A New Blog Home and a Happy New Home Tag

Hello everyone,

I hope you had a good week and have lots of fun plans for this weekend? I am not working at the moment (still adjusting to life in Italy) so I don't really get that Friday feeling anymore and I really miss it!

Okay, first some news, I have a new blog home...yippee!  I really loved the design features of Squarespace, but I hated the commenting system, I found it hard to blog hop and also people told me it made it hard for them to comment so I moved to Blogger.  I am kind of sad as there is no export feature from Squarespace to Blogger so I have lost all the comments which upsets me and also I have lost any links back to my blog which also upsets me.  On the plus side, rather now then in 6 months time when the damage would be much worse!

Anyway, onto happier things... can you believe that last week I entered two challenges and was announced as the winner on both?!  I was so happy I thought I was going to burst and quite literally did a happy dance around the flat....twice.  It was such a HUGE but really, really, really lovely surprise. After being away from paper crafting for so long it was the best welcome back anyone could ever ask for!

On to this week and I have to say I am just loving the muse over at the CASE Study Challenge Blog this month, she is just rocking my little crafty world!  This week she designed some tags to inspire us.  I LOVE tags, the reason I love them so much of course is that I am soooooooo bad a wrapping presents, I hate wrapping presents, I wish I was amazing at it like my friend who makes every gift look like a work of art but I am not so I make tags to try and distract people from this fact! Over sized tags also make a great substitute for cards  as well... two for the price of one...bargain!

I was going to do a Christmas Tag but I made quite a few Christmas cards last week so decided on a change of scenery.  I cannot tell you how much fun I had making this tag and I was actually a bit sad when I finished it!  I love layers in projects, I think it makes them more tactile and this little tag has layers in abundance!

As I am not working yet I can't really justify spending any money on stamps and, feeling in the mood for something new to play with, I decided to design all the elements/Digi Stamps myself which was also a lot of fun!

Anyway, I hope you like it :)

Thank you for taking the time to stop by and have a great weekend!

Jo

Rudolph Christmas Card

I was planning on doing this post yesterday but after months of pleading with my husband he finally gave in and took me to get a Rabbit and I have spent the past day and a half mesmerised by him. Even now I am struggling to tear myself away! Right now he is lying stretched out on his side fast asleep and looks beyond cute!!  I would take a picture but I don't want to disturb him as only 10 minutes ago he was bouncing enthusiastically from one side of the cage to the other.

Pre- Dexter (Dexter is the name wehave given our Rabbit) I managed to to make my first Christmas card.  For me this is a HUGE achievement as I am usually the person who  leaves it until the very last minute then goes and buys them from the card shop as I have run out of time...gasp!

This card was inspired by the challenge over at The Case Study Challenge Blog I could honestly spend hours looking around this blog, their designers and Muses are just hugely talented!

The Reindeer are from the Noël Scandinave paper collection by a company called Toga I had never heard of them before I moved to Italy but they design some really lovely paper collections!   I think you will be seeing a lot more of them from me :)

Thank you for stopping by and see you next time i hope!

Hello & A Thank You Card

Once upon a time, or roughly 2 years ago, i used to make cards all the time, and then all of a sudden I stopped.  I am not quite sure why, but i think mainly, it was to take a break and go in search of bigger and better things.  This resulted in me designing my own stationery to sell using various graphic design programs.  I actually did quite well with my little stationery range but the whole time i was doing it couldn't shake the feeling that there was something missing, I couldn't work out what though. Then it suddenly dawned on me that it was the whole creative process that comes with making a true handmade card that I missed...the cutting,the sticking, the stamping and the swearing loudly when it all when wrong at the last minute!  So I shut up shop and came running back to card making at a million miles an hour and it feels so good to be back, a bit like coming home! 

I felt in desperate need of inspiration for my first card after so long and somebody suggested taking part in the challenge over at Handmade Harbour which turned out to be just what i was looking for! This weeks challenge was 'Thank you or Thanksgiving'

Wendy designs the cutest digital stamps and I had great fun looking around and eventually found this little fellow hiding in the Easter section.  He reminds me of a vintage toy.  I added a few hearts, some bakers twine and kept the colouring to a minimum so not to distract from the vintage look. 

 I think he makes the cutest thank you card, what do you think?