More Christmas Cards!

Here are some more Christmas cards I made and I must say I really had alot of fun making them. The first two cards are using the same elements and shows how it changes the look of the card by putting the elements on an angle. I embossed the red mittens though it may be hard to see in these pictures.

Actually I used the ice blue brads on this second card and not on the first card.

As you can tell I was really into using my embossing inks. I like the simplicity of this white embossed tree card. I was a bit disappointed that the white embossing ink isn't more pronounced, maybe it's because I used clear instead of white powder to emboss with?

To make the white flower on the lower right hand side of the tree, I stamped the tree in red ink on white cs and cut it out. I applied it with a glue dot since it had to adhere to the white embossed ink. I used white half pearl for the center of the flower and the smaller half pearls around each ticket punched corner. To put the bow at the tree trunk I used an x-acto knife to cut two slits, one on either side so the white ribbon slides right through to tie it. I did practice this before I did it on this card, I wanted to make sure it would work like I thought.

I like cards that are simple to make, you can make quite a few in a short amount of time. I love this mitten background paper, it's so colorful.

This is one of my favorite cards from this batch I made and it's very easy too. Using olive green ink I used the French Script stamp on vanilla cs and then stamped the tree using mahogany ink. I put a clear brad at the top of the tree and inked the edges with the mahogany ink.
I've had the mitten stamp for a year or so and have always wanted to use embossing ink and powder for a card. I used the small and large tag punches and a silver eyelet at the top of the tag punch so I could put ribbon through it.

Here is a closer picture of the mitten tags, hopefully you can see the embossing better.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Organization of My Craft Space

I just realized that in my August 19th post titled My Craft Space - Before and After, I said I would post pictures once I got all my craft products put away and organized.

I finished organizing everything a few weeks ago and what really got me started was organizing my card stock into basic colors. I used to spend so much time looking through my cs for colors it was getting frustrating for me. Now I can find the colors I want very easily.

This is my general work space with the craft table and all my inks, ribbons, pens, buttons, etc. are on my craft table. I really like the way it turned out and think I used the space wisely.

Here is a close up of the area with Tim Holtz Distress Inks, powders and crackle paint. I got the little pails you can see on the right hand side at Target for $1.00. I have the green Jingle Bell gift bag visible to remind myself to make a few this year instead of buying them. It adds another personal touch to gifts and is really quite simple once you look at how it's constructed.

When I was looking through all my craft stuff and deciding what I wanted to keep and give away, I came across a label maker. I went to town using it as you'll see in the pictures below.

The square pink apple container is also from Target for $1.00 and I used it for my embossing powders. The small pails and square containers are great for pens, embellishments and other small craft things you want to keep within reach. And the price is right!

The only thing I bought was the 3 drawer cart which holds my ribbons, punches and craft accessories. Of course I labeled the drawers, that label maker was fun to use, who knew.

All the stamps I've kept here with me in the cottage are stored in plastic bins. The rest are in storage. This is the first time ever I've organized my craft space and it makes me wonder why I never did it before. I've done it now and am very very happy with it :o)

Now it's time to continue stamping holiday cards.

Owl Christmas Cards

I've started making Christmas cards now so I wanted to share the first few I've made. My Aunt Carol has always loved owls so I wanted to start off making my Christmas cards for her. I got this Christmas Owls stamp set from My Favorite Things http://www.mftstamps.com/ in their Bubble Bin, which are products at a discount. Not only do I love the main owl stamp but the two sentiments are cute too, Owl be home for Christmas and Hope your holidays are a hoot!

I stamped the owls and ornaments with black ink and hand painted the owls, hats and ornaments in various color combinations. Since I hand painted these cards I decided to use a sealer so the colors don't fade over time. I used Krylon Workable Fixatif which is good when using paints, pencil, pastels, charcoal, etc.

For the first card I used blue, red and white cs. I stamped the blue cs with a snowflake using Versamark. This product is what gives the background of the card a watermark feel. I have a small star punch which I decided to use around the sentiment of the card. I think it ties together nicely with the star ornaments.

With all the white parts of the owl hats on these cards I used a 2 Way Glue Pen. To the parts I wanted sparkly I used the glue pen, then sprinkled the glitter on top and tapped it off. You say see the glitter hats better on this close up picture.

For this next card I used red yellow, blue and white cs. I used a frame punch on the four corners of the yellow cs. I also used the photo corner punch on the red and yellow cs. The red photo corner is at the bottom right of the white owl cs and the yellow one is at the bottom right of the sentiment. I must admit that when I first saw this punch in various classes I took I didn't think it would be one that I would use. But I like using it because it gives just a hint of a different color where ever it's used.

Here is the third card I made using pink (one of my favorite colors), grass green and white cs. I used a crimper to get the ripple effect on the pink cs. These are non-traditional Christmas colors but I like the color combinations.

I'll be making more cards in the next day or two and will be trying new techniques too so stop by again soon.

Pat Me on the Back

I was looking at other peoples crafting projects on their blogs and have seen some with slideshows of their craft projects. I like that feature because it shows the various cards and other projects I've made over the last year or two. Since I've only been blogging since February of this year the slideshow gives visitors a chance to see more projects I've made, other than what I've blogged about.

I attempted and succeed (Yeah!!) to add a slideshow of my cards to my blog. I was getting a bit frustrated in the beginning because the width of the slideshow widget was too wide for my blog column so I needed to figure out how to get the appropriate size. With a little research and alot of patience I found the information I needed and voila, I did it!!

I am not a techee so it tends to take me a little longer to figure things out but I did, so pat me on the back!!