My Fab Followers

Saturday 24 December 2016

Merry Christmas - and my last Father Christmas card of the year!


Hey peeps, only one more sleep - and Santa will be on his way!  So, appropriately this is the last Christmas card I made this year, using my last (but definitely not least) Santa image of the year.  This fabulously rustic, vintagy Father Christmas is called... Father Christmas, and of course he is from our amazing Mo Manning.  He can be found here in Mo's Online Store.
I got my colour inspiration from these gorgeous wintery Pion papers and just added a couple of Marianne Spar die cut trees (LR0378), and a few Marianne  Ice Crystals (LR0393) with a few Marianne dazzlers and I was done!  Oh and some gorgeous Shabby Aqua frantage! 
We're braving Storm Barbara today and are out for our traditional Christmas Eve lunch. Then it will be back for veggie prepping and table laying!
Enjoy your Christmas Eve
Hugs, Juliexxx

Friday 23 December 2016

Fleece Navidad



I couldn't resist these sheep stamp and die combos from Lawn Fawn and made a few to get my card count up. Another fairly simple design, framed with a Marianne Passe Partout circle die - CR1239.

My pickle arrived home yesterday!  It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!
Hugs, Juliexx

Thursday 22 December 2016

More Santas!



Just quickly popping in and sharing some more of the Santa images that I made into cards this Christmas - again all kept very simple as the images are so gorgeous!




Only two days to go, Emily comes home today and my Dad arrives on Friday!!  And then it's Christmas Eve!!

Are you ready?

Hugs, Juliexx

Tuesday 20 December 2016

Passion for Promarkers Mega Christmas Challenge Half way reminder


It's half-way through the December mega Challenge over at Passion for Promarkers and time for us Team 1 ladies to give you some more inspiration to join in our challenge.  The theme is Dies and Punches which of course is right up my street! 
I've used this gorgeous image, Shop Tot,  from Mo Manning and coloured her up in non-traditional Christmas colours

I've had the Marianne Dies out again, including the fabulous new big bow die used to dress up my parcel!  Details below:

Bow Die: - LR0447
Looped border die - CR1248
Poinsettia Die - LR0122
Mistletoe Die - LR0189
Mini Dazzlers are also from Marianne.

 Please remember to be eligible for our prizes you must use your promarkers, flex markers, tria markers, metallic or aqua markers.  Please can you help us by stating which Letraset products you have used on your creation i.e. ‘coloured with promarkers’ etc.  Thanks x x

So now for the exciting bit – the prizes!

Winsor & Newton are offering one lucky winner a Student Designer pack of 24 promarkers
884955042915 W&N Promarker lifestyle_0255RWinsor & Newton Promarker Student set
DigiStamp Boutique are generously offering one lucky winner a prize of a £10.00 voucher.
DigiStamp Boutique logo
Bugaboo stamps are generously offering one lucky winner a prize of a $30.00 voucher.
bugaboo badge
Dies to Die For are generously offering one lucky winner a prize of a £25.00 voucher.
Dies to Die For logo
Di’s Digi Stamps are generously offering one lucky winner a prize of a $12.00 voucher.
Di's Digital Stamps
A Day for Daisies is generously offering one lucky winner a prize of a $12.00 voucher.
logo.com
2 Cute Ink are generously offering one lucky winner a prize of 3 digi images.
2 cute ink logo
Clearly Besotted Stamps are generously offering one lucky winner a prize of 1 (in stock) stamp set.
clearly besotted stamps
That is some prize list isn't it!!  Hope you can find some time to get some crafting in during the festive season -come and join in our challenge!!
Hugs, Juliexx

Thursday 15 December 2016

Final Blog Hop of the Year



Its that exciting time of the month again for a Mo's Dream Team blog hop and this time its a 'Snow' theme picked by our lovely Hellen. So that is where you should have started the hop but hopefully you have made your way here to my blog from our fabulous Gretha.

I decided to create a little snow scene using Mo's New  Singing Elves for this Christmas, Singing Elf Wynn, Singing Elf Flynn and Singing Elf Brynn



The Shadow Box Die is a great set from Marianne  - all the details of my Marianne goodies used are below:

Shadow Box Die set ( Frame and Branches)- CR1374
Tall Spar Tree - LR0378
Small Christmas Tree -LR0136
Tiny's Grass - LR0360
Ivy Corners - CR1253
Tiny's Pines Trees - CR1287
Fence from Tiny's Winter Village set- CR1288
Horizon Pine Trees - LR0283
Background Picture - Tiny's Background Winter Scene
All that's left for me to do now is send you on your way to  Gaynor's blog who I am sure has something wonderful to share with you
Here's the Blog Hop run in case you lost on the way......


