Christmas is coming...

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all well and enjoyed World Card Making day over the weekend. I did actually manage to make a card over the weekend but as it's for my niece's 17th birthday next week I'm not going to share it until the day in case she sees it on here or Facebook. I was really pleased to get crafting again as I've had a bad case of craft block! I know inspiration should come from things I already have but in all honesty I tend to be most crafty when I have new stash and apart from getting a couple of items last month I haven't bought anything craft related in ages. All I've found myself doing in the last three weeks or so is tidying up, trying different card folds (I love to experiment) and half colouring in images only to think they are rubbish and throw away. So it was quite a relief to make a card for Charlie which I liked and it's sparked a bit of a crafty spurt as well.

Christmas will be here before we know it and up until yesterday, I hadn't made a single card, present or decoration. Clearly Besotted Stamps brought out a stamp set ages ago called "In Print" which features a fingerprint and a range of doodled creatures that you stamp over the fingerprint. I fell in love with them but (typically of me) hadn't got around to using them. Because I haven't done any card making for quite a while I decided to make a couple of very simple Christmas cards and one of the images on this stamp set was perfect - a deer. The stamp set doesn't have any Christmas sentiments with it but one of my subscription magazines "Creative Stamping" arrived on Saturday and had lots of Christmas and holiday sentiments with it.

Oh Deer - Christmas is coming...

I stamped the fingerprint using Memento Rich Cocoa ink and over stamped it with the deer face using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I stamped the Merry & Bright sentiment in the black ink and added a red glittered enamel dot over the deer's nose. The cards are 3" x 4" and I made an envelope for each one using some 6" x 6" scrapbook papers and my We Are Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board. I used a second stamp from the Creative Stamping set to add a sentiment to the inside of the cards.

A simple sentiment for a simple card

As I had the stamps out I decided to make a little joke card for my husband, he's been watching (and buying!) a lot of trashy B movies recently and one of his favourites is "Big Ass Spider". He wanted me to make him a big ass spider card for Christmas but as I don't find spiders to be particularly festive I decided to make him a spider card just because... The "In Print" stamp set also has a cute little spider so I made another 3" x 4" card base and stamped the fingerprint in Hickory Smoke Distress ink and the legs and face in black Memento ink. I stamped the boo! sentiment in the same ink. Unfortunately I had a bit of ink on my finger as I stamped the legs over the fingerprint body so got a smudge of ink on the card base, I added some light green sparkly enamel dots on the card front to hide my little boo boo. I also added a silk string for the spider to hang from which is also included in the stamp set.

Big Ass Spider card lol

We don't have any children but it would be a great card to make with children for Halloween. To be honest you could make it without the stamp set just use your own fingerprints and add your own critter features with a fine tipped pen, but this way is less messy lol.

I hope you like my little card share, hopefully it won't be quite as long until my next post. I'm sorry for not posting more often but I try to keep my posts craft related and if I'm not producing anything/buying anything I have nothing to share. If you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting! (Must take my own advice!)

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx