Dirty Dozen January 2026 Christmas Begins

 It's that time again, the first of the month and the first of the new year, so the samples for the Dirty Dozen Christmas card prompt go live tonight and this is what I did for mine.

 I originally had the idea I would find a stamp ( of which I probably have more than one that could work) of a line of hanging baubles that I could do a CAS card with on the front. And then I started digging in my printed papers and found this really old one from Basic Grey and thought, stop hoarding this and use it. So, I found this Reverse Confetti die and cut two of them from some cheap strathmore watercolor paper and stacked them for some depth. 

And you know I collect tag dies, this one came to me from Color Me Nordic by Gummiapan just called Merry Christmas tag. It cuts the words into the tag and I thought after the fact while the glue was drying that maybe I should add some ink to this to make it more legible but, it is more obvious in real life. The tag is up on foam pop dots here.

I hardly ever make side opening cards and so it surprised me that I did. The base here is some shimmery Stardream opal card and then there is Stickles glitter glue in a see-thru shimmer in the centers of a few of these baubles and also used to hold on a trio of crystal colored sequins as well. That's about it from me, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this prompt here in the special forums set aside for Fan Club Members. Thanks for stopping by & Happy New Year! 

Watercoloring a Winter Landscape

 Hello & Welcome here, It's the last week of Watercolor challenge tutorials at Splitcoaststampers and I am hosting. At the end of last September when I came across this painting from Nia Nia Ni  On YouTube called 3 Colours to paint a simple winter watercolor: Full watercolor tutorial video. I remember thinking that would work really well for a winter Guy Birthday card but, I actually like landscape scenes so, I really think you could do anything with this during the season. She does use 3 colors of paints for it, Yellow Ochre, Indigo & Burnt Umber. I do not own burnt umber as a color so I tried Raw Umber, then added in some Van Dyck Brown. This paper is some Arches cold press watercolor and I did cut it to be slightly under A7 so that I could still have the white edge and get it to fit on an A7 sized card base.

 I received this new paint palette from my son & his Girl for Christmas and I have not put that many paints into it yet but, Indigo was one of them so, I decided to try it out since there is the mixing space in between the paint wells. I just did this from memory from watching the video once. I know its not the same, but so far its not too bad. 

 I did deepen some of the shadows, added more to the under the where the sun should be area, A few closer more shadowed trees to the distance kind of a thing.

 At this point I had added some Quin. Gold & Burnt orange to the mixes and I did get some more "green" and I added some "bushes" to the distance on the horizon, as well as more leaves to the bare tree branches and a few more taller branches on the tree on the left as they are so similar in height. added some texture to the snow in the what is it meadow part of the scene? As I was painting this, I need a Sympathy card and I had the colors so somber I started second guessing the idea of using this for that, and that is when I brought in the brighter yellows and orange trying to give it more a real feel to me I guess you could say.  Because, Hubs knows I started this for his Dad. And So. 

 The sentiment here is from Woodware Stamps with some Versafine Clair Nocturn and then I let it sit over 24 hours before I used a waffle flower A7 die on the panel. The printed paper under it is from Basic Grey and the cardbase is some SU taupe. The inside sentiment is from an Altenew Beautiful Inside set and it is going to hubs dad at the end of January. That's about it from me, If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS to play along with us. Thanks for stopping by. 

  

A Sympathy Card

 June lost her mama last Friday night and I hemmed and hawed about what to do for a sympathy card all weekend long, and then Last night I finally got an idea of what to start with using maybe a wax seal as she had given me a kit for doing some Christmas seals with red wax beads and one of those burner stand things for holding a candle and 3 brass stampers from Micheal's for Christmas this year so, I got out all the wax seal stamps I own thinking I could do a white rose. Sounded good in my head but, I did not own any flower stamps for that except the poinsettia she had given me and no white wax at all so,

I spent some time Monday night messing with the colors of beads I had and some "with love" seals that are more of a typewriter font to them and I came up with one that did not look too busy with the papers I had picked out for the card. ( the base is Gina K cream, the stripe is some Bo Bunny "unforgettable stripe"

The textured black velvet print is from Kaiser craft. I had originally cut a square of it and then ended up using the drop piece with a die cut from the Spellbinders Sealed twine die cut twice from some textured black bazzill cardstock. 

