Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Quick & Easy Christmas Gift Card Holder





Hello Everyone and welcome back!

So if you are anything like me I always feel that giving gift cards is the "easy way out" at the Holiday, but yet know that there are some who genuinely need or want gift cards and also there are some on our list who do not really "need" anything and yet it is a known fact they will like certain places if they are gifted a card from them.  Having said that, this project was for a gift card for my dad, that I had forgotten about until shortly before we were to see him.  So I came up with a quick and fun way to gift him his Subway card.

I used the following products:
Essentials by Ellen, Diagonal Window Designer Die by Julie (Ellen Hutson)
Avery Elle Gift Card Die Elle-ments
DCWV The Winter in the Woods Stack (paper)
A2 Kraft card base
and some leftover twine

Enjoy!
See you all soon!

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Christmas Thank you Card



Hello everyone!
I hope that your Christmas was beautiful and you were able to enjoy it.  I know this time of year can bring emotions up to the surface as well as just bring overall difficulty and added stress and some times it feels so very hard, but here is the hope that something beautiful came out and enjoyment was gifted to you and the feeling of warmth and love came to you individually in some way, great or small.
Having said that, here is my newest creation.
My cousin from PA sent me a wonderful Christmas gift and since I had not yet mailed her gifts, I was able to also send her this home made thank you card.
It is rather simple and used some left over pieces from other projects and then I just made it all work together.
It is all on a basic white A2 card base.  I used a leftover cut of the snow globe  from Lawn Fawn's Ready, Set, Snow - Lawn Cuts on scrap paper from my craft room, I then spread some Ranger Multi-Matte Medium on the bottom with my finger and sprinkled chunky glitter and fake buffalo snow.  Once dry I added the super cute trees and fox from Newton's Nook Design's Fox Hollow that I had already cut and had out - aren't these trees and that fox just adorable? The sentiment was from the Simon Says Stamp Card Kit December 2015 Gifts of Love set and I thought it was perfect and love the script and layout of the wording.
Overall it was all laying on my table and just came together, don't we all love when that happens?
Enjoy!  See you all soon!



Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Christmas Tags


Hello Everyone,

I adore Newton's Nook Designs and am so happy they are now doing dies as well for their super cute stamps.  So let me first say my coloring is improving, but still needs much more, so it is fun to practice on cute stuff.  That said let's discuss the tags:
I started with Ranger Inkssentials Kraft Craft Tags and "painted" a base coat of Tim Holtz Distress Paint in Picket Fence then when it dried I sprayed TH Distress Spray Stains in random blues (Mermaid Lagoon, Salty Ocean & Tumbled Glass), then flicked drops of Perfect Pearls Mist (Perfect Pearl) and sprayed with water to smooth out from there the different tags have different backgrounds as follows from left to right:


Left: Using Versamark ink I stamped the Starry Background Builder from Lawn Fawn's Starry Backdrops then let dry, I colored the fox in Copic marker and put some gold embroidery floss underneath


Middle: I stamped miscellaneous snowflakes in Staz-On Timber Brown ink, added a small torn off piece of vellum and tied it  with gold embroidery floss,  I colored the trees and fox with Copic markers and added glossy accents on the scarf and trees


Right: Using Versamark ink I stamped the Starry Background Builder from Lawn Fawn's Starry Backdrops then let added white embossing powder and heat set, I then added my colored trees and foxes using Ranger Multi-Matte Medium. I added glossy accents on the trees

Overall I think they will be enjoyed when they are received by my nieces in Alaska
Merry Christmas!

See you soon!






Monday, December 21, 2015

Simon Says Stamp Designer Spotlight Recognition

Exciting, Breaking News:
So after making my Christmas Ornaments I posted on December 9th I decided to enter them over at Simon Says Stamp for the December 7th "Holly Jolly Stamping" Monday Challenge.  I received some wonderful comments and was just so excited to step out of my box and put my work out there.  There are always some amazing, creative entries and I was already #201.  (There were 366 entries all told)
So today I opened the post with the "Winner and Designer Spotlights for the Holly Jolly Challenge" which happened to be posted on the 19th and I was in awe when I saw my name and creation listed as one of the five creations chosen to Spotlight.  I have added to my blog the SSS Spotlight Badge and I am so deeply honored.  I have loved Simon Says Stamp products and their blog since I really started getting into card making and this is just awesome.  Thank you Simon Says Stamp. 
Go check out the blog and see all the  wonderful creations they showcase daily as well as join in the fun and submit one of your own for either the Monday or Wednesday Challenge, you never know- you may get the Spotlight shined on you!



Saturday, December 19, 2015

"Hey Chick" Card




 Good evening,
I created this card as a "just because" to have on hand when the need arose to send "happy mail" out into the world.  And I love how it turned out!
I started with white cardstock and cut out the border with one of my all time favorite dies- Avery Elle's Wonky Stitches Elle-Ments - love it!
I then inked two colors of Tim Holtz Distress Ink on an acrylic block and "smooshed" it onto the paper.  (I apologize for not remembering which two blues I used)
Then I stamped out my "chicks" from Paper Smooches "Green Acres" and colored them in with colored pencils.  (Quick tip, when you need to sharpen your colored pencils put them in the freezer before hand and it helps keep them from splintering)  I then cut them out with the matching dies. My sentiment "Hey Chick" is also from this Paper Smooches set. 
I cut out the Frame from another Paper Smooches stand alone die - "Frame 4" using some stock gold glitter paper.  I used a piece of fun foam that I cut out to pop the frame up and give a little dimension.
I used the Lawn Fawn Grassy Border Lawn Cuts Dies and then put my chicks into the frame and grass to make a cute little scene.
I am really happy with the way it all turned out and hope you enjoy it as well.
See you soon!
Close up view of Chicks and frame

Another view of completed card

I have entered this card on the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge this week the challenge is Die Crazy


Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Christmas Ornaments 2015



I received a message that my niece this past weekend qualified for the 2015 Winter Junior Olympics in the 500m Free (swimming) and that she would be racing this Saturday in Palm Springs (CA) - cue the yeahs and squeals of happiness- and she needed to give the other team members something as a "good luck" That is where the post comes in.  I was asked to make 10 ornaments by Wednesday night or Thursday afternoon at the latest.  So I located my Newton's Nook "Winter Tails" stamp set and thought that the "Free Snowman (some assembly required)"stamp would be perfect (they will be in Palm Springs) and I stamped that onto the Jaded Blossom "Fall Dies" sign then I used the cute little eyes, arm, nose stamp from the Newton's Nook stamp set and stamped on the front of the acetate in Jet Black Staz-On ink and waited until it was dry and colored in the nose with some orange copic marker and waited for that to dry as well.  Then I assembled my shaker ornaments with the Lawn Fawn "Ready, Set, Snow Shaker Add On"  and used the "Ready, Set, Snow" stamp set for the snow globe and the Merry Christmas tag at the bottom.  I filled the shaker window with Buffalo Snow Flakes to give a little iridescent shimmer. The blue background paper in the shaker was just some blue snowflake paper I had in my stash and the wood grain paper for the snow globes was also just stock paper.  I love that two of my favorite companies have products that work so well with each other and I love how they turned out.  I took the ornaments over to drop them off and they were loved by all. 
I wish my niece success and good times on Saturday and I wish luck to all the other participants, it takes hard work and dedication to make it to this level and I am so proud of my niece and her fellow team mates. 

Here are some pictures of the process/chaos that is my craft space:
And then they were done

Thanks for stopping by

Linking up with the Pink and Main Challenge at:
http://pinkandmainchallenges.blogspot.com/2015/12/challenge-4.html

Linking up with the Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge where the theme this week is Christmas! 



Saturday, December 5, 2015

Not a typical "Get Well" card


I have a friend who let me borrow a cute stamp set from Stamp annieThing called VooDoo you Love? a while back.  I kept looking at and thinking what can I do with it? And it sat.  I picked it up the other day with a fabulous idea- do you ever get those? So I started working out my idea.  I cut out a piece of Crafters Companion Spectrum Noir Ultra Smooth Premium Cardstock with the smaller of the two Wonky Stitches die from Avery Elle and I stamped the "girlier" version of the VooDoo doll - see she has bows.  I then started to color with some of my limited copics.  I also then stamped the three little buttons in the bottom right corner.  So I liked it and was happy with my coloring (still learning and practicing) and kept looking at it and thought, "wow, that is not what I was going for at all" - my originally idea was to send a cute "just because" card to one of my nieces, and then I looked at the sentiments in the set and thought "this would be perfect for my friend (yes ironically the friend I borrowed the set from) who was recently injured over the Thanksgiving weekend while out camping as a Get Well card.  So what did I learn from all of this? Well my original idea morphed into something altogether different but  I accomplished something else I was thinking about, I stepped out of my box and used a set I would not have normally picked up and just because a stamp set is not specifically designed for something there is a good chance you can make it work anyway- another outside the box thought.  (I think this stamp should be more of a Valentine set- possibly) Anyway, then my thought was "I really am happy with the way it turned out" and then, "what if my friend hates it" or worse yet "what if I hurt her feelings" You see I do not think she is a VooDoo doll at all, nor do I think she doesn't have feelings..... but my head jumped in and since I had stepped out of my box, whew did those silly inner critics jump up to scream at me and I thought maybe I should make something cute with flowers and more of a "typical" get well card, but I decided to go for it and give it to my friend and you know what, she texted me and said she loves it! So here is to friendship and outside the box thinking as well as sharing handmade kindness to someone you care about. Big hugs my friend, I truly hope you feel better soon!

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Merry Christmas Cards for 4 Special Little Girls




Hello Everyone!!!!!!!

So this being my first blog post I went a little crazy with photos. 
I made 4 Christmas cards for my Aunt to give to 4 special little girls this year and I am actually quite proud of the cards and oh how I hope the girls like them. 
I used Lawn Fawn's "Toboggan Together" and just LOVE the little penguins, reindeer and presents, etc.  It is such a cute set. 
I also used the partial die cutting technique and used Die-namics Zig Zag Stitched Circles from My Favorite Things and for the trees I also did partial die cutting and used the Impression Obsession DIE027-P set, they are really cute and versatile trees. 
I colored the trees with Pale Green from the Zig Clean Color Real Brush set and went over that with Rangers Stickles in Icicle,  I then cut some "Water Dots Vellum" by Heidi Grace for the window and then backed that with some pretty blue snowflake paper.  
The sentiment is also from the Lawn Fawn set "Toboggan Together" as are the little snowflakes around the white area. 
I then Copic colored the critters, cut them out with the matching dies and placed them on the cards. 
I hope you enjoy this first post and I look forward to sharing more of my creations with you all soon.
 Also, I took these photos outside as it was still pretty sunny (we do have a storm blowing in) and I have to say the colors that came out are pretty true to life.