Meowy holidays

 I’ve been enjoying unearthing my craft room, it is almost heartbreaking to see all the stamps and supplies which have been gathering dust.  I wonder if I will ever use it all?  

What has not been a joy is figuring out how to blog again....I need to set up a new "photo corner" so you don't see my scratched paint, I need to download a new app to edit and add watermarks to photos.  I did manage to update the colours on my blog itself, but couldn't do a lot of edits without losing key elements.  Luckily I didn't break it in the endeavour!

This card features another LOTV image.  Sadly I don't know the name of the stamp, I looked in my email for the receipt but could not locate.  The stamp itself is just plain grey rubber with no sponge / sticky backing so I had to employ the "lick and stick" method (no worries, no spit involved lol!) to stamp it, and it did take about 4 tries to get a good stamp.  This was not aided by the wobbly folding table that moves underneath when I employ force--still debating if I will take over the kitchen table and island again, the island was the perfect height and so solid for crafty things!

It's coloured with Copics.  I love colouring with my copics and can not imagine making cards otherwise.  I do have chalks, watercolour crayons, watercolour pallets, and pencils, however do not enjoy any of those the way I do my markers.   I'm thrilled that after so many years my copics are doing so well.  However it did cause me to appreciate that might not last forever.  I completed an inventory -- I have about 200 copics, and about 130 ink refills.  That means at some point I will be down 70 markers.  I spent yesterday hunting refills, which is surprisingly challenging.  Amazon wants to charge $30 per refill (crazy!), Ebay wants $16 shipping per marker (I emailed the vendor to see if that could be fixed, he has not responded), Online retailer in US took an order but it's on hold pending their shipping review as I am in Canada.  Finally found Curry's in Canada and ordered a few, but then somehow saw I managed to order a black 100 and 3 of the blending formula (?????) not sure how that happened, sent them a note to see if they can refund that/cancel that.  Yikes!  If not I'll be experimenting with many techniques to use up blending formula lol..... Anyway, the hunt for copic refills is on!

Crisp Christmas

I liked my earlier white on white card, so I thought I'd do another, this one dressed up with a lace border around the image.

The image is an older one by Elisabeth Bell.  All paper is Staples and colouring is with Copics.

Challenges: 

Elphine House - Christmas in July

Elisabeth Bells World - Christmas

Merry Christmas

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Christmas Tree Decoration

Such a festive time, with sparkling lights and colourfully decorated trees....This year I decided to try using some of those plastic hollow ornament balls I got on clearance last boxing day from Micheals, and make my own ornament.

I love how it came out, but have to confess it was a lot of work to get the image in there just right....picture me with tweezers trying to move it around while hubby holds the plastic ball thing....

The main image is a digi by Paper Garden Projects. which I printed twice, once the "normal" way, and once flipped to be it's mirror image (Using Silhouette software).  The printed, handcut and coloured with Copics.  The background circle (image also from Paper Garden Projects) was printed from the printer on to an Acetate sheet, then after it dried I rubbed gold ink on the edges.  The 2 images were then glued on either side of it.  All that wasn't the hard part, as mentioned, getting it in to the ball just so was.  After that I added some glitter stuff in to the ball to float around the bottom, and some ribbon treatment on the mouth/top of the ball.

After all that effort it's a good thing that the final product looked good!

Christmas Village

It is really fun playing with my new Silhouette and seeing what can be built using the digital die cuts.

Here is the start of a Christmas Village I'm planning, the first house being built using a house template in the Glitter and Memories digi pack at the DigiChick.

This was surprisingly easy to make.  First, I printed the pieces using my Silhouette on to SU Coordinations card stock, then pressure embossed the roof and main body pieces, and quickly sanded.  Folded them and glued everything together and added a Robins Nest dew drop for a door handle.  It was, really, shockingly easy for something so neat looking :-)

The nice thing is that the roof is a lid that opens and closes, so you can put one of those fake, battery operated tea lights in there, which looks really cool on the mantel :-)

DVD Gift Bag

Here's a fun project I put together using my Silhouette using digi papers and images.  It was quick and easy and a nice break from colouring, and better yet, get's me a nice packaging for a Christmas gift.

