Celebrate 2019 and New Possibilities

To celebrate the new year I created this oversize tag using Distress Inks, Tim Holtz stamps, stencils and die cut letters.

To get started, I cut a piece of mixed media card stock 5 x 9 1/2 leaving the bottom torn holes in place. Then I used the spritz and smoosh technique to color the panel with Squeezed Lemonade and Carved Pumpkin Distress Oxide.

Next up I added some circles using a stencil I had on hand with Carved Pumpkin.

To give a more celebratory mood, I added stars with texture paste through the stars stencil and sprinkled lightly with white glitter dust while still wet.

For the letters, first I stamped a leftover strip of paper with a script stamp, embossed with fine white embossing powder and inked up the strip with Candied Apple, lightly wiping across the script.

 I die cut the letters twice using Alphanumeric Cutout letters and doubled them up to give a bit of extra depth.

I stamped the sentiment in Candied Apple on white card stock and added it along with the script in black soot randomly to create extra texture. To finish it up, I added some washi tape in various places restamped the clock and smudged the edges all around with Black Soot before finally mounting on black card stock. In retrospect, I think the "2019" would have been better also mounted on white, but its a learning process!

Let me know what you think. Happy days to you all.

I'm submitting this to the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge -- Party Time!

https://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/?p=14747

Poinsettia card

Christmas cards are all in the mail including this one to my sister made from Tim Holtz Sissix dies, paper and distress inks. 

A Christmas Birdie Bag

What could be more fun than a little holiday birdie? A little birdie on a bag just big enough for a gift card!

This started out just playing and exploring with the new Tim Holtz Mint shifter stencil. At first I found it confusing then realized it's designed to leave blank or white lines in between the thick and thin lines of color.

I used Distress Oxides in Twisted Citron and Candied Apple on mixed media paper.

Then I used a pattern found by a Google search for a gift bag to cut and score the sheet to make a small gift bag.

The finished bag is only 4 inches tall.

Then for a bit of holiday whimsy, I colored this little guy from the Tim Holtz Bird Crazy stamps using Distress markers.

I had previously spent a very productive few hours die cutting an assortment of festive greens, rustic trees and snowflakes, which then came together quickly for a background.

All I had to do was add a bit of embossing powder for a bit of sparkle and voila! Done!

Thanks for visiting!

Snowflake Joy

Got on a roll today, and put this card together in less than 30 minutes! Of course, the snowflakes were already covered in glitter and die cut -- left over from another project. But I'm learning to cut multiple items at once and then have quick access when I want them.

The blue panel was colored with Distress Oxide in Faded Jeans, Salty Ocean and Black Soot. Then spritzed lightly with water and stamped with Faded Jeans snowflakes.

Next I assembled the elements I wanted to use -- glittered snowflakes, die cut JOY, red and white butcher string from my stash and red snowflake pattern paper from the 2018 Tim Holtz Christmas paper collection. Plus dusty blue card stock for the actual card.

Everything got trimmed, tied and layered. Easy peasy.

The final product -- now I just have to decide who to send it to -- that's if I can part with it myself! I have a habit of collecting these things. :)

Cheers!

Oh, I'm also entering this in the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge:  Let It Snow  

JOY - Snow Play

Snowflakes and reindeer and everything Christmas! I started working on my Christmas cards -- and I was inspired by the Simon Says Monday Challenge -- Let It Snow! My background was inspired by one of my favorite card and craft bloggers, Kath Stewart.

My card combines dies from my stash and some of the new Tim Holtz Christmas papers and Festive Funkie dies. I've always loved this prancing deer and was so glad to have an excuse to use him playing in the snow!

I started off inking a panel with Distress Oxides in Faded Jeans and Black Soot then lightly spritzing with water. Then stamped snowflakes in Faded Jeans and white embossed a few snowflakes.

Since this is one of what I hope will be many Christmas cards, I die cut a bunch of festive greens for about an hour!  Then die cut prancer here, covered him in white acrylic paint and dusted with fine white glitter.

I die cut the word JOY three times and stacked them to give the word some extra depth and die cut the small poinsettia and edged with some fine white glitter.

Then layered the blue panel atop a panel of red stripes and fixed the whole thing to a dusty blue card and voila! My first Christmas card for 2018!

I'm entering this in the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge:  Let It Snow  

Christmas Past

Before delving into my stash of new Christmas items, I decided to warm up the creative juices by playing around with some of my old supplies and created a couple tags. Glad I did, as I really wasn't sure what I was doing and played around for a while to come up with a couple simple tags that will most likely find their way onto a present sometime in December!

This little guy was my favorite of the two. I used Tim Holtz blueprint snowman plus the festive foliage die cuts. The snowflake background is an old stencil I had in my stash. It took a bit of guessing and fussing with some things. I started with these two elements.

Then fooled around with different elements. The snowman by himself seemed like he needed something so I tried adding some pine boughs behind him.

It wasn't quite right, so added some bows. Too many bows.

Then I remembered the set came with this Merry Christmas sentiment stamp so I ditched one of the bows in favor of a simple label. Done!

Here's the second tag - very simple. I've been struggling with how to best use the scribbly Christmas tree stamps I bought a while ago. What do you think? Have you used these stamps? Would love to see what you've done with them!

Gears Alot Birthday Card

My brother has a birthday coming up and it's always a bit of a challenge to come up with masculine cards -- until I fell in love with the gear 3D embossing folder from Tim Holtz.  My brother loves cars -- and has since he was just a toddler so, I created this gear card for him.

The first step was to emboss the gears on blue card stock sprayed with just a tad bit of water. On my first attempt, I mounted the panel onto tan card stock for the actual card, but it warped horribly when I used matte gel, so I redid it and mounted with sticky tape instead.

Next I rubbed the embossed panel with just a bit of metallic rub on cream that I've had in my stash forever. Loved how this gave it a slight metallic look.

Next step was to add to die cut black gears -- also from Tim Holtz. Though I loved the look, in retrospect I sacrificed readability when I added the Happy Birthday.

I die cut the letters and gave them a metallic rub as well, but they just didn't seem to stand out enough.

So, I lightly dabbed the letters with Broken China Distress Paint. This improved readability but only slightly. I didn't want to start over completely as this needs to get in the mail tomorrow in order to reach him in time!

I'm entering this into the Frilly and Funkie Impress Us Challenge -- it was fun doing this and working with the embossing folder.

http://frillyandfunkie.blogspot.com/2018/10/impress-us.html

I just received a bundle of Christmas dies and stamps -- looking forward to diving into them next week!