Happy Holidays!

A belated Merry Christmas and wishing a very Happy New Year to you all!

To everyone who has been checking out my blog only to find that I haven't updated since OCTOBER - I am very sorry! I had intended to get online and post pre-Christmas...however the lack of cards made and distinct lack of interest in pretty much anything on my part saw that it didn't happen.  With New Year just hours away, I have picked myself up and dusted off my laptop with the intention that this post will be published before the strike of midnight! Be warned...it could actually be a longer post than I anticipated...

Let's kick off the last post of 2014:

The first card I made since my last blog was a birthday card for a friend at work, as she loves glitter - I just had to add a little sparkle...

Next up, are two cards I made for some special friends in Turkey, personalised as much as I could with my limited language skills...Thankfully they were received well :-)

So... then I heard Lili of the Valley were retiring some of their old stamps...so I just had to buy a few that I've wanted for a while...and had a quick play as soon as they arrived (need to work on my colouring skills, especially pencil) Cheers Bear, James Wrapped in Tinsel, Jenny Bear Gifts Galore, and a new stamp - Annabel Saddle Up (not retired)

This led to three more cards using just two of the four new additions...

I love Cheers Bear because he can be used for male cards - which I am not particularly great at and definitely need to practice more in 2015! Also he can be versatile as to the reason for the card which is always helpful!  

I bought the Annabel Saddle Up stamp partly because as a child I loved horse riding, but also because my friend's daughter has recently taken up the hobby and I thought it would make a brilliant birthday card for her...then I had an idea that I could turn it into a boys card too - by blocking out the pigtails when I stamped the image...here are the results!

Before I move onto the Christmas cards of 2014, I have a couple more cards to share - 
For the Disney princess - unfortunately I haven't yet invested in a Queen Elsa stamp...nor have I seen any - surely they won't be long in development... but for now a Cinderella card for that special birthday

For the magical ballet princess...

Gift tags...for the boys! On the left was the work in progress...whilst I tried to figure out how to colour skin and blonde hair...on the right is the finished tag - worked out OK I think. The stamp Super Striker is another Lili of the Valley special (who else!) 

And now for the Christmas cards of 2014, which I finally started making...around 6th December!, and the intro pics which would have been posted if I had updated earlier...

From Six...

to Forty Six

I made 23 Jenny Bear and 23 James Bear cards, but after eventually getting the hang of how to colour in using promarkers a number of them were the same (I was running out of time!)...so here I've put together a collection of the different designs for each.

The Jenny Bear collection:

The James Bear collection:
I love this picture because it shows the various different stages of development...

However, here is the finished collection:

I also tried my hand with pencil crayon...on three cards only!

Last and by no means least, is a Christmas tag (which I actually forgot to take a photo of after I'd punched the hole and tied the string...but ssshhh no one will notice, oh wait!)

And on that note we draw 2014 to a close, I had hoped to be organised and start on my Christmas cards for next year whilst I was off work this Christmas and feeling "festive"...but surprisingly it never happened! Ah well, it's New Years Day tomorrow...1st January - Time to begin again!

Hope you all have a happy new year - see you in 2015!

Jenfie
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Stamping Addiction!

Hello :-) 

After what feels like the craziest roller-coaster ever over the past few months...that roller-coaster otherwise known as Life what with 2 holidays, 3 weddings, and a funeral, in the space of 10 weeks... I am back on the blog with a fair few cards to share with you - Yay! 

So up first are a few birthday cards.  Apart from on the monochrome cards, I have tried my hand recently at the art of stamping using newly purchased stamps from Craftwork Cards and Lili of the Valley. 












Next up we have the Weddings and Anniversaries, again using new stamps from Lili of the Valley - I just adore this young couple and the "To Have And To Hold" sentiment stamp is perfect! For the wedding cards, I tried to incorporate the colour schemes as closely as I could from the information I had before hand, it turned out that I was pretty darn close for all 3 - if I do say so myself!

There were a couple of new baby girls to add into the celebrations, surprisingly they also received cards on which I tried out my new love for new stamps! 

And if that wasn't enough stamping...I did a little more:

So, once again, that is the grand total of my creativity over the last few months, I'd love to know what you think so please do feel free to leave comments below :-) Now the countdown begins to Christmas so I need to get my act together and start making this years Christmas cards...tis the season! 

Thanks for taking a look at my blog, I hope to be back soon.  

Take care,

Jenfie 

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FOR SALE!!! Let's Make Cards! Magazines galore

Hi, 

Just a quick post today to say that I am selling my back issues of the Let's Make Cards! Magazines.  If anyone is interested please contact me either here or via the gumtree listings which can be found below.  Would be ideal as a gift for the younger or new crafter, or the more experienced crafter after some tips or crafty bits :-)

Let's Make Cards issues 6 - 25 magazines only

 Let's Make Cards issues 26 - 52 with kits

Hope to be back crafting and sharing my cards with you soon...got a very busy summer so will see you when I see you :-) 

Jenfie x

One for the guys...ok and the girls too :-)

It's that time again already, I know I am early this month and with quite a selection of cards this time - I hope you are impressed! 

Having visited the Lili of the Valley shop in Leeds at the beginning of the month, it definitely got me back into the fun of card making, albeit only for a couple of weekends for now - due to Race for Life (we raised £215 for Cancer Research UK and completed the 5km course in around 49 minutes!) and relaxation taking up the others.

So...Cards, as it was Father's Day this month, I tried my hand at creating some cards for the dads/men in our lives.  Using the Gone Fishing mini masterpiece die-cuts from Lili of the Valley, I had a fun time creating the following few cards.  I didn't like to tell Jethro (my cat) that he wasn't having fish for dinner!

 Next up was the first of the cards made using my new stamp and paper purchases, here I used the "Lick of Paint" stamp and backing paper from the "Bear Necessities" paper pad which I think looked particularly like it could be wallpaper! I coloured the image using pencil crayons - a medium I haven't tried out for quite a while and was pretty pleased with the result.  The sentiment (also a LOTV Stamp) was added using Stampin Up Gumball Green.

 

Finally for the boys, I used the "Super Striker" stamp and again coloured in using pencil crayons - I have to admit I did copy the colouring on the mini masterpieces die-cuts of this image as I don't have a clue what football teams colours are, something I probably need to look up to create more appropriate boys cards using this stamp.  The sentiment on this card is from Craftwork Cards mini messages selection.

Moving on to something for the girls now because I just couldn't resist - I bought the "Crafty Kit - Fold-Over Tag cards" from LOTV and using this kit made the below gift card pouches.  They are just a beautiful idea to add your gift card to, instead of the usual boring (not always) card and envelope that normally gets provided.  The little card insert is blank on the back so you can take it out and write a special message for your recipient to keep :-) Pretty things! 

For a rather long time now I have had some little house shaped cards which I keep meaning to use to make new home cards but never really had any idea what to do with them.  Having bought the "Moving Day" mini masterpiece die-cuts I decided to use one, along with some backing paper from the "Bear Necessities" and the "Krafty Christmas" paper pads to create my first New Home card.  I kinda feel like it is still missing something but I just don't know what.  However, for a first attempt I like it!

I have a couple of birthday cards to share with you next time, and hopefully more to add but July is a jam packed month with two hen-dos to attend, my birthday, and hopefully a weeks holiday with my other half (fingers crossed - it isn't actually booked yet :s) so hopefully I will find some crafty time to fit in there too! 

Thanks for stopping by, please come back next month for more!

Jenfie 

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