Snowmen with Snowglobe Shaker Card

Here is another winter card that I made using a die that came with a magazine I purchased at Barnes and Noble. The die made it easy to construct the shaker part.  It looks complicated, but I really had to only do one fully die cut piece, the dark blue one.  I traced the die to make the acetate that was glued behind the blue die cut piece.  Next, I used the die to cut a sheet of purple foam but snipped out the trees and house.  Finally, the lavender layer of cardstock was made by tracing around the die and cutting it out by hand.  The purple foam layer was glued to the lavender piece and the glitter snow was added before the acetate with blue house/tree scene was glued down.  The words were stamped and the ink heat embossed with gold embossing powder.  The die was used to trace out the word panel and it was hand cut.  The small snowflake dies were used to cut out pretty snowflakes from DCWV white shimmer paper.  The snowmen card stock paper I used is an Echo Park product purchased at HM Ben Franklin Crafts.  This die would be great to make some fancy tags....ah, maybe next year....it's time for a hibernating nap! 

 

Joy to the World

Well, the big day is finally here....it's Christmas!  This card made with a simple die cut scene (die from a craft magazine purchased at Barnes and Noble).  First I used Distress Inks to color some watercolor paper and sprinkled the dyed paper with water and silver ink. The scene was die cut from blue card stock. It took awhile to pierce out the little paper chads which was a little irritating. The die cut piece was glued to the dyed paper and both were adhered to a white card.  Finally, the words (hot foiled strip) was attached with a glue tape runner.  Except for removing the excess papers from the die cut piece, this card was a simple project.  If I decide to make this card again perhaps I will reverse the the papers, put the dyed paper on top and add some glitter onto the rood tops. This card is for everyone in blogland....I wish all of you the merriest of Christmases and the anticipation of the best new year ever!

 

Hawaiian Santa Cards

During the holiday season, we do a lot of correspondence with friends and family on the mainland so when I saw the Lawn Fawn Beachy Christmas stamp and die sets, I knew that I could create some fun cards from them.  For the top card, I used the Giant Outlined Merry and Bright Lawn Fawn die.  It was easy to cut the words from Violet Studio blue glitter card stock.  This die cut was then glued to some Hawaiian print vellum paper. Stamping, coloring and die cutting the Santa image and coconut drink was super simple.  A little red Stickles was added for some bling.  

For the second card, I wanted to show how versatile this LF Beachy Christmas stamp set can be.  Here I turned it into a thank you card for our mainland friends and family who send us the most unique Xmas gifts. The beach scene paper is from an American Crafts paper pack which contains some beautiful photographic Hawaiian scenes.  To enhance the beach look, I heat embossed some Hero Arts 'sand' embossing powder onto the shoreline.  The Copic colored images were die cut and adhered with sticky foam dots.  The Lawn Fawn thank you script die was used to cut out the words from DCWV green foil paper.  I'm certain that I will use these stamp and die sets often during this and future holiday seasons....Santa is just so cute!

 

Vintage -look Xmas Cards

Some Tim Hlotz stamps and an ephemera pack of vintage Xmas images were the inspiration for these cards.  I started with Kraft paper notecards with envelopes to give my cards an aged look.  I stamped an image with dark brown permanent ink and colored it in a little with color pencils.  Next I flicked Hero Arts Glimmer metallic ink (silver white) to give the look of new fallen snow.  

It was easy to select just the right images from the ephemera pack and glue them down.

As plain as these cards look, I like the way they turned out.  Although Christmas cards from my childhood would not look like these,  I am a big fan of the Victorian era so these cards appeal to me.  I do think they really have a time-worn aged look... like me....LOL!  

 

Bee Santa Tags

Just like with the last set of tags posted, I used Lawn Fawn sweater print card stock for the base of these tags and a set of Art Impressions stamps for the humorous images and sayings. Because I am a supporter of Alan Wong's Beehive project at the U.H. of Hilo, I thought I would make some silly tags for my gifts of honey mailed to friends. Fussy cutting and coloring with Copic pens were the method of decorating these Little B die cut tags.  I kept the tags simple and worked in front of the TV....hahaha what a lazy crafter!

