Hello friends! Welcome to my 200th post! I made this card for this week's CardMaker Challenge Corner hosted by Lora. This week's challenge was to use scraps. I decided to use some of my scraps to make serendipity squares. I also used scraps to make the card base and white and blue mats. I totally CASEd this card, but I can't remember where I saw the original design.

I have made serendipity squares many times, but I really love the way these turned out. After I glued down the random pieces of paper, I painted over the entire piece with a thin coat of gesso. I then stamped paisley and script patterns randomly over the whole piece using Faded Jeans Distress Ink. Finally I used decoupage glue to  glue white tissue paper over the entire piece to bring it together and add a little texture. The first piece of tissue paper I stamped with a swirl pattern using Crushed Olive Distress Ink. After I put it over the background piece, I didn't like the way it looked so I peeled it off. It left the random splotches of green behind, but I really liked the way it looked. I may do that on purpose next time.

That's about it. I have tons of scraps and I plan to do more of the serendipity technique. I love the squares, but I also like the way it looks as a background for mixed media. It's so easy. It's something I can do to be creative when I don't have the energy to work on a big project.

Thanks for stopping by!

Clean and Simple Thank You Card

Hi friends! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was quiet and peaceful. This year we were able to spend Christmas with my parents and my husband's, which was very nice.

This is a clean and simple thank you card that I made. I almost feel guilty posting it. If it hadn't been for the flower, it would have taken me literally five minutes. I kept staring at it after it was finished thinking that I should add something else because I hadn't spent enough time on it.

I printed the sentiment on the computer, then cut the card to size. I embossed above and below the sentiment with the Cuttlebug Victoria EF, then embossed the horizontal rules with my ScorPal and a bone folder.

The flower is handmade using a template from Mel Stamps blog. If you have never checked out Mel's blog, you should. She has tons of templates, tutorials and links. She offers everything for free. I go there first anytime I need something. If she doesn't have it herself, chances are she has a link to a place that does. I transferred the pattern for the flower to my DP, then fussy cut it, inked the edges,  layered it, scrunched it up a little for dimension and added a pearl brad.

That's about all there is to it. I really like this card. I think it's very elegant - even if it does seem like it didn't take me long enough. :)

Thanks for stopping by. Happy New Year!!!

Peaceful Dove

I think I made it just in time! This is my final project for the 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style challenge - Week 12. Today is the deadline, and as usual I am getting my project in at the last minute.

I am also submitting this for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge, which is titled "Thru the Looking Glass: Projects with Depth." It might be a little difficult to tell from the photo, but the ornament is three dimensional. I achieved this by layering three Nestabilities die cuts with foam tape. The You really can't see the middle layer at all. I managed to cover it up with all the stuff.

You can see Linda's inspiration tag for week 12 of the Funkie Junkie challenge HERE. I was inspired by the gold color, music paper, holly and the bird cage. No I didn't use a bird cage - I don't have that awesome die and I didn't really want to spend forever fussy cutting a bird cage. So I used a bird instead. My intention was to use the Faux Crazed Porcelain technique that Shelly Hickox posted on Splitcoast Stampers last week. I did the technique and it looked great until I tried to flatten out the dove's right wing. Although I was trying my best to be gentle, the embossing cracked. I really didn't want to do the dove over, so I just cracked the embossing all over. I now I have cracked glass over crazed porcelain. :)

The base of the ornament is chipboard that I embossed with the Cuttlebug Victoria EF, painted with gesso and covered with Antique Gold Rub N Buff. I used the Labels 1 (or 2 - I can't remember the number - the square one) and turned it 90 degrees. I cut the centers wtih a circle Nestie. The middle layer that you can't see was painted cream color, inked with Vintage Photo DI and I left it oriented the "regular way". If I had turned it like I did the other two layers, you would have been able to see it. :) The holly is a stamp that I colored with Peeled Paint and Fired Brick Distress Inks and cut up. I used four of the images total. I also added some leaves punched with a Martha Stewart punch from handmade gold paper. Finally I added a music paper rosette and a poinsettia that I made from lace and pearls.

I have really enjoyed doing the Funkie Junkie tag challenge. I tried a lot of new techniques and different types of projects. I've discovered how much I love making hanging things. I am quite inspired by Linda's work. If you follow her blog you will probably notice that I CASE a lot of her ideas in my other projects too. I hope she'll do another challenge at some point.

I guess that's about it. I have a couple more Christmas cards to make for my family and a couple of small gifts, then I think I'm done with Christmas. I love making Christmas projects, but I think I'm about ready to move on to something else for awhile. :)

Thanks for stopping by!!

Winter Romance

Here is my submission for week 10 of the 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style. You can see Linda's  inspiration tag for week 10 HERE. Linda's tag immediately made me think of romance with the big burlap heart and the cute ice skating couple. I chose to make a heart-shaped ornament in soft feminine colors.

For the base I die-cut the heart shape and then used Tammy Tutterow's Frosty Deboss technique. I used the Cuttlebug snowflake folder, but put the heart in the opposite way I usually would so that the areas that are normally raised were indented. I then painted the heart a light pink. After it was dry, I brushed on a layer of Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint, then scraped it off with the edge of a piece of chipboard. The crackle stayed only in the indented areas. It's a very cool technique, but it's hard to see on this piece. The indented snowflakes are really too small to show the crackle very well. Plus I covered a lot of it up.

