Noel Wall Hanging

Here's one I've been working on for a little while - my first piece of wall art! I made this for the Twelve Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style challenge and it is based on week #5's inspiration tag. I am also submitting it to Lessology Challenge #4: Wall Art.

Linda's inspiration tag for Week 5 appears below. The inspirations from her tag for my piece were the gold embossed lettering, the mix of elegance and homespun (burlap with gold, etc.) and the Perfect Distress technique used on the background.

I have a Noel stamp from Inkadinkado that is very similar to the Joy stamp Linda used on her tag. I stamped it on black and embossed in gold, then cut the letters apart using one for each panel. For my burlap piece I made a simple Christmas tree. I stamped flourishes, text and snowflakes on the background of each panel using Frayed Burlap Distress ink. I guess technically my technique isn't Perfect Distress because I used Gold Interference PearlEx powder instead of Perfect Pearls, but the effect is the same. Unfortunately you can't see a lot of the background. As usual, I managed to cover most of it up. You can see close-ups of each of the four panels at the end of this post.

The Lessology challenge has only been around a couple of months and this is my first submission. This challenge is for altered items and has a requirement of using at least one recycled/upcycled item in each creation. The theme for challenge 4 is wall art and I used two different recycled items. I cut the four background panels and the swirls around the snowflake/flower on the "L" panel from a cereal box. I painted it with antique white acrylic paint then did a little distressing with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink and some homemade glimmer spray.

The metal mat around the angel image and the center of the flower on the 'O' panel, the three little diamonds on the "E" panel and the center of the snowflake/flower on the 'L' panel are made from a soda can. I cut the can open, embossed it with my Tapestry Cuttlebug folder and colored it with Pitch Black Alcohol ink. I used a tiny flower die and a tiny square die from Spellbinders to cut the shapes, then I rubbed them with Antique Gold Rub-n-Buff. For the flower centers, I used my paper piercer to poke holes into the points of each petal. I love using jewelry findings for flower centers and decoration, but I don't have a lot of them and can't buy as many as I would like. I thought this might be a cool way to get a similar look and stretch the crafting dollars a little farther. I do like how they came out and am looking forward to trying some other ideas that I have with the soda cans.

Close ups of each of the four panels of the wall hanging appear below. This was a really fun project and I will definitely be making more wall art. Thanks for stopping by!

I Hope You Dance

I'm submitting this pretty ballerina as a second project for the current Catered Crop Follow the Recipe Challenge. For this challenge you are provided an inspiration project from the previous challenge entries. The objective is to use parts of the "recipe" used for that creation along with your own ingredients to make a project. I made a card in my favorite vintage collage style using the following ingredients from the inspiration recipe:

• Papers: pattern paper
• Embellishments: lace, thread, buttons, tags, pearls, ribbon, twine
• Techniques: sewing, make a bow bouquet
• Tools: die cuts

The background paper is a digital paper that I created using Photoshop textures and brushes. The post card, music paper, ballerina and hydrangea images are all from The Graphics Fairy. I created the sentiment in Photoshop and added the swirls at the ends with a PS brush. The bow bouquet is made with tulle, sheer pink ribbon, brown satin ribbon and a length of strung pearls. There is a shipping tag layered behind the main image that has been stamped with a damask background using Vintage Photo Distress ink. I adhered ivory color wrinkled tissue paper to the ballerina image using Mod Podge just to give it a faux silk look. Everything is sponged with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. The flower is made from a Prima and a pink lace circle. I finished it off with a pink button, a twine bow and a pearl/crystal stick pin.

Thanks for stopping by!

Vintage Santa in Shades of Brown

This is my entry for Week 2 of the Twelve Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style challenge. In addition, I am entering in the following five challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp and Show - One Color (shades of brown)
• Our Creative Corner - Fabulous Faces
• Fashionable Stamping Challenges - Coffee and Cream with a Hint of Dark Chocolate
• Charisma Cardz Challenges - Embossing (Heat or Dry)
• Catered Crop Follow the Recipe - the ingredients I used are listed at the end of this post

I am getting pretty far behind in the Funkie Junkie challenge, but I think I'll be catching up now. I got a little stuck on week 2 and just stayed stuck instead of moving on to some of the other weeks and then coming back (I did manage to do week 4). Linda's inspiration tag is beautiful (see below), but I just couldn't get it together. I did make an ornament a couple of weeks ago, but did not like it at all. I think it was because I was trying to use the same colors that Linda used and they just weren't coming together in a way that I liked. When I decided to try a different color combination, that worked much better for me. The inspiration pieces I took from this tag were the shabby flower, the flourishes and snowflakes in the background and the snowflake embellishments.