I put together a tutorial to make this which you can see at the Hybrid Chick, following this link:  http://www.thehybridchick.com/2012/12/dvd-gift-box/

The papers and materials are by Paper Garden Projects.

Card Caravan - Holidays

Happy Sunday!  The holidays are rapidly approaching so the Hybrid Chicks have pulled together some lovely cards and projects featuring the holidays for the current Card Caravan.

Here are some cards I made for the challenge (you know I LOVE holiday cards, LOL!)

This first one features digital stamps from the stamp set Wish List Letter to Santa Bundle by Etc by Danyale.  To dress it up I put glossy accents over the stars, white craft ink over the embossed background panel, and then a little bit of a cotton swab glued to Santa's hat.

This second one uses paper from the Sugar Sands Christmas Beach Bundle by Etc by Danyale, sentiment from Christmas Foliage Digital Stamp Set by Paper Garden Projects, racoon from Loving Critters Digital Stamp Set by Paper Garden Projects, and Poinsettia made from Christmas Foliage Digital Stamp Set by Paper Garden Projects

This last coordinates  Snow Flurry Cut Outs by Paper Garden Projects, Tis the Season by Wishing Well Creations, The Merriest by Elise’s Pieces.

We hope you'll join us and play along.  The challenge is open to both cards and projects and is open for 2 weeks.  Please share with us the lovely holiday creations you are working on at the Hybrid Chicks challenge page.

I'm entering these cards in the following challenges:
Craftymess challenge - Vintage Christmas
One stop craft challenge - Christmas friends
Speedy and Friends - Red and Green
Card Crafters Circle - December Celebrations
Emergency crafter - Deck the halls
Critter Sketch - Christmas anything goes
Love to Create - Holiday Cheer

New Releases at the DigiChick - Christmas!

Happy Thursday!  I always start to perk up around this time of the week since I know the weekend is around the corner :-). And for me it's kind of like friday since tomorrow I get to go on a course instead of to the office---I will get to wear jeans instead is a skirt, yay!

Anyway, another good thing about Thursdays, I've discovered is new releases at the Digichick, and today I've got some creations to share featuring the new Christmas Retrospective set by Quirky Twerp.

Recycling yogurt containers

So, that time is here where we are trying to put together gifts, both large and small, for all those people in our lives.  The malls are busy, and so are our craft rooms!

I have a few projects I've come up with over the years and recently that work well for me for Christmas gifts, and today I wanted to share with you a cute little decorating container that can be used to hold change, paperclips, or a plant, whatever the need is....and more importantly, it's made with stuff from around the house!

I've prepared a detailed tutorial, which is posted at the Hybrid Chick site, I hope you will check it out.  And of course, if you have any questions or need more details, please let me know.

And here's another finished picture of it, holding a plant (ok, I made a "new" plant for this with clippings, I hope they take!)

I have a couple of other projects coming up to share with you for quick and easy gifts, but would you take to time to fill in the little survey on the side, or in the comments, let me know what types of home made gifts you are making this year?

Got my Silhouette!

Finally, after weeks of waiting, the postman delivered my Silhouette...Yay!!!   I was very excited to pull it out of it's box, and immediately had to find something to do with it LOL!

Lucky enough, I had a chance to play with a new set of vintage Christmas Ephemera from Quirky Twerp at the Digichick shop, that I was able to quickly and easily set up a cut file for in the Silhouette, so I could show off to hubby the neat print and cut features of the machine.

To make the background, I used a digi paper/shape from the  Valentine Retrospect scrapbooking set, also by Quirky Twerp (am I not creative??!  who else would be using Valentine papers for a Christmas card LOL!)

