Personalized Christmas Tags

 A while back Kia was the featured stamper and I used this card of hers for a jump start for this tag of mine. I did switch out the colors and the sequins became white gel pen dots here.

 The leaves were watercolored and the bird was cut from shimmery cardstock as was the white in the Joyful frame.

 

 the big C is an old making memories mailbox letter the other letters are from a Tim Holtz pack of stickers that looked like a matchbook type thing. 

 The snowman is a Sizzix diecut and the birdhouse is a Quickutz diecut and the holly is from a Spellbinders Joy die.

 This one the felt holly was cut with a Hero Arts holly jolly die and that is a sequin in the center of the berries.

 I ended up shooting a shot of things piled up so that I did not duplicate them and make only snowmen or only stockings. (because, when I am on a roll I tend to do that) The bucket in the background is being filled with Tags for her to use that are blank ( not personalized ones)

 Some of these are old ones, I have a basket in the closet where there is wrapping papers of Tags I have made over the years and I trained my family to hand them back to me when they were cleaning up the paper mess after. So, maybe they will save these.

 These were on gifts of stocking holders that I had mailed to them in November and I knew I would not remember what I made by the time Christmas had rolled around so, it was a cool thing to find this in my phone.

 These were done for work tin plaid baskets that are holding wine and gifts.

 This was a preliminary shot before any of the gifts went into the buckets the snowman & elf things are wine bottle wrappers from Kohls.

 

A closer look at this tag, the Santa hats are an jollees sticker.

These are going onto bags of embroidered gifts for newer guys at work. The candy canes are very thick plastic stickers. I have a bucket of embellishments like that to use up still that are just too bulky to me for sticking on cards but, I do think they work for Tags as not everyone saves them. (and they are not trying to fit through postal machines) That's about it from me, Thanks for Stopping by.

Inspired by {Birch Lane}

This week we are peeking at Birch Lane and a funny true story I came across a shot of place mats on their pinterest board ( seen here ) that I actually own. ( I did not buy them from them but, it does give me an idea that the quality of their things is nice so, that was an interesting side thought) more than a few orders have been placed by me following Inspiration challenges going live.
(yeah, if I could roll my eyes you would see me doing that about now)
This year I have started a December Daily Scrapbook binder and I seen these Metal letters below and was thinking that would be totally cool as art this way and I spent some time tinkering with my small alphabet dies trying for "the look" The alphabet I have is a little too small to do much distressing on so, I left mine as plain cardstock.

This was done taking a piece of Neenah solar white cardstock cut to 4X6 so it would slip into one of the pockets of the journal, rounded off the corners and then I ran that through the big shot inside a Tim Holtz brick embossing folder. I did take a pale grey pencil and add some random shadows below some crevices. The letters were cut with brushed silver cardstock from the Tim Holtz Typeset Sizzix die and the pine branches are from the crate paper snowflake collection.

You can find these letters here inside the store And you can find this challenge Here at splitcoaststampers to play along with us. That's about it from me, thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW #550 {Loot with piles}

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 between the Thanksgiving sale and the Diecember sale... I have a pile of new dies to play with that arrived and I never shot them so, I lumped them all into one pile for this shot. and somewhere between then and today I made more Christmas cards using some of them. There was a VSN at SCS this last weekend and I played a little bit.

 Tuesday evenings desk, so I spent a bunch of time cleaning on monday night from the mess I made during the vsn and my desk was just neekid and since I still have not addressed any of my Christmas cards yet, it feels OK to keep making more. ha, I have for the last two days tried to remember to print mailing labels at work. ( I have a printer at home but, I only have hubs laptop sync'd with it so, when I print things I do it at my office) The sentiments in the back are from the Ellen Hutson tis the season set and the tree clusters in the front that have snowtex drying on them are from Concord & 9th.

now this was the last Christmas card that was in my to be uploaded folder with these desk shots that I did just messing around, one day I cut a bunch of leaf and foliage dies from watercolor paper and off and on I watercolor them and set them aside, this one is a really old one from Cuttlebug that I think I had not used before and the piece I cut out was a little smaller than the die and I thought oh, no big deal you'll probably chop it up later anyways. but, I actually liked how this turned out and so, I kept it the way it was and just glued it to a premade card base. the sentiment is from (I think hero arts mind just went blank) and so, that is about it from me. Thanks for stopping by.

Sunday's Cards

 Lee has a warm & cozy what do you do indoors when its snowing outside challenge and the answer is drink coffee and make cards. So, I dug out this new Unity Stamps Joy to go and colored it real quick with some waterbased markers and paired it with this Impression Obsession sentiment.

 This week's featured stamper is Lisa who has this card I love with the holly peeking in from the edges so, to make changes ( I knew I had these Penny Black reds & greens diecuts already watercolored ) So, I gathered up 3 of them and cut one apart to cluster all the leaves and berries into the center to drape over the embossed sentiment. (Honey Bee stamps)

 A closer look at the leaves and berries, done with some kuretake watercolors on Neenah tarragon cardstock diecuts.

