Father Christmas

Good day all!  Just a quick post today to share a Christmas card I made for the Heart 2 Heart Challenge this week.  As you can probably tell by the title, the theme is anything Christmas.  I decided to get a jump on my Christmas cards and made this…I really wanted to use this lovely CTMH wood grain B&T paper from the Dakota paper packet, because I thought it would make a lovely backdrop for a Christmas card.  I ended up pairing it with this gorgeous Santa image from the Father Christmas stamp set (retired).  After adding a strip of houndstooth paper (the reverse side of the wood grain), I added some red velvet ribbon.  I love the ribbon.  I really think it adds classic elegance to this vintage looking Santa card.  And although I think a bow would’ve been pretty, I didn’t add one because I didn’t want to bulk up the card for mailing purposes.I stamped and coloured the image with Copics and then painstakingly cut it out with my trusty Cutterbees.  I popped it up from the page using dimensional foam, and then added the beautiful, sparkly red gems to each side of the card.  Finally, I stamped the ‘Happy Holidays’ sentiment in the bottom right corner.  Tout fini!

A big thanks to Kim for the fun crafting night last night and the use of some of her stuff.  Always therapeutic, so let’s do it again soon!  And please check out the Heart 2 Heart blog on Monday.  That is when I will be starting my guest designer spot for the month of October.  Have a great day and happy crafting!

Halloween Diorama

Hi crafty friends.  Well, I worked hard all weekend to finish my Out of a Hat creation and I gotta say I’m pretty pleased with the way this turned out.  But before I get ahead of myself, the challenge this week is to create a Halloween project of your choosing.  For some fantastic inspiration, check out what the ladies have done over there by clicking the link above.

Okay, so I was looking around Pinterest for some ideas, because I’ve already made a few Halloween cards and a Jack O’Lantern lamp, and I wanted to do something else.  I found this spectacular diorama made by the Crafty Gentleman and decided to try my hand at one.  You can see the inspiration piece by clicking here.

For my diorama, I started out with an empty cocoa can…The first thing I did was peel the label off the can and cut a big hole in the front of it.  I then dug out a bunch of Halloween papers, stamps and ribbon and got busy.  Eventually I came up with this…Oh, what fun!  Most of the papers are from a We R Memory Keepers Halloween paper pack, but I embellished them with a few CTMH papers.The stamps are mostly Close To My Heart with a few We R Memory Keepers thrown in (pumpkin & witch).  I cut two hills from patterened card stock and stuck them in the can, slightly apart from each other, then started layering images to create my spoooooky scene.  I made sure to leave room behind the taller hill so I could fit a couple of battery operated tea lights behind it.I also used my CTMH Artiste Cricut cartridge quite a bit.  There are some fabulous Halloween images, such as the skeleton, cat, tombstones, and Eek! sign.Here is a picture of the diorama with the lid off.  As you can see, I used a lot of ribbon to decorate it and hide the ugly, red plastic.  A removeable lid is really handy for getting the tea lights in and out.  So that is my latest Halloween creation.  I hope you like it and are inspired to try one yourself.  I bet a Christmas one would be lovely.

Before I go, I also wanted to share a picture of our newest family member…Isn’t he cute?  We went to the pet store to get a couple of fish and came home with Owlet instead (so named because of his big owl-like eyes)!  LOL!  He will be well loved.

Have a great week everyone.  See you back here real soon.  Happy crafting!

