New Year Traditions

Welcome to 2010!    ~  And a facelift to my blog!

DH and I are having a quiet evening, making some homemade pizza, killing time trying to stay up till 12:00 midnight LOL!  I'm wracking my brain right now since I did not get all my Christmas cards out on time, and now I want to send out New Years cards instead, but I don't have any New Years stamps!  Hmm.  I thought I'd share with you an adorable card I made recently that was for Christmas--do you think an angel works for New Years Cards?  What about snowflakes?  Hmm.  Will keep thinking.

Anyway, back to this card--don't you love this teddy bear angel, which is one of the newer Ildi Co. digital stamps called Cuddles Kuma Angel.

The angel is coloured with copics, with spica pen for the halo to tie in with the gold ribbon.  The background paper is sprayed with pearl Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist, and a sponge with dark blue ink was rubbed across the embossed stars to make them jump out more.

Enough about the card, cards are great to talk about, but tomorrow is January 1st, the start of the New Year!

I love the start of a new year, the chance to stop and reflect on the year past, gear up for the year ahead, and start with a fresh slate.

What are your traditions for New Years?

My better half and I have had a tradition we've done for many years now.  We have a notebook that we use as a diary which we use for our "new years" questions.  This is a list of questions we put together a number of years back, and each year we discuss them, write down our ideas about them, and then review the things we wrote in prior years.  It is fun and interesting to look back on.  What questions do we ask?  Well, here they are.....

1. Most memorable moment of the past year
2. Best movie seen in the past year
3. Happiest moment or event in the past year
4. News story that most captured your attention in the past year
5. Most difficult moment or event in the past year
6. One life lesson learned during the past year
7. Most memorable meal in the past year
8. Advise to your self for the year ahead
9. Goals for the year ahead


I was thinking of a new tradition, and that's to ask you, my readers, to leave me a comment with your answer to any of these you want to share.  It'll be fun and interesting to see what you have to say :-)

I hope you enjoy whatever traditions you have for New Years, and that the year ahead is a good one for you!

Snowy Elzybells

Well Christmas is done, and many of you are journey'ing home from family and friends homes back to your own.  The  fuss is wound up for another year, but we still have New Years to look forward to and another stat holiday coming up this week--Yay!

To celebrate saying goodbey to Christmas, here is yet another card I made in preparation for the holidays.  As you can see, there are lots of snowflakes on this one!

The image is an Elzybells one received in a swap.  These cute Elzybells caught my eye and I've got a stash of them, which I never use since I don't want to use them all up.  So easy to colour, and so very perky!

Enjoy the rest of the "holiday season" and if you have snow in your neck of the woods I hope you take the time to go out and enjoy the good part of it--the wholesome fun of snowballs, sledding, snow angels, snow forts, and snow men.

Ho Ho Ho!

This was a fun card to make, even though my DH doesn't think it looks Christmasy (?!).

The moon was a round piece of paper adhered with double sided tape (the non permanent type) and then I sprayed with Graphite Tattered Angels mist.  The trees were then stamped on (Gina K image) and then finally Santa and his reindeer were layered over top of that.

Christmas Eve is Here!

Merry Christmas to those of you celebrating on Christmas Eve!

In our family the tradition is to celebrate on the 24th--we have a big dinner, then dance around the Christmas tree singing Carols (each of us gets to pick one), then opening of gifts, and eating of candy and cookies.  It's always a wonderful time with the family that we look forward to all year.

But you, say, enough about your family, we want to see a card!  Well, here's a card I made a while back but hadn't posted yet:

Isn't this image adorable!  I love this card, one of my favorite Christmas cards made this year.  It is so warm and cozy feeling.  It looks better in real life, since in the photo it's hard to see the background pattern in the green card stock.

The image is a Changito image I got in a swap, coloured with my copics and cut out with Nesties.  The poinsettia red paper is embossed, and I put ink on the embossing folder before running it through the machine.  It's finished off with a few Robins Nest Dew Drops.

This card makes me feel like grabbing a cup of hot chocolate and snuggling by the fire.

Gifts!

It's that time of year when there are gift exchanges (and last minute shopping!) happening, and this cute Ildi Co. Snopal seems so appropriate right now.  I was proud to make this card entirely (except for white base) from scraps in my bins....got to make a lot more doing that!

