MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR

A very Happy Christmas and prosperous,
healthy New Year to all my blogging friends!

I really want to thank everyone who has visited my blog and left such lovely, encouraging comments for me over the past few months. Also thank you for sharing your work - I love visiting your blogs and you really do inspire me so much.

This is the final DCM Dare before Christmas, and here it is........

'I'm free !!!'
Hello fellow darers !! Friday has come round again, and I expect you are all as busy as us as we fast approach Christmas. So we are going to keep things as nice and easy as we can for you through the next few weeks........firstly, we have decided to give the 'Little Extra' dares a holiday over Christmas/New year because life is just busy enough at the moment- and I can't see many of you getting up on Christmas morning to take up a new dare ! :) So the mid week specials will be back in January, but watch this space there are lots of exciting changes lined up of the 'Little Extra' but we will fill you in on all the details soooooooon. Now, on to this weeks dare. Christmas is an expensive time of year (although every day of the year can be potentially expensive to us Crafters ! ;) Anyway, we thought it would be a good idea to run a dare that was 'inexpensive'..This week, we the DCM team, would like you to design a card using a magazine 'freebie' . Either a craft magazine freebie, or indeed any other magazine freebie, papers, embellishments, tools, etc. anything really, as long as it came from a magazine.'

Papers are from SI Magazine ages ago and the glittery flower is K & Co. I have torn the heart layers and inked the edges in white. I really like the tearing look - it gives it a fabric effect!
I added some rub-on borders, ribbon and stickles to finish off.

MEGAN'S MAZE BOOK

Spent the day making this Maze Book for a gorgeous little girl called Megan Rose. She is 18 months old now and is developing her own little personality. When she was born she only weighed 4lb 10oz, then contracted scepticaemia whilst in the special care baby unit. On the 8th day after her birth we thought she wouldn't survive, but she fought and fought and eventually became well. She is our little miracle.

I did a scrapbook of her first few months and gave it to her parents at her Christening in February. I have started
a second scrapbook, but not finished yet,
so I decided to do this maze book to give
to Megan and her parents for Christmas.

DCM....INSIDE AND OUT & TAG TIME

Have an unexpected day off, so early

with the dare today! Still need a few more

Christmas cards, so great chance to catch

up. Today's dare is.....

'INSIDE AND OUT
Hi everyone Gillian here, and it's my turn to dare you all this week.
I dare you to take the design of your card to the inside as well as the outside.
Add a little finishing touch to match the theme on the outside,or Surprise the receiver with a flap, foldout, decorated journal block to write on,or one of those pop-out delights....It really adds so much to a card when there is attention to detail on the inside as well as the outside. I know some of you are finished your

Christmas cards already so this week it's any theme, Christmas or not, but make the inside count too :) '

Some of my BG die cuts came in handy here with a touch of glitter. The paper I found at the bottom of my Christmas craft box, the snowman is a metal embellilshment and arranged on white glitter card.

I also made a few tags and really enjoyed doing them. Here is one for the 'Little Extra'.

'Santa's Little Extra Helper no 8 Tag Time
This is the last Christmas Little Extra before we let Santa's Little Helper put his feet up and have a rest.
By now you've probably finished making you cards, so for a change we thought we'd get you making some gift tags. However, if you've still got cards to make, then you can always use tags on cards instead.It's up to you, as long as there's a tag involved it's fine by us!'

I used my Cuttlebug snowflake embossing folder on Bazzil card, sanded the embossing and added irridescent glitter glue to highlight the snowflakes. I also embossed a piece of acetate the same, cut them with Bigshot tag die and attached with ribbon. The snowman is cut from white foam (Sizzix die) and the 'sparkles' are cut from white gllitter card using Sizzix die. I added features to the snowman with glitter glue.

CANDY STRIPES.....DARING CARDMAKERS DARE

Not quite so late with this one, and I got the chance to use my first Magnolia stamp which I recently won on ebay. Here is the challenge.........

'I love the stripey candy sticks that are around at this time of year so inspired by this I challenge you all to create a card featuring stripes of some kind, the occasion is up to you but you must use some form of stripes on your card. Maybe stamps, or paper, or ribbon...'

The paper is 'Paper Adventures Valentine Stripe' and the hearts are glazed. I cut the frame and the hearts with my Bigshot with new dies I got in the fantastic sale (bought so many that my Bigshot has a new lease of life!). I coloured Tilda using watercolour pencils and waterbrush and used basic Dymo tape for the greeting. I must get some watercolour pencils in paler colours next time I am craft shopping.

Crafting Overload!

Well, I didn't think it was possible, but with all
the cardmaking at school I just haven't been
inspired to do any at home!

Never thought it would happen to me, but here are three cards I made tonight.

The first one is really for the DCM challenge from last week (rather late!). I used BG Phoebe papers, hand cut the bird from felt and inked the edges. The stamp is Dovecraft.





For this card I used Anna Griffin Christmas papers. I stamped and heat embossed the baubles using a Docrafts stamp, layered them with foam pads and added bows and strings. This could also fit a recent DCM dare.

Back to BG for this one. The Christmas tree is stamped using EZMount Loopy Tree stamp, heat embossed and layered with foam. The lettering and tab are Kelly Panacci, brad Papermania and I used large scalloped scissors on the edge. Finished off with one of my B & Q bargain stars!