Get cracking on Christmas - February 2022

Hi Everyone,

Today I'm back with another Get Cracking on Christmas card for you. This year, just like last year, I am joining Jenn Shurkus in her "Get cracking on Christmas" initiative - we will be encouraging each other, and our readers/followers, to create something Christmassy every month. It can be a card, a tag, a decoration... whatever you really want to! It saved me two years in a row now, with having enough cards in my stash for posting out in late November/early December. No stress, no drama - love it!

Do you want to join in? You can read all about it on Jenn's blog here.

As always, I am full of excuses - I may sound like a broken record, but February has been so far YET AGAIN a very busy month... I honestly can't remember when it hasn't been busy at this stage, haha! Hence, for now, only one Christmas card gets added to my stash this month. But at least I made cards for other occasions (you can check them out on my Instagram account!), too. 

Quick and simple today, with one of my favourite non-traditional Christmas colour combos - pinks and teals.  I might make a few more, similar cards with the other penguins from this set - they're so cute!

All it took was some Copic colouring (although, I must say, I failed at colouring that image a few times!), and some fussy cutting. You cannot really tell, as the paper appears to have "swallowed" the inked background, but I actually inked some Antique Linen Distress Oxide in the background. I then sprayed it all with some very fine mist of white Copic Opaque White (toothbrush for the win!), to imitate a bit of a snowy scene. I sprayed it with some glittery goodness, too!

The fussy cut image has been popped on foam tape, for some additional interest & dimension, the sentiment (which I love, by the way!) is just stamped directly onto the card. For some final va va voom, I added a few enamel dots here and there. I haven't actually planned that many, but my glitter spray bottle appears to have been clogged a bit, and it created splatters where I didn't want them, so the enamel dots came to the rescue ;o)

And that's it, folks - clean, quick and simple as can be! I am actually proud of myself - I am generally really useless at CAS designs, but I think I am getting better - the lack of hours of crafty time is forcing me to embrace that style!

How has your 2022 been going so far?

Stay safe and crafty,

Mirella

SUPPLY LIST (please see affiliate disclaimer & essential supplies info here):

From MFT:

 

 

From Simon Says Stamp:

Get Cracking on Christmas - December 2021

Peeps! It's December - can you believe it?! 

It has been a crazy year and personally, I am delighted that it's coming to an end! The next few weeks will hopefully finally be somewhat nice, although very very hard emotionally - there will be lots of people missing this year on my Christmas list :0( Thankfully, the Christmas joy that having children brings will somewhat balance it out! 

If you are new to Get Cracking on Christmas, please check out Jenn's blog here - she is the master-mind behind this initiative, and is the best one to explain it! :o)

I have to tell you - the idea of making a few (or even one!) Christmas card each month has worked wonders for me, and whilst it might be somewhat awkward at times to create christmassy or wintery scenes in the middle of spring or summer - there's nothing awkward or stressful about having a pile of cards ready to go, come late November/early December! Therefore, I will most definitely be joining in next year again. Do you want to join our Christmas crew, too? Get in touch with Jenn! 

Today's card is something that I started working on weeks ago, and never fully finished... I am still not 100% sure if it's finished to my liking or not, but the longer I faff with it, the less ideas I seem to have, so I'll just leave it as is at this point. 

What do you think?

It is quite masculine, and not girly & cutesy, and I think this is why I am so unsure about this design, LOL! Either way, I am delighted with how the reindeer's nose turned out! 

If you want to see all my makes from 2021, please check out the blog post here.

I am not sure if I will be posting here before the end of the year, apologies for my lack of activity in 2021, I truly hope that 2022 will be truly craftylicious! 

In the meantime - I hope you have a lovely Christmas (even if it's a bit of a sad one, like mine, but let's find some hope and comfort in this celebratory time!), and a fabulous New Year 2022! Here's to a really really healthy and safe one!

Stay safe and crafty,

Mirella

SUPPLY LIST (please see affiliate disclaimer & essential supplies info here):

Stamp & Dies - MFT, Festive Friends (appears to be discontinued, sorry! However, some stores like Seven Hills Crafts still have the stamp set for sale! )

Papers & embellishments - scraps from my stash

   

Get Cracking On Christmas 2021 - September

Hi Everyone,

And so it is September already! My 6 year old recently asked me, how many days until Christmas, and I realised that it's just around the 100 day mark now, wow! Time really does fly...

If you are new to Get Cracking on Christmas, please check out Jenn's blog here - she is the master-mind behind this initiative, and is the best one to explain it! :o)

Today's cards were inspired by a piece of patterned paper that a friend of mine gave me. They are three very easy designs, mostly made out of die cuts, and some small bit of stamping/heat embossing/splattering or simply doodling. Funnily enough, the third card was made out of scraps I was considering throwing away, and I think it's actually my favourite of them all now!

For the first card, I was planning to use only die cuts, but in the end I opted to lightly stamp the deer image - I think it looks better that way. I added some "scenery" detail with a white coloured pencil, snowflakes stamped with VersaMark Ink, and there is some golden detailing on the deer itself (see close-ups). A delicate gold heat embossed sentiment, and voila - ready! Apologies for the not so great photos - the weather has not been kind here recently, plus somehow my camera got confused with the limited colour palette on the card!

The second card is probably the closest one to the patterned paper that inspired me in the first place - I couldn't believe it when I saw these little tree clusters amongst my stamp sets (by the way, I tried to link to all the sets used at the bottom of the post... I am sorry, I used a random mix of stamp & die sets, to match the ideas I had in my head...you definitely don't need them all to create a similar look - challenge yourself to see what you have in your stash & use that! You might have to, since some of the sets are retired already, LOL)!

And finally, the card made of "scraps" and leftovers... I was doodling on these trees purely for fun, as I was then going to throw them away... In the end, they helped me create my favourite card for today. One woman's trash can be the same woman's treasure, as it turns out, LOL!

Here is the patterned paper that I used for inspiration. Now I challenge you - create something inspired by this patterned paper, and let me know in the comments where I can see your makes! 

Stay safe and crafty,

Mirella

SUPPLY LIST (please see affiliate disclaimer & essential supplies info here):

"Peace on Earth" sentiment - is from Quiet Christmas by Hello Bluebird 

Most of the sentiments & some of the trees - "Trio of trees" by MFT (retired)

Deer die cuts - "Delightful Deer" by MFT (I believe also retired?)

FROM TRINITY STAMPS SHOP:

Joyeux Noel Stamp Set 

Joyeux Noel Coordinating Die set

FROM SIMON SAYS STAMP: