Heart Of Christmas: Week 22

 Hi!

Well, here we are at the twenty-second, and final, Heart Of Christmas Blog Hop for 2021. I hope that you've managed to join us for most, or even all, of the hops. It's been a fabulous round with plenty of Christmas inspiration each week. I'm a little sad that this is the last one for 2021, but at the same time I'm glad to have one less commitment as we move into December.

As always, I have used a Sheetload Of Cards template for my cards this week. It's from November 2021, however I have simplified it a bit by removing one layer. The red strip was divided by another layer, but I felt that my card was busy enough that another layer would be a bit OTT. The template showed a loop of twine/thread under the sentiment banner, but I chose to use one of the Wonderful Snowflakes instead.

The DSP I have used is my favourite Heartwarming Hugs, and my two favourite sheets of paper. I will miss this paper when it goes. The sentiments are from Words Of Cheer.

Here's my group of cards, ready to add to my stash. Speaking of which, I was asked last week where I'm up to with that. Here's a look!

The cards on the left and the back half of the right are all my Sheetload cards - there's 84 in total, as for one week of the Hops I ran out of time and only made a single card. The front half of the right box has 19 cards, so a grand total of 103. I have four half-finished cards on my desk that may end up finished, or perhaps they will wait for next year's stash. Either way I'm set, except for the writing and addressing part!

For one last time in 2021, please do continue your way around our Hop by jumping on over to Caroline Manwaring's blog. 

Before you go, I want to take the opportunity to say thanks to all the ladies who have hopped along with Sharon, Rachel and I as we organised this year's series of the Heart Of Christmas Blog Hops. It's been wonderful to see everyone's gorgeous cards, and read the supportive comments that everyone has left along the way. And thank you, also, to those of you that have hopped along with us every week. I hope you've found plenty of inspiration.

I am the lucky last Host for this year's Hops, so please pop back here if you run into any issues. The full list of Hoppers is as follows:

Caroline Manwaring

Kathryn Mangelsdorf

Kate Morgan

Theresa Gerrard

Catherine Proctor

Christine Blain

Claire Daly

Michele Taylor

Rosa Leyden

Rachel Woollard

Ros Davidson

Sharon Davern

Andrea Sargent

Bye for now,

Tina

Heart Of Christmas Week 20

 Hi!

Welcome back once again to another Heart Of Christmas Blog Hop. It's Week 20 of a 22 week series. All of the Christmas inspiration so far has been fabulous, and I'm sure that the final three weeks will be no different. Let's get to it!

I have very much enjoyed playing with the Heartwarming Hugs DSP for the past two years. I love that the paper uses Christmassy colours, but fun, non-Christmassy patterns. I've paired the paper with the March 2021 Sheetload Of Cards template and my Penned Flowers Dies were used to cut the scalloped layer.

I used my favourite Christmas sentiment stamp set, Christmas To Remember, for both the front and inside of my card. I really like that it has a saying that's specific to friends, and I've used this stamp a lot this year.

As always, here's my group of four. It's been miserably cold and rainy here in Adelaide, so I had to dash outside to grab my photos in between showers of rain. It was too wet to lay them on the grass as I usually do. I can't believe that I'm wearing flannelette pyjamas and that it's snowing in parts of Australia in November - it's nearly summer!!

Well, that's all from me for this week, but I hope that you'll continue your way around our hop by jumping over to my friend, and fellow South Aussie, Andrea. I hope she's staying warm and dry!!

It's my turn to host this week's Blog Hop, so please pop back here if you run into any troubles. Here's the full list of tonight's hoppers:

Andrea Sargent

Michele Taylor

Kate Morgan

Caroline Manwaring

Christine Blain

Catherine Proctor

Rachel Woollard

Rosa Leyden

Theresa Gerrard

Judy May

Sharon Davern

Bye for now,

Tina

Heart Of Christmas Week 19

 Hi!

Welcome back to my blog for the new week of the Heart Of Christmas Blog Hop. It's week 19 this week, which means that my Christmas card stash has over 76 cards. I'm well and truly ready for starting to send them out - apart from the writing on them bit! LOL!! I hope you are well on your way to being organised, too.

This week my cards are based on the January 2021 Sheetload Of Cards template. I combined it with Heartwarming Hugs DSP, Gingerbread Dies and the retired Christmas Greetings Thinlits. I chose to put the Gingerbread baubles on my card, as I had the Red Foil pieces floating around on my desk, and I was sick of shuffling them around! They were left overs from my HOC cards from a month or so ago, and were 'too good' to just chuck out. It was a simple matter of cutting the baubles in Pear Pizzazz (with Adhesive sheet on the back), adhering them to the white cardstock and then piecing the Red Foil bits into the Pear baubles. Fiddly, but I like the effect, so it was worth it.

The insides were completed with a strip of the Heartwarming Hugs DSP and a sentiment from Christmas To Remember.