The Santa image I used is a stamp that was created exclusively for members of a stamping forum that I belonged to several years ago. I really like this image a lot, but have only used it once or twice before. It is so big I have a hard time coming up with designs where it doesn't cover everything else up. I stamped it with Versafine Vintage Sepia ink on tan cardstock. I cut it out with a rectangle nestie and matted it with a scalloped rectangle. I pierced the scallops and sponged the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I don't own the Tim Holtz tattered florals die, so I used what I had to make my flower. I made the bottom layer by gathering a circle of tea-colored lace. The other two layers are made from silk flowers. They started out as white. I painted them with cream color acrylic paint and sponged them with Walnut Stain Distress Ink. They ended up a little too dark so I dry brushed just a little more of the acrylic paint over the top. After I layered the flower, I sprayed it with some homemade glimmer spray and added the jewelry finding and pearl in the center. I really like this flower and think I'll be doing a lot more painting on silk flowers. I buy the cheapo ones at Walmart or Dollar Tree so they are kind of tattery looking on the edges, which I think adds to their shabby look. Pretty cool.

The bottom layer of the card is dark brown Bazzil cardstock that I embossed with a Sizzix texture plate. After embossing I sanded the top lightly. Since the Bazzil doesn't have a white core, it just lightened up the high spots and left it darker in the recesses, which added some dimension to the background. The edge piece is dark cream color paper that I stamped with flourishes and snowflakes using Walnut Stain Distress Ink. I then sponged more of the DI on the edges and added a piece of the same lace from the flower on the edge. The piece under the image is a scrap piece of DP I had. I crumpled it then flattened back out and roughed up the edges by scraping the sharp edge of my scissors along them. I then inked the edges with the Walnut Stain ink.

For the snowflakes I stamped more of the flourishes on a scrap piece of ivory cardstock with the Walnut Stain ink and brushed them with bronze color Perfect Pearls. I punched them out, layered them, and added a button and some twine to the centers.

Here are the ingredients I used from the inspiration cards on the Catered Crop Challenge:

Papers: Pattern paper

Stamps: Men

Color Mediums: Glimmer Mist (my own homemade kind)

Embellishments: Lace, buttons, pearls, twine

Tools: Die cuts, punches

I don't often say this about my own work, but I really like this card. I really like how the different challenges that I participate in stretch my creativity. I probably would never have made a completely brown Christmas card otherwise. I also like finding my own ways to do the same types of things without having a lot of the tools and supplies that my budget doesn't allow. It really stretches my creativity and gives me ides for doing other things.

Well, I think I've rambled on long enough. Thanks for stopping by!

Embossed Ornament Card

I decided to make a round card for something different this time. I'm not sure why I have never made one before. I really like the way they look. I am entering this card in three challenges:

1. Crazy 4 Challenges 109 - Card for an upcoming holiday and heat embossing
2. Our Creative Corner: Supply Challenge - Totally Transparent
3. Cardmaker Magazine Forum Anything Goes Challenge - Deirdre's challenge was to make a matching envelope to go with your card

This is a super simple card. Everything is cut with Nestabilities (circle, scalloped circle and Label 4). I embossed the red circle with the swirls Cuttlebug embossing folder, then went over the swirls with a Versamarker and embossed with gold. I added a small pearl to the end of each swirl. For the top I cut a scrap with one of my scalloped square nesties, then trimmed it to size, embossed with gold and added the three pearls. For the hanger I simply bent a piece of beading wire and glued it to the back.

For the card base I folded a piece of ivory cardstock in half and cut it with the largest scalloped circle nestie, leaving a small piece attached at the top. I decided after I put the three pieces next to each other than the ivory was too light. I thought gold would be a better color, but I didn't have any gold paper, so I colored the outside of the ivory piece with a gold Sharpie paint marker and added the pearls to each scallop.

I stamped the sentiment on black then embossed it with gold. I added the ribbon and poinsettia. The poinsettia is made from transparency and colored with alcohol inks. I added tiny gold marbles to the center. I originally intended the sentiment to be stamped on transparency as well, but was not happy with how that was looking. So I hope my little flower is enough to count for the OCC challenge.

I wanted to do something different for the envelope. Rather than using a plain square envelope, I made the envelope from a hexagon petal card template than I downloaded from Mirkwood Designs. I decorated the front with gold embossed holly leaves and attached a label. Since it's not likely I will mail this card, I just used a small label for the name. The bottom two pictures so the envelope open and closed. I would hold the envelope closed with some kind of embellishment.

This was a fun card. I'm not sure how often I will make my own envelopes, but it was a good exercise in creativity.

That's about it for now. Thanks for stopping by!

Not a Creature Was Stirring...