 

Ugly Sweater Tags

I love Art Impressions silly character stamps. The humor of the captions is great and the stamps themselves make great clean impressions.  These tags were started with Lawn Fawn 12x12 sweater print card stock and a large Little B tag die.  The sweater lady image was stamped on marker paper before being colored with Copic pens and fussy cut out.  The cut out sweater lady was adhered to the tags with foam dots. The words were stamped on marker paper and cut out before smudging the edges with turquoise ink.  Ugly sweater yarn was tied to the tags.  I don't send out too many handmade cards anymore so I like to put some effort into the tags I attach to Xmas gifts.  However, I doubt that anyone saves Xmas tags so I don't spend an enormous amount of time on each tag or add too many embellishments.  My goal is just to bring a smile to the face of the recipient.  That's the spirit of Xmas!

 

Year of the Rabbit Magnetic Calendars

Every year I try to make a mini calendar to tuck into my family newsletter.  This year I decided to make magnetic calendars because I had leftover cardboard coasters (purchased from Celebrations in a 50 pack) and extra sheet magnet packages from HM Ben Franklin Crafts.  I had to keep the magnets simple because I wanted to make a few in a short amount of time.  I started with rabbit printed washi paper (purchased in Japan but possibly available at Celebrations).  I roughly cut the paper to fit the coaster and applied 3 in 1 Beacon glue to the coaster before securing the paper. Next I simply cut off the excess washi paper. To make the golden rabbit seal I stamped the rabbit in gold ink and applied gold embossing powder before using a heat gun.  Then I used my Fiskar deckle edge scissors to trim around the stamped image.  The Vippies calendars have a peel off sticky strip so it was easy to add the calendar and glue down the rabbit image.  Finally on the back, I added a 2-1/2" magnet square. (The magnet sheet can be easily cut with a Fiskar paper trimmer.) The magnet sheet has a peel off paper back that reveals a really strong sticky magnet.  Because it is the year of the Rabbit (my husband's special year), I think I'll make a bunch more of these calendars since I have quite a bit of rabbit print washi paper....couldn't stop buying every design I saw in Japan...LOL! Have a healthy, happy Year of the Rabbit!

 

Ugly Sweater Happy Holiday Cards

Do you wear ugly sweaters during the holidays?  I think the tradition is funny and cute, just like these Lawn Fawn characters.  I paired them with hot foiled words on Lawn Fawn's constellation 12x12 card stock (comes in many colors). The shiny foil stars were already on the card stock so I wasn't sure that hot foiling the words (Hero Arts) wouldn't remove them. I am pleased with the results as the words seem to be part of the constellations.(Wish my photo was better...sorry!)  The matching dies made the sweatered animals super quick to create.

For added humor, I stamped the words (comes with the set) onto some sweater fabric print scrap card stock and added a mini sweater inside the card.

I had an extra hot foiled Happy Holiday piece of card stock so I made another  smaller card.  On this one I added two tandem sledding friends from another Lawn Fawn stamp set and die. I hand cut the snow hill from frosted pearlized white DCWV 6x6 paper.  These cards were fun to make an I learned another thing about hot foiling....it can be done over card stock that already has some foiled designs.  You learn something everyday if you experiment and observe. Go on be a crafty scientist....you'll have so much fun!

 

Holiday Cute Cup Cards

While playing with my new 'toy', a foiling machine (see previous post), I came up with these two cards.  The cute cup patterned 12x12 Doodlebug Designs card stock was used for the background. This paper is actually from the fall collection but I thought it looked wintery and it had a nice plaid design in the back. For the top card I decided to try the pink foil sold at HM BFC and a Hero Arts foil plate. I couldn't get a good photo because the script is a fancy style and the pink color doesn't show up well in photos. However, I do love the result of using non-holiday colors.  The Hero Arts stamp designs with matching dies are so cute especially with the animal shaped whipped cream.  It's an old set but worth getting because of the many applications it provides.

