Christmas cheer

Hi all:

Yesterday was our Coffee Girl get-together.  I dearly love to hang out with these four friends.  I believe that it's because they have my best interests at heart.  They listen to me whine, forgive my faults, bolster my spirits, and encourage me when I feel inadequate. We have our favorite places to eat (Moe's, Ruby Tuesday's, Wegmans, Olive Garden) and our favorite places to go (the beach, Sara's, craft stores) and our favorite things to do (shop, craft, eat, bake, and gab).  We've created many memories together over the past few years and I, for one, hope it is just the beginning.

Most years, they are the ones creating fabulous Christmas cards and this year was no exception.  Rita's was a stunning pattern of embossed white snowflakes on a dark blue background - one of my favorite combinations. Susan's was a thermal coffee cup - the Starbucks take-out kind - and the lid pulled out to reveal the sentiment.  Extremely clever!  I don't usually do handmade cards, but this year I gave it a whirl.  Because I'm into the subway art, I decided to create a piece that highlighted who we are and what we do and like.  I had also found the All Is Bright line from My Mind's Eye when three of us went on an excursion to Archiver's in November.  So pretty and I was so anxious to play with it.  So, the subway art and All Is Bright came together to form this:

It's one of my favorite pieces ever and I had fun putting it together.  The girls seemed to enjoy getting them, which made all of the hard work worthwhile.  Here's a close up...

Tons of fun and good times wrapped up in this little card.

Have a warm, wonderful, merry Christmas season!

Kathy

Learning something new

Hi there!

I saw a card recently that I loved.  It had a piece of subway art on it.  Since I love the look of subway art, I decided to track down the stamp, scrapbook paper, or whatever the card's creator had used to make the subway art.  I had no luck.

While talking to a friend, she mentioned that she planned to make her own with her Photoshop program.  I didn't want to purchase Photoshop because I wasn't sure if I'd like it our how much I would use it.  In the end, I downloaded GIMP.  It works almost the same as Photoshop, but it's free.

There is a learning curve involved with this kind of a photo editing program.  My family can attest to the fact that I spent hours trying to figure out how to do this.  Finally, it was finished.  Looking back, there are some things I wish I'd done differently, but it turned out pretty well, I think.  My brain is full of ideas about how to take this newly acquired skill and run with it.

Anyway,  here is the completed card.

Came out pretty well, I thought.  Black and white isn't a typical color combination for Christmas, but in this case, it works.  I think the touches of red Stickles really added something to it - makes it a bit more Christmas-y.  :)

I've already created another piece of subway art, using the words from a famous Christmas carol.  I hope to post it soon.

Talk to you later!

Kathy

Tree Trimming...

Last Saturday was Crop Day at Michaels.  I decided to pick up a new Sizzix die and play with it.  I'd been toying with some ideas for this particular die and decided it was time to try it out.

I planned to make cards with this and, because it's a tree, I started playing with different patterns of green paper.  As I was cutting out the trees, I thought it would be cool to use the negative side of this die, too, so I made the first tree card using a negative.

I placed a glittery, embossed piece of green cardstock behind the shape of the cut-out tree, matted it, added the ribbon, and I was done.  

This one is using the negative method, too.  I glittered the card, placed the negative cut-out tree over the glitter and added the snowflakes made from Martha Stewart's Punch Around the Page set in the Aspen pattern.  

I used the actual tree on this one.  I did kind of an ombre glitter effect.  The ombre turned out really well, but this was a bit more time consuming.  I mounted it on an embossed mat reminiscent of swirling snow.  

As I was taking a picture of the last green card, Lucky decided to photobomb the picture.  This card has two cut out trees mounted on it - one cut out of a pattern, the other cut out of plain green cardstock - and then decorated with Stickles.  The snowflake pattern along the edge is a Martha Stewart punch.

By this time, I was getting a bit tired of green, so went with a couple of other color patterns.

What's Christmas without the red to go with the green?  :)  This card is a cut out tree mounted on a plain white card, embellished with Stickles, and tied with a glittery, red ribbon.

Again, a white tree mounted on a white mat, mounted on a white card.  Martha Stewart's turquoise and silver tinsel glitters add the sparkle here, as well as three colors of her fine glitter as embellishments.  

