Christmas cards this year

Sending Christmas cards must be 

a dieing tradition these days.

Last year we got a total of 3, WOW

I couldn't believe it.

So I vowed this year that I wasn't going

to send any. However, I decided

to send just a handful to

those that I knew would

appreciate them since they

are hand made.

The paper is from SVGCuts. com

I tweaked it a bit to make it more

personal by adding a sign to 

the door panel with our name on it.

There are red sequins on the tail lights and

some Mid Podge dimensional for the

headlights. A touch of Wink of Stella

on the tree and a star on the top.

I thought they came out pretty cute.

Recent Projects

Life has been hectic for the past several months

and I've not had much time to spend

crafting. But I have finally been able

to get back to it come.

This first one is actually one I did

for shutting my crafting down, and

I think it is one of my favorites.

I love that little rabbit in the wagon!

I had acquire a few new stamps during this

busy time and I was able to finally

crack them out and make use of them.

Got to love those little dogs.

And here is a set that I just acquired with

a Southwest tone.  See the little

squirrel peeking around the pot??

Been busy lately

 I am so loving these stamps

from Art Impressions.....

I can't seem to stop 

myself!

Then I had to remind myself that

I can still just watercolor some

of my other stamps....

More stamps

I can't seem to help myself

when it comes to the

AI stamps.

I ordered a few more and 

began playing.

It allows me to mix and match

with the ones I already have.

This chair reminds me of

my grandparents' front porch.

Good memories.

Playing around..

Since I'm playing with

watercolors lately

I decided to color with them.

This was a quick card one morning, just 

playing around, but

I like the way it came out.

Watercolors and other things

I kept thinking about the gate stamp

and a little kitten in front of it.  I decided

to give it another try and make a card

for a friend.

I am tickled with this one, I thought

it came out real cute.

Then one of the FB pages that

I am a member on issued a

challenge for a summer based card.

This is what I came up with.

Don't you just love that tube lady!

My versions of MFT dies

My Favorite Things came out with

some new dies recently and

I thought they were pretty cool

So I went into Design Space (the new version)

and created my knock-offs.

I'm please with the way they came out.

A couple of different options

I love watercolor, but I not

good at it.  I am too OCD to

lose control of the paint....well, it's true.

But what I have found is

something pretty awesome.

Art Impressions has a 

series of stamps that

help, A LOT.

I've ordered several sets

and purchased additional

markers to give me a 

better finish.

But the above card was done with 

the Zig Clear Colors that I had. I

made it for a friend who had surgery

on her knee and she also has

several cats.

I was pleased with the results.

Now these two were done for 

our granddaughters that have

birthdays coming up.  My

husband asked me to 

make some this year instead

of him buying some.

I used some purchased graphics along with

some Cricut images. Used print

and cut on the Explore and

I think they came out rather cute.

Graphically speaking

I think I may have mentioned it before,

but I love graphics.

I purchased some the other day

and came up with this card.

I love the flowers and the colors.

And I love the fact that I can print these

out on my Cricut Explore and 

cut the with my ScanNCut.

You may wonder why I don't do that

with the Explore....well

the SNC allows me to 

all that 1/4 margin around

the items which

I love.

Simple card, cool clean spring colors.

Using Distress Oxide Inks

The big thing lately has been

the new Distress Oxide inks 

from Tim Holtz.

They have been so popular

that it was impossible to 

get them since everyone

seemed to be out of stock.

So I waited......

When I was finally able to find some,

I ordered only 4 colors to start with.

Give it a try and see if I wanted to use

these.  I do....

At some point I will probably

order some more colors, but

I'm happy with these right now.

Not only is the background done with them,

but I used them to stamp the butterfly

as well.

Something old and something new

I pulled out some paper that I've had

for a couple of years and not used plus

a few accessories. 

I found inspiration (as always)

on Pinterest and put this one

together.  I thought it 

came out cute....and maybe

more of a masculine card.

I ordered some stamps that I found on Scrapbook.com

by Art Impressions.  I watched several

YouTube videos using these and I 

couldn't wait to give it a try.

Stamped with watercolor pens and

use a damp (not wet) blush to

pull out the color and move it around.

I got to say, I am IN LOVE with this process.

So much so, that I had to order new

more stamps this morning.

This is about the 'only' way I will ever be 

able to watercolor!

Inspiration from others.

We always find inspiration from others, here are just

a few cards done recently where others inspired me.

I saw a video (forgotten her name) where

someone had this butterfly stamp.  I thought

it was so cute, I just had to order it.  It came

with the die cut as well. I used the Circle Scribble Flowers

from MFT for the flowers.  I popped the

wings up on the butterfly and added a 

few accents just for fun.

I've seen cards  everywhere with this style.

I ordered some inks at the end of last week

and they finally arrived.  I decided to give

this a try.  I have only a few stamps that

are styled this way, where you stamp on

top of each other in different layers of

colors to come up with the image.

After stamping the images I ran them through

my Brothers ScanNCut to cut around them. Some

glued down and some popped up with a twine bow 

and a few pearls to finish it off.

I found inspiration for this card from

a post on a Facebook page by

Birgit Edblom.  I loved her layout

but wanted to tweak it a little

to fit my own style.

I love it and think it came out

quite cute.

I like the way all of them came out.

Trying different things

We all get in a rut from time to 

time and I decided to do some different

things.  I hadn't used

my Faber Castell pencils in a while

so I pulled those out to 

do this card. Plus

I used a sentiment from

a stamp set that I had

not used in a good while.

This one, I found inspiration

from Pinterest and used my Cricut Explore

to cut out the birds, limb and circle.  The sweet

is a die set that I triple cut to give some depth.

With Wink of Stella and sequins I added 

a little pop.

I had used this flower die on a 

card once before but I wanted to

do something a little different.

I used just the outside of the

die and didn't mess with

the inner pieces like before.

Added it to a tag and with a little

ink on the edges.  Put some backing

paper and added it to the card.

Very simple but cute.

Graphically speaking

So, I love graphics, well, ok, I love fonts too.

My major source is TheHungryJPEG.com 

for both of these.  They have a current

package of graphics that is available that I

simply could not resist.

It is something different for me and

I think it came out pretty.

Simple and not so simple

I just wanted to do a simple little

card so I decided to do some

simple stamping. I off set it

and added a few sequins.

Now, this was the not so simple

one.  I purchased the Hyacinth planter

file from DreamingTree.com

because I fell in love with it.

Actually, it wasn't really that hard to do,

just a lot of curling of paper for the flowers.

I think it came out cute.

Got behind on my posting.

I decided to crank out the Explore and use

the images that are available to 

me.  I cut the circles out and 

put the images behind them.

Just some simple cards, but

I thought they came out cute.

Here's a flower.

I ordered the Altenew set 'Magnolias for Her'

and it finally came.

I love that stamp set, so pretty.

I wanted to use stamps only so I pulled out a

couple of sets and picked one to use and

got to stamping.  It came out cute I think.  The

sentiment looks better than the picture shows.

I found another floral set after a 

trip to Hobby Lobby.

Used my Zigs and colored it in.

Simple but cheery.

Challenging myself...

My inspiration was to go with

flowers.  I started out with one card and

decided to challenge myself

to see if I couldn't make a few

cards using the same paper

on each one.

So, 5 colors of card stock, 3 pinks and 2 greens.

I turned on the Explore and found

several flowers that I liked.

This first one I decided to cut the stems

of the flowers out of the white and put

the green cardstock behind so it would

show thru the shapes of stems and leaves.

The flower shapes went on top, a little

bit of pink and white string. The grass

die on the darker green.  'Thanks' out

of both greens (for shading) with a bit of

Wink of Stella in the center

of the flowers and I called this one done.

2 greens on the leaves and stem, grass, 

2 pinks on the hyacinth and 'shine'

and pink and green for the butterfly.

I put Wink of Stella on the darker pink 

to give it a shimmer and added 3

pearls.

This one I added the ribbon and sequins

and called it done!

All in all, came out pretty cute I think.

Just paper

I found some inspiration from Pinterest

and decided to see with I could do

just using paper....no paint, no pencils, etc.

doing different folds.

I'm pretty happy with what I came

out with. I used a regular A2

top folding card, turned it on it's side

and went from there.

The sentiment will go in the 

middle in the top card.

Laurel Burch

I have loved Laurel Burch for years, I have

several pairs of earrings of her designs

and I use to have a purse as well.

I came across this stamp set and knew

when I saw it that I just had to have it.

I played around with the coloring

of the cats...the one on the top left

is with colored pencils

and gamsol.

Top right, is with

Copic markers, which

I don't have a lot of.

The bottom two are with 

Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors.

The colors are bright, as required by

her designs, but I wasn't happy with

the 'finish' and blending of colors.

Then I decided to try my Prismacolor

Premier Water-soluble pencils.

I like the results, I was able to blend

the colors before I even started adding

the water, giving me a much

smother transition of colors.

This one, I made for a friend!

On a roll.....

So, I'm getting back into the swing of

card making.  Still trying to do some 

different things along the way.

First up, I decided to buy a Brothers ScanNCut

mainly to be able to use my stamps and cut 

around them without spending a 

fortuning on buying their matching dies.

The wheat stalk on the left side was my

first trial at doing this.  It came out

great and I wanted to use it.

The card is navy and the paper on the left

has touches of blue/navy in it. So I thought

the pops of blue on the 'laugh' and flowers

were perfect.

Now this one, I have to admit, is my favorite

of all time.

I had seen someone do this embossing technique

with gold embossing powder and fell in love

with it.  I had to give it a try!

I ordered some gold embossing powder

and gave it a shot.

WOW!!

I love this card, it is one a the

prettiest ones I've ever made, IMHO.

I had ordered a new peony die and decided to 

do something a bit different with it.  Instead

of tossing the pieces of the petals I took them

and used watercolor on them.  I put 

them back together (rather like doing a

puzzle) and this is how it came out.

Ok, so I may have been buying a few new

things lately.....here's a new stamp

set I purchased from Stampendous 'Build a Bouquet'.

Again, using my ScanNCut to cut around

the pieces I came up with two separate

cards.  Both using my Zig Clean Colors

Brush pens.

The first one is my favorite I think, but 

both are nice.