Merry Christmas! Spotlight on Corner Bouquet stamp set.

 Hello again & Merry Christmas wishes to all of you. 

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas day, fingers crossed you weren't affected by the COVID lockdowns that are happening in some parts of Australia. We were fortunate to be able to see Mum on Christmas day then spend the rest of the day with my husband's brother & his family. The food was delicious & we had a great time catching up, eating, drinking & playing silly games. The 'Perpetual trophy'  was retained by us with a clean sweep of the games. Go Team Werribee!!! 

The pooches are both family's pets, Buddy is ours & Humphrey is theirs. Neither joins in the games but are Very Important members so they get their mugs on the trophy!

With the crazy, manic days leading up to Christmas behind us now I needed to make a quick 10! cards for a card swap I'm participating in. It's usually held every couple of months between the members of my Stampin Up® team. I participated in my first one a couple of months ago & this one is due tomorrow! Our task was to use materials from the new Jan-June 2021 mini catalogue or the Sale-a-bration catalogue. I loved playing around with some new stamp sets & this is what I came up with.

This was made using Old Olive & Heather Highlands card stock & Soft Sea foam & Rich Razzleberry inks. The background was embossed with the Layering leaves folder & the sentiment & central image were die cut using the Stitched so sweetly dies. I finished it off with a cute little bow in Gorgeous Grape sheer ribbon. LOVE how the colours turned out. Once I drop off the cards I just have to be patient until I receive my return swaps around the first week of January. Super excited as the ones I received last swap were gorgeous & gave me lots of ideas for future cards. 

While I had the stamps & dies out I thought I'd have a little play around & make some more Thank You cards for my customers. I made one standard card & a smaller note card using some of the same stamps but chose sentiments from the Free as a bird & So sentimental stamp sets. I decided to go with a Real Red theme this time though.

This card was made with a pop of yellow & finished with some black scalloped edge ribbon.

This little cutey was finished with some pearls & glimmer glue on two flowers & to make it a little different I rounded the corners. The frame was an off cut from making Christmas tags but looks perfect framing the flowers.

If you'd like to look through a catalogue please get in touch & I'll pop one in the mail for you.

And so that brings me to the end of my last blog for 2020. What a year it's been! We've all experienced so much, learnt a lot about ourselves & other people, navigated new ways to communicate & found out that people are so much more important & precious than possessions. Personally, I've grown a lot & stepped outside my comfort zone by starting to sell my cards & learning how to run a FB page & create a blog! I can't wait to see what 2021 has to offer us - hopefully it will be a year of happiness rather than sadness & tragedies. My thoughts go out especially to those living in other countries as they fight the daunting battle against COVID. One of my closest friends moved back to England to help her Dad through some health issues at the end of 2019 but with COVID ravaging the country he's still waiting & so I wish them a speedy solution to this awful disease. Take care of yourselves & enjoy saying good-bye to a year that some would like to forget & welcome a year where the possibilities are endless. 

Thanks for joining me on my new journey, I look forward to chatting with you in the New Year.

Love, Alison XX