bah humbug 1

I found the bah humbug site last year while bloghopping, thought it was a good idea, and did nothing about it.........then ran out of time at Christmas, so few people got a handmade card, and the supermarket sold me several very last minute boxes of cards. I decided to be a reformed character this year, and at least make an effort -  I have only just scraped in with the first challenge, which I have to admit does not look good for the rest of the year!

I had great fun getting inky and making the holly background - for instructions see Elaine's blog - this version just used one colour of Distress ink, think it was bundled sage, where I got my revenge on the holly which savagely attacked me when arranging church flowers. Not so pleased with the robin, who came from a CraftsUK set found in a sale bin last year - I used promarkers for speed to colour him, and think he would have been better painted or coloured with pencils. I tried stretching one of my nesties dies to cut him out, which sort-of worked, and then used it as a template to cut out the silver border.

Decided that I would have to post this, even if not too happy, as otherwise I would have failed miserably on the first challenge

I was much happier with this calendar card made for a friend who I didn't manage to see over the holiday - it was started on Sunday at Moira's, where Jill was showing us some  fancy folds. If I can get a decent photo of the inside, you would be able to see that it is a squiffy easel card. The base is stamped with wild meadow stamps from Elusive Images in 3 shades of distress ink - milled lavender and dusty concord were the main ones, and tattered rose, then sponged round the edges. The silver scroll is a Marianne die, and the floweres were from Crealie dies.

Have managed to get a halfway decent photo to show the inside of the card - basically, there is a diagonal fold across the base card to get the squiffy effect