More Fallidays Projects

 I have been stealing some time to try to do at least one of the challenges each day. And you know my memory is not as good as I would like it to be with directions or guide lines. So I kind of think of it as pirate creating. I do read the challenges and retain parts of the information and cross my fingers that the idea that comes to me after that will be accepted when I post them. Its kind of a hit and miss thing, sometimes I get really close and some times I miss a key detail.

 The main take away for me is that I am up here creating and nope I do not need much in the way of cards left for this year. a couple of Birthday cards for next month maybe some personalized Christmas tags for my family. but, with the samples I make all year I am good for personal needs and these are all just bonus cards. And that's OK it saves you when you do hit a I don't have a spark in you to create. 

 My son & his girlfriend have hatched Chicken eggs into Peeps last weekend and I knew I wanted to send a silly card for that, we've been getting progress text shots along the way. They've remodeled a shed into a fancy Chicken coop and all those things so. Vikki Jo has a Farm themed challenge and So, I had gotten out this MFT Gift box cover die to try to do some other challenge and I thought OK you could use that and use some Chicken papers so I did.

The Yellow paper that is the frame die is from the Whimsy Stamps CottageCore pack, the Red barn wood looking print is from the Carta Bella Farm to table pad and those little collage looking prints in the window holes are a piece of double sided paper ( one side is chicken wire) and the other side is a collage from the Authentique Homestead pad ( this is from like 2015) so, I'm looking the carta bella pad is from 2020 and the Whimsy pack is new like sometime during the summer of this year type "new" The Congratulations stamp I did I don't know how long ago but, I did ink the edges with some DOX scorched timber ink and those tiny black brads are from Recollections. The sheer ribbon is unknown the base is textured Bazzill. This one finished out at A6 in real life. 

 So around the same time that I was working on the Chicken card I had seen there is a do a colorful Halloween with a silhouette challenge and so, I picked up the drop piece of that Whimsy stamps paper and trimmed it to be a "frame" around the black cut frame of that same MFT gift box cover die. I knew I had some Halloween dies and I was excited about the idea of doing a silhouette. So, I opened the drawer that has the hanging file folder of loose black papers and I started with that dotted one in the top right corner and I thought. OK that's enough of that, and I gravitated to the other blacks that had a lot of yellow on them. I did put the cat diecut up on foam pop dots so he bumps out a little from the bustle of her dress and then I decided they needed spooky glowing eyes so I added some lime green liquid pearls where I thought the eyes could be. And a week ago or so I had cut and watercolored some of the candles that came in the same TH die set as the Mistletoe I used last week and thought she could be using one of those and then I added some stickles glitter glue to the flame part. That sentiment was stamped and diecut a long time ago and I really thought it was a MFT one. but, when I look at the photos of Halloween MFT stamp sets I have I am not seeing it, so if I steal some time I may go later after all these challenges are done and try to figure out stamps and details. but this one is also A6 in real life.

 This one was done yesterday afternoon, I had seen earlier in the week there is a collage challenge and there is also a Postage holiday collage challenge so, I opened the drawer that has tiny clear envelopes of postage I have done over time that was left overs and started poking around through them. Some of the process shots of that and maybe even stamp names are here in this blog post from last year. So the real canceled postage came off of envelopes I had sitting here and the good cheer is printed paper, it was on the table in that piece of milk glass I keep sentiments in and I don't remember what pack it fell out of anymore. I am pretty sure those postage frame dies are from IO and the button is I don't remember but, it was cut from a sheet that had been sprayed with ink a long time ago as well. the white and red lace is vintage, the fancy fiber (yarn) is unknown now and The red gingham & the kraft ish prints are from the Maja designs Traditional Christmas pack. This is 6" square in real life. And as many things that are layered on it, its a pretty flat design in real life as well. The center snowman postage is up on foam pop dots. That's about it from me, Its almost time to "wake up" so I will probably go start the coffee. Thanks for stopping by. 