A Slanted View

Hi folks. It’s the weekend and doing nothing but raining here.  Great day for crafting if my kids will let me! LOL.  I managed to finish 2 cards for the Heart 2 Heart challenge, which features this sketch…The first card is a Christmas card I made using some CTMH paper from last year’s Christmas collection, along with a bit of Dotty For You paper.I cut out the Hohoho with the Artiste Cricut Cartridge and glued it, along with a few holly leaves, onto a 3 layer matte, which I then popped up using dimensional foam.  I added the green bow and red button to give this focal image a bit more weight.  The holiday treat snowflake was stamped in red and green, then cut out and pieced together.  I added the blue gems to give it sparkle.  It’s hard to see in the photo, but the red plaid paper actually has a blue stripe running through it, hence the blue accents.My Halloween card uses the Moonlight paper pack and Workshop On The Go stamp set (thanks Kim!).  For the main focal image, I started off by sponging and blending ink onto a piece of card stock.  I then embossed the lamp post and fence/owl image on.  I wish I could say I had the foresight to mask the lamp top, but I ended up piecing it on so I could colour it in with Copics to get that lampy glow.  Lastly, I stamped on the bats and coloured the owl’s eyes with a white marker.

The “Who’s Afraid?” flower was cut out using the Artiste cartridge and pieced together.  I then glued it to a piece of Halloween ribbon that I got off a bag of candy corn.  And last but not least, the beautiful, black lacey felt sticker underneath everything, is from a Halloween kit I picked up last year.

That’s it from me.  I have to go off and start on my Hatters Halloween challenge project, so stay tuned for that.  Have a great weekend everyone!

Family & Friends

Hello!  It’s time for another My Time Made Easy Pretty Palette Challenge.  Number 71 to be exact and our colours this week are…The rules are as follows…

You can use the palette on ANY type of project!  While participation with products from My Time Made Easy ™ LLC is appreciated, it is not required to participate. You can use products from ANY company.  Every other week we will pick a winner from the palette participants, and announce them the following week, when the next Pretty Palette Challenge is announced.  This month’s contest began Thursday, August 9th. Contest ends Wednesday, October 3rd. Winner announced Thursday, October 4th.

PRIZE PACKAGE: Whoever plays along  in Palette Challenges #68, 69, 70, and 71, will be entered to win a Pretty Package of THEIR Choice!

So what can you do with these colours? We can’t wait to see!  And now here is what I managed to do with a few digital stamps and paper.I really love this cute umbrella designer paper from the Loving Heart collection, and desperately wanted to make a shower invitation with it.  The pink umbrellas were originally yellow so I changed the colour using Gimp software.  That is the nice thing about digital paper!The cute little critters are from the Wonderful Woodland Creatures stamp set, which I coloured digitally and added to a tag from the Be Dazzled set.  The umbrella came from the background designer paper.  I cropped and resized one of the umbrellas and then took out the flowers.  I also paper pieced it and popped it up using some dimensional foam, then added the rhinestones for a bit of bling.  Gotta have the bling!  The sentiment is from the Apothecary Labels stamp set.  This set is new and is really great – worth checking out.  And finally I added the pink ribbon and the little flower at the top.What would a shower be without a little favour of some sort?  After some consideration, I decided to make an umbrella favour holder using the Boo Bag cut file.  I altered it a bit by cutting scallops into the top of the bag and adding an umbrella handle.  I then added the little tag from the Round Off digital set and a bag full of candies.Thanks for stopping by.  Hope to see one of your creations using these colours.  Have a lovely day!

Oriental Influences

Good Sunday afternoon!  First off, I’d like to announce that I’ve been selected as the Top Chick of the Top Ten over at the Heart 2 Heart Challenge Blog for the month of August!  This means I get to be a guest designer for the month of October!  Woohoo!  I’m very excited about this and can’t wait to get started.  Should be a fun October.

Speaking of fun, the Out of a Hat gals are hosting an Oriental Influences challenge this week.  They have some really great projects showcased on their site so check it out if you have a few moments. It’s been a busy weekend but I managed to squeeze in some cardmaking time to come up with this…

I ended up using the So Fortunate digital stamp set from My Time Made Easy.  It has some really nice oriental images including this cherry blossom branch, as well as, the symbols for love, happiness and good fortune – perfect for my card!I printed 2 sets of the cherry blossoms out and coloured them in with Copic markers.  I then painstakingly cut out the whole branch from one copy and just the flowers from the second copy.  I curled up the petals of the flowers and glued them to the branch image to get a dimensional look.  A gem was added to the centre of each blossom for a bit of sparkle.I printed the Oriental characters onto a piece of red card stock, and glued the cherry blossom branch beside it.  And what would this card be without a touch of gold?  I would have loved to add some gold embossing but don’t own any gold embossing powder yet (it’s on my list of things to get, as Christmas is right around the corner), so I added the gold ribbon to the bottom instead.

