First Rudolph Day of 2016

Hello there My Friends

Gosh where did January go then? I don't know about you but I have been pretty busy this month with one thing or another and to be quite honest, I am hoping that February and the rest of 2016 will be a bit kinder to me.

So here we are at the end of January and I have two cards to share with you for the Rudolph Day over at my friend Mo's blog.

Here is the first one...

I stamped some Snippets of red card with the bauble stamps and die cut them with my Spellbinders dies.  More Snippets for the Memory Box ribbon and Penny Black sentiment, a little ribbon onto the background MME paper and a card was born.

And just for good measure, I made another card....

Again I used some Snippets including the glitter paper border down the side and the vellum.  The lady was cut a long time ago when I was with my friend, and I will try and use the rest of them.  It needed a little dolling up when I finished, so added some glossy accents and sprinkled MS glitter over.  The vellum was left over from another card which I stamped the Stampenduous border stamp and embossed gold powder.  No idea where the background music paper came from, I found it in my Snippets drawer when I was clearing it out. 

Running off to my friend Mo's Rudolph Day and the Snippets Playground with my cards.  See you on the swings with Parsnip.  I need a cwtch with my fluffy friend!!

Happy Birthday Rachel...

Hello there Peeps!!

 

Sorry I have not been around  much, but life just seems to get in the way of things lately.  To be honest I had not been in my craft room much lately, or so I thought.  I was thinking it was about time I emptied my camera and there were more crafty photos on there  than I realised so I thought I would share one of the cards made most recently for my Buddie Rachel.

The green is quite different to what these photos show, and the text is a good match, unlike the photos.  I never quite get how some colours, green, blue and red, don't always photograph that well.  Or is it just that the weather was not good when I too, the photos?  Oh hum!!

 

These Spellbinders border dies were bought nearly a year ago and except for the initial playing when I received them, they have not seen fresh air.  Naughty me!!  I will say though that they are pesky little dies and thank goodness I had waxed paper or else they may have just ended up in the bin!!  Thanks Miss Di for that little gem!!

 

I also used a Tonic die for the flourish and Memory Box dies for the butterflies and Liquid Pearls for the dots.  The paper is Bo Bunny which was a fresh-never-been-used-before sheet.  Well Rachel is a good friend.  The butterfly and white pieces were all Snippets so I am going to sneak down to the Snippets Playground and see what is afoot.  I understand Mrs A is planning to put some of my chickens in the Nativity Play, so I want to see who else is going to be on stage!!

 

See you all for some hot chocolate!!

 

Hettie

 

 

Rudolph Day and Funkie Junkie and Snippets Playground

Hello There!!

I hope you are having a good weekend, and have not encountered too many ghosts tonight!!

Our internet connection has been rather affected by all the witches flying hereabouts so it has taken me two hours just to load up my photos of my C Card which I am trying desperately to share before the deadline over at Scrappy Mos.  I also want to share it with the Funkie Challenge as I took my inspiration with Tag 4.

Here is the card.....

I really liked the "tartan" look of Linda's background, but I do not have the stripes stencil, nor a stripe stamp so I used my Wendy Vecchi background stamp and Festive Berries DI and grabbed a snippet piece of cream cardstock that was in the crapalanche next to my guillotine.  Then I took my Forest Green and Mustard Seed DI pen and a ruler and drew on the lines before taking a water brush and going over the stripes.  Once this was dried I took my TH holly stencil and bronze embossing paste and left overnight to dry.

While the background was drying I se to work on the rest of the card.  I took some dark green cardstock and cut the holly design using my Silhouette.  I cut a paler green card stock with a Joanna Sheene Ivy die and then ran my embossing tool over the back of the greenery.   I needed some red berries so I used some snippets of  glitter cardstock and my TH lamppost die to create the berries.

Next the Poinsettia for which I used some cream textured cardstock, edged with Gathered Twigs DI and then layered them, once shaping them.  I used some bronze embossing powder to make the poinsettia centre and edge of the green layer.

Last was the sentiment, which I used a TH stamp, bronze embossing powder, a piece of red MME background paper and my card was complete. 

Let's hope I can still link with the Rudolph Day challenge, Scrappy Mo being in Canada.  I am also linking this with Linda over at Funkie Junkie.  I do need to catch up with the other tags I have missed out.  And lastly, I am linking with my mate Di over at the Snippets Playground.  I hear there is a rather large bonfire party planned.  I am in charge of the marshmallows!!

