Lochs and Stags....

What more could a person want eh?!

Hello Crafty folks... how are you all? Well, I'm just about recovered now from my roadtrip up to Bonnie Scotland this past weekend, so thought I would pop by again today to share a little make with you, alongside a couple of my favourite photos from the weekend. 

I had a very busy weekend, going up to Leven in Scotland on the Friday, ready for my demo on the Sunday... I was going to travel up on the Saturday, but last time I did the trip, I went up on the Saturday and back on the Sunday and it was too much all at once.. so a weekend away was calling me, and a weekend away was had! And what a fantastic weekend it was too. 

I will post more photos of the weekend on another day, but I wanted to share this beautiful place with you today - Loch Leven - and it was so peaceful, idyllic and magical all in one go. It was a place that was fallen upon through a tourist map, and was definately worth the visit. 

The castle that you can see above is in the centre of the Loch, and you can take a boat trip over to the Island to look at it in more detail. It was a tad chilly near the water, so decided to keep my feet on terra firma and look from a distance!

The Castle itself has been used as a prison amongst other things, and is generally associated with Mary Queen of Scots. She was imprisoned here after she was forced to abdicate her throne for her son James VI. She eventually escaped across the Loch and exiled in England. I love a bit of history!

This must be my favourite view of the day... taken from a little hole in the wooded area, looking across the Loch. So peaceful. Just to stand and listen to the water lapping alongside the banks was blissful....

**sigh** it seems a while ago now... even though it's only a few days.... and I spent the past few days making samples for the Pick of the Day!

I wanted to keep to my Scottish theme for today, and share with you this little charmer of the Stag... Stanley is his name by all accounts... and a fine ol' Stanley he is too! A big handsome stag is something that every Christmas card needs, and this one will definately NOT disappoint.

For my card, I used the Christmassy colours for Create and Craft this year - teal and oranges - and they work so well together too. The centre panel is embossed with a small folder I found in my stash whilst I was sorting out the other day, and I inked around the edges using distress inks to add a flash of colour. The two stags formed my focal point on the card... and look what I did! I reversed them!

There is only the one direction facing stag in the Rococo dies, but I cut as normal for the second one then moved the cardstock from underneath to on top of the die, turned it over and embossed from the 'wrong' side to give it definition. I then used my largest ball embossing tool around the outside edge of the stag to push the edges back down and finished them both off with a little of the Tonic Gilding Wax - this one is Fusion... a lovely metallic platinum colour.

The Yuletide Greetings die comes as part of the Wreath set and was cut from coordinating coloured paper and card and layered to give a drop shadow effect.

The two stags were shadowed with white cardstock to make them stand out a little more as you can see.

I hope you like the card for today, and my photos... and I will be back with a few more bits and bobs tomorrow...

Until then, happy Crafting,
Love Jo x