That’s it from me today.  Have a great week and I’ll be back soon with another creation of some sort.  Until then happy crafting!

Awesome Autumn

Hi all.  I have a fall card to show you today that I will be entering into the Heart 2 Heart challenge this week.  The theme is BIG cards.  Actually, any card bigger than the standard A2 card size (4 1/4 x 5 1/2) qualifies.  Oh yeah, and it has to consist of mainly Close To My Heart products.I used the My Time Made Easy Pretty Patterns Sketch #70 for the layout and B&T Duos paper from the CTMH Moonlight paper packet.  The gorgeous black frame was cut out using the CTMH Artiste Cricut Cartridge.  Love it!  Onto a Colonial White oval, I stamped the little pumpkin scene and coloured it in with Copic markers.  Close To My Heart just came out with alcohol ink markers, and I’m dying to try them out, but I don’t own any yet 😦  I splurged a bit when the new catalogue came out so I’m trying to lay low with the crafty purchases for a while.  Something to look forward to!There is a bit of a mixture of stamp sets here, but I mainly used the September Stamp of the Month, Fall Favorites.  The focal oval was popped up over the frame, as was the ‘fall’ part of the sentiment.  The ribbon and orange gems in the bottom corner are the finishing embellishments.

Have an awesome day folks.  I hope it finds you making something.  Happy crafting!

Jack O’ Lantern

It rained buckets here yesterday which gave me the perfect opportunity to work on my Out of a Hat Creations project.  This week’s challenge is to create something using packaging.  I ended up using part of an old fragrance diffuser box and then took it one step further and used an ugly, old light fixture I found lying around in storage. (Don’t mind my messy desk!)As soon as I saw the light fixture I wanted to make a pumpkin out of it.  It’s already kind of yellowy-orange and the perfect shape.  So I went to my local craft store and picked up some glass paint, which just happened to be on sale for $1.29.  I think this project was meant to be!The little paint kit came with 8 different colours of paint and some liquid lead, which is supposed to simulate the lead between coloured glass in a stained glass window.  I opened it up and got busy drawing a jack o’lantern onto my glass globe.  You’ll notice I turned the globe upside down so that the opening is at the top instead of the bottom.  This is so I can put a candle inside it.  Once the lead was dry, I painted it with orange and black glass paint.  I also ended up spray painting the gold base black and removing the lightbulb socket.I hot glue gunned the lamp base to the old box bottom and then started gluing fake leaves and berries onto the box.  When that was complete, I tied a Halloween ribbon and bow around the top of the lamp base and then sat my Jack O’Lantern on top.  Finally I tied some raffia around the opening rim of my pumpkin and glued more leaves and berries to it.

And here is my recycled creation all lit up…

So I now have a Halloween centerpiece for my dining table.  The kids love it and I hope you do to!  Have a great week and I’ll see you soon!  Thanks for looking.

Mini Cards

Wow, it’s the end of another week!  Amazing how time flies.  It’s been a busy week with the kids going back to school and all, but I managed to squeeze in a few cards for the Heart 2 Heart challenge, which is featuring mini cards this week.  If you want to play along check out the rules by clicking on the link.

I made a series of 4 mini cards which each measure 3 x 3.  I wanted to keep it fairly simple so I only used papers from the CTMH Clementine Paper Packet and stamps from the For All Occasions and Heartfelt Treasures stamp sets.