Off to play with paints today!  Enjoy those fall colors....  

Kath

Blessings!

Yesterday, I spent some time doing some paperwork.  Today, I need to send some of that paperwork to a friend.  I started to reach for a plain old business-sized envelope, but then I decided to make her a card instead.

I dug out all of my fall colors and some really cool fall stamps and went to work.  The stamps are by Inkadinkadoo and the colored papers are all by Bazzill and Core'dinations.

I colored the image with my Tim Holtz Distress Markers in Fired Brick, Vintage Photo, Wild Honey, and Spiced Marmalade.  With the inks still on the stamp, I lightly spritzed the stamp with some water from my
Mini-Mister.  Then, I stamped the image onto some watercolor paper.  After that dried, I tore the edges of the watercolor paper and set the stamped image aside.

I mounted the background colors on to the card - Scarlet by Core'dinations and Tangelo by Bazzill - then tied some jute around the top color -Mango by Bazzill - and mounted it on top.  I added some 3D foam pieces by EK Success to the watercolor stamp to lift the image over the jute and give it some depth.

Next, I applied the same watercolor stamping technique to a Martha Stewart maple leaf stamp, using the Mustard Seed and Spiced Marmalade markers.  I cut the maple leaf out to use as an embellishment.  Then, using Tim Holtz's Gathered Twigs Distress Ink pad, I stamped the word "Blessings" on a piece of plain white cardstock and mounted it and the maple leaf on another piece of the Tangelo paper.  

Finally, for a little sparkle, I place small dots of Copper Stickles among the branches of the tree, as well as on the Blessings tag.

And there you have it - a sweet little autumnal card that I hope will bring a smile to my friend.  :)

Blessings!

Summer Send-off

It's one of my favorite kinds of days here in Pennsylvania.  It's rainy and cool - 59 degrees.  Just right for fall.  I have a candle burning and my cats are sleeping beside me.  The leaves are just beginning to change right outside my window.  It's a soup, snuggle, and sleep kind of day.

But, summer officially ended only five days ago.  So, as a last hurrah for the summer of 2012, I have a beach card to show you today.

Isn't it pretty?  I really like this one - simple, airy, light.  I stamped the little girl on watercolor paper with black Stayzon ink and colored her with watercolors.  

The background is also watercolored.  After mounting the background to the front of the card, I tied a piece of jute around the card, then cut out the stamped image and mounted it over the background and the jute with foam squares.

This stamp set from Clear Arts is called "Seaside".  It's one of my favorite stamp sets ever.  Besides the stamp set and ink, this card uses only watercolors, watercolor paper, and jute.  Simple.  Summery.  Sweet.

Good-bye, summer.....

New Goals...

Hi all:

First of all, before I forget, the date for the September Crop has been changed due to scheduling conflicts in the store.  It will now be held on September 29 from 10 - 4.  The cost is $5 and you can come all day or for just a couple of hours.  There are three Cricut machines and several cartridges available for your use, as well as a Cuttlebug, two paper trimmers, and several stamps and punches.  You can work on Christmas cards or your Back to School album.  Bring your pictures, your supplies, and your excitement.  Have a day with the girls!  You deserve it!  :)

I have a new goal.  I would like to be a part of a design team within the next year.  As a member of a design team, the designer or the manufacturer sends you some of their product and an assignment.  You create something with their product, following their guidelines.  Amazing fun!  You get free product, tons of exposure in the paper arts world, and you get to make cool stuff.  Sometimes, you even get paid.  How cool is that?!

Currently, there is a corporation looking for members of their Creative Arts Team.  They asked for four projects demonstrating specific styles they want to see.  So, I put together a couple of things to send in to them.  I must admit I had fun doing them.  I created five things to submit, but these two are my favorites.

The first is a card.  I used one of EK Success's Inkadinkadoo stamps for this card.  I really like the symbolism and appeal of a single flower kept alive in a soda bottle.  Who hasn't done that?  And, sometimes, that single flower - picked at random - means more than  a dozen of the finest roses.  It's a memento - someone was thinking of you.  It's a souvenir of a stroll on an otherwise forgotten summer day.  It's a reminder of the beauty and exquisiteness in the little things that are all around us.  This card reads:  "For you."  "For everything."  Simple.  Heartfelt.