 

I ended up using the square velvet part on the inside of the card with a sentiment from Altenew and cut that with an Paper rose die. The flower/leaf stem on the front is a Tim Holtz die called Wildflower stems #1 and I used some strathmore watercolor paper to cut it out with. 

 I don't know how well that seal reads but, I did try using some first Copper paint pen on the lettering and then went over the top with a gold paint pen. I did hand deliver this and I did use some score tape to attach the seal to the paper seal part of the die cuts and I have my fingers crossed that it has not fallen apart since I gave it to her today. I've read that a lot of glues do not stick to the wax seal, and I thought it was better to try practicing it on some glass mat to see before just doing it on the card front. It's been years since I have tried this and all my old ones have very old fashioned candles to hold and drip in place and I used to do it on little piece of cardstock so I had something to stick the glue to and apply it to projects after the fact like an embellishment.  I did feel that trying it with the little bowl and wax beads was faster and easier to me than holding a dripping candle. I've seen that some people try doing these with hot glue guns and colored glue that way and I may actually have some colored glue sticks but, I think I will try doing some more of these for future use soon. I think the Christmas ones I have would be super cute on gift tags actually. That's about it from me, I hope you're doing well & thanks for stopping by.  

Watercoloring a snowman in the forest scene

 I had some paint left on a new palette today that was for something going live in a few days I had received this as a Christmas gift from my son & his girlfriend along with some new brushes and clips and a new brand of papers to try from hubs so, these things are on the table at the moment.

 and I had seen the other day that Jeanne is hosting both the free for all ( snow ) and the mixed media challenges this week ( snowman) and I decided it would be super easy to combine them and be able to get a winter Birthday card done ahead of time as well. So, I started with a piece of Arches cold press watercolor paper that was cut to A6 and taped off the edges.

I wanted some depth to this and let the first layers be blurry.

I decided I could add some skinny bare trees to the scene and shadows to the snow in the front.

I splattered some Dr. PH Martins bleed proof white ink to this for falling snow and then , let that dry before I started adding a snowman to the scene.

I did add more shadows to the scene and more paint to the forest background as well. 

I ended up adding more splatters and then some snowtex (lumpy snow) to the shadows under the forest floor and the snowman ground and it was very subtle so, when it dried I did end up putting the whole sheet in the Bigshot so that it could try to press flatter, even though this was taped down but, it still had a warp to it when I took the tape off.

I was trying to not flatten the snow So I did not use a die to make it smaller hoping to keep the lumps of snowtex and I ended up cutting it with a deckle trimmer to give the edges some interest and I did end up inking that with some DOX scorched timber ink. 

 The base here is some Bazzill cardstock and the sentiment is from a spellbinders letter press set called A little messages that I made previously. I did add some scorched timber to the bottom edges of the sentiment as some shadowing and put it up on foam pop dots. And that is about it from me, if you'd like to play along with these challenges you can find the snowman one here and the snowy one here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

Inspired by {Little Obsessed}

 

 For the last inspiration challenge of 2025 Amy has chosen the "Little Obsessed" site and Pinterest boards. Where I came across these bitty wreaths and just smiled. At this time of the year simple works best for me & I knew that I have these In 1" size and 1 1/2" size from Darice, I have them from Recollections larger than that, I've even bought these sisal wreaths in cream color. And I just do not use them, I don't make miniature things. And I think they would be crushed mailed on a card front. So, they are a "I have them because they caught my eye" but, I don't use them things box in the closet.. and I decided to try to get one to work on a tag like a proto-type for next years "gift wrapping season gift boxes" is I guess the thought here. 

The way the wreaths are shown in their store site the image is just the wreaths with no content around them I did decide to go clean and simple here with white for a backdrop.  I die cut an Ornament from some old Recollections white glitter paper with a Sue Wilson snowflake baubles set die ( its the larger one in the set) and then that was "OK" so I wound the gold string that came on the wreath through it's hole and decided it needed an "ornament hanger" and I wanted something a little bigger and I wanted it to sparkle so I found this hanger from the Simon Says Stamp reeded Ornament die set cut from some (its almost a teal-ish sparkle green paper) and decided it worked with the color of the wreath so, I did cut a second ornament to back the sparkle paper and thought OK put this on a tag. ( that wreath has 2 glue dots under it holding it from sliding around on the ornament) and I found this "be joyful tag that I had stamped previously on that justrite tag diecut and tied it on with some May Arts gold cord. The Schoolhouse red tag behind it all is from the set that was part of the Tim Holtz / SSS Festive tag dies set from last summers class. That gold sheer ribbon is old and unknown, I am halfway thinking there are too many gold cords on this but, that is how proto-types evolve for me is to just try something and then discard the parts that I don't like as well for the next one. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping b

Watercoloring a Christmas Branch

 This week Brenda is sharing a video tutorial on doing a branch with a hanging bauble seen here on YouTube called Watercolor Christmas card Painting easy winter tutorial by Nasim Art. 

