30 September 2026

Christmas Crafts All Year 'Round ~ T, U is for ...

  Hello and welcome to this month's challenge at Christmas Crafts All Year 'Round.
Our challenge this month is T, U is for ...


T is for ... Tennenbaum, Three Kings, Tinsel, Toys
U is for ... Under the Tree, Ugly Sweater, Up on the Rooftop

I made two cards for this challenge.

Card no. 1 - T is for Tennenbaum


Stitch Pattern - Stitch & Do Kit No. 207
Trees - Hearty Crafts 3D Toppers - X-mas Trees


I love the layers on the Hearty Crafts 3D toppers. I adhered each layer to each other using 1 mm foam squares.


Dies used on inside of the card:
Cottage Cutz - Merry Christmas
Marianne Design - Forest Trees

* * *
Card no. 2 - U is for Ugly Sweaters


I used a file from Silhouette to create the base of the card.  The cute sweaters were made using the Cottage Cutz die set called Ugly but Cute Sweaters.  I added a few shiny dots/circle stickers from a Hobbyjournaal's Shiny Details in Silver sheet.



I used a Wink of Stella pen to add a little sparkle to the words.



I resized this card to be 9" x 4" and it fits perfectly into a business sized envelope.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  Now it's your turn to make a Christmas project and join in the fun.  You have till the end of the month to link your project to our blog at  Christmas Crafts All Year 'Round.

Hugs,



25 September 2026

Fall Pearl Painting - Squirrel & Fox Set

 Hello crafting friends.  Since I enjoyed the pearl painting suncatchers, I decided to try out the canvas pearl painting option, and it was just as fun  :-)




I think they're both super cute but I must admit that I'm disappointed with the colours of the beads, especially the ones for the Squirrel.  I purchased these as a set, thinking that their colours would match, but as you can see, the pumpkins on the Fox look much better than the ones on the Squirrel canvas.  I'm also disappointed at the colours the manufacturer chose for the Squirrel.  It doesn't really stand out, does it?

As I mentioned before, I'm going thru a learning curve of what brands I like and the ones I don't.  I love the design of these two, but not so much the colours of pearls they sent with them.  Since by next week, the Halloween decorations will go up, I'm going to leave these up on my wall for now, and maybe next year, I will try something different.

You're probably wondering what happened to my card making ~ I'm still making cards but I'm having fun on these new hobbies of mine too :-)

Thanks for stopping by.  I'll chat to you again soon and share a new project.

Hugs,


13 September 2026

Book Nook ~ Magic Station

 As I mentioned before, hubby is retired now and this is a hobby that we enjoy doing together. With him being a Mechanical Engineer, it helps a lot when we have gears, motors, lights and sound boxes to put together to make things move and play :-)





This book nook came out beautifully and was easy-ish to put together.  Not quite happy with just how it would light up, hubby decided that it would be so much better to add the Hedwig melody to it since there is a sign that says 9 3/4 station :-)  So after a little investigation, he got a sound module, recorded the song and voila, now it lights up and plays the song and it is absolutely stunning!


Another addition to this book nook that hubby made was to replaced the 2 x AA battery pack with a USB connection, and it is now connected to a power bank, which helps with the hassle of having to replace batteries frequently :-)

We are busy with another book nook which will be a piece of Halloween home décor, rather than a normal book nook.  I will come back and share it with you once it's made.  This one is proving to be a little more difficult - lots of tiny pieces and the quality of the materials are not as good, but that is one of the problems we've encountered so far.  Different brands equals different quality of materials and ease of it all coming together nicely.  We are both very persistent, so it will get done :-)

This is all I have to share for today.  I hope you had fun visiting.

Hugs,


12 September 2026

Another New To Me Hobby :-)

 Hello crafting friends.  I know that Diamond Painting has been around for a few years now, but I just did not think that I had the patience required to spend hours placing little gems in a row to create a picture.  Having said that, I have seen some AMAZING art work done by some of you that I absolutely WOW about, but I always thought that it wasn't for me. Well, I saw these Halloween decorations on Amazon, and having just the right place in the house for them, I thought I would give it a try.  They will go perfectly with the rest of my Halloween decor which I put out on the very first day of October 👻🎃




I loved working on them!!!  Now, bear in mind that they are not an entire row by row canvas, just a few gems to fill in an image.  Honestly, I still don't think I would enjoy doing a large canvas, but with these much smaller ones, I'm having fun.  These are 10" x 10" acrylic suncatchers.  I'm having so much, that I ordered a few Christmas "Pearl Painting" ones.  I've completed one and I can honestly say that it was as much fun as these ones. I will share them once I'm finished "painting" them.

As I mentioned above, these are actually suncatchers, but I have the 2" slatted blinds on all the windows in my home.  These blinds diminish the suncatcher effect as you get dark stripes, across the picture, 2" apart from each other.  I think that hanging them up on my light painted wall makes them pop beautifully. The colour of my wall is actually somewhere between the top pic and the two bottom ones.  Not sure why taking a pic of both changed the wall colour.

