Twisted Thursday--Tin or Foil

The S2G Twisted Thursday Challenge was to use the provided sketch and add the twist of tin or foil. I love the look of embossed foil so I pulled out this snowflake embossing folder. I usually fold my foil in half and then in half again before running it through my Big Shot and embossing it, I think it gives it just a little more strength and body and makes it a little easier to work with. My Snow man image is from Shirley's 2 Girls and was colored with Copics. I added a little Liquid Applique on the gloves and some Crystal Snow glitter on his body. I then cut out the image and used pop dots for some dimension. The big chunky glitter at the bottom is from Martha Stewart and the snowflake rhinestones came from the dollar bin at Jo-Ann's. The sentiment is from a Studio G set and was embossed with white embossing powder. Like I said, I really like the look of the embossed foil, but it isn't the easiest thing to take a picture of! No matter what angle or lighting I use, I end up with light spots. That's okay, it looks great IRL!

Tomorrow night is Craft Night at church, so if you are in the area, make sure you join us. The only thing I will be working on is my Christmas cards. I did get an early start this year but there are several more on my list. I don't make a lot of the same design usually. One reason is that I get bored making the same thing over and over and the other reason is that I have so many Christmas images that I try to use as many as I can. I have several friends that collect snowmen so I have made several with this image. Thanks for visiting with me!

Gift Box

I had a need for some small gift boxes and started out altering a box I already had but the gift items I wanted to put in there were just a little squished. To solve that problem, I made my own box. I used this digi image from Shirley's 2 Girls don't forget they are having a DT Call, info is here)and colored it with Copic markers. The sprinkles on the cupcake are micro glass beads and the marshmallows are the punch out of the embossed snowflake around the border of the lid. I used a Martha Stewart border punch that embosses and punches out snowflakes. Here's a slightly better shot of the lid:
And what did I want to put in my little box? Some K-cups for the Keurig coffee maker, one of each of the holiday flavors. I have it on good authority that Santa may be bringing me one of these for Christmas!

Banjo Playing Riley

Good evening! I found a new sketch challenge site and decided to play along. It is called Delightful Sketches and can be found here. While I was gone last week, I spent some time coloring with my niece Zoie and this was one of the first images she wanted to stamp and color. We each did our own version of Riley but she took off with hers before I could take a picture. I used the sketch at Delightful Sketches to make this card. I started with this plaid paper from DCWV and pulled the rest of my colors from there. Riley was stamped with Memento ink and colored with Copic markers onto Gina K paper. The belt stamp is from CTMH and was stamped with CTMH Desert Sand ink and then distressed with some powder from Making Memories. The buttons are some assorted buttons that were sitting in a jar on my desk, most are from American Crafts, I think. I used twine on the large button and the other buttons have very thin pieces of paper threaded through them. Thanks for all the comments on my last post and for the good wishes regarding the DT call, it really means a lot to me!

I don't know about where you are, but it is COLD here today! Last week I could still wear short sleeves and today I wore a long sleeved thermal knit shirt and still froze to death! I hate wearing a coat, I will wear a couple of shirts just to keep from wearing a jacket. I guess it is time for cold weather since we are closing out November. We sat down and made out Christmas shopping list tonight. So far we have exactly one present bought and a lot more to go. Thanks for stopping by tonight!

A Good Place for a Nap

This pretty much sums up my philosophy in life since I am a big fan of naps! Shirley's 2 Girls is having a design team call and you can read all the information here. Since I have been having so much fun with their stamps and playing along with their Twisted Thursday challenge, I decided to submit my projects and hope for the best! They provided a sketch for us to follow and gave us the twist of using Paper Piecing on our project. I thought this chair would be the perfect thing for the paper piecing part of the challenge. I stamped the image directly onto the striped paper and then cut it out and added the silver brads to the chair arms. Then I stamped the image twice onto white paper, on one, I colored the dog and cut it out and the other became my main image panel. The circles were cut out with Nestabilities and I ran the smaller one through the Big Shot with a Swiss Dots folder. The ribbon is actually a stamp from Clear Dollar Stamps, from a set called Embellish It. I haven't done a lot of paper piecing, but recently I found some small, very sharp scissors which makes cutting out those pieces a lot easier. so I think I might try it a little more often.  Supplies used: main stamp image from Shirley's 2 Girls, paper and card stock are DCWV, brads are from Jo-Ann's, CB Swiss Dots folder, circle Nestabilities and ribbon stamp is from CDS.

Gift Tags

These are the gift tags that I made for my Secret Sister Swap with the Designing DIVAS group. I used these adorable little images from Stampendous and colored them with Copic markers. The tags were cut our using a Sizzix tag die and I used some paper from Making Memories, it is just a little bit darker than regular kraft paper and I really like the color. I am almost out of it though! I used torn paper to make the snow and then stamped some snowflakes from a Martha Stewart set and embossed them with a holographic embossing powder from Ranger. To finish them, I added some ribbon that I got at Jo-Anns. The to and from stamps are on the back. Every year I think about making gift tags and never do. I had fun making these so I think I will actually make more this year for my own Christmas gifts. 

I am back from my vacation! I think this is the longest amount of time I have been gone from my house in a long time. We started out last Friday and headed to my parent's house. Saturday morning, we got up early and went to eat breakfast with my Dad while mom slept in. Then we headed to South Carolina with an extra passenger than was originally planned. My eleven year old niece wanted to come with us. After we found the place where my class was going to be and went back to the hotel, Zoie was begging to stamp and color with me so I stamped her several images. She decided very quickly that she really liked my markers! By the end of the week, she was coloring and said "Now, I know what I am going to ask for for Christmas!". I just apologized to my brother for introducing her to Copics. 

