My new craft area

My new crafting area in the small spare bedroom:-

You can just see the pine extension husband fixed to the side and back of my little desk, it's made a big difference.  He asked if I wanted it painted, but I'm fine with it as it is.  The two shelves he put up for me are a big help too.  I need to get some cup hooks to screw in underneath the front shelf, to hold my scissors, tweezers etc.

Some more Christmas cards:-

I've finished all the 'general' Christmas cards now, am just starting on large personalised ones for family and friends.

A craft room!

Thank you Tania and Angie for your comments on my stamped trees.  I am getting better at stamping, but still lots of practise needed.  Angie, the snowman came about to cover up a mistake!  When I first stamped the trees, part of that particular tree didn't come out, I didn't put enough pressure on that side, so there was a gap.  I couldn't stamp back over it, I'd never get it lined up correctly, but then I thought oh hang on, I've got a snowman stamp that's just the right size to cover that up!

I've quickly discovered that mistakes can be rectified or disguised by covering them up with stamps or stickers, or simply turning the paper over and using the other side, or even making a feature of the mistake!

Crafting is on hold for a few days.....which will suit my poorly back anyhow!  My work station up till now has been the landing, on a small desk....it has to be small to fit the space, but it's too small really, both the desk and the area.  As I've acquired more stuff, I need more storage space, and the desktop is too small when I'm in full crafting mode and have lots of card bits and equipment spread out, have to put some on the floor which Betty takes a great deal of interest in, sniffing and standing on it (perhaps I could put ink on her pads for authentic paw prints on cards!).

After some deliberation, I decided I would use the small spare bedroom as a craft room.  It still needs to have a single bed in, for visitors, which meant some rearranging and a bit of construction work for husband.  He also had the bright idea of building a wooden surround for the back and side of my desk, to make the surface area bigger, there's just about enough space in that little room to do that.  It also means the 3-tier wooden paper rack husband made me a few months back can sit on my desk without taking up so much room, and I can have a large shelf to hold supplies as well.  Extending the surface area of my desk was a brilliant idea, saves the expense of buying a new bigger desk (he already had some nice wood) and I really like my little desk anyway.  Hopefully, the room should be completed today.

Decorating the trees

I've had a lovely morning crafting.  The Christmas trees I stamped the other day, I embellished and added to with more stamps and some colouring in with gel pens.  Really pleased with the results....even if it felt a bit like being back at school!

They'll become four card toppers.

I made another layered Christmas card, using a mixture of papers and stickers:-

Think I've made 10 Christmas cards so far.  They're interesting and fun to do because there's so much scope, only limited by imagination.

Christmas trees

Some Christmas tree cards....I drew a simple fir tree, cut out a template and used it to cut out lots more trees in assorted Christmassy paper and card, mostly what Angie sent me.

The first card I used 4 layers on, it's nice but I think the 4 layers are wasted really, the bottom 2 layers aren't really visible.  So I've stuck to just 2 layers in subsequent cards.  I've stuck them on with a single strip of double sided tape down the middle, then raised the sides of each tree shape to give a 3D effect.

The 4 layer card

They're fun to do, I really like them.

Starting on Christmas cards

The craft shop was very nice, run by a lovely lady.  However, there's quite a small cardcraft section, it's mostly yarn, quilting and sewing things.  I did get a couple of Christmas stamp sheets and some Xmas stickers though, so it wasn't a wasted journey, husband took me to The Range to get the ink pads I needed.

I've spent some time yesterday and today cutting out and stamping a lot of Christmas sentiments, and made my first ever Christmas card - a simple one but am quite pleased with it:-

do you recognise the topper, Angie?

The sentiments toppers and practising stamping Christmas trees:-

I have everything I need to make lots of nice Christmas cards - well, any sort of card, actually, thanks to several lovely bloggers sending me supplies, and stocking up on mostly very reasonable stuff in a variety of stores, including some charity shops.  I have some ideas for festive cards and will make a start on them tomorrow.

Lovely gift and thinking about Christmas cards

A parcel arrived in the post yesterday, a boxful of goodies from Angie (Pensive Pensioner).  It was beautifully packed and smelt gorgeous, owing to a pack of lavender flowerheads  she'd thoughtfully included.  It contained many lovely card toppers and papers, as well as a couple of beautifully designed completed card toppers that Angie had made, which have given me inspiration for my own cards.  Lots of Christmas papers, how thoughtful.  Thank you so much Angie, I'm delighted with everything and shall enjoy using it all.

I'm going to visit that new - well, new to me, I think it's been there a while - large craft shop tomorrow.  I'm hoping to get a sheet of Christmas silicone stamps and a couple more stamp pads, and maybe some cardstock suitable for Christmas cards.

I've had a rest from crafting for a couple of days, I was getting shoulder pains from bad posture leaning forward over my desk.  I suppose the thing to do is to get up and walk around every half hour or so, rather than sitting there engrossed for 3 hours at a time!

Layered card and a simple Get Well card

Thanks for the info Hazel, I'll have a look at that stamping gadget.  I'm definitely getting better with practise.  

This morning I made 2 cards, firstly a layered one using several different papers, patterned and plain:-

I really like the look of cards with layered mixed and matched tops, think I'll be doing lots of those in the future.

The second one was a very simple get well card, using pictures cut out of one of the cheap calendars I bought the other day:-

For a dog lover, obviously.

Seeing and buying the calendars at 2 for a pound (I bought 4) was a great idea, loads of potential card topper pictures at a really cheap price.  Obviously each calendar has 12 large pictures, each the size of a 6"x 6" card, plus another dozen small ones and 1 bigger (the ones I used on the card above) on the back cover, so excellent value.  They were from The Works, if anyone's interested, lots of different styles.