After printing and cutting the base and the puppy, I simply embellished with some ribbon, dew drop, and the punched holly is from a Martha Stewart punch.

Best news--it only took about 15m to put it together!  I love colouring, but sometimes I also love not having to colour :-)

I'm entering this in the following challenges:

Creative Cutting Challenge - Christmas card (using digital files)

Forever Friends Challenge - use ribbon

The Paper Girls Challenge - Christmas or Winter

Designing with the Hybrid Chick

Today I have a couple of cards to share with you featuring digital goodies from the Digichick.  I am excited to share with the news that I am now part of their Hybrid Chick design team!  Yay!  Here are the first couple of cards I made experimenting with the digital images and papers:

The first one, above, uses the doodle border, Dear Santa letter and the stars from the Wish List Letter to Santa Bundle.  I laid the items out on my page in the computer using the MDS software, and then sent to print.  I added some red sparkly stickles over the stars, added the holly leaves (Martha Stewart punch) and made the envelope, then layered all together.

This second one was actually very easy and fun, and something quite different than I have done before.  I used the digital kit called Sugar Sands Christmas Beach Bundle.  There are a ton of cool digital papers there, but the thing is, I haven't used digital papers, so I wasn't sure if my printer would do an adequate job, or if this was really going to work for me, but I have to say, apart from the brown base layer in the card, the rest of the card was all made using one sheet of card stock (I used Aquabee marker paper).  And everything coordinates!  The flower, the leaves, the sentiment, the vintage image, and the background paper all came from that kit.  So nice to not have to dig through my craft room to find that perfect sheet of paper or that perfect prima!  For the leaves and flower, I printed them, cut out (by hand) and then shaped on a mat and layered on the card, adding a button and some ribbon to dress it up.

Anyway, I know that many of you, my crafty friends, haven't tried using digital images yet, and I am planning a little tutorial on how to use the digital images using different software.  I tend to use MDS now, but all of what I did could have been done in Word, which most folks already have on their computers, so let me know what types of things you'd like a tutorial on with some step by step photos and I will put something together for you :-)

And also, a huge shout out thank you to Laurie at Doodle Pantry for helping me out with getting my watermark edited to integrate with the Hybrid Chick one.  If you ever need a custom watermark, Laurie is the go to person!

I am entering the following challenges with these cards:
Robyn's fetish - make it vintage
Just keep on creating - Christmas
Simon Says stamp and show - stamp without ink
The Pink elephant - punches and dies
Speedy Fox/Marks Finest - pop up (hard to see in the photos, but several pop up dots used on both cards.

October Blog Hop - Heartfelt Creations Alumni

Today we've got a short Heartfelt Creations Alumni blog hop going, with a prize available, so we hope you'll join us and hop along :-)  You should have come here from Olga's site, and if you would like the jump to the beginning, go on over to Dina's blog.

This card was pretty quick and easy to make, and features the Poinsettia 2 PreCut Set from HC, which coordinates with Spellbinders 2011 Heirloom Ornaments die cut.

Here is the order of the blog hop - it is a short one this month!

Dina Kowal - mamadinis.blogspot.com

Tesa Broman http://tesasscrap.blogspot.com

Olga - http://craftieodamae.blogspot.com 

Kristina - You are here!

Linda http://paynehollercards.blogspot.com

The hop will close Friday November 2nd at midnight EST, so hop along and leave comments with each of the ladies between now and then for your chance to win a $25 gift certificate to shop at Heartfelt Creations.  The winner will be announced on Saturday November 3rd.


UPDATE:  The random draw for the bloghop has been done and the random winner is Lisa808.  Congratulations, Lisa!  
We have sent you an email with details, if you don't get it for any reason, send me an email.

Ho Ho Ho

Ho Ho Ho!  I may not have been all that creative today, but I've been finding some Christmas gifts for myself!  To share with you, are a couple more unposted projects.  Plus I found a long forgotten stash of charms, dimensionals and double sided tape in my craft room, yay!