The stamp and ribbon are colored with Tim Holtz's Distress Markers by Ranger.  The crystals are by Jolee's.  The image was stamped on watercolor paper.

The second project is close to my heart because I love the beach - the solitude, the freshness, the warmth, the colors - just love it.  

Here is a clean and simple beach layout:

The stamps are by Clear Art Stamps.  I created the dimensional shell, sand dollar, and starfish with Martha Stewart's Crafter's Clay by EK Success and they were colored with Tim's markers.  I really liked how this one came out - it gives me the same feelings as the beach.  :)

Be back soon.  I'm working on an album from my recent trip to Louisiana.  I'll be sharing it with you soon.  :)

Kathy

Cure for the Winter Blues

So, last night I'm reading through the blogs and websites on my Google Reader list.  I like to read "A Blog Called Wanda"  (check it out here).  She was talking about The Cure for the Winter Blues Challenge at Moxie Fab World.  I followed the trail of breadcrumbs and was shortly off on another project.

Yesterday, I was thinking that I didn't really have anything creative in the works at the moment.  I've been so busy getting ready for Open House and doing the samples I needed to get done that when Open House was over, I suddenly found myself with some choices and had to step back a bit to look for direction.  This Winter Blues Challenge came at the perfect time and it really did challenge me a bit.

I'm not a huge fan of navy blue.  It's "professional".  I mean, I don't hate it, but I generally don't use it to decorate and I don't dress in it.  As a consequence, I'm kind of short on navy blue items in my stash.  Was I up to this challenge?  Did I even have enough to create something worthwhile?

Winter.  Navy blue.  Night sky.  Crisp.  Clear.  Cold.  Peaceful. "In the stillness of a frosty winter night....peace."  Love that, but...too Christmas-y.  (And in the end, too long for my project.)  Oooo...a Tim Holtz stamp with three pine trees in silhouette.  I can use that.  And.....Martha Stewart's Silver Ink Pad.  Oh, here's some muted silver paper and some glittery snow white paper from the Immortal Stack by Die Cuts with a View.  Oh, yeah...now I'm on a roll.....

I started with white cardstock then layered the silver and the white glittery paper on top, finishing the base of the card with a navy blue layer.  I did find a nice shade of navy blue from Recollections by Michaels, by the way.

With the base layers complete, I pulled out the silver ink pad and inked up the stamp with the three pine trees on it.  I made two impressions.  The first layer was bolder, of course.  To bring one tree out to the forefront, I filled it in with a silver Sharpie paint pen.  Stamping again without re-inking the stamp created the lighter impression, giving the look of trees in the background.  I inked the stamp up again, and stamped a piece of white paper.  I cut out the center tree, colored it in with the silver Sharpie paint pen, and popped it out with some tiny foam pop dots.

To create the look of the hills in the background and write the words, I used a white gel pen by Gelly Roll.

The "stars" are dots made by the silver Sharpie paint pen.  Three Swarovski crystals by Jolee were added for sparkle.  I finished the card off with a sheer navy blue ribbon from Michaels.

Enjoy my cure for the winter blues...  :)

Do be impresssed, won't  you?  It took me forever to get that "star" (crystal) to twinkle just right!  :)

I took this one so you could see the silver trees.  In quite a few of the pictures, the trees looked white.  You can also see two of the crystals in this one.

I like the depth of the trees in this shot.  I really brings out all of the levels.

Twinkle, twinkle little star....  A closer shot of the trees and stars.

Peaceful, isn't it?  See, now....winter isn't quite so bad, is it?  :)

Take care ~

Kath

Inspiration from Tim Holtz for March

Hi all!

Due  to Open House preparation, I feel a little behind on my blog reading.  Yesterday, I was able to catch up a little bit and...there was Tim's March 2012 Tag!  Yay!!!  I told myself it was too late to get started on it, I have tomorrow off, I can do it then.  That lasted all of about an hour before I gave in.  At 1:00 AM, I decided I was getting dangerously loopy and didn't want to ruin what I'd started.

Again, I did a card rather than a tag.  Tim's tag was a promotion of spring - butterflies and flowers - whereas mine is more about St. Patrick's Day.  You could say I have a little bit of Irish in my background (my maiden name was Ireland), so I love this holiday.  I love the green, the gold, and the rainbow.  I love the wry, humorous Irish blessings.  I love QVC's Irish show - all of the wool sweaters and capes, the Galway crystal, the Belleek china...but I digress...  :)

So, forgive me, Tim for doing something so blatantly "March", but....I couldn't help meself....  :)

The finished product.  There are many parts of this I'm very happy with.  I loved learning the new technique Tim taught us.  The "tiled" or "stained glass" butterflies were the focus of this month's project.  

The butterflies are cut out of grungeboard then covered with double sided super sticky tape.  The tiny pieces of paper are cut and adhered to the butterflies.  Once the mosaic look of the paper snippets were done to my satisfaction, I sprinkled Ranger's Distress Embossing Powder in Black Soot over the butterflies, shook off the excess, and then heated the embossing powder, melting it and making it shiny.  I applied Glossy Accents to the paper pieces, giving them a glassy look, then attached some Swarovski crystals by Jolee to the wings for added sparkle.  This picture doesn't show the colors well.  The paper snippets are in varying shades of greens and creams.  The crystals are peridot or pale yellow in color.  (For more detailed instructions regarding the butterflies, please visit Tim's blog at timholtz.typepad.com )  While the butterflies were drying, I worked on the background.

I started with a sheet of pale gray textured cardstock and ran it through my Vagabond, using the Tim Holtz Sizzix Woodgrain Texture Fade.  To bring out the wood grain, I highlighted the raised parts with the C5 Cool Grey Copic Marker.  I roughened up the edges by scraping my Cutter Bee Scissors along them and then I used Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad in Weathered Wood to darken the edges.  The scroll is made from regular old run-of-the-mill copy paper.  I went to DaFont.com and downloaded a font called Stonehenge.  (By the way, I know folks are used to seeing Erin Go Bragh, but as I was researching this, I found that the words I used are actually closer to the authentic Celtic version.)  The font size is set at 44 for this one.  After printing off the words, I tore the paper, around the words, leaving extra lengths on both sides of the words.  This allowed room for me to roll the scroll.  I pretty much antiqued the whole paper with Tim Holtz Antique Linen Distress Ink Pad and then went over just the edges with the Vintage Photo Distress Ink Pad.  I rolled the ends of the scroll in opposite directions, holding them there for a few seconds and then, adhered the scroll to the cardstock background.

To make the charm, I used a piece of paper from Tim Holtz Seasonal Paper Stack.  I traced the facet I wanted to use onto the paper, so I could get the sizes correct.  The gold flourish is simply painted on with gold acrylic paint.  

I painted the shamrock with watercolors on watercolor paper and cut it out.  I adhered it next to the gold scroll work on the paper then cut the shape out.  Using Glossy Accents, I adhered the facet to the paper backing, set a heavy object on top of the facet and left it to dry.  When the Glossy Accents was dry, I trimmed the excess paper around the facet.  This is an acrylic facet, also by Tim Holtz.  I used Copic markers G09 - Veronese Green and YG93 - Grayish Yellow to color the ribbon that's threaded through the ring on the facet.  I hotglued the ribbon to the card and voila! - done!

Lots of fun and lot of green St. Patrick's Day goodness!

See you soon ~

Kath

Punched Cards

Hi all:

I'm still working away at samples for Open House.  In the midst of preparing for that, our bathroom is undergoing some minor renovations, so we have a couple of workmen in the house this week, too.  Also, I worked an extra day this week, so the pressure is on.  I'm tired, tired, tired - but cautiously optimistic about the Open House on Saturday from 1-3.

I still have to put my storyboards together.  One will showcase the classes I offer, so I'm trying to finish up a few things - like paper flowers and cards - to attach to that board.

On Friday, April 13, I will be offering a class called Punched Card Tricks.  This class teaches you how to use a punch in some new and interesting ways.  Most of the time, we simply use a punch to put a decorative hole in the project we're working on, but this class makes you think about other ways to use your punches.

The class offers five cards, but I only have three done so far.  Here are pictures of the three that are finished.  The third one is a little blurry.  I didn't realize that until just now and it's too dark to take another good picture.  I apologize...

I'll try to get the other two finished and posted tomorrow.  I will also work on posting pictures from the open house.  Take care....

Kath