Black & White Snowfall

 On "Black Friday" Polly's mixed media challenge was to make a black and white card where the only other color could be the sentiment on the piece. and I kept thinking about this pretty much all day as I had this sheet of plaid paper out to be used for a card for the neighbor. ( He had a hip replacement this last week and he must have a stack of these flannel shirts in this color/pattern)  and then I decided I could watercolor around this snowflake embossed panel (Sizzix snowflake & plaid set.) with some black mission gold paint. and I ended up with a lot of shades of grey haha. This was diecut with a Simon Says Stamp wonky stitched rectangle die.

 The mixed media comes in where the first thing I had done was I used a gel pen to draw shadows under the snow, which acted like a resist for the paint and ended up gone on the dry piece, I did add more white and stardust gel pen over the whole thing when it was dry and the snowflakes that look more white have Snow tex on them. ( they look much better in person)

I think if you click on these photos it should enlarge them, the snowflake in the center I used some white shimmery kuretake paint on it and it ended up more of a silvery color than a shimmery white.
The sentiment was stamped with some satin red versafine on the tag diecut its from the Mama Elephant holiday messages set. There is some black hemp string and May Arts Irridescent cord on this. This one finished out at 6" square in real life. Thanks for stopping by, not sure yet if this will actually go to the neighbor I am waiting to see what hubs reaction to it is.

Inspired by {Christmas Ornaments} A pinterest board

Welcome to my favorite weekend of the year. 4 days off in a row with no adult supervison haha.

This is when I take the time to start messing around with Christmas card designs for me to mail out personally. Yes, a few of what  I have shared here over the last year is still in my studio waiting to go out to special people but, a whole bunch of it went to the Shepherds Market booth last weekend

 and are gone on to please the people who bought them and who will receive them.

 So, these designs become what I think of as Play Time cards for me.  I break out all the last minute stamp sets I collected that there was just not enough time to play with them as of yet sets.

Prototypes of what I may do a few more of to mail out.

A few years ago when I first joined the Inspiration team it was more common to see the Inspiration head to Pinterest than it has been lately and I had started this Ornaments collection board in hopes of using it for a challenge some day. Someday turned out to be today, and its particularly appropriate as in my family the tradition is to start decorating for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving.

 When I found the ornament seen below I thought it looked so much like this new snowflake stamp to me. This is a new to me company to buy from called Colorado Stamp Co winter wishes set. This is an A2 sized card and I ended up offsetting the snowflake image to save some space for a sentiment. ( Hero Arts Holiday  Tags stamp & die set ) I did reverse the colors and there is also some clear wink of stella on the snowflake along with a glitter cardstock base ( Micheal's) to add a little oomph to what is really a flat card. the stamped panel was die cut with a wonky stitched rectangle die from Simon Says Stamp.

 The image source for this Wedgwood 2019 snowflake can be found here.

Now this was done inspired by this Wreath ornament seen below, I loved the depth and texture of the wreath and I have been trying to make it a challenge to my self to keep more of my cards flatter so I can mail out more of them ha ha. So, I started with the Cuttlebug holly branch folder and some Cream neenah cardstock. I did then faux watercolor some marker over the raised parts of the cardstock and then rubbed on some Distress Oxide antique linen and Vintage photo inks around the edges. the whole thing was misted with water and I was really not pleased with the leaves so, I ended up adding some shadows with a clean brush marker and scribbled some texture on them with a pencil. I like the colors of this and think I may try this one again with maybe watercolor paper and some watercolor pencils. (  not sure yet, still over thinking that plan)

The image source for this Holly Wreath can be found here at Macy's.
You can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers to play along with us, thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW # 547 {the aftermath}

Happy desk peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or play along 

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

There is also a new Instagram hashtag of #WOYWW

 

 So, this is what I came home to on tuesday afternoon, I did come home early as I was done working and the first snow of the year started sticking to the ground pretty good. ( and there are always those white knuckle drivers who really should have stayed home that are causing the I am in a hurry people to get all acting full of road rage so, for me I just wanted to come home in the daylight so I packed up the dogs and did) this was shot after the first round of shoveling snow.
the brown bag is holding all the price tags that were removed from purchases at the booth last weekend. (booth mug shots can be seen here in this previous post)

and if you walked around you'd see that the last thing I had made was a watercolored leaves Thanksgiving card and that friday night I had came home from the booth and stamped off that funny life alert sentiment so that Sheri could make a card for Debbie's mom.
and after this was shot I started cleaning between rounds of shoveling.

 And this morning its clean. those pieces off to the side were "ideas" of messing around with that die with printed papers but, the printed papers were just not doing it for me.

And yes, Izzy has decided she loves the snow, this was shot when we first got home yesterday and the snow is up to her belly now ha ha. anyways that's about it from me, Thanks for stopping by.

Shepherds Market 2019

 These are metal gardening tote bins I found at Kohls last year and they are a good size for keeping tags and gift card holders up right but, are a little tight on putting full size cards in side ( the bulk of my cards are larger than A2.

 After the first tables worth were shot and hauled downstairs I moved some of the others from the book case to the table for staging this shot and a few that follow.

 I did end up moving those little coffee cups back to the white see through metal basket friday morning and then was able to consolidate them all to one bin by Saturday morning. ( there was a plastic box of them sitting on the sofa when this was shot. ( left over from last year) I did not make any new ones this year.