I did not get the closed captioning to work on that video so, I just watched it and did what ever. ( It's close but, I think I have more greens in mine) and my trees in the distance too much water in the paper before I did them so, they are more blurry than hers but. It's close enough I suppose.  

This is arches cold press watercolor and I did wet the top half of the paper before I started dropping in the colors and adding the tree line. I did let this dry before I re-wet the paper to add the branches the next day.

 

So I did get some blur to the branches in the first layer under these and then I just kept adding pine? needles as it dried and I did not get a shot of it until the white gouache had dried so, it does not have the 3-D look that her video ends on is my guess. I also think maybe she may have used some metallic type paints and it just does not have the sparkle. I thought about adding some but, decided to just leave it as is. 

 The printed paper here is from the Diane's Daughters called Rustic Gem Collections - Jade Multi Color (and its way old) the base here is some Photoplay Sea Salt 80# cardstock. This is 6" square in real life. the Sentiment ( memory box) is stamped on some Neenah solar white. I did cut it out with scissors and inked the edges of that with some DOX Scorched Timber. The green sheer ribbon wrapped around the corners is unknown but, may possibly be SU. ( I've had it for a long long time) That's about it from me. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

Green Boughs

 There was a "Pines" challenge tossed out recently at SCS and I knew I had these new long needled pine branch dies coming from SSS when I seen it and so, when they arrived I cut some from watercolor paper and started adding paint to them.

And then after that I fished out one of their trio die sets that has smaller needles on the branches and painted some of those as well.

 

And then on Friday Angie tossed out a use your favorite color challenge ( mine is green you already knew that though right?) and so, I had started pushing these branches around with this red chipboard frame ( Tim Holtz) and the printed glass acetate sheet is also from one of his packs ( as is that Santa behind that) and I started thinking maybe its too much "red" for a "green project" but, eventually I found this 49 & Market print paper that picked up both colors and left me some almost blank space for behind the Santa and I just started layering foam pop dots between it all to give it some depth. once it was all glued on ( the sentiment and hearts are also chipboard but from an 49& Market Evergreen season set I did add some stickles crystal colored glitter glue in places. The green photo corners here are really old ones from Colorbox and the edges of those and that printed paper were inked with some DOX forest Moss. 

The card base here is from photoplay and the color name is Seasalt which is nearly the same as the frame on the sentiment. It's one of my favorite shades of green. At any rate this is going in a gift bag this week that is being hand delivered so, it was fun to get to play with these lumpy things that would probably break the postal machine to mail in an envelope. That's about it from me, if you'd like to play along with that challenge you can find it here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 
 

Inspired by {The Lucuma Gallery}

 This week Denise is sharing the Lucuma Gallery & Pinterest Boards  and I seen this on the Christmas tree decor board. the day before I looked at it I had received a package of happy mail from Unity Stamps which included this "Snugglebuck" reindeer stamp. and there is a bitty heart dangling from his antler. and then I came across this pin which is the oldest pin on that board of the dangling reindeer with a heart on his body ornament and I decided that it was close enough.

I started by stamping this deer on some Arches cold press watercolor paper with Acorn Versafine ink and then used some Daniel Smith paints on him. I did do the hat red & white striped with a nod to the bow tied on the ornament and then kept going with the red & white for the rest of the card. That base is some textured white bazzill and the knit print is from the 49th and Market Evergreen season paper pad and the sentiment here is from the Reverse Confetti Christmas circles set done in Versafine tulip red. I did cut the sentiment with an Impression Obsession Wacky stitched circles die and then used some DOX Antique Linen ink on the edges of the sentiment & painted panels. That ribbon here is from maybe Making Memories? ( not sure anymore but, its not that dark in real life) Red is such a hard color to photograph digitally I find, and it seems a little bit more of a challenge when there is not as much daylight as well. That's about it from me, I hope you're doing well. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 
 

Watercoloring Sheep

 This week Linda is sharing this video tutorial seen here on YouTube called DIY Christmas gift card idea: watercolor sheep painting tutorial by Nasim Art, I did watch it and then just started painting. the last time I was in Micheal's with free coupon money they had some watercolor paper on sale and I picked up a pad thinking it was what I bought before in the artist loft brand but, this paper was slightly larger and feels more flimsy.. I realized fairly quickly I had not cut it large enough for 3 sheep to fit in the space so, I just did a pair of them and I did make their bodies a little more pare shaped rather than round circle bodies.

