Review of 2018

With just over an hour to go until the end of the year...  I thought I'd pick out a favourite post from each month, and post it here.  It's been a quieter year on my blog, with only 116 posts, but life has become busier, and I'm happy that I still get as much crafty time as I do.  Without further delay:

January:

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

Happy New Year everyone!  Thanks for your time & your comments.  Looking forward to crafting more in the New Year :o)

Dashing Through the Snow

I came across a Christmas card that I haven't blogged, so thought I would sneak it in before the big day.  This is using Eskimo Kisses from Sugar Pea Designs:

The papers are Echo Park, and the snowy tree die is from Dee's Distinctively.  I am also entering this into the December Mix It Up Challenge #50 on the Sugar Pea Designs blog.

Last minute Christmas cards

I had the need for one last card to give out, and managed to sneak in a quick second one.  One of my goals is to make use of the stickers and accessories that come in a lot of paper packs, so here are my efforts at doing just that with Photoplay's Mad 4 Plaid papers:

 This one is a larger size: 5" x 6.5", to accommodate the car sticker.  I cut a rectangle out of the base, and mounted it on some metallic gold cardstock, then popped the whole piece up with adhesive pop dots.

 And an even quicker card!  Stickers, snowflake die cuts and a little stamped tag.  Done.

This will be my last post before the holidays - wishing a very Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it.  Hoping to see you with some new creations in a few days!

Tags for gifts

It seems like it's been a slow month here on my blog... but I've been creating up a storm.  For years I've wanted to give sets of gift tags as gifts to friends, and have finally managed to make it happen!  So what you see below, has been made x8, along with about 60 others that I've worked on this month.  I love the kraft paper and rustic colours:

For co-worker gifts... I've painted up 30 bookmarks this week, but have already shared the designs here a few weeks ago.  I look forward to getting back on track with crafting in the New Year and playing with a few of my favourite challenges.  The Christmas crafting crunch is almost over!
**Oh - and on a fun side-note... shortly after posting this, I should hit 1 million page views here on my blog.  Wow!  Thanks for looking at what I've been up to here for the past 8 1/2 years.

I am playing along with the current Inspired By Challenge:

A 50th Birthday card

A work friend is turning 50 on Christmas Eve, so we had an early celebration for him tonight, and I made him a very fun card.  Here is Norm from Art Impressions:

I coloured Norm with Copic markers, and used some Making Memories papers that work well for masculine cards, along with a few star die cuts.  The inside sentiment is "Old Guys Rule".

2018 Holiday Coffee Lover's Blog Hop

*Two posts in one day!  Please scroll down for my Colourific design team post*

It's back!!  The 2018 Holiday Coffee Lover's Blog Hop kicks off today, so I hustled home from work and put a little something together.  I'm using some of my much-loved Verve stamps today... and I'd like to give a huge shout out to Julee Tilman who's been a big supporter of the hop for years, and made the best coffee lover's stamps around.  Here's my first effort for the hop:

I pulled out some Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid Christmas papers from a couple of years ago, and used Laurel Seabrook's Sketchy Saturday sketch.

Colourific Christmas Cards

I have four projects on the Colourific blog today - all Christmas cards.  When I first saw this gorgeous tree made of stars in the Mr & Mrs Snow stamp set... I knew that it was wanting to be foiled!  I am so happy that I did... I love the end result:

 After running it through my machine, I cut it out and mounted on a simple triangle of dark green cardstock, adding a little brown base - then created a square card with my patterned tree paper.  I added a snowflake die cut, and cut the word "joy" out of some gold cardstock.  A few gold sequins added to the glimmer.

It's always hard to photograph anything shiny!  It's got quite a lovely shimmer in real life.

A few weeks back, I did some butterfly cards using the A4 Alphabet & Numbers stamp set, and wanted to try using it for some Christmas cards:

I'm sure you've seen variations on this idea before, but I wanted to give it a try with Colourific's fabulous font!

I stamped the words, leaving spaces where the O's should be... then I photocopied them onto some white cardstock (the foil only sticks to toner), and then ran them all through my Minc machine with gold foil to make my shimmery letters.

 I die cut two snowflakes from gold cardstock, and layered them onto each sentiment.

 All of the words are adhered to the base with pop dots for a little dimension.

