Christmas Cards

Good afternoon! Hope all is well in your little corner of the world.

Here is a sort-of Christmas card. At least it's an idea. I love this painter elf, and use him quite a bit. You could have him painting a Christmas background, or change the colors of his clothing and have him painting Easter eggs, or birthday backgrounds...the possibilities are endless. I stamped him and masked him before stamping the background stamp. The more paper you leave around the elf, the more background you will mask, leaving an area the elf hasn't painted. The elf is available from http://www.mypapermoon.com. Just type painter in the search box.

Isn't he fun?

Being in Florida, I couldn't have Christmas without some "Florida-style" cards. Here is one of my favorites...



The stamp is from The Angel Company, and is stamped on acetate. It's colored with markers and paint and layered on crushed aluminum foil. I love the colors...flamingo colors, and this card would be perfect for children or grandchildren.

One more Florida-style card:



This one is also done using the painted foil technique. I love the lights on the palm tree, which I colored and then added crystal lacquer to make them shiny and have texture. This stamp is also from The Angel Company.

I'll be back soon with more Christmas cards to share.

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving. We enjoyed the day with my daughter and her family. Of course, we ate too much, but that's normal for Thanksgiving. My favorite part of the whole meal is mashed potatoes, gravy and turkey. I could do without anything else but that, even though there were lots more goodies to choose from.

I will start uploading Christmas cards, with the hope that it will inspire some of you. Even if you don't have the exact same stamps, you might have an image that will work. Christmas is only a month away, so you need to get busy, if you haven't already started making your cards.

I also want to thank Sebastian Elementary School for making cards for the troops. They are priceless, and I'm sure the recipient will be as happy to get them as the kids were to make them.

Ta ta for now

Tear Bear

This little bear was fun to make and really easy. It's supposed to be made with mulberry paper, but I didn't have any, so I used silk paper....still turned out cute, don't you think?

Anyway, I just wanted to share this cute little creation. I will definately be making more of these!

All you need is mulberry paper and a bear pattern. You use a wet paintbrush to go around the pattern, tear the paper, and glue it together. I used chalk around the edges to give it definition, and drew in the eyes, nose and other facial characters. Pink chalk on the cheeks, and you're done....if you want to be. You can add glitter, put clothes on your bear, pose it around objects (like cupcakes), have it holding objects. The possibilities are endless.

These would look adorable on cards or scrapbook pages.

Matchbook Card

I had fun making this card. I used a red cardstock, which I sprayed with gold webbing spray. I stamped the letters f, r, i, e, n, and d on red textured cardstock with black ink, using typewriter stamps, and punched them out. I then covered them with crystal lacquer and let them dry.

While the letters were drying, I took some clip art and went over it with "Old Paper" distress ink to give it an aged look, and burned the edges.

I folded the cardstock, which was cut into 12" x 4-1/4" so that there was about 1-1/2" flap on the bottom, and then folded the top so that it just barely goes behind the flap. I used the Scor-It board to make scores on the flap, and then put a brown in to age it. I used a "stitch" stamp to stamp between the scores for more texture and highlighted the scores with a darker brown ink.

After the letters dried, I adhered them to the cardstock, along with the image of the lady sitting in the chair.

I cut a piece of white cardstock slighly smaller than the inside of the card, and put it behind the flap and stapled it (so I will have something to stamp the sentiment on inside the card).

Viola! Done. A very easy card that looks very aged.

My Travel Card

Happy Friday! I hope today was good to you. It's been a long week, and I'm glad the weekend is finally here.

As promised, I'm trying to update my blog more often. Today I want to share a card I made. I'm not good at collage, but I'm trying to force myself to do it more often, so I become better at it.

I tried to use background stamps that would add texture to the card without it being too lumpy. You know how the post office hates lumpy letters! Anyway, let me know what you think....

It's been so cool for the last week, and I'm loving this weather. I wouldn't mind if it stayed like this year round. We've had lows in the 60's at night, and highs in the 70's during the day. Just about perfect, don't you think?

In upcoming posts I will share some of the Christmas cards I've made. I get bored easily, and making the same card over and over and over is just not my cup of tea. So, at the beginning of the year I challenged myself to make 5 cards a month, so by December I would have 60 cards, right? I decided each month I would make the 5 cards the same, but each month would be a different card. I was doing really well, and some months the creativity was there and I would make more than the 5 I was supposed to make. I was really chugging right along. Then I got a note from Soldiers' Angels that they were going to try to send 140,000 cards to the troops for Christmas. Now, I have a soft spot in my heart for the soldiers, since my step-son is among those deployed in Iraq. So, I got busy and made Christmas cards like crazy. You would have thought I was Santa's Elf on deadline. Yesterday I mailed 140 cards. And....I still have about 20 to send to my close friends and relatives that enjoy my handcrafted cards.

Now, here's the best part. I sent a note to my granddaughter's 5th grade teacher asking if they would like to make cards, too, and I would furnish the supplies. The teacher (who's husband is also overseas) thought it would be a good project for their "Caring for Others" module, but she's going to take it a step further and see if the whole elementary school can participate. That's 750 cards! Wowsa! I'm excited!

Talk to you again, soon!

Altered CD's

Whew! It's been some time since I've posted! But rest assured, I haven't been slacking, I've been busy making Christmas cards for the troops (140 of them), as well as helping my son-in-law start a t-shirt business. And I've taken over the accounting at my day job. And I'm working on a new sheet of stamps.

Anyway, I wanted to show you an altered CD that I did some time ago. It was a lot of fun.

I started out by painting the CD with acrylic paints. Just take a few colors you like and dab them on. You can add loose glitter at this time, if you desire. Let it dry completely. Then stamp background images using Staz-On ink. Then I used a clip-art image that I distressed to cover the hole in the CD. Cut a piece of acetate the size of the CD and stamp more images on that, making sure you don't cover up the clip art completely. I adhered the acetate to the CD using crystal lacquer. After it was dry, I mounted the whole thing on black paper, and framed it in a frame.

I'll be back soon with some more art....