 Now Kelly has a do one unique snowflake on the project challenge so, after hemming and hawing about it all weekend I finally decided to add a sentiment to this one and glue it to a card base, the Colorado Craft co. snowflake was stamped with some warm breeze pigment ink on the printed paper and then I went over all the blues with a clear wink of stella pen and outlined some places where I think there would be shadows with a white gel pen.

Misti had one of the Mini (Nov) challenges to do a winter bird watching card and So, I knew I had this old Elyzbells Christmas window stamp that had not seen ink in many years and I did it more or less as a self portrait ha ha. ( I did make the bird red though and we do not have Cardinals here where I live) there is also a bit of Snowtex for texture and the sentiment is from the Hero Arts Holiday tags & die set. I have been fighting with a head ache for a couple of days now so, I have not done anymore of the VSN challenges again yet but, I did get my table cleaned off yesterday after work.
That's about it from me, thanks for stopping by.

VSN {so far}

The winter theme for this round of VSN is Snow Globe You can find all the challenges here

Sonja has a challenge based on playing golf in the snow where your card needed to have a circle element and mostly white with a pop of color. So, I used this Simon Says Stamp CZ designs ho ho deer circle die (twice) the red was a cut with a scrap and then I tied on the sentiment ( deer delivery set) tag with some iridescent may arts cord. This one finished out at 3 1/2" Square in real life.

 Lee has a build a snowglobe challenge and so, I started with a piece of Neenah cut with the My Favorite Things tall snow dome die and then cut a second piece for the base ( to be thicker) from kraft. I used some of the stamps from the Great outdoors set from Tim Holtz in various shades of versafine claire,  rubbed some antique linen and vintage photo distress oxide inks along the edges, stamped off the sentiment from the Memory Box tidings wreath set & tied it on with some Burlap string. the dome is up on foam pop dots over the pre made Impress card base.

 Lisa has a white on white challenge, so I probably should have left off the sentiment but, I do like how this turned out so it was a fun simple card the woodgrain frame is from the Hero Arts nested set, its up on foam pop dots, the Church was cut from the Simon Says Stamp churches set and the sentiment is from the Memory Box tidings wreath set.

 

Lydia has a challenge that was a real thinking/over thinking one for me to do a holiday card with Bright happy yellow.  So I cut this star from the pale yellow ( scrap ) of cardstock ran it through its matching embossing folder and then swiped some clean brush marker in a brighter color into the debossed parts ( after dark with every light in the room on) and I still could not really see the yellows but, I knew my hand went out of the holes a few times so, I grabbed some "close enough" offray yellow ribbon and tied that sentiment ( Tim Holtz the great outdoors) on around the center to distract from that.

 

Now Melody has a build a snowman challenge ( you are not allowed to use your stamps for that) and so, I know I have seen this before so also knowing I have tons of buttons I decided to go this route. after it was shot I did trim the hemp string from the bottom and top buttons a little closer to the buttons leaving the center like it was to mimic arms. the scarf is some glittery fiber yard, and I cut the hat with scissors and put it up on foam pop dots to get it closer to the thickness of the buttons. The sentiment is from Hero Arts ( its really old) and the DCWV corrugate was cut with a Mama Elephant tags a lot die. That's it so far from me, I am hoping to do a few more of them later today. Thanks for stopping by.

A few Nordic Trees

So, I ordered that Hero Arts Nordic Tree set when it first came out this fall and its been sitting in the lets play with these things basket waiting for it's turn.

I finally stole some time to ink up this tree ( its two stamps for colorlayering) with the bottom layer being SU soft sky and the top layer being Versafine clair tulip red. Added some clear wink of stella over the red parts, which is really hard to see even in person.

And then I cut them out with the matching tree die.

 

 The bases of both of these cards are premade A2 ones the one on the left has some DCWV colored cork paper that was cut with a Simon Says Stamp wonky stitched rectangle die. the sentiments on both of these came in the same Hero Arts set with the tree.

 The tag on the left the sentiment is a single one from Unity Stamps. and the one on the right the tree is popped up on foam dots over that quilt cut tag.

And I had this scrap of this Tim Holtz tree paper laying on the table so, I thought the colors did not look that bad together so, that one on the left is 5" square in real life and that is red dyed cork paper under the tree on that one. the sentiment is from one of the Tim Holtz sets. and the card on the right was done because, I had a couple of these Birch Press diecuts previously done with that sparkle paper waiting to be used. the sentiment on that one I "think" is from Stampin' Up!
There is a VSN going on this weekend and I am hoping to do a few of those, nope I still have not addressed a single one of my envelopes of Christmas cards yet. (maybe tomorrow) (maybe I will just print stickers for the envelopes) maybe. :) Thanks for stopping by.