Here's the four cards together. Do you see my 'whoopsie'? Although, looking at this photo, I think I prefer my whoopsie and wish I'd made all four cards the same way. Oh well!

Please do keep making your way around the Hop. Just jump around to the next blog and keep on jumping until you get back to where you started. The next stop tonight is the lovely Caroline Manwaring. Do you have a whole bunch of her card photos saved to CASE? I do!!

Our Hop Hostess with the mostess this week is Sharon Davern. She's done a great job of keeping us organised for the Hop. If you find a broken link, pop on over to her blog and pick up the trail again there. She's got a list of all tonight's participants on her blog.

Bye for now,

Tina

Heart Of Christmas Week 16

 Hi!

Welcome to a new week's Heart Of Christmas Blog Hop. We are up to Week 16 this week, and the inspiration flowing from the other ladies who participate in the Hops has not waned at all. It's been wonderful viewing everyone's cards each week.

But now onto my cards! This week I am using the October 2020 Sheetload Of Cards template. I actually skipped September 2020's, as it was for Slimline cards, and I wasn't in the mood for those. I liked the simplicity of this design, which allows the Red Foil bauble, from the Gingerbread Dies, to shine.

The sentiments I used on my cards are from the Words Of Cheer stamp set, and I have used some Heartwarming Hugs DSP to go with it. I was happy to see that the DSP had carried over from last year's Mini Catalogue, as it uses traditional Christmas colours, but not traditional images and patterns. It's a much more modern looking paper.

As always, here are my four cards. You can see that the baubles are a double layer of the Red Foil, and are finished off with a white Twine bow.

As always, thank you for your company on my blog tonight, but please do jump on over to the next blog. Michele Taylor is next, and she always has something totally gorgeous to see.

Just in case you run into a broken link along the way, pop back here for the list of all participants in tonight's Blog Hop:

Michele Taylor

Kate Morgan

Catherine Proctor

Andrea Sargent

Claire Daly

Rachel Woollard

Theresa Gerrard

Sharon Davern

Rosa Leyden

Caroline Manwaring

Ros Davidson

Christine Blain

Bye for now,

Tina

Heart Of Christmas Week 7

 Hi!

Wow, Week 7 of The Heart Of Christmas already! That means that my Christmas card stash has at least 28 cards in it already. I've never been this organised this early before!!

I'm back to a more traditional colour scheme with my cards tonight. I've used the Heartwarming Hugs DSP in conjunction with the January 2020 Sheetload Of Cards template for my cards. Once again, I've used the Pine Tree punch and dry-embossed the trees with the Tasteful Textile 3DEF. Repeating elements like this over different designs of cards really has made my process much quicker, easier and low stress.

Christmas To Remember was once again used for my sentiments, with an extra strip of the DSP on the inside to finish off the cards.

Here's my group. The template is designed so that half the cards have one DSP on the top, and the other half have the other DSP. As I was only making four cards, not 12, I decided to make them all the same. I think the balance of colour works better with the red on top. I do think that I need to re-ink my Mossy Meadow ink pad though!!

Thanks for joining me tonight, but please do continue your way around the Blog Hop. The next stop is with the lovely Claire Daly.

If at any time you find a broken link please head to the blog of this week’s host of The Heart Of Christmas Blog Hop, Sharon Davern, and she will have the list of all those participating.

Heart Of Christmas Week 3

 Hi!

Thanks for once again joining me for this week's AWH Heart Of Christmas Blog Hop. Have you been enjoying the gorgeous Christmas inspiration on our blogs? I have! Plus, I have been very productive - I already have 12 Christmas cards in my stash, just from the HOC Blog Hops.

This week's cards are made using the August 2019 Sheetload Of Cards template. I have received some of my new Christmas goodies, so I went with a more traditional colour scheme this week. Did you love the Heartwarming Hugs DSP from last year? Well, hooray - it's back! I've paired it with the new Gingerbread Dies and another returning product, Red and Green Foil sheets.

The other new product on my card is the new sentiment-only stamp set, Christmas To Remember. I'm a sucker for mixed font stamp sets, and the hand-written font is extra appealing! I used the same die on the inside as the front, but this time I popped out all of the bits to give a filigree look. Hooray for Adhesive Sheets, which make adhering delicate shapes like this a breeze!

Once again, I made four cards from the template. So handy when all the thinking is done for you!

The next blog around our hop belongs to my lovely friend, Christine Blain. You're in for a treat there!

If at anytime you find a broken link please head to the blog of this week’s host of The Heart Of Christmas Blog Hop, Sharon Davern, and she will have the list of all those participating.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #524: Just Add Colour

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me for this week's Just Add Ink challenge. I missed last week's challenge, and so I was super keen to get back into it this week!

This week Nikki has set us a very Christmassy colour combination, which also just happens to be the colours used in the Heartwarming Hugs DSP. Convenient!

