December sale at Crimson Cloud....

Massive December Sale!


To celebrate Christmas and to make room for our new ranges coming in the New Year, we are giving 30% off all orders placed during December.

Just put in the code DEC13 when you check out your basket to redeem your 30% discount.

Offer ends at midnight on 31st December 2013.

Click here to start shopping!

Have fun
xxx

Wishing you a magical day....

Hi Everyone,

This week I decided to take a break from making Christmas cards and tags and spent some time with the beautiful Lavinia Stamps range.

I love these silhouette stamps, they are so striking and give me an opportunity to play with making my own backgrounds.

To start I took a woodgrain embossed card base and die cut my aperture.

Then I used three Distress Paints (Picked Raspberry, Wild Honey and Picket Fence) and dabbed these onto a piece of watercolour paper. I spritzed it heavily with water to allow the paint to move and blend.

Once the paint was dry I overstamped with the Lavinia Stamps Thistles stamp set in black Versafine ink and mounted my picture behind the aperture in the card base.

For my sentiment I used "Wishing you a magical day" from the Crimson Cloud Sleeping Flower Fairy stamp set

and stamped it onto a die cut banner and mounted it with foam pads onto the card front.

Finally I decorated the card with some coordinating gems from my stash.

Hope you like it!
Mel xxxx

Christmas Gift Tag Challenge Winner Announcement

Hi Everyone,

Today we are very happy to announce the winner of the Crimson Cloud Gift Tag blog challenge.

Thank you to everyone who took part. We loved your tags and as usual had so much trouble deciding the winner.

This week's winner is Sammy - we loved her Gingerbread themed tag and matching gift box.

And here is a closer look at the tag

We are taking a short break on the blog challenge over Christmas but will be back in the New Year with a new theme.

Best wishes
Mel and Linda  

Christmas Tags

Hi Everyone,

Only a few days left on this month's blog challenge - Christmas Gift Tags.

Don't forget we need your entries by midnight on Monday 25th November.

Here is another gift tag sample made by Linda

She used the Couture Creations Ivy Doily set,

and layered on top the Spellbinders Poinsettia dies

which were stamped and embossed with the Just Rite Festive Poinsettia stamp set

We can't wait to see the rest of your entries!
Good luck!
xxxx

Crimson Cloud Christmas Blog Challenge - win an exclusive stamp set!

Crimson Cloud Christmas Blog Challenge - win an exclusive stamp set!

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to our second monthly blog challenge to win a Crimson Cloud exclusive stamp set.

As it is nearly gift giving time, the challenge this month is to create a Christmas gift tag.

The prize for two lucky winners is the Noel Bells  A6 clear stamp set which includes two step stamping elements.

If you would like to take part - please email your entry to mel@crimsoncloud.co.uk by midnight on Monday 25th November.

You can use any brand of stamps and dies you like on your entry - there are no restrictions.

And here is our pair of gift tags

made using the Spellbinders Mr and Mrs Snowman dies

Creative Expressions Self Adhesive Star Swirls

and the Couture Creations Wild Holly embossing folder in the background

and the sentiment from the Crimson Cloud Holly Wreath and Bow stamp set

We can't wait to see your entries!
Good luck!
Mel xx

Reindeer Games

The cards this week have been inspired by the current Christmas Reindeer trend.

My new favourite embossing folder is "Reindeer Games" by Couture Creations from their "Wrapped In Joy" collection.

I love using Kraft coloured cardstock so I have created two cards combining my two favourite things!

On this card I blended white ink over the raised embossed areas to highlight the stag and the trees.

The sentiment is from the Crimson Cloud Guardian Angel stamp set.

For the second card I die cut an oval aperture to reveal the embossed reindeer in the inside of the card.

I used another sentiment from the Guardian Angel stamp set and both cards are decorated with the new Creative Expressions Star Swirl Pearl embellishments.

I hope you like and are inspired by these cards.

Mel xx

Christmas Card Blog Challenge Winners

Hi Everyone,

Today we are very happy to announce the winners of the first ever Crimson Cloud blog challenge.

Thank you to everyone who took part. We loved your cards and had so much trouble deciding the winners that in the end we had to pick them out of a hat.

We have chosen two winners today.

The winner of the traditional colour scheme Christmas card is Debs with her wonderful bauble card. We love her subtle inked snowflake background.

Red and White for Christmas

The winner of the contemporary colour scheme Christmas card is Linda with her negative die cut Christmas tree. Such a clever use of the die and we love the striking shade of blue! 

Christmas Blues

You have each won a set of Crimson Cloud Holly Wreath and Bow stamps

Please can you both email me your post addresses so I can send you your prize.

Don't forget to look out for the next Crimson Cloud blog challenge - details will be announced on 11th November.

Best wishes
Mel and Linda

New in stock - Christmas ranges

We are very excited to have received a new delivery of Christmas stock!

New to the site are

Snowflake and Starburst Pearl and Rhinestone self adhesive embellishments

Distress Glitters

Couture Creations Wrapped In Joy embossing folder collection

Creative Expressions Die cutting felt

Have fun shopping!
Mel and Linda xxxx

Hark the Herald Angels sing...

Hi
We are continuing with our Christmas theme this week and have been playing with the new Singles Christmas stamps from Creative Expressions.

I stamped and embossed Creative Expressions Herald Angel 

and inked over it with Wild Honey and Chipped Sapphire distress inks  to create an embossed resist effect.

I used the Spellbinders Arched Window set of dies to frame the angel.

After stamping and embossing the sentiment onto vellum, I wrapped it around the front of the Arch and and attached to the spritzed card base.

Finally I decorated the card with some gems from my stash.

I hope you like it!
Mel xxxx

CRAFT Challenge entry

This week we are one of the lucky sponsors of the Trimmies Craft Challenge.

The theme is Christmas and here is the Crimson Cloud entry

The card is made using the Crimson Cloud Mistletoe stamp set

I used the "emboss resist" technique. I stamped and embossed my mistletoe in clear embossing powder onto patterned paper and blended some ink over the top to create a resist image.

This technique works really well with most silhouette stamps.

Hope you like it!
Mel xx

Christmas in Creative Stamping

This month we have been lucky enough to have five projects printed in a feature in Creative Stamping magazine.

A Berry Merry Christmas

Holly Wreath and Merry Christmas

Noel Bells and Love & Kisses

 All the cards were made using the Crimson Cloud Christmas 2013 stamp release - find all four stamp sets here.

For more details on how to make these cards, pick up your copy of Creative Stamper this month.

Best wishes
Mel

New Crimson Cloud Christmas Card Challenge - win an exclusive stamp set!

Hi Everyone,

This week we are launching our new monthly challenge to win a Crimson Cloud exclusive stamp set.

The challenge this month is to create a Christmas card in either a traditional colour scheme or a contemporary colour scheme.

We will be giving away a two stamps sets - one to our favourite traditional colour card and one to our favourite contemporary colour card.

We are giving away the Holly Wreath and Bow stamp set to each of the lucky winners.

If you would like to take part - please email your entry to mel@crimsoncloud.co.uk by midnight on Friday 25th October.

You can use any brand of stamps and dies you like on your entry - there are no restrictions.

And here is our card using the Holly Wreath stamp set in traditional red and green.

We can't wait to see your entries!
Good luck!
Mel xx

Beautiful Bells

Today we have two cards made by Linda.

Both cards are made using the Crimson Cloud Noel Bells stamp set

This stamp set includes a patterned bell, an outline bell and a silhouette bell stamp which can be used to colour in the outline bell.

For her first card, Linda created movement and dimension for her bells by mounting them at an angle through a die cut rectangular aperture.

Her first bell is stamped as a silhouette and overstamped with the wreath  from the Crimson Cloud Holly Wreath and Bow stamp set

The second bell was created using the harlequin patterned bell stamp.

To create her sentiment, she used the Love, Peace and Joy separate stamps from the Holly Wreath set.

Linda used the Noel Bells again for her second card, this time paper piecing the bells by stamping them onto some tartan patterned paper.

She used the Creative Expressions Wild Poinsettia embossing folder for her background

I love the way she has used such non-traditional colours for both her cards.

I hope you like these samples and are inspired by them!

Mel xxx

One stamp set - three ways!

This week I set my self a little challenge to come up with three cards using one stamp set, some sentiment stamps and one colour scheme.

My choice of stamp set was the My Favorite Things Blooming Roses - a really beautiful set of stamps that include two-step roses stamps - I love them!

The sentiment set is also from My Favourite Things - Chalkboard Greetings. And although these sentiments are designed to work with the current ChalkBoard style trend, I think they work well on all different styles of card.

For this first card, I stamped the large rose base layer in light pink four times on the card, then over stamped the detail in darker pink. I used the same process with the smaller two step rose stamp to fill in the gaps. I also stamped both roses on some scrap paper and cut them out to use as a masks. This allowed me to overstamp the green leaves so that they look like they are behind the roses.
I stamped the sentiment in Versafine Black - which stands out well against such a bright background.

For the second card, I created an oval mask from scrap paper to cover my large sentiment. Once the mask was in place I stamped my roses and foliage.

My third card is super-simple but I love it! And it only took two minutes to make. This time I used the two step rose bud, stamping the stem and leaves in green.

I think this set of cards shows that sometimes, limiting yourself to only a few products can really bring out your creativity!

Hope you like them.
Mel xxx

Bells, Boughs and Bows

This week Linda has been getting in the Christmas spirit and playing with three of the Crimson Cloud Christmas stamp sets.

For her first card she has chosen a lovely colour palette of pale blues and browns - very unusual!

She has combined the Pine Bough and Fir Cones stamp set 

with the Noel Bells stamp set

She has stamped a subtle background with the pine boughs, and the fir cones look so striking stamped in brown.

For her second card, she has created an very elegant wreath

by stamping and embossing it in white, and combining it with the wreath bow stamped and embossed in silver. To add that extra bling, she has replaced the berries with silver beads.

We hope you like and are inspired by this week's samples.

Best wishes
Mel xxx