I hope you all have your shopping done.  I, of course, had mine done weeks ago (note, you have no way of verifying that).  Is everything wrapped and under the tree?  Are the decorations up?  Remember, Christmas is about fun and family, and if the "bling" isn't all perfect it's not a big deal!  Kind of like a card, the bling is nice, but it's the whole thing and main image that are really the most important.

Snowy Star Gazing

I just love this image, staring at the stars on a winter evening.  The image is an Ildi Co Snopal, and the sentiment is from Sunshine stamps.  I've really been in a mood to use Kraft paper lately, it's just a bit more old fashioned and homey, and that's been suiting me.  Do you use the Kraft paper much?  I've seen very few snowfolk done like this, it seems they are usually on a white background....If you've never tried it, why not take the chance now and see what you think of it?  Let me know how your experiments go!

The snowfolk are coloured using white craft ink applied with an aqua painter.  If you don't have white craft ink you could also use white pencil crayon or white watercolour crayons.  The idea is you need something that will sit on the cardstock and show white, not get sucked in and go translucent.

The capes etc are coloured with copics--this works since we are using darker colours for them.  The white ruffle on the capes is filled in with liquid pearls, which gives texture and a nice pearly finish.

So do you all have lots of crafting plans this weekend, or are you now getting sucked into the Christmas last minute rush vortex, LOL!  I wish you all a safe and productive weekend!

Santa's cookies

This was the first card I made with this die cut.  It is very large and I was worried about wasting so much paper, and then I figured out it was a perfect size for cutting out of the underneath mat (which always bothers me as a waste of paper.  See this is how the back side looked before I adhered it to the white card base:

I'm always happy when I can find a trick to save some cardstock and this just turned out to be so efficient!

This was also my first time using this HM image, and I'm still not really keen on how it came out, it is actually a hard image to colour to figure out just the right colours to use for the cookies and the Santa note.  I will be experimenting more with it!  Despite that, it is such a sweet image, and I do like the finished effect.

And, my question to you today, is, do you leave notes out for Santa?  Do your kids still believe?

It's a jungle out there

Feel a bit tired of snowflakes and stockings?  Well here's something that's a bit of a change of pace.

I've been thinking about the Ildi Co dinosaurs since the last card I made with them, and started off with a plan to make an "old fosil" card as a birthday card, but once I'd done up the background and layed out the dino, the words jumped out at me, "it's a jungle out there" and I thought that wouldn't be bad for a sentiment.

I decided to pair that up with a birthday wish, so I decorated the inside of the card to match.

What do you think?

Wish upon a star

Less than two weeks to Christmas!  I'm going to keep this brief, I know you probably don't have a lot of time right now for blogging and surfing and so on to the main "piece de resistance":

Despite a really simple layout, I am really happy with how this card came out.  The image is a Victoria Case digi that has been coloured with Copics and a bit of Spica glitter pen on the wings and star.  The DP is from SU, and it's dressed up with scalloped borders and primas.  Super easy, super quick, and a nice card of wonder.

Take care and good luck with all your baking, shopping etc!

Crafty snowman

This cute snowman is yet another of the Ildi Co. Snopals.  I've been having so much fun with these frosty friends since they are all different and interesting.  For this one I printed the image on kraft paper (one of my favourite options with snowfolk) and then coloured it using an aqua pen and white craft ink--just dabbed the pen onto the ink pad and then applied.  The trees and nose etc. are coloured with Copics.  I used a couple of my newer cuttlebug embossing folders, and accented with Primas and Robin's nest dew drops  All in all a simple and yet really sharp card.  I like how homey it feels, and think it'll be a great card for one of my crafty friends.

Are you all done your Christmas cards yet?  For those of you mailing them out, time is slipping away, but remember, late is better than never!

Cozy evenings

At this time of year there's nothing better than to snuggle with a cup of cocoa by the fire.  My hubby picked this image out on one of my last House Mouse orders, obviously unaware of how much work it would be to colour!  Despite the size and detail, it was a lot easier than I expected because it's largely the same colours used over and over again. In case you are wondering, yes, I did use Copics and they did a great job.

The layout is really simple, with such wonderful artwork in the base image there's not much needed!  A bit of ribbon and cord as an accent and some layers of carstock to matte it and that's it!

Speaking of that artwork, take a look at the picture - are the little micey's running around frantic?  Obviously they don't live in my house lately LOL!  I hope that you all manage to take some breaks from baking and  shopping and Christmas prep in order to rest and reflect and enjoy some quiet cozy evenings with friends and family!

