Cosy Christmas Challenge - Project 2 & Video

Hello, Crafters.

I have just uploaded today's video which I have called simply Small Gift Box. I needed it to put my September Thank You gifts for my online customers in. The gifts are cute little Japanese Girl tweezers. I can't work in my studio without them, so I'm hoping this will be a very useful gift.

My good friend and upline Kim was meant to come over and see me yesterday. She was going to help me with some things I wanted to know online and I was going to help her with videoing. But it was not meant to be!

Her car broke down so she thought she'd do the journey by train! To drive to my house would take about 40 minutes but to do the journey by train it would take nearly two hours!!

We both live just outside the M25. If you're not familiar with the M25, it's the motorway that goes all the way round London through the suburbs. On a normal day, barring any problems, it's a pretty straight forward journey.

To do it by train, it's one train into London Bridge Station and another train out to me. Altogether, from door to door, it would have taken almost two hours........and another two back. Can you imagine wasting all that crafting time! Needless to say we cancelled and have rescheduled for next month.

After I had recovered from the disappointment, I started work in my studio.

I finished off work on my latest Stampin' Up! business project (more about that in a week or two) and then I started on today's project. I've made two cards which are quite similar because I couldn't decide if I wanted to do black & gold or white & gold! Looking at the finished cards, I prefer the white and gold but that's because of the design, not the colour! Which is your favourite and is it because of the colour or the design? 

I'll go through the process for the white card as there is more to it. I started with a card base of Whisper White card stock, layered with Gold Foil and then the icicle designed gold and white paper from the Winter Wonderland Specialty Designer Series Paper.

All the paper in this pack is shiny and feels "soft" - it's gorgeous! I then adhered a white Tea Doily with a gold Foil Doily on top.

I used my Embossing Buddy on a piece of Whisper White card stock and then, using Versamark, I stamped the house image from the Cosy Christmas Stamp Set with Peace from the Peaceful Wreath Stamp Set immediately under the house. I also stamped ...at Christmas, also from Peaceful Wreath. I covered with Gold Embossing Powder and heat set all the images.

I die cut the house using the number 5 die (counting from the smallest) from the Circle Collections Framelits and adhered, with Tombow, on top of the gold doily. I cut ...at Christmas into a thin strip and layered onto a strip of gold foil. I adhered it to the card front using Dimensionals and added a small bow I'd made using the Gold Cord Trim.

I followed more or less the same procedure for the black and gold card except for the holly motif which is from the Oh, What Fun Stamp Set. If I've missed anything you'd like to know, please get in touch. ☺

That's about it for today, so until tomorrow, happy crafting.

JanB.