Don't forget there are two $5 gift vouchers to spend in Mo's shop to be drawn from the participating Dream Team Designers comments so... make sure you pop in and comment on everyone's post for the blog hop to be in with the chance to win!!!
Have fun hopping!

Hugs, Juliexx

Saturday 10 December 2016

Spotty Santa


You may recall me showing the images below  a few weeks ago, coloured but not yet turned into cards.  Well, using my favourite Santa stamp this year, here is my first coloured image turned into a card.

As you can see, I kept it very simple as really the image is so joyous, it didn't really need to much adding to it!  By the way, jt's a Stampendous Wooden backed stamp, in case you wondered.

We've got family up this weekend for some early Christmas celebrations, have a great weekend whatever you're doing!
Hugs, Juliexx




Monday 5 December 2016

Chalkola Pen Review and a discount!



I was recently asked by the makers of Chalkola chalk pens if I'd like to try their pens and review them on my blog.  I love trying new products so here are the results.  Now, apparently these markers can be used on all sorts of non-porous surfaces such as chalkboards (obviously!), whiteboards, glass and plastics.  However, as a card maker, I decided to try them out on some chalk paper that I have and have to say I'm pretty pleased with the results.  They come in two sets, pictures below, and my first thought was, ooh I'm going to like the Earth Tones best! And I did love the colours but also liked the way I could use both sets to get some light and shade.

There is a little preparation to get the ink flowing, a bit of shaking and pressing the nibs but it's really minimal and it was only when the pens were being used for the first time.  Even when I came back to them after a day or two, the ink flowed very readily.
I decided to try the pens on black chalkboard paper so first printed my Santa image (my favourite Christmas stamp this year!), and embossed it with Stampendous Opaque White embossing powder.

I got  very excited when I first applied this red from the Brights set, it gave such a dense vibrant colour!!  The white was a little less deep but still gave  Santa a nice fluffy beard!


I also loved the way the paper came through slightly as I felt it added to the texture and depth of the colours, particularly on his face as I was quite concerned how I would be able to get some different skin tones with only a couple of colours.  In the end I was very  pleased with the impressionist result that I achieved.

Below are a few more cards, the first one using a Mo Manning digital image, Snowman to be found here in Mo's store.
With a digital image, on black paper, I had to print it out with yellow lines so you get the no-lines effect.  It produces a rather simpler card, but again i like the effect, especially using the dots technique.
For my final try-out, I used this fab Robin image from Hobbyart, this time on Red chalkpaper and again embossed with the white powder,  As before, the paper colour shows through a little but agains this only adds depth to the colour.  I particularly like the effect here on his little red breast!
And what I really liked was the way the white and blue pens blended to produce the icy ground beneath his feet.




All in all, I loved these pens!  They produce a different effect from my usual alcohol markers but they are a very quick way of colouring.  I wish my little Violet was older, as I think they will be great to share some colouring time with her.  Still I don't want her to grow up too soon - love my Nanny cuddles!!  I will definitely be using them on more projects!
If you'd like to try them you can find them on Amazon , the Earth Colours here, and the Brights here. And my lovely bloggy friends, you can get a 20% discount on your order by using this code:

20OFFSTR

If you'd like to know about these Chalk markers, you can find more information here on the Chalkola home page.

I'll also be sharing some cards soon using this fabulous Santa image but coloured with my usual pens, in a few days!!
Thanks for stopping by, and hope you like the pens as much as I did!

Hugs, Juliexx

Friday 2 December 2016

Last Challenge of the year over on Digital Pencil Too - Anything Goes as always


Today's card is for our new challenge that has just started over at Digital Pencil Too- it's our last one for 2016 so come and join us, we have our usual nice and easy theme of Anything Goes!!
I've used Fairy Snowman for my card and I wanted to create a frosty, wintery vibe but not sure it turned out quite how I imagined.  My papers are from a Joy winter pad, and then I've used Aged Silver Frantage and silver mica pieces.  The Winter Wonderland  sentiment is a trusty favourite die from Marianne - CR1347.
You can check out the fabulous makes of my teamies here.