Christmas? No, it's ages away yet! Isn't it??

After a brief chilly spell a couple of weeks ago, the weather has turned so unseaonably mild again that it doesn't seem possible that Christmas is just around the corner. But it really is only a few weeks away! So to get us in the mood, the November Challenge at Stamping Sensations is simply

CHRISTMAS!

If, like me, you've hardly even thought about making any cards yet, now's the time to get going and show us your festive creations. Our lovely sponsors for November are the wonderful Little Claire Designs, who have generously donated a £35 voucher for the lucky winner to spend in their store.

Now of course, I don't do cute, but I make exception for some of the gorgeous Little Claire stamps, especially their Owl designs, one of which I've used for my card. This is the Christmas Owl Tree.

I stamped the owl tree, coloured it with Promarkers, cut it out with a Spellbinders die and sponged green pigment ink around the edge while the card was still in the die. 

The base card was stamped with the Classic Holly (Hero Arts) and the sentiment (freebie from Simply Cards & Papercraft magazine). The Owl Tree was matted on to patterned paper (Hot Off The Press) with foam pads and adhered to the base card. Oh, and the photo bombing (or should I say card bombing!) character in the corner who couldn't resist getting in on the act (and who for undisclosed reasons I'm calling Steve!) is from another Little Claire owl stamp, the Little Owl Family!

As always there is plenty of gorgeous inspiration over on the Challenge Blog, so do go and have a look. For more details of each project, click the name link above the relevant photo to go to my teamies' individual blogs. I look forward to seeing all your Christmas creations!

Tissue Box Covers

I saw these pretty tissue box covers, by Angela Barkhouse on the JustRite Stamps blog and thought what lovely gifts they would make.

Angela shares her tutorial for making them on the JustRite blog (see link above), but my tissue box wasn't quite the same size as hers, so I decided to design my own.

They are actually very simple to make. I assembled the box from offcuts of mountboard and covered it with scrapbook paper (K & Co. and Hot Off The Press). I used Nestie dies (Labels 5) to cut the hole in the top and make the side decorations, along with a Cheery Lynn die (the butterfly) and Leone Em punch ( the fern). The sides opposite each other are identical. The top and bottom borders were cut with the Die-namics Scallop Ribbon Border which makes a double sided strip, but I wanted just a narrow border so I cut it in half lengthways.

And that was it done! Easy peasy! The scrapbook papers were some I had had for years, and everything else was offcuts and snippets, so I even managed to use up some more old stash!

It would make a great gift, but I think I might just keep this one! However, I'm entering it in ValeryAnne's inaugural Butterfly Challenge, which began last week and which will be running fortnightly. I really hope it takes off (!), it's the perfect challenge for me!

Thanks for looking.

Jules's Sunday Scrap challenge

Just made it in time to join in with Jules's Sunday Scrap challenge. Jules has set herself the task of making something each Sunday using only pieces from her scrap box, and invites anyone to join in. So here's mine.

I've punched the flowers from scraps of coloured vellum, and given them glitter glue centres. Unfortunately the colours don't show up very well in the photo. The leaf is left over from yesterday's card. The background papers have been in my scrap box for so long I can't remember where they came from, but I think the patterned paper is by Hot Off The Press. The girl stamp is by Innovative Stamp Creations, and the border is one of my new Nestie-compatibles from Waltzing Mouse. The sentiment is by Katzelcraft.

I found this quite a difficult challenge, but I've got so many bits to use up, I'd better have another go next Sunday!