 So I cut a piece of it in half and just started painting on it, and it curled really well. ha ha. And I did die cut it while it was a little damp. 

I added some white gouache to it for "snow" and then after this remembered their should be over hanging branches. 

 

After the gouache dried I added in some branches and then put this panel into my big shot to try and smoosh it some what flat again when I left for work on Monday morning and I left it there all day. so, the base here is a pre printed plaid in blues and creams from Hobby Lobby ( a few years ago now) and that sentiment is from A Muse. I don't remember who makes the tag die but, I did tie some natural colored hemp string through the hole. That's about it from me, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

Inspired by {Society Social}

 This week Kia is sharing the Society Social site and Pinterest boards where I came across these Gingham chair covers with bows pin fairly quickly and stopped looking. I tend to do better if I just pick the first thing that catches my eye and I assumed I have tons of gingham... ( I do, but most of it is in shades of red haha) Another thing I have noticed about my self this last year since I gave up my evernote account is, I am not remembering say set names or color patterns. So, I decided to try something new and corral all the things into this tray ( this is the large tray at Simon Says Stamp) I have two that size and one of the Medium.

 My thought was maybe if I did not put everything away right after I used it I would be able to carry the tray to the table the laptop is on and "remember" more of what was used.

 When I was poking through my loose papers in the green bin I found exactly 1 sheet of some 6" green gingham that could work scale wise for these Simon Says Stamp holly & berries tag dies. So I used it and some other green scraps to create 5 of these tag diecuts with the patterns rotating around and all the edges were inked with some DOX forest moss. These are lined on the back side with that bright green on the bottom of the pile of scraps so they are only on the card fronts with two tiny foam dots incase someone wants to peel it off and use it like a tag. 

 The sentiment's here are from the SSS/TimHoltz Stamptember 2023 set and the cardbases are some Simon Says Stamp schoolhouse red. ( it did not photograph well in this picture) its really a gorgeous color in person and heavy weight. I tied some natural colored May Arts hemp string through the holes and added dots of Red Stickles glitter glue to the berries on these. They are A2 in real life. And were used to hold Gift cards for "turkey" at work on Friday. That's about it from me so far, I am finally getting over the sinus thing I unpacked after returning home from Thanksgiving so, it's now all hands on deck to get Christmas finished up here. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

Watercoloring Quick Tags

 Hi, It's my turn to host the water coloring challenge tutorial at Splitcoaststampers this week and I came across this video from Kristen Van Leuven called quick & easy watercolor holiday gift tags - 10 ideas for gifting watercolor here on YouTube.

So, I opened the drawer where I have some cut pieces of cardstock and pulled out a piece that is big enough for a small card and used some Ellen Hutson Modern tag dies on it to get 3 tag shapes.

 

And I happened to remember the simple pine branch idea best so, I started with that. I did have the idea that starting with the paper already cut to a tag size would help with finding space for the painting and leaving some white space. 

I did start adding darker values to the needles and some browns for a branch.

 

And more paints and such, this was all the pieces I did cut from that piece of Arches cold press wc paper.

I remembered there was an almost Charlie brown blanket wrapped tree idea and so, I started one of those for the second tag.

 

And I decided to do a long skinny branch on the long tag as well. 

 The Oh Joy sentiment was stamped on scraps a few weeks ago and cut out with Tim Holtz Labels die ( ovals) and or an Art Impressions (banner) die. the red burlap string is from an May Arts roll and I did leave off the hole re-inforcers I had cut. I Also ended up adding a few spots of White Gouache snow to the little tree tag. That's about it from me, these went together really quickly. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here. Thanks for stopping by. 