So here is yet another unposted project, this one from a couple of years ago, don't know why I never posted it for you, but here you go, I hope it inspires some fun holiday decorating:  

The cute birdhouse was made using a template I found it here.  I cut it out of Kraft paper, and sprayed the box with Walnut Gold Tattered Angels glimmer spray.  The bird is a Heartfelt Creations stamp, that was coloured with Copics then cut out with a coordinating die cut.  I made the decoration over the "door" by stamping an HC image, colouring it, adding glossy accents as well as 3 rhinestones.  I cut the roof using green coordinations paper, embossed it, then sanded it. 

Next, a super quick and easy card:

Here I used an SU digi set, printed it, cut out with A2 Card Creator dies, and added some airbrushing.  Easy peasy!

We'll see what tomorrow brings, hopefully some really fabulous fresh creations....(either that or cleaning the kitchen, hmm.....)

Easy night scene

Happy Saturday!  I hope you have all been enjoying a good weekend.

Today hasn't been particularly inky, I just couldn't decide what to work on!  First I dug out all my favourite pretty papers that are too precious to use, and thought about making something with them, and then I went and looked at some new die cuts that I got and haven't used, and then decided I needed to make some boxes to hold my cards and went through the tutorials at SCS.....not the most productive day!  

Anyway, I don't have anything new made today to share....my sample box to hold cards is a bit wonky, and I think I'll scrap this first 'prototype" and just move on to the next one.  I do have a couple of things to share with you though.

First up, I was digging through my blog trying to find a picture of this cute container I had decorated, which I could not find anywhere on my blog, so here it is (again?)...

The flower was stamped using a Heartfelt Creation stamp and cut out using the coordinating die cut.  I added some extra snips with my scissors, shaped it and then layered on top of this container, decorating with flower soft and gala glitz and robins nest due drops.  The base container is from a container of body butter, which i peeled the labels off of and ran through the dishwasher (got to love recycling/repurposing!)

Secondly, here is a card I made recently that hadn't made it up here yet.

I've seen a lot of similar cards to this in the SU gallery and decided to CASE them since I love the peacefulness of the night scene.  The deer was printed using a digi from SU, then I stamped the trees in the background, masked the moon area with a punched circle and airbrushed the rest.  the lovely border is made using one of the A2 card creator dies by Spellbinders.

Wish me luck tomorrow, hopefully I will be more purposeful in my craft room and actually make something LOL!

Christmas Roses

Christmas is only two months away!!!   I have started working on more Christmas cards so that I am ready this year, and unlike prior years, this time I'm actually going to mail the cards before New Years LOL!

This is a Flourishes image featuring Christmas roses.  It's been coloured with Copics.  All layers were die cut with the A2 Card Creator dies by Spellbinders, except for the sentiment,

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:
Flourishes - Winter Inspiration
 ABC Christmas Challenge - U is up to you
Totally Paper Crafts - Christmas
Hiding in my craft room - Die Cuts
Fussy and Fancy - Anything goes

Christmas Window Scene

Here are a couple more cards that I made with my Grand Madison Window die.  This die was a birthday gift from my family, and I have had a lot of fun creating different cards with it, some looking outside, and these ones looking inside.

In this one (above) I stamped the tree using Tim Holtz Walnut distress ink, and heat embossed with clear embossing  powder, then coloured with green Copics.  used copics and sponging to add colour in the background of the tree.  When dry embossing the background brick wall, I first inked the embossing folder with black craft ink.  The curtains are made using some lace from the fabric store.  I've added red liquid pearls to the nose of the deer.

In this second card, I stamped the tree using green ink, and then sponged green colour over it, and then just added colour to some key ornaments with Copics.  The rest is pretty much the same as the other one.

