Winter Projects

Hey all!

I've been pretty busy for the last month.  In mid-December, I held an ornament class.  Six ladies attended and we had a wonderful afternoon getting creative with printed tissue paper, inks, stickles, glitter (Oh, my.  The glitter...) ribbon, and Copic markers.  I took pictures.  Unfortunately, I didn't get them off my old phone before it went on to phone purgatory - where it belongs.  :/  You'll just have to believe me when I say that some absolutely splendid ornaments - and even better memories - were created.

The big project this December was creating seventeen little cardboard houses, reminiscent of the villages people placed under their trees in the 40's and 50's.  We used them to decorate our tables for the Warren Players' production of "It's A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play".  I was making little houses almost right up to the last minute.  Each one contained an LED tealight so that they softly glowed on the tables during the production.  Each one was a little different.  They were well received and I sold almost all of them.  I guess that's a good sign.  :)

We also made snowflakes for The Snowflake Project sponsored by the Sandy Hook and Connecticut PTAs.  There were about fourteen of us that came together on January 5 to create a beautiful "snowfall" from Warren County, PA.  My little friend, Dakkota, and her mom also stopped by.  They donated another spectacular snowfall from The First Church of God folks.

Here are some photos, taken by my wonderfully talented friend, Jeanette:

Simply gorgeous and "snow" much fun!  The deadline for submitting these to Sandy Hook was 1/12/13.  I boxed them up on January 6 and went to the Snowflake Project site to retrieve their address.  Sadly, the address was gone.  They had been bowled over by an absolute blizzard of snowflakes, distributed them all over town, and simply couldn't take anymore.  They suggested that we hang them in our town and send them pictures.  We will do exactly that, so that they know Warren County, PA is thinking of and praying for them.

And finally, my church has thrown down the gauntlet.  They have created a snowman contest for the month of January.  The goal is to populate the church with snowmen of different sizes, materials, and designs.  Well, you know, I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to create a little guy of my own.

With the exception of the bird, he is made entirely from scratch.  He has a paper mache body, covered with a soft, powdered glitter.  His nose is from Martha Stewart's crafting clay and colored with Copic markers.  The eyes are painted on and the hat and scarf crocheted just for him.  The arms are the stems from hosta blooms.  They're not as sturdy as I would have liked them to be, but I didn't have time to go foraging too far from the house.  I had so much fun making him that I'm considering making one or two more...

Stay warm out there, folks!

Kath

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

Country Christmas basket

Hi all:

This week, I've been working on a Christmas project.

On November 10, the youth group at my church is sponsoring a harvest dinner and gift basket auction.  They ask for the gift baskets to be donated every year.  What do you think about a Country Christmas gift basket?  I'm creating a set of six cards, three ornaments, and a write on/wipe off board, all done in a vintage country theme.  So far, I have completed five cards.  I got a little carried away on Wednesday night and stayed up all night working on cards.  You girls know what I mean when I say "I was in the zone", right?  Yeah - that's where I was.  I got three cards completed that night and then I slept from 7 AM until noon!


Sooooo...here they are.  Which one is your favorite?

Okay, off to spend time with the family for the day!  Enjoy all!

Kath
  

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.....