My Joy To The World Paper Pumpkin stamp set was still floating around on my craft desk, so I decided to use it too! It's a good match for the colours and the DSP. I stamped the wreath in Mossy Meadow and then used my Pear Pizzazz ink pad and a Blender Pen to colour the open leaves. I then stamped some berries over the top in Real Red.

I love the way the sentiments in the Joy To The World set can be mixed and matched to suit the theme of your card. It's such a cute mix of fonts, too.

I stamped the wreath again on the inside, this time in Pear Pizzaz ink which I'd stamped off first. This let the sentiment, stamped in Mossy Meadow, really shine.

You can join in the challenge over on the Just Add Ink blog. Add your card to our gallery to be in the running!

Bye for now,

Tina

Heart Of Christmas: November

 Hi!

Welcome to November's Heart Of Christmas Creative Showcase! It's a monthly showcase devoted to Christmas. I don't know about you, but at around this time of year I start worrying that I don't have enough Christmas cards. I usually send close to 100, so I need a lot! In order to make a lot of cards in a hurry, I revisited the Double Wonder Card Template that was popular about six months ago. For those who have forgotten, it's a cutting template and instructions to create 11 cards using two 6x12 inch pieces of DSP. Shannon West and Julie Davison prepared the template and instructions.

The card above is Card 1. The template allows you to create four of these cards. You can see that I have used the Heartwarming Hugs DSP for my cards. I think it was the perfect choice, as the small patterns work nicely together. To add a little more interest, I added some holly from the Christmas Gleaming stamp set. I coloured them with my Granny Apple Green and Real Red Blends.

The next cards are Card 2, and you also create four of them using the template. The instructions say to score and fold back a flap on the front of the card, which I didn't do. Instead I matted the two strips on Whisper White and adhered it straight to the front.

Next up is Card 3, of which you make two. To get the contrasting strip in the middle, I've simply used the reverse side of the two papers. I don't like those sides as much, but it looks nicer with the contrasting piece. 

Lastly, is Card 4. The template only makes one of this card, using the final pieces from the template - nothing gets wasted!

The template does not allow for DSP on the insides of the card, but I just couldn't help adding some! In keeping with the 'quick and easy' premise of the template, I kept all of my insides the same, apart from the orientation - a 3/4 inch strip of DSP and the same sentiment stamped in all.

The stamp set that I've used for the front and inside is from the new Paper Pumpkin kit, Joy To The World. It's a set I really love, and I'm sure it will find it's way into my permanent collection!

Here are all of the cards in a bunch. These cards took me a whole day to make, but a lot of that was colouring the holly. Once I got cutting and gluing, the rest of the process went very quickly. If you need a heap of cards in a hurry, I definitely recommend the Double Wonder Template!

That's all from me for tonight, please do head on over to Judy's Blog, where you'll find the rest of the links for November's Heart Of Christmas Creative Showcase. You won't be disappointed!

Bye for now,

Tina

CTC #291: CASE A Mini Catalogue Bundle Card

 Hi!

Thank you for joining me for the new CASEing The Catty Sunday Challenge Blog Hop. This week we are asking you to CASE a project from pages 71-75 of the August-December Mini Catalogue, which just happen to be the pages that show all of the available bundles in the catalogue.

That gives you a whopping 30 different projects to choose from! I was a bit tempted to go back and have another go at the Have A Hoot card, which I CASEd a couple of weeks ago. In the end, I opted to try something new, and chose the Snowflake Wishes card on page 73.

I don't have this bundle (which I think is even better for imaginative CASEing!), but I loved the way that the front of the card was split, with the banner dividing the two sections. The designer also used Gold Foil on the card.

My Heartwarming Hugs DSP has been feeing a little unloved lately, so I pulled it out and selected two of the more subtle patterns. The Real Red went at the bottom, as it was the heavier of the two patterns. I added a thin strip of Red Foil to separate the two DSPs.

Instead of a banner for my sentiment, I opted to use all three layers of the 'bright' Joy Dies. I started with Pear Pizzazz, then Whisper White, and finally some more Red Foil (yay for adhesive sheets!). They were popped up over the join in the DSPs, and then some holly leaves from Peace & Joy were arranged around them. I had some left over foil with adhesive on the back, so I punched some small circles from the foil and used them for the holly berries.

I like the look of the holly, so I repeated it on the inside, to accompany the sentiment from Itty Bitty Christmas. I quite like this card, I may have to try it with some other DSP packs. I think it would look great with the Brightly Gleaming DSP, too.

To enter our challenge - and we'd really love to see what you make - just join our Facebook group and add your picture to the group. You don't need a blog or any fancy camera or software, just snap a photos with your phone and post it in the group. 

Before you dash off to get creating, please do finish the Blog Hop. Next up is the lovely Peta, and her wondercat, Marvi. We all love seeing his adventures each week!

Bye for now,

Tina