On the second card, I used rainbow foil on the plaid print back of the cup cardstock. The cute cup holding characters are Evelin T. Design stamps. Although they don't have dies, it wasn't hard to fussy cut the Copic colored animals.  I wasn't sure how to use the rainbow foil, but it does look fancy and now I can imagine it on many more future project. I hope that you'll consider getting a foiling machine to help enhance your cards and other paper crafts.  I think it will be an investment in creativity. Happy Holiday Crafting!  

 

Stenciled Pine Cone Card with Foiled Words

Yes, I'm still experimenting with my Spellbinder foiling machine.  I'm having so much fun!  Today I tried a new Tim Holtz pine cone stencil on crinkled Japanese paper with foil speck. I had the idea of stenciling over foiled words. However, although the words foiled onto the paper perfectly, they were too light to be seen well on the textured paper.  I decided to stencil the pine cones and pine needles onto the Japanese paper first and then attach a die cut foiled 'Merry Christmas'.  This worked well except that the Distress ink I used on the pine needles was too light to show up well.  I should have used dark green ink.  Oh well, overall I liked the end result of this card especially the distress look of the background with the gold flecks.  Okay, onward to more tests tomorrow. I love being a crafting scientist!

 

Foiled Sentiment Xmas Tags

I recently treated myself to a new craft tool....a foiling machine!  Yes, I know they've been around for awhile but I thought stamping and using heat embossing powder was good enough. However, recently many craft companies have come out with some really cool foiling designs so I caved.  I am happy with my new investment.  The Spellbinder foiling machine is easy to use and with my Big Shot die cutting machine enables me to make some very professional papercrafts.  Shown above are my first two experiments using Hero Arts foiling plates and matching dies.  The papers I used were from Echo Park (purchased at HM BFC).  Since these were tests, I used some scrap papers (good way to use them up).  A large Little B tag die was used.  Hopefully, you'll be seeing some foiled  Xmas greeting cards on my next post.  Okay, going back to playing with my new toy.......um, I mean tool! LOL!

 

Xmas Recycled Burlap Gift Bags

Gosh, I sure do love recycling!.  Making something pretty and useful from other people's throw-aways is one of my joys.  When I attended a niece's wedding, I was happy to receive a rustic burlap bag of macadamia nuts...for the bag!  It was a cute size but had the couple's names printed on the front.  I decided to use a white Ken Oliver opaque paint to cover up the names.  I'm sure that regular thick white acrylic paint would work too, but I used what was on my craft table...LOL!  I put some folded paper inside the bag so that the paint wouldn't bleed to the back.  Once the paint was dry, I used Tim Holtz stencils to print the words.  The ink I used for stenciling was a permanent red stamping ink. I think that the curved stencil brushes work extremely well...medium size is most versatile.  Tim Holtz die cut old fashioned Xmas design paper pieces were added for color and nostalgia.  I also added jingle bells to the drawstrings and a small piece of holly garland to the 'cheer' bag.  When I start my recycled projects, I never know exactly what the result will be. Today the recycling gods blessed me with the creation of two unique gift bags which will hopeful make the recipients eager to see what they hold. Cheer and Peace to all recyclers!

 

 

Five-Minute Daiso Baby Card

Knowing that I would be in Japan when our niece would give birth to a new son and not having enough time to create a suitable card, I opted for a cheat.  I saw a really cute 3D baby card at Daiso and snapped it up for a $1.75 bargain price.  Upon opening the the packaging, I realized that it was not a baby card but a decorated envelope...huh?  Still determined to use this really sweet Daiso product, I decided to double stick  tape it to the front of a printed card made from a folded double sided card stock.  I chose a baby print card stock (plaid outside) that has a light design of clouds inside over which I can write a message.  To make the card even more special, I decided to leave the top of the envelope (card front) unattached so that money or a check gift can be concealed.  Daiso also sells colored envelopes that fit this slimline mini card.  They do have small red rectangles on the front which is probably for postage.  I used washi tape to conceal the rectangles but because my tape didn't conceal it with one layer, I doubled up.   I am very pleased with this quickie baby card because it looks good and worked well in a pinch. Go check out your nearest Daiso store to see what goodies you can find to make your life delightful!

