which folds down and holds the stand firmly so that the card stands up apparently without any help!  (I looks just like a magic trick when you see one of these cards standing up all by itself.  All it’s missing is the flick of the wrist and swish of the wand! Oh … and  ‘abracadabra‘!  lol)

Obviously the card couldn’t go into a regular envelope, so I made it a box:

The sentiment on the little tag in the top right corner, was stamped – firstly with brown ink, then with black – which helped to give it a more vintage feel.

The card fits perfectly into the box . . .

This would be a lovely card for Mothers Day – or a Birthday, or a ‘hello’ card, a ‘cheer you up’ card, anniversary card,  or an ‘I love you and wanted to show you’  type of card!  It’s one of those cards which fits all the regular types of ‘card days’.

The big ribbon bow on the front of the card … isn’t tied into an ‘un-equal bow’, – it’s very much a balanced bow, but the angle of the card,  combined with the angle I’ve taken the photographs at,  has made it look like the bottom loop of the bow isn’t as generous as the top loop.  It’s sadly a trick of the camera/eye.  (and the nutcase holding the camera who’s rubbish at taking photographs!  <sigh> tsk tsk). lol

But … if I may be serious for a moment: 

I know the blog has been a bit quiet over the past couple of weeks.  Apologies for that.  Poor health is to blame, – but I’m hoping that my doctor will, this week, get the results of a gazillion tests and x-rays I had to have done, and that he will finally be able to tell me what the heck is causing this horrible  ‘chest infection’  (or whatever it is) and will be able to ‘fix’ me once and for all!

Thank you so much for coming to share this card with me.  I’m thrilled that you do.  Honestly.  But …  what really brings me out in fun bumps (aka: goosebumps) are ‘comments’.  It’s such a joy to put a name to a visitor, so please, don’t be shy.  Do tap your fingers on your keyboard and say hello!  :o)

Sending crafting love your way,  and wishing you . . . .  a truly blessed rest of your day!

I’m entering this card into the following challenges:

• http://ribbongirls.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/march-card-challenge.html?m=1
• http://eclecticellapu.blogspot.co.uk/   – in the Go Green category

Wishing the Teacher lots of Christmas Cheer …

Another vintage style Christmas card – this time made for my Grandsons Teacher at Nursery School.  She’s a fabulous lady who I love dearly, and has such a lovely way with the little folk in her care.  I wanted to thank her for just being the lovely person that she is and for the incredible job she does.

I had an idea of what sort of card I wanted to make, but couldn’t find the right image to base the card around … until I found this one on the Graphics Fairy ~

This image had the right vintage feel about it, and it was a little boy in the picture building a snowman – and since my Grandson is obsessed with Olaf (the snowman in the film ‘Frozen’) at the moment, I felt this was the perfect image.  I re-sized it, matted and layered it onto some lovely linen finish, plain coloured card stock, in a soft beige and a lovely vintage red, then glittered around the edge to make the image sparkle and draw attention to the image and make it stand out from the card.

I have some little wooden ‘adornments’,  and from the assortment I chose a birdcage to gild with gilding flakes – so that I could have it ready to attach when I needed it.

The base on which I ‘built’ this card was a 6 x 6 Kraft card with a high gsm – so that it would be weighty enough to take the adornments which I wanted to attach to the card.

The papers I used to cover the card are all part of a pack of Christmas papers which I obtained free with a magazine a while ago.  They’re really lovely papers – but the red coloured, 12 days of Christmas, paper I chose for the front was a little too red, so I knocked the colour back by using some Gesso, just applied roughly across the paper once it was adhered to the front.

I’d found some lovely vintage style lace for sale in a local charity shop a while back – and knew that it would be perfect for this card, so added a length to both the top and bottom front of card.

Before I added the vintage picture, I put a little cheesecloth behind the picture, to give it a soft outline, then added the picture and then draped some rayon seam binding around the front in the curvy way I wanted it to lay – but before I finally attached it I threaded a pendant charm onto it, and placed it on the card in the centre of the leading edge.  I then fixed the pendant and ribbon into place.

I added some Christmas white paper roses  and leaves, and the gilded birdcage, . . . then came the twinkling part!  I chose four glitters and roughly mixed them  – a gold, a copper, a silver and a little mix of some teeny tiny glitter gems.  They’re not exactly glitter – but they aren’t gems either.  I’m not sure how to explain them, and I can’t remember where I bought them from as I remember I had to decant them as the original packet split, so I don’t have anything left which I can check up on the name of this glitter sadly.  They make a difference to the glitter mix, as it makes it look more ‘opulent’.  Fabulous result, which I just love!  In places, I also added some teeny tiny gilding flakes – which gave a different depth to the whole project.  (You can see some of those tiny pieces of gilding flakes in the photo above which shows a close up of the gilded birdcage.)

And finally . . .

I pinned a Tim Holtz ‘Keepsake’ pin down in the corner of the card, simply because it kind of fitted the whole feeling which I was trying to ‘build’ into the card itself.

I did make a matching box to this card – but again, because I was in such a hurry to get caught up with myself (after being poorly for weeks on end), I totally forgot to take a picture of the box before I gave the card to the teacher last week.

The inside of the card was lined with pale biscuity coloured paper, and I used ribbons inside, in a lovely shade of pink, and the vintage wine coloured ribbon you see on the front – just to add that final touch which made the inside as pretty as the outside.

Well … I’m still trying to catch up and I’m hoping to craft up a storm in my craft room today – so I’ll hopefully see you later.

Have a truly wonderful Monday, – whatever you’re doing.

Love ~