I'm entering these cards in the following challenges:
 Flourishes - Winter Inspiration
 Christmas Card Challenge - Bows
Jingle Belles - Holiday Creatures
ABC Christmas Challenge - U is up to you
Totally Paper Crafts - Christmas
Hiding in my Craft room - Die Cuts

Festive forest

Here is another similar card to the last, however I decided to try balancing out the layout with another embellishment on the side and to use the holly leaves rather than the flourishes.  I think this came out more balanced than the other one.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp & Show - Your favourite ....Graphic 45 papers

Gina K - Friday challenge - Christmas card with Distressing

ABC Christmas Challenge - U is for up to you 

Anything goes - make your own embellishment (the poinsettia)
Through the craft room door - anything goes

Distressed Xmas card

The week is passing by, and I've been wanting to play with a few of the challenges this week before they expired!  Here is another simple Christmas card, which is standard mailing size but glitzed up with pretty homemade embellishments, heat embossing, and gorgeous papers.

The image is from Gina K, a set called Tree Silhouettes.  The paper is my very favourite paper of all time, Graphic 45 Christmas Emporium (must have bought about 6 of these paper packs!!), the flower was made using my trusty Spellbinders dies, and the flourish is a Cheerie Lynn one, I believe.

The trees were stamped first in Vintage Sepia Versafine, and then the top tree was stamped in Versamark and then heat embossed with Copper embossing powder.  The edges have been distressed with scissors and some brown craft ink.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp & Show - Your favourite ....Graphic 45 papers

Gina K - Friday challenge - Christmas card with Distressing

ABC Christmas Challenge - U is for up to you 

Anything goes - make your own embellishment (the poinsettia)

Faux layers

Ha ha, success!  After two failed tries last night I managed to create a beautiful faux layer card.  

At the GinaK stamp TV site they have a challenge to create a faux layer card using a die cut to create a stencil.  I've done this before, but not in quite a while.  Here are my findings:

  1.  You need to use good quality card stock that is sturdy.  Here I'm using Neenah 110lb Solar Crest and it's still too flimsy to be a really good card.  Definitely don't use your cheap Staples paper for this.

 2.  Further to the above point, trying to heat emboss (which I did here) on a single layer card, unless the paper is really fabulous (like the GinaK 120lb) is asking for challenges since it slightly warps the paper.

3.  When you are doing a card like this and dealing with ink be really careful, since it's easy to smear or get an inky finger tip mark on the edge.  On busy multi layer cards with lots of embellies it's easy to hide those oopsies under something, but here there is no forgiveness.

4.  Craft ink sponges on smoother and softer than regular die ink, with a much nicer finish.

So, to make this card I created a stencil using a Spellbinders die.  Then I sponge on navy craft ink (SU).  I stamped the trees using Tim Holtz Black Soot Distress Ink, then put clear embossing powder over that and heat set.  I used a tiny paintbrush to add pearly white paint to it and let it dry, then added some ribbon and edging from the fabric store.

I'm entering this in the following Challenges:

GinaK Stamp TV - Faux layers

Simon Says Stamps: World Card Making Day

Charisma Cards - Bada Bling
Less is More - Silver

Woodland Ornament

So, world card making day wasn't the biggest card making day for me, but I do have another creation to share, this one Christmas themed.

The dies used are all Spellbinders, and stamp is Gina K.  I used Neenah Solar White 110lb.

I started off this card with the intention of playing along with the Gina K challenge today to do a faux layer.  I've done this several times in the past, since it is great for quick cards that are mailable, however the first attempt (this one) I stamped the trees properly on the left side, but when I went to add a few more on the right I stamped them side ways LOL!  So I put a layer overtop to hide it, which actually looks better I think anyway.

Unfortunately, then, this card didn't qualify for that challenge, so I started again, and then smeared the trees when trying to spread glitter, and so for now, I decided to move on.

I am though, entering this card in these following challenges:

Joans Garden - Create a christmas scene using a stamp, a die, and at least one tree
Little Miss Muffet - Simplicity
Simon Says Stamps: World Card Making Day