The next morning we headed to stamp store. Wow, what a day! I learned a lot in the class, some completely new things and several things that just added to some techniques that I already knew. Overall, it was definitely worth the driving time and cost. There was a lot of information presented in a short amount of time! I also saw two women that I had met at the Art Stamp Scrap Tour last year in Chattanooga, since I was so far away from home this time, I didn't think I would know anyone. so it was interesting to see people that I had met before. The store was awesome! They stocked the entire line of Sketch markers in addition to tons of other cool stuff. 

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We did. We alternate holidays with my family and my in-laws and if we are visiting my family we have dinners at my grandparents' house. They still do a lot of the cooking and then everyone else just brings sides and desserts. My contribution this year was just cranberry sauce, it was very good though and my hubby and Dad loved it!

Anyone do any Black Friday shopping? I went out with my mom, but not early, we went around lunch time. I didn't buy anything, but she lucked up on a couple of deals. Have a great rest of the weekend. I have missed my crafting space and plan on spending the majority of the day in there!

Non traditional Card

This card was another item I made for my Secret Sister swap. The challenge was to make a non traditional card. I decided to make a Crisscross fold card. I used DCWV Far East paper pack and card stock. The inside piece you pull out was made with the same purple paper as the outside, but I also attached a smaller piece of white so that you can write a message.

Christmas Tree Treat Box

One of the challenges in the Designing DIVAS blog group Secret Sister gift exchange was to make these Christmas Tree treat boxes. I loved them so much that I made a bunch of them! I was thinking that if you had a small table top tree that these would make a cute Advent type of activity. Each tree could be labeled with a number so they could be opened in sequence leading up to Christmas. The paper and ribbon both came from Hobby Lobby.

Dinner Party Invites

My friend Linda asked me if I could make some invitations for a dinner party that she and a friend are hosting. She wanted a single open invite, not a card and she wanted something with a little glitz and bling to it. Since she didn't need too many I was able to help her out and get them done before I left town. I am happy to report that she loved them! I didn't have a stamp that was quite what she was looking for so we started looking at some companies that have digital stamps and ended up with this one from Modern Sugar Blvd. I was glad she picked this one because it was one of my favorites too! We went to Hobby Lobby and she picked out the paper in the colors she wanted and then I went from there. The image was printed out on my Epson printer and then colored with Copics. I used a green Spica pen to color her earrings and some details on the purse. The center of each flower is a little rhinestone. I did blur out the personal information so that I would not be posting their address and phone number. Linda loved the invites and wanted to know if I was going to post them on my blog and I said yes, but that I would blur out the address and phone number, she just laughed and said it didn't matter, because it wasn't her phone! Of course she was just kidding. I hope she has a wonderful party.

Twisted Thursday--Ric Rak

Hello! First things first; Copic Certification this weekend! Now on to the card. This is my card for the Shirley's 2 Girls Twisted Thursday Challenge. The twist this week was to use add ric rak or ribbon to your card and to use the sketch provided. I love ric rak so this was a fun challenge, well they all are, but even more so this week. My circle with the ric rak border ended up being just a tad big, but I did follow the sketch. I started with this image from S2G called Bad Cat or Good Cat. Since we have three cats living in our house, the chance are pretty good that at least one of them is being a bad cat at any given moment, add in Christmas lights and then you probably have three bad cats! The image was colored with Copic markers to look like our cat Calvin and then I used a Sakura Glaze pen to color the lights.  I added ric rak around the circle and then used ribbon to make a bow at the top. Card stock is from my stash and the paper is from Target's Dollar Spot, not sure if you can tell or not, but some of the circles have glitter on them and it's very nice. 

I am headed out today to my Mom's and then the two of us are headed out on a girl's weekend to South Carolina. The Copic certification class is on Sunday and other than that, I am not sure what we are going to do. I am sure Mom will be looking for an antique store to shop in. I have a few things set to automatically post while I am gone and then I will probably add in some pictures from my trip here and there. 

Happy Birthday Kip!

Yesterday was my husband's birthday. We went out and ate with his family and some friends on Sunday and I have him his gifts then but I waited to give him his card until his actual birthday. Well, his actual birthday according to his Mom and the hospital where he was born. When he requested a copy of his birth certificate a year or so ago from the state of Texas they have him being born one week later, on the 25th rather than the 18th. I am going to go with his Mom's date, I think she would be the one to remember! Actually he said we could get him gifts for both dates or we could make it a week long celebration. So here is the card I made for him. I started with this image that I think is from an older Inkadinkado set. After stamping it, I colored everything with Copic markers and then covered the puddles with Glossy Accents. I love this paper from DCWV, I think the colors are just great. For the strip in the middle, I simply trimmed a piece of one of the green stripes. The buckle is a stamp from Clear Dollar Stamps, from a set called Embellish It. I embossed it with Expresso embossing powder and then cut it out and slid it onto the green strip. 

Wow, it's almost time for me to get up and get ready for work. I woke up around 2:30 and couldn't go back to sleep so I got up and started working on some craft stuff. I have cleaned my desk some, colored some imaged for some invitations that I am making, cut out some stuff and blogged about this card, all before it is time for me to actually get up. Work is going to be hard, because i will probably be ready to crash around 9:30! Thanks for visiting!