A Few More of My Favorite Things -- Crafting Related

My absolooootely favoritest (sorry, couldn't resist!) new crafting toy is this border punch by Martha Stewart. I really am very easy to please. I own very few, if any, expensive crafting tools. Ever since I ran out of my dollar store adhesive paper lace I've been going through major withdrawal. So when I saw this punch I thought I could make the lace myself. It also embosses which leaves a nice border to it so you can highlight it with distress inks, etc. And when punched through self-adhesive paper (such as the flowered paper in the picture), I've got my paper lace back! I've used it on the Valentine's Day car below, but it is a little hard to see in the picture.
Don't worry, you'll be seeing lots of it.......


My all time favorite heart stamp is this one from Stampington. When I like a stamp as much as I like this one, I want it wood mounted. A lot of my other stamps are unmounted. But this one is just gorgeous -- the card will literally make itself.

These vintage Daisyd papers that came out last year and the new ones from this year just thrill me. Some of the patterns on the paper are so fabulous, you really need nothing else to go with them.

I showed some ornaments previously that I made with this paper that were triangular in shape, but I also made these circular ones. Once again, the paper just speaks for itself, I just added some rub-ons and ribbons.

These stamps are probably my all-time favorites. They are PSX, dating back to the late '90's. I just love PSX stamps, but these vintage Christmas ones are some of my favorites.

I created this card with the vintage carolers from PSX. I used a crackle stamp from Inkadinkado and used distress inks around the image to give it an aged feel. I also used some rub-ons from Creative Imaginations.

I found this little ice skater last year. She's made by Magenta. I don't make a lot of winter cards, but I just had to have her. I had these fun papers from Daisyd's, and so I used my Prismacolors and colored her to match the paper.

I think one of the reasons I like her is she reminds me of the ice skating we did as kids. There was always an outdoor pond to go somewhere and skate in the winter. My dad would even try and freeze the back yard so we could skate there (don't remember that being too successful though). It was usually off to the local park. Even though we didn't have a lot of money, the one thing my siblings and I always seemed to have was ice skates!

Inspired by....

.....this coffee cup I got yesterday at the bookstore (looking for the new Take Ten and Stampers Sampler which don't seem to be out yet.)

This vintage sled stamp was another one of my yet-to-be-used stamps that I could not figure out what to do with. It's an old PSX stamp which means I just had to have it. Yesterday's coffee cup brought instant inspiration. I created the background with one of my favorite snowflake stamps from Art Impressions. To create my squares to stamp my letters in I used an inch punch and then inked the edges with brown chalk ink. I used one of the new stitched tape runners from Daisyd's to create the border. (I'm not really crazy about these. I didn't feel they were that easy to use and there's a lot of wasted product trying to get it to work.)

This sled reminds me of one of my favorite Christmas decorations I put on my front porch every year. I put out an old rusty sled just like the one in this picture. I hang my old ice skates from when I was young on them. I've added some evergreen branches and some lights to it. It looks darling!

Christmas Ornaments

Last year when these vintage Christmas papers came out from Daisyd's I had to buy every single style they came in! I bought the 12x12 papers for projects such as these ornaments and I bought the smaller 8x8 pads for cards.

I've seen these triangle shapes sold in scrapbooking catalogs I've received in the mail and various other places, but I actually found mine in the dollar bin at Target for $1 each. To create my ornament, I took it apart so I could punch a hole in the top of two sides for a ribbon. While apart I traced a pattern for the triangle so I could use it to cut out my various patterned paper pieces. I cut out four triangles for each ornament -- three sides and one for the bottom. I then stamped words on some of the pieces, added rub-ons and embellishments to others. As the papers are very busy and I wanted them to be the focal point, I did not go overboard on my add-ons.

I put the triangles back together using some sturdy tape so they would not come apart. I then took an emery board and sanded all of the edges to give it a distressed look. Finally, I added a ribbon up at top.