A couple of Fallidays projects

 There is a falliday's line up of challenges happening now at Splitcoaststampers. 4 new challenges go live every morning and so, I have been reading along more than playing along but, I have a couple that are not two few or three fer cards now so I thought I would post them together and clear out my to be uploaded folder. 

This first one is the painted panel was a practice piece of doing these trees on that textured printed paper and I fished this out of the bin on the table to do 

 I ended up adding more paint to the trees and more snow spots, the larger one on the left I splattered some additional snow on it and the one on the right I ended up adding some stickles glitter glue to it. 

The Impression Obsession tag die here is one from Anna Wight and I had cut some of my scraps up a long time ago with it and then I found this top tan one and ( its flimsy printed paper) so, I found a second one of Kraft cardstock to glue to the back side here. That Merry was stamped with Versafine on Kraft and cut out with scissors a long time ago so, all I did here was ink the edges with some DOX scorched timber ink as that's whats on the edges of the tag pieces. The white yarn fiber came to me in a swap maybe 20 some odd years ago when people did that fiber swaps from balls of them they bought and the green burlap string is from May Arts. 

I could not sleep last night so, about 1 am ish I started on this one, the green textured base I think could be an Anna Griffin folder ( I have a bin of previously started things on the table) and I liked the color of that behind the little collage I started building and decided good enough. The kraft piece was run through a Spellbinders Herringbone folder and I had added some Daniel smith watercolors to the framed edge part of it when I first pressed it and set it aside so, when I seen that Joanne was hosting a wood fallidays challenge I had pulled that out totally intending to use it some how. 

The tree was cut from watercolor paper a while back ( Its a Tim Holtz die) and I have been adding layers of paint to it for a few months now I'd guess. I had gotten a pad of Simple Stories Simple Vintage Evergreen Memories pad ( this year Christmas paper in the mail this last week) and I had seen this deer print in it and knew I wanted to use it some how. I have trimmed the edges down a little bit its one of those sheets that has 4 different prints on that 6X8 sheet size. The sentiment here I stamped I don't remember how long ago and I just thought it worked with these pieces. I did after it was all glued together add more white gouache to the snow on the tree branches and in a few spots where there was some bokeh looking snow over the deer. ( not every spot just some of them) That's about it so far from me, its supposed to freeze here tonight and possibly snow ( slightly ) very early in the AM tomorrow so, the cleaning up the garden calls. I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 
 

Inspired by {Pacha Soap}

 This week Kia is sharing the Pacha Soap site and Pinterest boards for the Inspiration destination & I happened across this leaf shaped Soap bar and remembered that Susan has an "Holly & Mistletoe" challenge at Splitcoaststampers for the Fallidays event and I thought OK you could combine them.

I started out cutting some scrap watercolor papers with the Tim Holtz Sizzix Vault set called Winter Candle light dies and started adding some Daniel Smith watercolors to them. There is a bit of Windsor & Newton White Gouache on the berries. ( not all of them but some of them) 

 So when the paint dried ( I added another layer of paint to the bits and pieces) and glued them onto a piece of White Neenah that I had run through a Spellbinders Ornate Molded Frame folder a while back that happened to be in the bin on the table. 

 

I used a paint brush to add a few more stems between the die cut pieces. 

I added a sentiment from the Waltzing Mouse Season of Love Tags Stamps set below the sprigs with some Versafine ink and then trimmed the framed panel a little bit so that the front cover of the Card front in the same card stock could peek out behind it.  I have been debating adding some glitter glue to the berries but so far have resisted that urge. That's about it from me so far, I still have a few more things drip drying with paint on them that will hopefully become finished Falliday's projects but, I am pretty tickled that I did get 2 done so far since it opened this week. I hope you are also doing well & If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

 

 

Inspired by {Family Handyman}

 This week Julie has chosen the Family Handyman Site & Pinterest boards for inspiration And my assumption was I was going to find something to do say an Anniversary card for hubs in there but, as soon as I seen the mug shot on this artificial Christmas tree I remembered that Linda had a challenge recently while I was off line to do a glowing Christmas tree. and earlier I had seen that one of the Fallidays challenges that has been leaked early is Lisa's Snowglobe one... so it seemed like a karma thing to get a three-fer card from these things. And so, I still need an Anniversary card soon-ish haha.

