Happy New Year!!

For my last post of the year, I want to share my last piece of art for the year.  Tonight I made an ATC using the tissue paper technique in "Artist Trading Card Workshop" by Bernie Berlin.  Michele Johnson at Crafted By Us has been doing a challenge with the techniques from this book.  This card is for a swap on atcsforall with the theme of Bizzare January Holidays...this one is for Bird Day on 5 January and is my last ATC of the year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!!

MY CRICUT EXPRESSION ARRIVED!!

My Cricut came in today, so as soon as I was done at work, I had to run over and get it.  I love it! I had to make a quick card for my DH to thank him for a most excellent gift...I threw in a little embellishment from the Cuttlebug too.  :-)

Of course, I can't just be happy with cutting paper (mom and I already cut fabric with her Cricut), so I had to try cutting craft metal.  It worked!  I then ran the little oval I cut on the Cricut thru my Cuttlebug (hey, why not) and colored it with Caramel AI.  This is what I got:

BTW, there are some great videos on metal embossing (including using the Cuttlebug) at Ten Seconds Studio.  They do a new video every Tuesday (Taco Tuesday).  In addition to the great information, they are hilarious to watch.

Cuttlebug Card

This is a card I created using just the Cuttlebug, paper, some ribbon and a brad.  I used the Perfectly Paisley embossing folder for the background and the Feel Better embossing folders for the Thinking of You and coffee cup.

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.  I did quite well on the crafting front.  'Santa' brought me a Cuttlebug, Xyron and a Cricut Expressions...along with a box of assorted craft supplies.  The Expressions did not arrive in time (hopefully, it will come in tomorrow), but I've had some fun just playing with the Cuttlebug.  I started working on a card for 'Santa', but need the Expressions to finish it. :-)

 

Santa's Little Brother, Grinchy Claus.

A Simple Gift Bag

I needed a package to take a Christmas gift to my hairdresser...all I had were plain white bags, so I used a little Tim Holtz inspiration and used the same techniques I used on tags to decorate both sides of a bag. The tags worked better, but I managed to get a decent looking gift bag out of it.

More Christmas Tags

These are a couple smaller tags that I created for Christmas gifts.

More Christmas Tags

I spent this morning finishing up the tags I'll need for the gifts for my co-workers. This first one is modeled after Tim Holtz's Christmas Tag #5. The others are techniques that I took for various other Christmas tags.

This is my Christmas Tag #5.

This tag used the water spot technique with Distress Ink.

I used at background technique from 12 Tags of Christmas 07.

For this one, I used the techniques from Tim's Tag #9 (but I don't have all the cool stamps he does).

More Tags and Glass Ornaments

I've made another Memory Glass ornament using the deer stamp from Inkadinkadoo's Christmas Silhouettes collection.

I also made another Christmas tag. I used techniques from Tim Holtz, but did not exactly copy any one tag for this one. I'm going to attach my tags to give bags I'm making for co-workers...hope they like them. :-)

Glass Ornament

I got the idea for this ornament from Ink Stains. Every day she is posting a crafted gift idea. This was gift idea #10 - Memory Glass Ornament. I used Red Pepper, Cranberry and Gold AIs to ink the back of the memory glass, then stamped the front with white Stazon and a poinsetta stamp from 908 Christmas Cube #1 stamp by ??? (their is no vendor on the stamp and I picked it up at the flea market, so...). I then stippled Versamark embossing ink around the edges and used Peeled Paint Distress embossing powder. I cleaned the powder around the image before heating. The beads are from unknown vendors and are wired on with gold toned wire. The only thing I kinda don't like is that you can see the wire on the back thru the glass...I just couldn't think of any other way to wire it that would be secure or not have blobs of glue...oh well...the the right light (or should I say no light), it looks pretty nice. :-) The scanner did not do a good job of capturing the 'sparkle' of the glass and beads for this one.

12 Days of Christmas Tags

Tim Holtz is doing 12 Days of Christmas Tags on his blog. Each day he shows different techniques while making a new tag. Today was Day 6, and I made this tag using the techniques he showed. The Merry Kris Mouse stamp from Comotion stamped on acetate and painted using AIs. I then painted some white acrylic paint on the ink side of the acetate so the mouse wouldn't be lost in the background. The tag was stained using Distress inks and stamps with a florish and a text stamp. Just as Tim suggested, I wiped the black ink on the text stamp instead of blotting it on. It gave the ink a muted color. I didn't have any of Tim's neat metal snowflakes, so I punched them out of the aluminum of a Dr. Pepper can and coated them with glitter glue. For the main text, I used a the Noel stamp from the Christmas Silhouettes collection by Inkadinkado stamped on green paper and covered in glitter glue. I used Glossy Accents around the boarder of the Noel and coated it with little glass balls. This was a fun tag to make...

I also got my Cloisonne Christmas Tree stamp in from Michael Strong Stamps. So, naturally, I had to make a card right away with it. I stamped the tree with Versamark and embossed with silver pearl embossing powder. I colored the tree with Distree ink in Pine Needles and Pealed Paint. The 'balls' are bling that I colored with Red Pepper AI. The gifts are made on white shink plastic and the bear is stamped on cardstock and adhered with a foam square. The background is a printed paper that I edged with Pine Needles Distress Ink to add a vignette. Finally, I embossed the Merry Christmas with emerald embossing powder.

Latest Christmas Card

Here is the latest Christmas card design I've created for the festive season:

I also created a Christmas gift tag.

Latest Christmas Cards

My latest creation uses a snowman stamp from Stamp Affair. I made 5 in this pattern. One had a smudge of ink and I had the brilliant idea of whiting it out...which worked...until I sponged blue ink over it...apparently, whiteout will not absorb ink...so, I created snow peaked mountains to hide my mistake. :-)