I added a white crepe paper ruffle to the back of the heart then sprayed everything with homemade glimmer spray. The ice skate was downloaded from the Internet, traced onto chipboard and cut out. I painted the boot white and the blade metallic silver, then covered it with ultra fine glitter. I embellished with silver brads, corrugated paper snowflake, a button, some bells and white twine. Finally I added two primitive hearts cut from corrugated paper, some punched silver leaves, punched snowflakes a pink flower bud and some bling. I stamped Magic onto a small tag and inked with Rouge Chalk Ink.

I only have one more project to complete by Thursday. I think I'm the only one participating in the challenge that isn't finished with all 12 projects. I am just so slooooww. :^)

Thanks for stopping by!!

Red and Gray Poinsettia

Just a quick post. Lora has this week's member challenge on the CardSwaps forum on the CardMaker magazine web site. She challenged us to create a project using only the colors of red, gray and white. To be honest, color challenges are not my favorite types of challenges and rarely do them, but after seeing all the beautiful cards everyone was creating with these colors, I decided to go ahead and give it a shot. Red and gray is a classic color combo, but it's not one I see often in the challenges. I also had been wanting to try my hand at making a handmade poinsettia out of fabric. For this one I used some white lace-like fabric from one of my Goodwill clothing finds. There's really not much else to the card - some DP, red and gray cardstock and bling. I handstitched around the outside. The border punch is EK success. The flourish die is Quikutz and the the holly embossing is from a Sizzix Impressions plate.

Thanks for stopping by!

Let it Snow!

Hello friends! Today I have another Christmas/Winter wall hanging. I think I'm enjoying these decorative projects more all the time. I keep thinking of more ideas I can do. One day my walls will be filled with 'stuff'. :^). I'm submitting this project for the following challenges:

• The 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style Week 11
• Raise the Bar #86 - It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas
• Quirky Crafts Challenges #25 - Snow
• Crazy for Challenges #116 - Let's Go to the Movies (Frosty the Snowman)
• City Crafter Challenge #86 - Home for the Holidays (a project to decorate the home or with a home on it)

You can find Linda's week 11 tag for the Funkie Junkie Challenge HERE. I'm not posting a pic of the tag anymore because for some reason a lot of the commenters that visit my blog seem to think I made the tag (even though I always say it's Linda's tag). I am no where near Linda's level in my work, so to avoid the confusion I'll just link to her tag from now on.

In Linda's tag, I was inspired by snowflakes, the book page background, the Snowflakes on the Edge die and the square fragment. I had a hard time coming up with an idea for my project until I saw tag 4 in Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas series. I was inspired by the snowman (I can't believe this is the first snowman project I've made so far this year!) and the color. I really wanted to do something different. It seems like almost everything I've been making lately has been some shade of brown. I really do like color! :^).

For the base of my wall hanging I used a page from a children's board book. It was already the perfect shape and has a good weight for this type of project. I covered it with a book page, then brushed on a thin layer of white paint. I stamped snowflakes on it with Versamark and clear embossed them. I don't have any Distress Inks in the right colors of blue, and I don't own any Distress Stains so I sponged on a couple different colors of blue paint then dabbed on some white. I wiped the paint off the snowflakes with a damp paper towel. I was very pleased with the way it turned out. I misted the base with some homemade glimmer spray. I mixed a cream color metallic paint with some white Perfect Pearls. I love how it added shimmer without adding color. Unfortunately, I don't think you can see it in the photo. I edged the base with Faded Jeans Distress Ink.

I'm not making tags for Tim's series, but I am checking them out every day. I love the techniques and designs - both his and the participants. I wish my brain worked like his. I don't know how he comes up with this stuff!

I loved the crackle snowman on tag #4 and I just bought some Rock Candy Distress Crackle so I was anxious to try it out. LOVE IT!!! I'm definitely going to have to get a bigger jar of that stuff. I don't own any of Mr. Holtz's dies (I buy very few dies except basic shapes), so I found a piece of clipart I like online, printed it out the size I wanted and traced it only chipboard and cut it out. I painted it white and crackled it. I brushed on some blue paint, misted it with water, and wiped it off so it just highlighted the cracks. I edged him with some Faded Jeans Distress Ink. I added a couple pieces of ribbon and a ribbon tied button for his scarf and added some silver leaves and a rhinestone to embellish his hat.

Of course I don't own a Snowflakes on the Edge die either so I just made my own. I cut a strip and punched the snowflakes out of a light weight box. I think it had sweetener packets in it. I wanted something heavier than cardstock, but not as heavy as chipboard. I used deckle edge scissors to trim one side of the strip and arranged the snowflakes on the back side. I painted everything white, then crackled it and added the blue like I did on the snowman. This piece didn't crackle as well as the snowman, so I think I didn't brush on quite enough of the distress crackle.

I used a little square charm that I had since I don't have any of the fragments like Linda used on her tag. I tried to use the Alcohol Ink resist that Tim used on another of his tags, but it just didn't work for me. So I added the little punched snowflakes and blue rhinestones on top of the alcohol ink background. The snowflakes are leftovers from my snowflake border punch. I knew those would come in handy one day. I save everything.

Finally I added some corrugated paper snowflakes, button, rhinestones, big ric-rak and pearls. Lots of pearls. I think I went overboard on the pearls. LOL!

I think that's it. I only have two more projects to make for the Funkie Junkie challenge so I think I'll make it by the deadline of December 15th. Yea!

Thanks for stopping by!!