 

Autumn Forest Tea Party

HM Ben Franklin Crafts has some lovely Echo Park 12x12 printed card stock which I wanted to use as the background for this card.  I chose a leaf print and then stenciled on Hero Arts bare tree trunks with Distress walnut stain.  I like the way that the leaves of the paper show through the tree trunks and make it look like the leaves are falling.  If you can't find the Echo Park paper, you could use the Hero Arts leaves stencil (shown in the photo below) behind the stenciled trees.  For the scene in the foreground, I chose Avery Elle stamp and die sets, Fall Picnic. I love the cute woodland creatures and colored them with Copic pens.  I tried to keep the colors muted so they would blend in with the forest background.  This card is my favorite one and celebrates a beautiful time of the year.

This autumnal card is the last one I will make this season and it is a thank you for my followers in blogland.  If I could I would throw a little party in the woods amongst the falling, rustling leaves.  There would be cake, tea and charming stories.  You are all invited!  

 

Chocolate Pecan Scones

 I just made a batch of Ina Garten's (Barefoot Contessa) Chocolate Pecan Scones (recipe available online). They turned out quite well...tender, buttery and light.  The dough was so heavy and sticky that I thought it would be scone bricks. LOL! I think next time I would add more pecans and perhaps take out some of the chocolate pieces.  These scones taste wonderful but perhaps a little jam or lemon curd would make them taste even better. I am a messy, lazy cook so I cut corners whenever I can.  For example, this recipe said to use a mixer to form the dough, but of course I just used a fork.  Also, the dough should have been rolled out with on a cutting board with a rolling pin but I just patted it out (with my hands) directly on the parchment paper that I was going to bake the scones on. I cut out the scones right on the parchment too....see lazy and messy!  But the results are what matters...right?..and these were  delicious so I guess I don't have to be a perfect cook to make perfect scones. Hahaha!

Apple Picking Framed Collage

Recently, while on vacation we had the opportunity to go apple picking. It was something I had always wanted to do.  I learned that apple trees are a lot smaller than I imagined (see the trees in the background of the photo).  Also, there are lots of delicious apple varieties that never make it to markets in Hawaii. Anyway, once again I decided that a photo collage would be the best way to highlight the beauty and sweetness of the day.  First, I found a background paper that had a colorful graphic design of apples.  Because I wanted to show the apple trees in the background, I simply cropped the photo so that a good portion of the apple print paper was visible.  Using the Lawn Fawn die set with apples, it was simple work to cut and glue down apples, leaves and stems along the bottom of the collage.  Finally, the mice and framed sign were stamped, colored and die cut. The words from the stamp set were stamped with permanent ink and then cut out with a paper trimmer before coloring with a Copic marker.  I am very pleased with how this collage saves the special memories of the very special apple picking day, including the sweetness of the little fellow enjoying the crisp, sweet, just-picked apple.  I smile every time I look at this super easy project. I realize that it is a much better way to feature a photo than putting it in an album which would rarely get opened. Keep your sweet memories close to your heart.

 

It's fun to see what I can create with less than perfect pearls and gemstones.  It makes me happy to make something pretty from parts that others would pass by.  These two pendants were wire wrapped with gold filled wire (don't use plated wire as it will lose its plating with handling).  The baroque pearls were strung with small gauge wire since pearl holes are super small. This thin wire was wire wrapped around the the larger gauge wire that was strung through the agate (top) and light blue gemstone (bottom).  The gemstones were rather plain looking before the pearls were added. These are truly one-of-a-kind pieces which I hope will be worn with pride.

 

Framed Pumpkin Boy Collage

What do you do with photos that are less than perfect?  Well, you can make them into a collage and frame it for gift giving or to mount on your wall.  This collage was inspired by some pages I saw in a scrapbooking magazine (but I don't do scrapbooks any more).  I started it with some printed card stock 12x12 paper that I purchased at HM Ben Franklin Crafts.  The card stock was cut to fit the frame (purchased from HM BFC).  I stamped the Whimsy cat image and colored it in before fussy cutting it.  I also fussy cut the little boy's photo so that the unwanted parts were eliminated.  The words were die cut from green foil paper and all the parts were glued down to the printed card stock before fitting it into the frame.  I really like the way this framed collage turned out mostly because it reflects the happiness of the day that we found the "ORANGE PUMPKIN" !!!!!

Baroque Pearl and Amethyst Pendants

 

These three pendants were inspired by the stones and pearls I already had in my stash and influenced by jewelry I'd seen in jewelry magazines.  The top baroque pearl is a really unusual one that I found on a string of normal looking baroque pearls. I really love this pearl because of its shape and tri-color aspect. The bottom pendant was made from an amethyst irregular faceted gemstone and an earring that I made but couldn't find a second fancy amethyst head pin to make a pair.  These pendants may appear in my Hilo locker box or wrapped up as Xmas gifts for friends. Maybe one of them will end up in my jewelry box...heeheehee!  Merry Xmas to me!

Gemstone and Baroque Pearl Earrings

 These earrings were inspired by an online jewelry site.  I saw the prices that were being charged and decided that I could easily make them with supplies I already had.  Fancy sterling and gold filled head pins can be purchased from HM Ben Franklin Crafts or online.  The baroque pearls were in my pearl stash but HM BFC usually has strands of them for reasonable prices.  There are online sites that also sell them but you won't be able to choose the ones with good luster and color.  These earrings will be put in my Hilo locker box for sale or maybe given as Xmas gifts.  I hope I've inspired you to get started with your jewelry crafts.  Earrings like these are super easy to make and inexpensive too.

Hexagon Halloween Shaker Card

This mini shaker card was created using Spellbinders hexagon dies. I started by forming a card from an Echo Park spider web printed card stock and then using the largest die to cut out the card.  Lining up the upper edge of the die with the fold of the card allows you to cut the card with the top folded edge intact.  I cut a second card from plain black card stock to use as a liner because the backside of the web card stock is too colorful and busy.  I used a smaller hexagon to cut the front window which I lined with clear acetate and framed the back of the window with foam strips. Sprinklets Halloween confetti and some sparkly tiny hexagon confetti were added to the acetate window.  Next was the tricky part....lining up the two cards without spilling the confetti. Once the card is aligned, double stick tape or glue can be added to the card's inner edges to form a sturdy card. For decoration, a Sizzix spider web die was used on vellum and part of the web was glued to a corner of the hexagon card front.  Finally, a Whimsy Halloween cat with a broom was stamped, colored (with Copic pens), and fussy cut by hand before attaching to the card with foam dot adhesives.  I am happy with the unique shape and layout of this Halloween card.  I think the confetti shaker really adds a fun element to this cute card....can't stop shaking this mini card. LOL! Have a safe and sweet Halloween night!

 

Zombie Halloween Card

Remember the iconic scene of Jack Nicholson in the Shining?  That's basically the look I was trying to achieve with this zombie card. I started by stamping the Whimsy image in black permanent ink onto white card stock.  Then I used watercolor pencils to roughly color in the zombies and lightly brushed them with water to blend the colors.  Next I cut a piece of DCWV Gauze Paper to fit the purple card blank.  I tore the center of the gauze paper rectangle to accommodate the zombie image.  Small pieces of the gauze paper were glued back to give a better frame for the image. I love the way the gauze paper fibers hang down over the zombies making them look even spookier.  The 'Happy Halloween' words were cut from grey card stock using the Whimsy die and glued down with Beacon 3 in 1 adhesive.  I usually make cute Halloween cards suitable for kids, but I did have fun with this one and now this zombie stamp is one of my favorites.  Oooooh! Noooo! Am I going to the dark side? Muahaha!