Well, friends, that is all I have to share with you today.  I hope you enjoyed your visit and will come back soon.

Crafty hugs,



09 September 2026

Crafty Gals Corner #280 ~ Anything Goes w/twist - Fall Foliage

     Hello crafting friends and welcome to our monthly challenge
 

  In just a couple of weeks or so, Fall officially begins, so with that in mind, here is the theme for our challenge this month.

~ Anything Goes w/optional twist - Fall Foliage ~

Sometimes, I gather bits and pieces that are laying around on my desk and put them together to make a card.  This is such a card.  The problem with this is that I have no clue where the stitching pattern came from.  I also don't remember from which cutting sheet, this fox layered image came from.  So I apologise in advance, but I don't have too many details to give you on this card.





On the inside, I stamped the greeting using the Thankful for You stamp set from Cardz TV.  I added a couple of little Fall leaves to both sides of the sentiment for a little interest.  I punched these out using a punch from Recollections.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  We would love to see you play along with us.   You have until noon, CST, on 13 October 2026, to link your project to

Hugs,


31 August 2026

Christmas Crafts All Year 'Round ~ R, S is for ...

  Hello and welcome to this month's challenge at Christmas Crafts All Year 'Round.
Our challenge this month is R, S is for ...



R is for ... Reindeer, Rudolph, Ribbons
S is for ... Santa, Snowman, Stocking

I made two cards for this challenge.

Card no. 1 ~ R is for Robins


The card base is a file from Silhouette that I resized in order to fit the Robins image.  For the decorations on the sides, I used the Christmas Holly Punch die from Marianne Design, and the Holly Leaves & Pine Branches die set from Lea'bilities.


This sweet image is from Hunkydory's Little Book of Robins


On the inside I stamped the sentiment using the Christmas Greetings stamp set from Great 
Impression Stamps, and added a few leaves and berries that were left over from the front of the card. 


Card no. 2 ~ S is for Stocking 


The front of the card was created by merging a few Silhouette files together to get the look I wanted.


To make the pop up on the inside, I used the Stocking Pop-up from Karen Burniston.


It's very cute.  As you open and close the card, the stocking stuffers pop in and out of the stocking 😊


I made a panel for the back and used the Christmas Greetings stamp set from Great 
Impression Stamps.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  Now it's your turn to make a Christmas project and join in the fun.  You have till the end of the month to link your project to our blog at  Christmas Crafts All Year 'Round.



22 August 2026

Single Rose Sympathy Card

 Hello everyone.  I have another sympathy card to share with you today.




These are the materials I used to create this card:
Card base - card kit from The Netherlands
Rose - Cutting Sheet by Nel Van Veen 
Butterflies - Marth Stewart Punch
Greeting - Mini Messages Stamps by CardzTV
Greeting mats - StampinUp! punches
Inside Sentiment - computer generated

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  I hope to see you again next time.

Hugs,

12 August 2026

Crafty Gals Corner #279 ~ Anything Goes w/twist - Summer Vibes

    Hello crafting friends and welcome to our monthly challenge
 at Crafty Gals Corner! I hope you're all enjoying the end of your Summer!


  The theme for our challenge this month is

~ Anything Goes w/optional twist - Summer Vibes ~

It was my daughter's birthday last week and since she loves everything to do with the sea, I created this easel card for her.







When closed for mailing, this card measures 5.5" x 5.5".  There is a little bulk to it with the sea shells but since I hand delivered it, it was not a problem.  If I had planned on mailing it, I would have used sea shell dies instead of using the real small shells.

These are the crafty supplies I used to make this card:
Marianne Design - Sea Shells Stitching Border
DMC Embroidery Floss - various colours used (3 strands)
Cottage Cutz - Sand Dollar
Memory Box - Seahorses
Sue Wilson - Aquatic Plants
Joy! Crafts - Bille's Coral
Cardz TV - Mini Messages

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  We would love to see you play along with us.   You have until noon, CST, on 8 September 2026, to link your project to

Hugs,

09 August 2026

Oval Slatted Birthday Card

Hello everyone and welcome back.  While cleaning up some craft supplies, I found this pretty paper from Marianne Designs called Country Flowers.


After rummaging through my dies, I thought this Slatted & Eclipse Oval die from Divinity Designs would work well and so I went to work.


I never get tired of this slatted look.  It's so subtle but makes a pretty paper really stand out. 
I normally cut out the slatted shape 3 times using thick cardstock.  Then I adhere each layer to each other using liquid glue.  I find that these 3 layers plus the pretty paper layer gives it enough height without adding too much bulk.  This is especially important when you mail cards overseas. Anything thicker than 1/4" requires additional postage.


On the inside, I used the following products:
Stampabilities - Elegant Happy Birthday
VersaFine Clair Inks - Shady Lane
eK punches - photo corners

And that was a quick and easy birthday card done. It doesn't show on the pic, but I did add a couple of small lilac butterflies to the inside just to add a little more interest and to match the front of the card.  

See you again soon.

Hugs,