I have just learnt from my friend Viv that this also qualifies for the Festive Flowers and Foilage challenge over at Sir Stamp Alot.  Thanks Viv!
 

Have a great week every one.  Don't forget that if you wish to buy any of the goodies I used for this they (and other things) are available at the Funkie Junkie Boutique!!

Hettie

Oo la lah!!

Hello there

How are we all doing?  I hope you have not been washed away with all this rain we have had in the last two days.  My wellies are wearing out and I will need to ask Santa for a new pair for Christmas!

I wanted to show you a card I made for my niece recently for her birthday.  As you can tell from the photos it was a beautiful sunny morning when I took the photos before handing it to my sister for when she returned home from Geneva.....

Lots of stencilling, inking, stamping, die cutting, spritzing, flicking and embellies....

The Eiffel Tower is a new die which I bought some time ago in a sale..

I inked up a Snippet to make the sentiment here...

Aren't these embellies gorgeous?  The key is a Kaisercraft one which again was NBUS bought for me as a birthday pressie - MWAH - you know who you are....

The lower one is a TH embellie bought eons ago!

And of course I needed an envelope that would take the tower...

......courtesy of my We R Memory Keepers board.

Off to join in the fun in the Snippets Playground.  Got me souwester on and my wellies...who wants to come puddle jumping with me?

Hugs

Hettie

Mummy and Daddy's Diamond Anniversary

Hello my Lovelies!

 

My Wonderful parents celebrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary a couple of weeks ago and I had a little spark of an idea for the card I wanted to make.  When I saw my lovely Buddy's card for her friend's 25th I just knew it was the right idea.  So without further ado here is the card I made for my parents..... 

This photo is one of my favourites of their wedding.  I scanned it from the little album that were given to their parents.  I have my Grandad's album...lucky me!!

 

A close up of the sparkly die cuts.  Can you tell I had great fun making this card?

 

Side view with another photo.  The box base I cut using my Silhouette so that I could have fancy edges.

 

And now one showing the happy Lovebirds cutting their cake.  I am telling you, I have never used so many blingies on one card!!

 

Top view.  I wanted to ensure that the bits looked as good from the front as the back so I adhered another shape to the back. 

I used a few Snippets and had to raid the Christmas Snippets basket as I ran out of the silver.  Luckily I managed to find a few more bits.

Here is the card folded.

 

And now the other folded side.

 

This card took me several hours to make and all the time I was giggling as it was so much fun.  My parents loved it and my Dad, ever the engineer kept looking to see how I made it!!

 

I am going to sneak this into the Butterfly Challenge - K is for Knot...well the were tying the knot after all!!

 

I am also going to skip over to the Cuttlemania Challenge as there isn't a square in sight!!

 

Off to the Snippets Playground now to have a play and see if there is any choklit behind the bike shed!!  See you there!!

 

Hettie

Rudolph Day - May 2015

Hello there

The best laid plans and all that.......

This past month has gone at such a pace that I completely forgot about getting cards ready for 25th of the month.  So Monday afternoon I sat down and made some cards and ruled that as many of the parts had to come out of my Christmas basket of shame.  Let me tell you this basket is overflowing with Snippets, embellishments, ribbons, and all manner of Christmas things.  It really needs to be cleared and so I have made the decision that if there is anything left in there by September then I will be giving them to my neighbour for the Brownies.  Some of the stuff is so old and it is time to get rid of.

I completed seven on Monday which I thought was good going for me, and on Tuesday evening I completed another three which means that for the first time this year I managed to complete my target of ten per month!!!  Yeay!!!!!!

So here they all are....

Using Dreamweaver stencil, stencil paste and microbeads onto black cardstock (I did this last year but never used it) I then cut around the image and mounted it with a lot of glue onto the glitter cardstock Snippet (having put it under a heavy book overnight to make the glue stick).  I wrapped silver twin, tied a Snippet of recycled ribbon and tied on two bells (from Christmas crackers) and mounted it all onto a card which came from a kit from QVC many years ago.

Chipboard from chit pads used in work using Tim Holtz die borrowed from buddy and inked with Festive Berries DI, brushed with Kiwi Perfect Pearls and then stamped with Tim Holtz flourish stamp.  Snippets of patterned papers and Poinsettia cut from TH die with brad in the centre.  All mounted onto card, some faux stitching and another completed.