Beary Birthday

Even with Christmas approaching there are still birthdays happening (talk abut a hectic time of year for b'days!), and here's a birthday card I made recently for my SIL.  I thought this bear image was just perfect, since it looks like a very relaxed and happy bear.  My SIL seems to have a hectic life always rushing around taking care of everyone around her, so I wanted to wish her some time for herself to relax, and this image from Ildi Co, Cuddles Kuma Morning, seemed just right, plus it's a nice, easy and quick one to colour (yay!).

The main image is coloured with copics, and the background cardstock is SU paper - you can see the swiss dots cuttlebug folder was used as well as one of the floral edgy ones (can't recall name).


The sentiment is a retired SU one from my cupboard, for a set that I paid way too much for on ebay and then never use since it's too intricate to colour easily (argh!) so I'm happy to at least be using the sentiment!  Does this happen to you?  I try to make sure now that not only do I like the images I buy, but that they'll be easy enough to use that I don't avoid them. 

I doodled around the sentiment with the fine tip of an SU marker (boy, wished my copics had those fine tips!).  To make it stand out more, I popped up the greeting with dimensionals and accented the border of the main image with  little Basic Grey pearls.

My DH also has his coming up, and it seems to me to be a tough time for birthday's since everyone is distracted with Christmas.  I guess it depends how you look at it--is it a festive time of year for a birthay, or a time of year when your birthday may fall second to the festive season.  Guess it's like asking if the cup is half full or half empty LOL!  So tell me,  do any of you have birthday's coming up in the next little while, and what is your perspective on this?

Shaken, not stirred

It's now about 3 weeks to Christmas!  Are you all going crazy getting ready?  Parties, shopping, hostess gifts, thank you cards, Christmas card, baking, more baking, eating the baking, having to do more baking LOL!  It all leads up to the big day with the elaborate dinner and dancing around the tree singing carols (or is that just my family?).  I have a feeling my blog posts will be dwindling over the next few weeks - my apologies in advance!

So much of the fun of Christmas doesn't happen on the actual day, but in the days and weeks leading up to it....between the aforementioned Christmas parties, gatherings, eating, drinking, shopping, and planning a lot of the joy of Christmas, I think, is the anticipation and the social season....and then in January we (and our credit cards) recuperate and start dieting.

This card was once that I was really happy with, the image is a Stampingbella one called Christmatini.  I coloured it with my copics and accented with Spica glitter pens, then used Crystal Effects over the glass.  The embossed ornament paper in the background was made using a Cuttlebug folder that was first inked up and then run through.  A bit of SU DP, scalloped, for interest, and then another layer.  The layout is loosely based on one from OCC that I used at Halloween and that had been floating in my head since.

I've got lots of ideas in my mind, speaking of which, for all kinds of cards, I wish I had the time to make them all!  But for now, off to take care of all those other things we talked about (oh yah, and that thing called work LOL!). :-)

Cheers!

Ink, Ink, Ink

This card was made with an older retired SU set that I NEVER use, and now I've got ideas coming out of my head for it, and there is a story behind that.

I had some family members over recently for a girls craft day, and started out by explaning all the inks on the counter--use the Memento for this, the Versafine for that, the Versamark for this other thing, the Encore for that other thing....their eyes were glazing over!  It wasn't that long ago I only had a handful of ink pads, now I have a drawer.

When I got this image I only had SU black ink, and it was really hard to get defnition out of it, and a nice clear stamped image, so it had been relegated to the back of the cupboard.  On this particular day, my MIL pulled it out and stamped the image with the Versafine (these ladies are quick learners!) and when I saw it I was WOWED!  What a difference!  So then, of course, I had to stamp and create with it :-)

The background is Razzleberry sprayed with Tattered Angels Walnut gold glimmer spray.  I sponged three colours of ink to get the antique look - saffron closest to the centre, cocoa on the outside, and creamy caramel in between the two.

I made another of those snowflakes I've been doing lately (see earlier posts for details) glitzed up with some ink on the edges and liquid pearls and a Basic Grey pearl in the centre.

So, my challenge to you is to look in your cupboard at stuff you haven't used in a while, and which might work better for you today (as compared to when you first got it) when used with the other supplies and techniques that you now have.