Not even a mouse! This cute little guy is for this week's DP2 Challenge. This week's challenge is Patchwork, and of course you must use a Mo's Digital Pencil design. This image is a couple of years old, but I still think he's adorable all snuggled up in his tea cup waiting for Santa.

I colored the image with Prismacolor pencils blended with Gamsol. The simple patchwork background is made from DCWV papers and hand-stitched around the outside with pink floss. I added some simple embellishments - ribbon, flowers, button and stick pin.

I am also posting this card for Golda's challenge on the Cardmaker Magazine Card Swap forum. Her challenge is to make a Christmas card from a non-traditional image.

Thanks for stopping by!

Reindeer Card

Here is my second submission for The 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style challenge. This is actually my submission for week 4's tag. I still need to do weeks 2 and 3. The challenge runs through December 15th and participants have until then to post all 12 of their projects. That's my kind of challenge because some weeks I crank out all kinds of stuff and others not so much.

Anyway, the object of the challenge is to make a project inspired by tags created by Linda - aka The Funkie Junkie. (I just love that name!) The projects can be anything you like - cards, tags, altered art, etc. So far both my submissions have been cards, but I plan to make a few other things as well.

You can see Linda's tag that inspired this card on her blog. I was inspired by:

• Colors
• Reindeer
• Snowflakes
• Sheet Music

The reindeer and snowflake stamps are from a clear set. I took all my clear stamps out of their packaging so I could store them in binders on acrylic sheets in page protectors. Unfortunately, I didn't note the companies. I'm fairly certain these are Inkadinkado, but they could be Hampton Art. I do know that the Merry Christmas is from Martha Stewart. The sheet music is from an old piano lesson book that I found at our local swap meet (referred to here as "the sale barn") for a dollar. I sponged everything with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I stamped the snowflakes on the background with Vintage Photo and the ones on the image panel with Black Soot. I also edged the image with Black Soot. I sprayed the background and the reindeer image with my homemade glimmer spray.

Thanks for looking!

Rolled Ribbon Flower Technique

I love making my own flowers, so I was excited that one of the challenges for the World Cardmaking Day crop on the Cardmaker forum was to make and use rolled ribbon flowers on a card. It was relatively easy, but I found it a little tedious. It's probably not something I would do a lot, but maybe once in awhile.

In addition to the challenge on Cardmaker, I am also entering this card into the following:

• Card Patterns Sketch 135
• Less is More Week 35 - make a card using the color of your eyes as the primary color
• Crafty Creations Challenge #137 - Clean and simple

I'm not completely sure my card is truly what's considered clean and simple, but it seems clean and simple to me, so I'm going to submit it anyway. If it's not, then I'll know better next time. :)

I didn't actually use ribbon for my flowers. I didn't have any the color that I wanted that was really wide enough. I managed to make one with some 5/8" blue satin ribbon, but I didn't like it. It was too neat for my taste. So I found some white double fold bias tape. I tea dyed it and pressed it flat. Once I got the flowers made I sprayed it with some of my homemade glimmer spray and added a blue glass bead in the center. I like the way some of the tattered edges of the bias tape show in the flowers. Much more to my liking.

The stamps are from a clear set that I bought a couple of years ago, but I can't remember who made them. They are either Hampton Art or Inkadinkado. I used 4 separate stamps to make the image. It is stamped with French Blue Chalk Ink so it would have a softer look. I inked my edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

Thanks for looking!

Le Coq

When I saw this awesome vintage rooster on The Graphics Fairy a few days ago, I knew I would have to come up with something to make with him. I love chickens and I love French stuff. As it happens, two challenges came up today where this guy fit right in.

The CardMaker magazine card swap forum is having an online mini crop today in honor of World Cardmaking Day. One of the challenges was to use a farm animal on a card.

The challenge at Our Creative Corner this week also celebrates World Cardmaking Day. The challenge is to create a project inspired by a country other than your own. Obviously the country that inspired my card is France.

In addition to the rooster, I also downloaded the French ephemera at the top of the card and the floral paper at the bottom from The Graphics Fairy. The only stamping on the card is the two little ornamental designs in the corner of the ephemera piece and the fleur de lis on the sentiment. The sentiment is computer generated. I inked everything with Vintage Photo Distress Ink, added some hand-stitching, lace, ribbon, flowers, a button, some twine and a stick pin.

Since I downloaded my papers and main image from there, I am also submitting this to The Graphics Fairy for Brag Monday. You can submit any projects you have made using Karen's images on Mondays. She'll pick a couple of her favorites to feature the following week. Just a neat little thing to recognize her followers. Karen is very generous and has awesome vintage images. If you like vintage at all, you owe it to yourself to check out her site. You won't be disappointed (and everything is free!).

Thanks for looking!