Inspired by {The Paper Mill}

 This week Julie is sharing the Paper Mill site and Pinterest boards for Inspiration at Splitcoaststampers. I had come across this pin and because, it is a little busy, My brain said. "You could do red plaid tags from that". ( my tags do not look that much like the pin ) but, I used printed papers I had on hand and decided to chop up to fit diecut tags I have. It's been a few weeks since I made these and I lied to my self about being able to remember the details... but, my best guess is those papers with words are from Simple Stories pads and that base plaid on the big PTI square tag is from Hobby Lobby. The only stamp here is that buying happiness sentiment the rest are just flat printed papers. There is a big gaudy jeweled brad in the hole of the printed paper tag on the TH tag diecut.

All those burlap strings are from rolls from May Arts, the ribbons are unknown. I want to say the stamped sentiment is from Picket Fence studios set called More Inappropriate Christmas Sentiments set. 

The edges of most of these papers were inked with some DOX scorched Timber ink and the tag across the bottom front is from an Ellen Hutson modern tags set. That's about it from me, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here. Thanks for stopping by. 
 

 

Watercoloring Abstract Christmas foliage

 This week Kia is sharing this video seen here on doing some Abstract either Holly Branch of Poinsettia floral clump paintings by Ellen Crimi-Trent called EASY watercolor Christmas Cards - Loose Abstract Christmas Floral. I started with a piece of Arches cold press watercolor paper and just free-hand painted the first layer of Holly Branch.

And as soon as I got this layer on I decided the leaves were entirely too small of a scale with those berries at this size. 

 

And So, I went right over the top of it with more berries and bigger leaves.

 And then I proceeded to wash the paint off again.

 Added more paint and washed it off again, it was not really getting dreamy looking more of a hot mess but, I kept going.

 Remembered the add some yellow into the mess and did that.

Decided to add some splatters. 

 

Dug out a Square tag die from My Creative Time ( this is the largest straight edge die in that set) and played with where to tape it to cut it down.

 Cut it out, added a Reverse Confetti Sentiment that had been stamped and diecut previously and some May Arts Burlap String. And then decided to add some gold metallic paint dots.

I do like it better like this cut down and covered a little by that big sentiment. I am planning to do the floral one as well but, so far this is as far as I have gotten. I did ink both the edges of the round sentiment panel and the tag with some DOX scorched timber ink. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 
 

Dirty Dozen Christmas Prompt

 There are actually two prompt's to choose from this December for those people doing last minute makes and one of the things I have been working on and off the last few years is I bought a stamp from SU that reads "happy gift wrapping season" in one of their Christmas sets with dogs and cats being silly for Christmas and it's taken me a while to do it, make up gifts packages with a variety of Tags to gift out this Thanksgiving. And so with that thought in the back of my head I decided on the blue photo and Stamped this Hero Arts Santa,Sleigh & Reindeer stamp #D592 from 1993 on some Strathmore mixed Media paper that had been cut with an Cottagecutz 4X4 postage stamp die. And as a side note I think their "from the vault set that has some assorted small Christmas stamps in clear on it, the same image is on that sheet in the same size as far as I can tell just eye balling them. ( I didn't pull out a ruler.)

 I did use some DOX inks to fill in the bulk of the sky and where I wanted the tree tops to be so that they were not stark white and I also when I am watercoloring something tend to do several at once and then there is not much hurry up and wait time. Since I have been on a postage collage kick the last little while the things I was bouncing around between here were some also really older Hero Arts postage images on either Studio loft watercolor paper, Strathmore mixed media paper or Neenah Environmental coversheet. ( kraft) 

 I did start adding watercolor paint (loose tree tops) and over the stamped image for this panel.

 I added some white gouache and stickles to some of the postage stamps after a few layers of paints.

I ended up diecutting a piece of printed paper from the Whimsy Stamps Blurry Flurries with an Avery Elle A tag for all die ( this is A2 in real life) and I did back that even though it's a double sided paper with some more Mixed media paper so that I could add some weight to it. Which is always a fun thing to tie on tags and charms and such in my world. The blue pearls here are from Martha Stewart and the tiny red rhinestone is from Spellbinders. The metal snowflake charm I am not sure about as I tend to toss packaging and dump those kinds of things into an old canning jar together. 

 

The sheer ribbons are unknown and the blue burlap string is from May Arts. I am going to have to edit this when I remember who makes those sentiments. If you'd like to play along with us you can find the challenge for December here in the special forums set aside for Fan Club Members. That's about it from me, I hope you're doing well. Thanks for stopping by.