The card bases were cut out of Colonial White card stock with the CTMH Artiste Cricut cartridge.

The edges of the cards were inked with Sorbet ink and a sponge dauber.

I cut out a lacey border on the bottom of this one using a Martha Stewart border punch.

A few well placed gems add sparkle to each card.

So that’s it from me.  Short and sweet today so I can get working on my Out of a Hat Challenge project.  Have a fabulous weekend and get busy crafting!

My Time Made Easy Pretty Palette Challenge #70

Happy Thursday!  I am extremely excited to announce that I made the Pretty Palette Design Team over at My Time Made Easy!!!  YAHOOOOOO!  I found out a few weeks ago and have been bursting to tell but had to wait for them to announce it first.  In the meantime, I have been having some serious fun playing around with their digital papers and stamps.  So let’s get to it!  Pretty Palette Details:You can use the palette on ANY type of project!  While participation with products from My Time Made Easy ™ LLC is appreciated, it is not required to participate. You can use products from ANY company.  Every other week we will pick a winner from the palette participants, and announce them the following week, when the next Pretty Palette Challenge is announced.  This month’s contest began Thursday, August 9th. Contest ends Wednesday, October 3rd. Winner announced Thursday, October 4th.

PRIZE PACKAGE: Whoever plays along  in Palette Challenges #68, 69, 70, and 71, will be entered to win a Pretty Package of THEIR Choice!

Sympathy card…

For this sympathy card, I used digital paper from Grammy’s Pretty Patterns paper pack, and created the tag using elements from the Fine Finish Digital Image Set.  After manipulating the focal image in Gimp, I printed it onto a transparency sheet and heat set the ink with my heat tool.  I then cut it out and adhered it to the blue frame, which was cut out using my Cricut.  I inked the edges with Moonlight White pigment ink to soften it a bit and then popped it up over a white piece of card stock.I cut the flower with the Cricut and inked up the edges with Sky and White Moonlight pigment inks.  I added the little pink flower button and pearl to the middle and then glued it to the blue bow.  The ribbon is CTMH Color-Ready Seam Binding Ribbon, which I coloured with an Ice Blue Copic marker.  I love the way this card turned out.

You may be wondering why I chose a sympathy card for my first MTME post as a DT member.  This is supposed to be a happy occasion right?  Well, unfortunately, I made this with someone in mind, who was a huge musical influence on me when I was a young teen.  He happened to pass away right after I found out I made the DT.  There have been a lot of great memories and mixed feelings flowing around my nervous system for the last little while so I channeled them into this card.  There truly are no words to express my gratitude for the memories and experiences I have from that time in my life.  R.I.P. Mr Murphy.  You will always be in our hearts.

Hope you have a wonderful day everyone.  Take the time to smell the roses and tell someone you love them.  Until next time happy crafting!

Lamp Post-It Note Holder

Happy Labour Day!  I hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend.  I have a Post-It Note holder which I am entering into the Out of a Hat Challenge this week.  The challenge is to make something using your favourite technique or product.  Well, you all know I love my Cricut so that is what I am showcasing on this project.I thought it would be fun to use this lamp post stamp (from La Belle Vie Workshop On The Go Kit) as a Post-It Note holder.  I stamped it with Versamark onto white card stock and then heat embossed it with black embossing powder and my heat tool.  I then coloured it in with Copic markers and cut it out.  The sign holder was cut using the CTMH Artiste Cricut Cartridge.All the paper flowers were cut out using the Artiste cartridge as well, and I used a few buttons and bobbles to embellish them.To make the backing board a bit sturdier I glued my patterned paper to a piece of cardboard I cut from some packaging.  Most of the paper is from the CTMH La Belle Vie Paper Packet.   After gluing everything onto the background, I added the pearls and ribbon to the lamp post and stamped the Ooh la la onto the front page of the note pad.  Too bad it’s only on the front!  I like the overall effect it has on the project.

Enjoy your day and happy crafting!