 I started by cutting all the pieces of this Honeybee stamps snowglobe die set from some Artist loft watercolor paper and some woodgrain printed paper. I inked the edges of the woodgrain paper with some DOX scorched timber ink and set it aside after gluing it to the "frame" part of the globe. I did do a sketchy tree trunk with some brown paint although the video (seen here on YouTube) from the watercoloring challenge does the tree in shades of green mostly. 

At this point I had only watched the first 5 minutes of the video tutorial when the artist is doing it on scratch paper... and so, I flicked on some branches and then went and finished watching it.

I did not make the ends of my brush all discombobulated I just did some dry brushing on this, as it was pretty warm here today and using a small brush it was nearly dry as I was putting it on. so I did end up using a paper towel to soak up the clean water in the "glow" circles you see here. I did add more paint to more of the white space to make the tree a little fuller looking. 

I added some silver iridescent paint and some white gouache straight out of the tube to the top of this layer for some "snowfall" since its going inside a "snowglobe" frame. I widened the tree trunk and gave it a wash of water for some ground as well. 

 I decided the frame needed to be deeper so I cut one more frame from the same watercolor paper and glued it to the back side of the piece that had the "wood grain base" glued on to give it more depth and then added more white gouache to some spots and let it all sit under an old block to set the wet glue.

 I loved how the tree in the Pin is displayed against the white detailed wood wall and so, I found this old pad of woodgrain prints and although there are some papers that have more white than grey to them the boards were just too narrow to look ok with this tree so, this one its leaning a little grey here. and I am OK with that. The sentiment was stamped and cut out with scissors a long time ago but, I think its either Memory box or Poppy stamps. the tiny snowflake is an Shank less button. and that part of the sentiment off the wood base has a foam pop dot under it. The base here is some textured Avocado cardstock and this one is 6" square in real life. If you'd like to play along in this challenge you can find it here at Splitcoaststampers. That's about it from me. I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 

Fallidays non-traditional Tags

 Good Morning & Happy Friday! I am hosting one of the Fallidays challenges that goes live today. and the challenge is simply to create a tag that is not a rectangle with clipped corners on one end shaped tag. ( so any shape you have will work) :) I had seen some people making tags with their canning Jars a while back so, I did cut some of mine and start them but, they never turned into full fledged tags with say fibers hanging off of them. ( like so) 

These Sizzix Jar #2 sized ones so, about A2 in real life. that gives them a lot of wiggle room to decorate.

I figure when I do need some. and my family gives a bunch of food gifts I would have a head start with these already cut and partially decorated. these are Papertrey Ink Friendship jar sized mason jars ( its a really old set but, Its possible I think to find on eBay or something like that still) 

This is the backside of the home shaped tag that is the sample I have showing on the chat thread. The To From stamp here is from Impression Obsession done in some red Versafine ink. The backside of the house I did cut a piece of the cream to line the layers on the front and give it some stability. 

This is the front side of this The Stamp Market House maker die #2 set. I did not use every detail piece on the door or the top window but, I think it is cute even with the details. the Open Me is from The Spellbinders Christmas Memories enclosed set on a Spellbinders / justrite tag die. I did put in an actual eyelet for the ribbons and fibers to run through and that door knob is a nail ( like fingernail) sticker. very low profile. which is funny because, the mini wreath is anything but flat. :) I do have additional tags done that I will edit this post later tonight because, I out smarted my self and did my Inspiration Sample for tonight as a Tag Also. I hope your doing well & