By The Tide

I got this SU set ( By the Tide) a month or two ago and finally had a chance to get it out and play with it last week.  I used all the new In Colors plus Sahara Sand.  I did the rock-n-roll technique on the fish with Pistachio Pudding and Coastal Cabana. The sentiment is from Thoughts and Prayers.  I used my color spritz tool with my Baked Brown Sugar marker to do the misting, and I sponged around the edges with BBS as well.

The sketch is an oldie but a goodie--great for collage-type stamping, which I love to do.  This is the most actual stamping I've done in a long time and I have to say, it felt good.

Well, it's the last day of 2013!  Does anyone have big plans?  I never stay up until midnight--I figure the New Year will still be here when I wake up in the am.  But here's to 2014!  I hope you all have a happy New Year, with plenty of time for crafting!

Hairy Little Christmas

A month or two ago while shopping with Emily, I saw a T-shirt in Justice.  For those of you without tween daughters, Justice is a clothing store with bright colors and cute styles for that age that makes them feel in style without making them look like baby hookers.  This T-shirt had a Christmas tree made out of mustaches.  Of course I filed it away for future use.  I used a digi file from Cricut called Mustaches and Glasses.  I used my Gypsy to design 4 different mustaches, plus star and base, to fit on an A2 card.  Then I discovered a red mustache piece on my desk that came from a Santa tag I'd made, so I used that as the tree stand.

The star is cut from yellow glitter CS.  All else is SU.  Then on the inside I used a computer generated sentiment:

I just crack myself up!!!  I sent it to my brother, who has this HUGE handlebar mustache.  He and his family have a quirky sense of humor, so I knew they'd appreciate it.  I am thrilled with how this card turned out--hope you like it too!

Peace on Earth

On this card I was playing with some SU goodies.  Everything on this card is SU except the wooden star (Recollections-Michael's).  The burlap ribbon I cut in half lengthwise because it was wider than I wanted.  

I inked my stamp (an SU single) in Versamark followed by Chocolate Chip, then heat-embossed with clear EP.  I sponged the edges of the star with Choc. Chip.  CS is Crumb Cake, DP is Season of Style.

I like this card--to me it is very sweet and folky.  For those of you who make your own Christmas cards, do you usually make all one design, or do you make lots of different ones?  I used to do the former, and now I do the latter, kind of matching card styles to the personalities I'm sending the card to.

Thanks for dropping by today!

Simple Holiday Cards with the Cricut

Yes, yes, I know--I have a serious problem when it comes to Cricut cartridges!  These are all cut from the Simple Holiday Cards cartridge.  Both of these designs had greetings cut into them, which I didn't want, so I used my Gypsy to modify them a bit by hiding all the letters(Cricut Craft Room works as well).  It also cuts a whole card, but I only wanted the fronts.  So I hid the outer contour of the card and used a rectangle from Plantin Schoolbook to cut just a card front.

I had found a WONDERFUL 12 x 12 Recollections (Michaels brand) paper pad with these marbled foil papers.  I used the silver for the snowflake and the gold for the poinsettias.  On the snowflake card I used a sentiment from a PTI Christmas set called Love Lives Here: Holiday.  Then I used the SU Mosaic punch to trim the ends and added some rhinestone brads.  CS and ink is Island Indigo.

The second card is 8.5" x  5.5".  I put the gold foil poinsettias over vanilla CS.  I embossed the Old Olive with a holly EF from Sizzix.  It was for an executive in our company who took us out to dinner and so everyone signed the card.  

I also made an A2 version.  It is so pretty IRL.

Well, that's it for today!  Thanks for stopping by!

Copic Christmas Cards

Hi, everyone!  I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to do much blogging before Christmas.  I wasn't able to send out many Christmas cards this year, but I did get a few out (which was better than last year!).  so between now and New Year's, I thought I'd go ahead and post the ones I got done.

I had ordered a couple of cute stamp sets from My Favorite Things--I LOVE their Pure Innoncence line.  I hadn't messed around with my Copics in a very long time.  I guess I've been a lot more focused on my Cricut this year than I have been on stamping.  Anyway, I stamped this little girl on Copic X-Press white in Memento Tuxedo Black and colored some parts with my Copics.  I paper pieced her hat and coat.  The patterned paper is SU's Season of Style--beautiful papers!  There wasn't one I didn't like.  The sketch came from Jen Del Muro's blog--Reverse Confetti.  The little "brads" are the candy dots from SU.  Cardstock is Crumb Cake, Cherry Cobbler, and Old Olive.

This adorable snowman is also from the MFT PI line.  He'd also be good for Valentine's I think.  I used Pool Party CS on a card base of PTI white.  Patterned paper is Winter Frost from SU, as is the bling and embossing folder.

Clearly I need to practice A LOT more with my Copics.  I have sadly neglected them, which is bad because with the class and the expense of the markers, it was quite an investment.  But I'm still pleased with these cards, and I hope you like them as well.

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!  Did anyone get any crafty goodies?  Do tell!

Cricut Christmas Tags

The design team at FCCB did a stocking swap--it was really fun!  One of the goodies we were to include was something handmade.  I made some tags.  The first one is from Teresa Collins December 25th.  The others are all from the Cricut digital file Holiday Gift Tags.  I used various to/from stamps from PTI.  Be sure to stop by FCCB every day this week to see awesome projects by the design team!

Colors used are SU Real Red, Gumball Green, Pear Pizzazz, Early Espresso, Soft Suede, Crumb Cake, Blushing Bride, Blush Blossom, Pumpkin Pie, and Primrose Petals, and Basic Black, plus CTMH white.

I cut most of these at 2.5 or 3".

The shadow layer on the Holiday Gift Tags has a hole for ribbon or twine.  I used baker's twine.

The layers are pretty easy to put togerher.

This adorable reindeer has pink liquid pearls for the inside of his ear.

And here's Santa with his bag of toys for all the good little girls and boys!  He was a little confusing until I realized one of the face layers is for his pink cheeks and nose!  I used a blue marker for his eyes.

For these last two I used another Cricut digi file, Quilted Ornaments. 

I hope this last one doesn't resemble a car deodorizer TOO much LOL!

Well, that's it for me today.  Tomorrow I'll share what I got in MY Christmas stocking.  Hope you all have a wonderful day!

FCCB Challenge # 191: Anything but a Card, Holiday Edition!

Hi, everyone!  I hope you all had a great weekend.  Now sit right back and listen to my tale of woe!

I usually like working with vinyl, but this project was a real challenge!  I wanted to do something with a chalkboard feel.  THIS was my inspiration.  Beautiful, right?  I went to Michaels hoping to find a piece of black slate to use.  Usually they have items like that, but I guess the Christmas decorations are taking up that space.  I didn't want to take the time to paint a piece of wood, so I bought one of their black canvases--12 x 12.  Then it turned out I didn't have any white vinyl at home.  Every OTHER color, but no white!  Back out again.  Bought some Cricut brand white vinyl.  I used the digital file Teresa Collins Christmas Collage and kiss cut it out of the white vinyl at 10 ".  But I couldn't get it to weed!  When the excess came up, the letters did too!  Arrgghh!  So I decided to use some of my Oracal red, which is much heavier than the Cricut brand.  This would mean scrapping the chalkboard idea.  Oh, well!  This time I was able to weed it.  Whew, thank goodness right?  I placed the transfer tape over my design and burnished.  All ready to transfer it to the canvas.  I knew it would be a little tougher than a hard surface, but I wasn't really worried.  Well, those letters would not stick to the canvas well enough to come off the transfer tape.  I was really feeling NOT in the Christmas spirit at this point LOL!  It took over an hour but I finally got the letters on the canvas.  I hot glued some Christmas sprigs from Michaels in the top corner.  Here it is:

It looks ok, but not as good as I was hoping.  Things don't always turn out like we planned right?  So my tip for today for all of you is--learn from my mistakes!  Don't try to put vinyl lettering on canvas!  all the time I "saved" by not painting a piece of wood was wasted in the transfer step.  

Have you ever had to learn something crafty the hard way?  Tell me about it in the comments!

Have a wonderful day!

FCCB Challenge #189--Christmas Without Red or Green

Happy Monday, everyone!  This week's challenge over at Fantabulous Cricut is to make a Christmas card without using red and green, and our sponsor this week is My Creative Time Stamps.  

It just so happens that I love to make blue and silver Christmas cards, and that was what I had planned for the cards for the shut-in members of our church.  We always put them out at church for the whole congregation to sign, so they have to be big--I always use a full sheet of cardstock which makes a 5.5 x 8.5" card.  I also like to use a very heavy CS for the base.  SU colored CS is fine but if I use white or vanilla I use PTI or Gina K.  I know the cards get displayed so I want them to stand up without sagging.

I used PTI white for the base here, and SU Pool Party, Island Indigo, and Brushed Silver for the layers.   The patterned paper is SU Winter Frost and it is gorgeous!  The photo really doesn't do it justice.  I cut banners of various widths and lengths and layered them.   Now you may be wondering, where is her Cricut cut, required for all FCCB challenges?  Well, I knew I wanted to use the SU single stamp Prince of Peace.  I just love that scripture from Isaiah.  BUT I didn't want to buy the whole set of dies, seeing as how I do have a Cricut.  So I went through the labels in Art Philosophy.  There weren't any that were exactly the right shape, but there is a circle and a label with a shape that I thought would work.  The circle is on page 21 of the handbook, and the label is on p. 47.  Then I measured my stamp.  The circle needed to be 2.4" high to give me a little edge around the stamped design.  Then I measured the corners of the stamp.  They were about 175" high, so I made my label 1.85" high.  Next I unlinked the height from the width so that I could make the the label the appropriate length, which was 2.8", then reset my link so that I could increase the size of my label without changing the proportions so I could make a slightly larger size for my silver layer.  It wasn't PERFECT, but it was pretty darn close.  It takes so much longer to tell how to do it than it does to just do it--it really is easy with a Gypsy or CCR.

Here is a screen shot showing the shapes, so you know I didn't cheat!  After I had my shapes cut out, I used a Stamp-a-ma-Jig to position my stamp over the label.  I heat-embossed the sentiment in silver.  The dry-embossing and scallop edge are SU folders and Edgelits.  The silver ribbon is also from SU.  I heat-embossed an ornate "Merry Christmas" from Our Daily Bread Designs on the inside.

I hope you enjoyed this project!  Please play along with us at FCCB this week.  Just make a Christmas project without using red or green and using at least one Cricut cut and link it up to FCCB!  It's that easy.  You could win a fabulous stamp set from My Creative Time Stamps!