Feeling the Festive Spirit with Christmas Angels

Hello crafty folks,

I'm still feeling the Christmas Spirit as I am watching Sheena Douglass on Hocanda. I absolutely love this new collection and it is right up my street! Vintage and Victorian, what's not to love? They will fit in so well with things I already have in my craft stash.  I soooo need these stamps, (*adds them to an ever growing shopping list*) I have so many ideas for them already and must get my mitts on them soon!... so whilst my brain goes into creativity overload  ;) I will share these Christmas Cards with you (and then I can share this years further down the line.)

These are two of my favourite Christmas projects.

This first card is one I actually taught as a class last year. I love teaching, it's wonderful to spend time with other crafty people who love to create too. It's a real pleasure to show them new things they may not have tried before. With each class I taught them a new technique or introduced another product, this meant that they could build on their skills each time, and incorporate them into their own projects at home.  This class was the Card of bling!  It was Christmas after all.  :)

I wanted to show my lovely ladies not to be afraid to experiment with different textures and embossing powders. They also learnt how to make their own papers with spray inks, it's great fun. It was kept to a limited colour palette, just various shades, to show this can be effective in itself. For this card we used Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink, gold sparkle embossing powder, frantage powder from Stampendous and Platinum stickles.  I love this vintage angel stamp set (also from Stampendous) and will be making more things with this in the future. She was painted with Cosmic Shimmer iridescent paints and several gold pen highlights. The snowflake die was from Sue Wilson and I added tiny bells from Marianne Designs. The snowflake panel was created using an embossing folder from Crafter's Companion.  We then rubbed silver Inca Gold onto this. This card was full on glamour and was sure to catch the eye of someone where ever you placed it. It's was like the glitter followed you round the room! ;)

This second one was made for a very special friend and I was thinking tradition vintage Christmas when I created this. Again, I've got a vintage angel image (provided by Kanban). Warm tones were chosen for this one and I wanted all the usual foliage you see during the festive season. I love these tiny poinsettia's from Spellbinders and the trellis is also from them. Luckily, I came across some small wooden snowflakes, silver and gold in a box at Paperchase.  Oooh, lovely, sold! They finished this off a treat and complimented the Kaisercraft background paper. The musical embossing powder was from Crafter's Companion again.

It's been a wonderful week. My prizes arrived from Trimcraft. I say prizes as I wasn't expecting so much! What a lovely surprise! (will be making things with them in the future). I've also been able to help several people with crafting dilemmas, which I always enjoy and it's natural for me to want to help people however I can. So from the lady making things for her wedding, the young man wanting to create something for his girlfriend and to the lady who is going to an orphanage abroad and wanted to take some craft things to make with the children (What a lovely thing to do) I was more than happy to solve any problems. 

And then I saw this picture and it is something I like to live by. I thought it was so lovely I would share it with you. In life you cannot help everyone but you can try your best to help those you meet, I think it's what makes the world go round.  Sprinkle random acts of kindness where ever you go, then we can make it feel like Christmas all year round!

Adele

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