And of course, I couldn't resist using my sewing machine to sew around the panels.  *So if you don't have Christmas stamp sets on hand, but want to put some holiday cards together - this is a quick & easy idea, and a great way to use a font.  

*There are brand new stamp sets being released by Colourific on December 1st!  Be sure to check out the blog in the coming weeks to see all of the new ideas from the Design Team.

Ink blended tags

I have been working away on a huge stash of tags over the past week.  After enjoying all the inspiration on Tracey McNeeley's 25 Days of Christmas Tags, I got down to business with some simple white tag shapes, using colours of Distress Oxide inks to blend on a small portion of each.  Intending to do four tags originally, I sort of couldn't stop myself, and ended up with 48 tags total!

 Does anyone remember There She Goes stamps?  They closed shop a few years ago, but several years before that I won a set of sweet, tiny images.  I stamped a bunch of them and coloured them with Copic markers a week ago.  And yes, I fussy cut out 76 of these tiny images.

Here were the first four that I loved so much - I made four of each....

Then I did a circle version...

And finally a squarish tag, where I ink blended one of the corners.  I sorted through numerous stamp sets to come up with 12 different sentiments, and adhered some of the images with pop dots.

 Here are the tags from Tracey McNeeley on day 16 that made me want to try a little ink blending with black sentiments:

And Two More...

Here is my second set of cards that made it into Creative Scrapbooker Magazine's current issue (page 125!) plus a couple of bonus coordinating cards.  Stamp set is Snow Friend Set (Sku #5041) from Art Impressions:

 As always, my inspiration comes from my papers... and I just adore these prints from Simple Stories.  The base is cream, and the snowflakes are all sorts of funky colours that I pulled out to use on my snowmen with Copic markers.

 I try to sneak in some stitching with my sewing machine wherever possible.  The next two cards were not published, the snowman is a variation of the previous card, and all of these were made for Art Impressions to have in their booth at the Mixed Media show this past summer.

 I love this dark grey snowflake paper, so I used it us a wintry sky with the sweet little birdhouse & cardinals.

Thanks for looking, today!

Art Impressions Publications

I am excited to share that I have four cards in the Winter edition of Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine!  I am using two of the newest Art Impressions Christmas stamp sets.  The first two are using Christmas Bee Set (Sku #5042):

 Isn't she a scream?  I adore her Bee onesie!  She is stamped in Versafine Onyx Black ink, and coloured with Copic Markers.  I picked one of the many sentiments that come in the set and popped it up on pop dots along with a sprig of holly.

These three caroling bees crack me up, too... also coloured in Copics.  I cut an oval shape out of the checked paper, added a red frame and then popped the checked rectangle up with pop dots.  The bees are adhered to the base of the card, so they are actually recessed in the card.  I added some die cut fir branches and a little coloured poinsettia to trim it off.  I'll post my other two published cards tomorrow.

Lawnfawnatics & Sketchy Saturday

So this card ended up a little busier than I intended (grin)... It is totally inspired by my niece, Allie, who used this stamp set this week, and I had yet to pull mine out (gasp!).  I decided to play along with the Lawnfawnatics current colour challenge, and am using Laurel's current Sketchy Saturday sketch.  So here is my (slightly) busy card:

I am using Lawn Fawn's Winter Alpaca stamp set, Really Rainbow Christmas papers and Stitched Hillside dies.  The paper is a coordinating cardstock from American Crafts' Tropical pack.  Stitched Alpine Snowflakes are from Poppy Stamps.

Pamper Your-shelf

One of the managers at the library where I work, always brings me a Tim's coffee on the Saturdays that we work together... and I bring her a card.  So last night I pulled out this stamp & die set from Art Impressions and put two of these together:

 This is one of the sweet Mini Try-fold sets called Pamper Your-shelf (Sku #4853) - and this is what it looks like when you pull it out of the envelope.  After untying the bow:

 This is the top layer, which allows you to look deep inside the bookshelf, then open the top layer:

 Here is the middle, and open it up to see...

The sweet little mouse reading a book in the middle.  Perfect for a librarian!

After colouring the images with Copic markers, I lined the inside flaps with patterned paper to hide the marker bleed-through, and recut the openings with the dies.  I mounted the try-fold onto a 4 3/4" square of cardstock and another coordinating piece of paper.  I adhered the organdy ribbon to the back of the card and tied it around the front.  You can find all of the Mini Try-folds on the Art Impressions website, here.