So a little while ago I decided to start planning what Christmas cards to make for next Christmas. I now know from last year's experience that the time to start making Christmas cards is some time in June, so I thought I should jump ahead and get planning while I had inspiration.

I absolutely adore Woodware Clear Magic stamps and bought 2 lots of Christmas ones back in November, and decided to put at least one set to good use this Christmas (a bit more difficult to use the other set and they are a bit larger and I tend to struggle to get an even amount of ink on them).

These are all hand stamped and hand coloured so believe you me, it takes me a while to make them XD I apologise for the poor quality of the pictures, I took them using my tiny little Nikon, my Etsy photos are taken by my Dad using his awesome stock photography camera so they look a lot better.



As you can see, this one involves 3 Christmas stockings and then mittens in each corner. I just the same mitten stamp for each corner but I might change it so I have two different mittens, in diagonally opposite corners, need to test that one out next. I don't particularly like this one because I think there is too much white space.



In this one I have 3 stockings, 2 hats and 4 mittens. But it took much longer to colour because the mittens are all different and I kept losing track of which pens I had used (I have the full range of 36 Whispers double end markers). The stocking on the right is actually sky blue rather than a sort of mental glowing turquoise glowing blue. If I put these into production when I will more than likely only use 2 mittens and, as with my plan for the one above, have them diagonally opposite.

The text reads "Christmas Wishes" and I will probably do it in red or green rather than black, just need to get a red or green ink pad.



And here we have nothing but mittens! The text reads "Warm Woolly Mittens" and I added little springs of holly to the corners. I think this is my favourite one because I managed to space all the mittens fairly evenly so it looks quite colourful and the white space is more scattered than in big blocks.

I'll probably end up doing some cards as mixed packs and some as packs with just that theme (i.e. one pack with cards with the first design).

I made some earrings the other day so now I just need Dad to photograph them and I can list them on Etsy! Yay for new things!

This weeks Featured Crafter spot is delayed, because I sent some questions to my chosen person yesterday because I am silly, so haven't heard back from them yet XD Note to self: Prepare in advance.

Instead I have some fantastic news of my own. I SOLD MY FIRST ITEM ON ETSY!

I sold a pair of czech glass flower earrings, the lilac and olive ones. You should have heard my shriek of joy when I saw it XD

So I have spent today making a little "thank you for buying" card and on Tuesday I will be popping the little package in the post (I can't post it tomorrow as I'm at work all day).

Taken nearly a year XD I suspect, although I'm still unsure, if the buyer found me via LuvHandmade.com, but I think this is the case as the timing is too coincidental.

Dad is cooking dinner today as it is Mother's Day. And I'm now going to find more featured sellers for the next few weeks so I can ask them questions about their items well ahead of time XD

Last bracelet and earring pair has gone up today, now I need to buy more beads before I make and list more jewellery XD

Bracelet:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16509253

Earrings:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16509238


I also managed to land me a Treasury! I was planning on a theme around the upcoming Bonfire Night (we're not big Halloween fans in the UK, instead we love the bloke that tried to blow up Parliament), but then just as I was browsing Etsy a news item popped up on TV, today is the start of the Poppy Appeal here in the UK. The poppies are made by injured servicemen and women, and the money goes towards helping them, and the families and dependants of soldiers that don't come back alive. Chuck a few coins in the pot and you get a little paper poppy. I always end up buying several as I lose the first one I get XD I must remember to take a safety pin with me as well as the normal pins they give tend to stab me.

Anyway, I chose to change my Treasury theme, from a nutter with gunpowder, to poppies. And here is the result:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=16684

To continue the normal theme of entries, I'm currently watching Futurama.

I'm on a bit of a card making spree at the moment. I made 5 yesterday, all of which are being sent to various people from an LJ community I'm part of. Then I've made two today, this time to sell. They have a letter on so you can buy a "B" for Beth, or "H" for Hannah, got more letters left so I'll be making a few more at some point ^_^

So this year I am planning on making Christmas cards. I have only been card making for 6 months so this is proving to be an interesting challenge.

I am using clear rubber stamps as that is a medium I've wanted to get in to for a long time, if only clear stamp sets weren't so expensive XD

The other day I hand stamped 79 images and since then I have been colouring them in using Whispers brush markers. The brush markers are nice but there isn't much room for subtle shading.

So last night I tried colouring in a few mittens and socks with my colouring pencils and managed to get some of them looking very nice. Still doesn't quite work with the socks but the gloves look very nice. Not quite sure where to progress from here, either do some batches of cards with pencil colouring and some with pen and have seperate packs for each or have mixed packs where some cards are pencil colour and some are pen.

Decisions, decisions.

Aah, the first post, hopefully it will not be too disappointing.

This is my third try at using Blogger, hopefully it will go better than the last few times (third time's a charm and all that jazz).

Today I have:
- Cut out a bunch of stamped images for Christmas cards.
- Browsed Ebay for more beads.
- Made three bracelets.

I am particularly proud of the last one, there were two episodes of Top Gear on and I decided to just sit and work while they were on. The end results was two shell bracelets and a glass pearl one. Photos will be posted eventually, I need to get the family photographer to dust off his camera.

Currently watching Azumanga Daioh, might go and browse Ebay a bit more.