 What the table looked like from above.

 A peek inside the suitcase holding Christmas and Winter cards.

 a divided metal basket I found at Hobby Lobby this last summer has tiny tags and skinny tags inside of it.
By saturday am all the tags left not on the walls from those bins above all fit into this one little basket.

 This was the raffle prize that the school sold tickets for.

 So this year I had what was really two booths combined where the back wall was last year in a 6'X12' space is now open to a square shape at 12'X12' space. that I made like a little mini hallway that connected two isles in the Gym. the where the wall was dividing the spaces is where I have an extension cord cutting across from wall to wall duct taped to the floor.

 Which had a really good flow and people had time to stop and read the sentiments and such without being run over by strollers or people moving quickly through the isles. People really commented on how much they appreciated that.

 the other side. So, it felt like such a lucky thing to have so much space :)So, this is the plan going forward we will get the larger size and stay put here in the center of the Gym. ( people are still finding me again after not being in the hallway for 3 years)

and when it was all said and done these are price tags I kept that came home for being recycled into next years booth. (There are a couple of people who like the price tags and ask to keep them so, it is not all of them but, the majority)

Inspired by: {Bronner's Christmas Wonderland}

This week Brenda has chosen Bronner's Christmas Wonderland as our destination for Inspiration.

 And I had recently gotten this Spellbinders foil plate in the mail and so, knowing that and knowing what I wanted to do with it I stopped looking at the store as soon as I seen this ornament here. I did use Spellbinders hot foil with this in the gemini foil press machine. The hard part is, you are looking at the plate backwards the same way you set up your letter dies when you line up single letters to stamp them and then with this you have your foil covers that up so you can no longer see it when you place the cardstock down before you run it through your diecutting machine. So, some of them pressed more straight than others and So, I ended up cutting up some of them to layer them to other backgrounds to "save" them since they were pretty crooked on the naked cardstock tags.

 

I picked up these keys in packs of four at Micheal's to do this very thing with ( before the foil machine was even on my radar but, they are smaller than ones I have purchases singly in the past so, I wanted to keep them smaller and simpler.)

 These have been taken down to the Shepherd's Market booth which today is the last day of that. If you'd like to come by in person for a Hug the school is open from 9-5 today. You can find this ornament here to see it and you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers to play along with us.  thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW #546 {Loot}

Happy desk peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or play along 

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

There is also a new Instagram hashtag of #WOYWW

 

 So, I took this shot because, I told you I would and it tickled me how they tied the stamps up for shipping. cute eh?

And this is a very early Tuesday AM shot where I had finished a snowman tag the night before after dark and not shot a photo of it yet, ( 3 days later same situation) that tag is on top of the dresser waiting to be shot still, I had run out of price tags for things for the booth that were blank so, I had chopped up some green scraps and started making more late Monday night and this was what was left to finish from that on Tuesday.

So, good news the scans show there are currently no blood clots. so, I have been taken off the blood thinners so we can do the genetic marker test of the naked blood after Thanksgiving and then I go back to the hospital in December (after a month) to do a new scan to check and see if new clots are reforming without the pills. So, its good news from my end of the internet. :) I will be driving all day for work today, we set the booth up tomorrow night after work and I will be at the school most of Friday and Saturday so, it may be a while before I make the rounds. Thanks for stopping by & Have a good day!

Booth Production Continued

 the large sentiments here are from the taylored Expressions line and the berry/leaf diecut is from Penny Black.

 the snowman and flower pot are older SU stamps and the sheep is whippersnapper.

 The poinsettia is a tim holtz die that has a matching embossing folder, the reindeer is a poppy stamps die

 all of these are from Taylored Expressions ( sentiments )

 The penguin here is from Impression Obsession.

 I felt like it was taking too long to stage these little cards to shoot them so, then I switched to this mode so I could just get more done.

 and a little bit after this was shot hubs came home from bird hunting.

 The foiled ornaments on the next four were all done in a gemini foil press with a picket fence studios hot foil stamp/die. the sentiment on this one is from stamping bella.

 The hot foil sentiments are from Spellbinders.

 This is an Anna Griffin cuttlebug folder.

 Anita has a tree's fallidays challenge so I paired this Hero Arts cathedral of trees background stamp with this Club Scrap sentiment.

Misti has a bring the out doors in challenge and so, I was able to use up a couple of the leaves and berries ( Penny Black ) that was water colored last weekend. the sentiment is a creative expressions die. and that's about if from me for today. Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Boston Proper}

This week we are taking a look at the Boston Proper store online. 

Because, I own some of their sweaters and sweater season is my favorite one most of all.

 On Wednesday night/ Thursday morning June lost her older brother who was her favorite sibiling and so, the what I thought I was going to do switched 180 so that I could get this into the mail on Friday for her. The lace is a background stamp from Stampin' Up! called I love lace stamped with some versafine clair nocturn on SU going grey cardstock. the Sentiment is from the Simon Says Stamp moments of grace set. this was die cut with a waffle flower A7 die. there are a couple more sentiments from that same set on the inside. The base of this card is Neenah solar white finished out at A7 in real life.

The lace print long sleeved sweater I used as a jump start for my card can be seen here or here. you can find this challenge here to play along with us. Thanks for stopping by.