The background piece was made as a mock up for a Christmas Album two years ago.  I chopped it up to make this panel.  Susan Wilson (NBUS) die cut with Snippets and layered.  Some ribbon to tie a double bow.  Hero Arts stamp for the sentiment and mounted on a Snippet and pearls added.  No 2 completed.

Background paper Bo Bunny and just enough to paper two cards.  Punched the corner with Martha Stewart punch and added some faux stitching.  The Trees were stamped with Stampin Up stamp (NBUS yet had it for ages) and then punched.  The trunks and pot were from the same set.  Embossed with clear embossing powder.  Sentiment stamp is TH.  XCut die cuts, again from Snippets. All stamping is Pine Needles DI. Added some shimmery die cut stars (SSS) and a teeny bow.

Same details as above, but I chomped the corners with Memory Keepers chomper.

 

This background piece is soooo old I am not sure it was even this century when I bought it!  I found a piece of kraft card looking lonely so I cut it in half, chomped the corners and punched a hole using my SU 1/2" punch.  I took another Snippet and punched a 3/4" punch and made a hole ring thingie.  Stamped a TH stamp and then ran it through the B/S with an embossing folder.  Die cut some stars with a K&Co Snippet added it on then added schtickles.  The rosette was taken off one of my Tags and I added another punched circle.  I took my TH chit chat stickers, ribbon and another for the tin.

 

Similar to the last one, only I used a different Snippet. 

And now for the recycling of my Christmas Tags. I used a freebie piece for the background (I think it is Docrafts), chomped the corners and then added the Tag, having first of all added a TH word card underneath.  I took the original paper bow off as it had got bashed in the basket and replaced it with a punchboard bow with a button in the centre. 

 

 

I tried putting this tag onto a background piece but nothing worked.  Whatever I used didn't work so I just plonked it onto the kraft card, chomped the corners and added faux stitching.

And last but not least here is my last card for today.  Thanks for sticking with me so far.  Another I made for the Funkie Junkie Tags Challenge.  This is pretty heavy so it will be a hand-delivered to the recipient.  Only thing I have added is a Snowflake die cut from the Snippets basket and a word card from Tim Holtz.

 

I thought I would share a photo of my lickle Dobby.  Does he look comfy or what?  Bless him.  Some of you may know he has been poorly having had a fall down our stairs, but he is slowly getting better and in the last few days he has been more of his usual self.  Only thing is we now have to carry him down the stairs to save him straining his shoulder joints.

 

Right then.  That is it from me.  Thank you for sticking with me.  Off to join Mo at the Rudolph Day Challenge, Miss Di at the Snippets Playground (Miss is away at the moment on a school reunion so I am guessing there is some mischief going on behind the bike shed with the usual suspects), Cuttlebug Mania as there is plenty of bling on these, and I am joining Hazel at Hazelnuts.

 

Have a great weekend.

 

Hettie

Get Well Hammy!

Hello there

 

Well, that bank holiday weekend went quickly, but it was a good one for me.  Hope yours was too.

 

Saturday saw me at our monthly quilting meeting.  When I got home Mr Hettie was pottering outside so I had a sneaky hour working on my Amsterdam album!!  Well, why not?

 

Sunday was spent pottering in the garden, painting the love seat with my usual feathered supervisors on standby.  Today I put another coat of paint on the underside of the seat and started prepping my Adirondack chair ready for it to be painted.  Spent the afternoon making some Christmas cards for Rudolph Day.  I will share them later in the week.

 

Right then.  Onto today's post. 

 

A very good fellow Snippets Playmate had some lovely stamps and dies from Lawn Fawn that I fell in love with.  You see there is a family story about a hamster called Hammy that lived on the bookcase (in his cage of course!), at the bottom of our stairs.  I was too little to have anything to do with it, and he belonged to my big Sister and Brother.  Apparently they were not very good at looking after him, and he had been dead for two weeks before they noticed!!!  Hence I was never allowed to have my rabbit and had to wait until I was married!! 

 

So onto this stamp set and dies.  I knew I wanted to get hold of it, searched UK retailers but no luck.  So I went directly to Lawn Fawn and blow me, I could order it and pay using Paypal without having to set up yet another account and in super quick time it arrived!!  So I had to use it....

 

 

My poor friend was not very well, and in one of the texts she sent me, she told me that her glands were swollen and that she looked like a hamster....hence a card was born!!

