Fizzy Moon Christmas Cards

Hello my lovelies,

I made these cards on Thursday evening but this is the first chance I've had to upload them.

I just adore the Fizzy Moon range, the character's are so cute....the following cards are made using the 8x8 Decoupage pad and the 12x12 Christmas paper pack.

The great thing about these cards too, is not only are they cute but they are really easy to make if you need cards in a hurry!

I hope you like them and thanks for looking,

have fun and happy crafting,

lots of love NJ XX



A little note from me......

A very late good evening from me. Well this is the first time I've had chance to get on the computer all day. I did'nt finish work at the salon till late and fell asleep watching tv..oooppss!!!

I hope you are all keeping well and not getting too stressed out with the Christmas shopping. I have'nt even started mine yet!

Anyhoo......as you all know I do my monthly tutorial 'NJ's Crafty Tips'....'My Crafty Friend of the Month' and also 'My Favourite Blog of the Month'. I absolutely love doing all of these three features on my blog each month, but they are really time consuming to do. So for this reason I just wanted to let you know that I won't be doing them for December and January. Firstly, as you will probably know from my profile that I run my own hair salon. As you can imagine this is my busiest time of year and so I am working longer hours.

Also, I still have a lot of Christmas crafting to make with only three weeks to go..oopppss....I will be showing you all what I make though.

I hope that your not too disappointed though, this is just a temporary break.

The reason also I can't do it in January and maybe even February is, without going into too much detail (I like my blog to be crafty and not about my health lol) I have to go into hospital for a big operation, I have been told I won't be able to do anything for a month and I have to take about two months off work!

Now as you can imagine, this is going to be really hard for someone who likes to be busy busy busy.........me not doing anything is unheard of lol.

I will still be doing my DT work of course and be showing you my crafty makes.

I am going to get organised though and prepare some easy crafting for when I am able to craft after my op later on in January!

As I said before, this little break from these three features is definetly temporary. As soon as I am able to I will start them up again.

A massive thank you from me for taking the time to follow my blog and if your not a follower thank you anyway for reading my chatter and looking at my projects. I love what I do with a passion, and I enjoy the crafty journey I am taking so much. I'm glad I can share it with you all.

Please keep popping back, as I said before I still have a lot of things to make for Christmas!

I've waffled enough now lol....Happy December.....I'm  not saying Happy Christmas just yet, because I will still be popping in a lot before then!

Enjoy your Christmas preparations...and remember if your getting worn out and stressed out with it all.......do what I do..and pour yourself a lovely glass of wine.....take a long bath and read a good book.....it really does help you relax....especially if you've been trudging round doing your Christmas shopping!LOL

Enjoy the rest of your week-end,

lots of love

NJ XXXX

PanPastel UK Challenge 10 - Animals

I was delighted to be last week's winner of the PanPastel Challenge. I won a PanPastel trial kit. My kit contained two colours which were Diarylide Yellow and Permanent Red.

Now this weeks challenge theme is Animals, so I decided to use the DoCrafts Woodland Folk stamp set and some free papers to match that came with Papercraft essentials magazine.

I swiped the colours across Bristol Board and blended them with one of the sponges that came with the kit. I stamped the image using Memento ink on top of this. I sponged a little bit of each of the colours onto my craft mat, sprayed with a fine mist of water, and used a very fine paint brush to pick up the colour. I then added colour here and there to the stamped image. I used a fixative spray to finish. Matted onto card covered with decorative paper, stamped greetings onto PanPastel coloured card and embellished with raffia and a wooden button. Now, when you see the card....you will notice the animals are'nt of the traditional colour...lol....this is because I wanted it to be slightly different but also because I wanted to play with my new PanPastel goodies.

I hope you like it and I am entering it into the Challenge 10 - Animals

http://panpasteluk.blogspot.com/

I hope you like it and thanks for looking,

have fun and happy crafting,

lots of love NJ XX



My DT Project for Crafty Blogger's Network..Anything 3D..

A happy good evening from me my lovelies. Well, I'm going to say oooopps, because I meant to show you my Design Team Creation for this week's challenge over at Crafty Blogger's Network on Monday! I ran out of time though....this time of year is my busiest time at the salon everyone wanting cuts & colours etc. Like most people, I have 101 jobs to do lol, but not enough hours in the day to do them all! Anyhoo...here is what I created for the theme this week....'Something 3D'.......

Cupcake

I made a cupcake wrapper from a template, drawing onto the back of decorative paper. I coloured a polystyrene ball with promarkers and then sat it into the wrapper. I wound lace around starting from the top of the wrapper, using a different colour for each section until I reached the top. I finished with organza ribbon on the top and embellished with Tatty Ted die cut, stickles and pearl headed stick pins, flowers, beaded garland and feathers.

The good thing about this cupcake is...it's pretty to look at and calorie free!LOL

You still have time to join the challenge, I would love to see your creation's, here's where it's at....

http://craftybloggersnetwork.blogspot.com/

Hope you like it and thanks for looking,

have fun and happy crafting,

lots of love

NJ XXX

'NJ's Crafty Tips' - Distressing

Hello lovely crafter's. It's that time of the month again where I show you a crafty tip. This month I am going to show you how to make a 'Distressed' looking card. I absolutely love distressing things! It is one of my favourite techniques. Here is the card I am going to show you how to make this month.........

To make this card you will need the following crafty goodies..

A4 white card/Tilda Fruit Garden Paper pad/a large doily/Tim Holtz Distress Inks Peeled Paint & Antique Linen/Memento Tuxedo Black ink pad/Gorjuss The Owl Clear Stamp set/Promarkers in the following colours....Pastel pink,Honeycomb,Oatmeal,Tan,Henna,Pastel yellow,Yellow,Lime green,Pastel beige,Blender/1 sheet of green Co-ordinations card stock/Sizzix embossing folder/file/seam binding/lace/ribbon/white flowers/hat pins/vintage buttons/craft basics.

If you don't have all of the above goodies then don't worry, just use something you already have in your crafty stash or change the colour scheme to suit your own taste.

Heres how to make the card.....

Take  your sheet of card, mine is 290gsm.

Score down the centre

Fold over to make an A5 card blank

Lay the card landscape on your mat then cover with decorative paper using double-sided tape

Ink the edges using the Peeled paint distress ink. Use a sponge to ink with

Ink onto the paper as well to create a border of ink

Take a large doily, I'm using one from an assorted pack that I bought from a cheap shop. I think I paid about 99p for a pack.

Use a craft knife to carefully cut out the centre of the doily, put to one side you will need this later

Using the same ink & sponge, carefully ink the doily. Dab on the ink

Next scrunch up the doily

Carefully unwrap it

Cut through to break the circle

Attach a length of double-sided tape across the card, about 2.5cm from the bottom edge. Lift off the backing

Starting at the left side attach one end of the doily to the tape. Stick the rest on pleating as you go along

Cut a length of seam binding to fit across the card. Ink with Antique linen distress ink

Scrunch as before

Stick across the card as shown, using double-sided tape to stick the ends inside the card

Attach across the seam binding a length of lace

Stamp the image onto white card and colour in

Cut the image into an oval shape, I've used my X-cut shape cutter system

Ink the edges with the sponge

Cut out a larger oval using the Co-ordinations cardstock

Use an embossing folder and run through your embossing machine

Use a file to sand the embossed oval

Scrunch as before and ink the edges. Don't worry if it tears, this adds to the distressed look

Use pinflair or another silicon glue to attach your image to the green oval

Ink the doily centre that you cut out earlier and scrunch

Attach double-sided tape directly to your card in the centre, lift off the backing

Attach the doily centre

Use Pinflair to attach the green oval and image to the doily centre

Tie a bow using ribbon and lace together and glue to the top left corner. Finally, embellish with hat pins, inked flowers, curly stems, leaves and vintage buttons

At this point you can choose to add a greeting of your choice. I have left one off so I can decide which occasion to use it for later. I do this with my cards sometimes, so I can look through my stock of cards for any upcoming occasion and add the appropriate greeting at that time.

Here we have the finished card you saw at the beginning....

I love this technique. I've got to say along with stamping and colouring, distressing is a favourite of mine!

I hope you have a go at this. It is really enjoyable to do and the results are random too. Each distressed piece of work will differ from the last. Thats the great thing with this technique, the more distressed the better!

So scrunch, tear and sand away as much as you like!LOL

Hope you have fun and a very happy crafting from me....

lots of love

NJ XXX