 

 Here it is with the envelope.  All coloured in with Copics.  I used Snippets of card to stamp and die cut.  Rachel loved the card or was it the Carte D'or Eaton Mess ice-cream I took up, for medicinal purposes only.

 

I also wanted to show you how my package was sent...

The papers were free and that bakers twine is gorgeous.  There was even a small stamp enclosed.

I would definitely order from Lawn Fawn again...their prices are very reasonable, great quality and postage from US to UK was very good. 

 

Off to play in the Snippets Playground to see what has been occurring over the weekend.

 

Thanks for calling by.

 

Hettie 

Happy Birthday Jackie...

Hello there

 

I hope you have all had a wonderful Easter weekend. The weather here at Chez Hettie has been wonderful and I have enjoyed a great weekend, involving meeting with friends and spending quality time with Mr Hettie.

 

As the weather was so nice Mr Hettie wanted to open up the hives. Mine first and they were pretty happy to let us have a good look. However when it came to us looking at Mr Hettie's bees, they decided that enough was enough and stung me through my jeans. I am sorry to say that I am still suffering with my right thigh burning, swollen and with a very large blister forming.  I had about 8 stings in that one.  Little critters!

 

Right then, onto today's post. I recently dipped my toe into the world of Brushes. My excuse is that I am going on a workshop soon where we can use them and wanted to make a card for my friend Jackie ...

I Spritzer some paper and used two blue shades of brushos and I sprayed water in my mini mister with some white perfect pearls. I hope you can see the shimmer. I then ran the paper, once dried, through my die cutter with Sizzix hexagon die, as Jackie is a quilting friend.

I used Snippets to make the tag and flowers using TH dies and flourish using Tonic die. I stamped a SU image on the tag with DI and used a McGill punch to make the little flowers.

 

Some pearls, Hero Arts HB sentiment and I was finished. Jackie was pleased with it and surprised to learn I had made it.

 

Thanks for calling by. Off to join the Snippets Playground. Hopefully there will be some chocolate left. I am also joining Cuttlebug Mania as they are looking for tags.  Have a great week.

 

Hugs

 

Hettie

Happy Birthday Ann

Hello there

I had snow this morning on the way to work!  What was THAT all about.  I knew it was forecast for the guys up north but since when has South Wales been in the northern part of the country.  Pretty cold it is too today!

Never mine ey.  It is always warm in blogland!

I wanted to share a birthday card I made for a dear friend of mine.  So often she asks for me to make cards for her to send (remember my cows wedding card)  and it was nice to make her one and a 70th one at that!  

It is quite a trick colour for the camera to get right, as with a lot of purple shades.  It was more of a purple grey and some of these cards are more blue.  The photo below is the nearest I think, though the pale blue is not quite right.  You get the drift though.

I seem to be into flowers right now and making my own.  These are quite simply Tonic petal pairs punches (some of the first punches I owned) which I then poked a brad through several layers, then spritzed them and scrunched them over to make them as compact as possible.  Once they had dried off I just pulled them out a bit to created the buds.  Simples.

The dies and embossing folder are all from a set I had before Christmas that I hadn't used so were NBUS.  I kid you not, the embossing folder is a PITA if you have not got an A4 die cutter as it is designed so that you have one background sheet.  Maybe a nice fairy will be kind and deliver the new Sizzix one that is coming out!  Yeah right!!

To compensate for the not being able to use one sheet I added some silver behind, as well as some silver Ivy and Sizzix letters.  My favourite (and only) Memory Box butterflies, a ribbon bow and a spritz of Shimmer Mist and hey presto Ann's card was done.  

I used a plethora of Snippets on here and butterflies with ribbon so I am fluttering by the Snippets Playground and Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge.

See you later folks.  Keep warm and safe.

Hettie

Winter Birthdays....

Hello There

Brrrrr!  I have just come back in from Dancing where we held a "bit of a do for Rabbie".  In other words, some nibbles, some Robbie Burns poetry, a Highland Fling and a toast to the Birthday Boy.  Coming home it was mighty cold with some sleet which got to be more snow than sleet by the time I got home!!!  Wrap up warm and that advice goes to my blogging friends across the pond.  I can hardly believe what New England is going through only a few months after our visit there.  

Right then onto tonight's post.  

Last week I had a flurry of birthdays, including 3 on Friday alone!  So I decided to make some wintery birthday cards, one of which was for a Playground friend who had kindly let me borrow her MB Snowflake die after I was drooling over my laptop at her cards.  So here is my card...

 

Isn't that die just wonderful?  And typical of MB dies, it cuts so well too.  So how did I make  it?  I took a piece of white cardstock (some of them from the Snippets drawer) and inked it with Broken China, Faded Jeans, Tumbled Glass and Shaded Lilac (NBUS) DIs.  Then I used my favourite technique of spritz n flick by spraying some water into my hand and flicking over the card, leave it a few seconds then dab the excess water.  Once this was dry I then took a TH snowflake stamp, versamark and my new favourite WOW embossing powder and randomly stamped some snowflakes on the card.

Then out with the NBUS MB Happy Birthday die and cut this out then I used the visiting MB Snowflake die.  Unfortunately one of them got a little scuff when I peeled the tape off.  Never mind...out came the PB Smile die and a Snippet of blue metallic and I covered the blemish.  I liked the idea so much I decided to use it on all of them!

Last job was to layer up the two layers onto the card and hey presto cards were completed.  I sent a photo of the first one to Hubster who was in work and his reply was "its a bit Frozen"!  Typical man ey!

I hope you like it.  Expect to see some similar ones now for Christmas any time soon!  This die has now been pushed up the Wish List now I have used it.  Thanks Matey for letting me borrow it.  

Off to the Playground as some of these elements were made from Snippets.  I hope there is plenty of hot chocolate and plenty of room in front of the fire!

Hettie

Last Rudolph Day of 2014...Tea on Tuesday..

Hello There!

I have a bit of a quandry today...it is Tuesday 25th November.  For those that have visited before you will know that I usually share my Rudolph Day cards with you as well as a Tea on Tuesday, so today is no different and I am going to share both with you.

First of all my drink.  Now I don't drink Coke very often, specially not during the day naked - the drink not me!  Occasionally in the evening with a bit of vodka in maybe but today whilst in a shop I walked past a fridge and fancied a bottle so I reached in and picked one up, as well as paying for it.  It wasn't until I got back to the office that I saw what was on the front of it.  I did smirk as this is pretty appropriate.  So here it is for Tea on Tuesday.

And now for my Rudolph Day cards....

Isn't this Penny Black stamp just the best?  He is beautiful.  This is also his first outing.  I bought him at Absolutely Everything when I was over the pond.  I walked round that shop three times just trying to take everything in and this was the first thing I put in the basket.  Stamped with Ranger Archival ink and stamped onto white card.  I then inked it with Antique Linen DI.  The 25 December was stamped and inked the same with an East of India stamp. The reindeer strips are punched using an EK Success punch.  The Washi tape are from Hobbycraft..  All the words are cut from a Penny Black die twice, adhered together then inked with Festive Berries, as with all the other red embellishments and embossed with WOW embossing powder.

The papers used on all my cards were all to be found on my desk after finishing my C Album.  I say "finished" but it is only the construction that is finished.  

Card 2 - as ordered by Sandra at Stamping for Pleasure...

Here I used some wooden reindeer that I bought from Hobbycraft.  Aren't they deer?  Sorry about the pun!!  I was trying the Coronation Street look with the three flying up the card!!  LOL!!

The star (cut on Sizzix die) was hanging around in my C Basket.   The 25 stamp was cut using my Sizzix die.

I am not sure if you can see the gold shimmer on the cards which is TH Heirloom Gold?  Some of the red backgrounds on the stamp are made with glitter card Snippets by K&Co.  Those papers were expensive but cut beautifully and I tried to get every bit out of them.

Card No. 3...as an extra...

Here I added some TH Tissue tape as well as a die cut from Memory Box which I embossed with WOW Glitter embossing powder.

And Card no 4..just cos I was on a roll...

The background papers include MME, Basic Grey and Bo Bunny.  I thought it would be easier to use the Snippets than put them in the C Basket!

I do love this stamp.

This is Sandra's last Rudolph Day and I would like to say Thank You Sandra for getting this little bit of fun off the ground and ensuring that we have a stash of Christmas cards made before the silly season strikes.  I look forward to continuing next year with Scrappy Mo and I will keep you posted. 

Right...that is enough waffle from me.  Off to join the Rudolph Day, T on Tuesday, Crafty Hazelnut Christmas Challenge and the Snippets Playground with my little makes.  See you around. 

Thanks for calling by.

Hettie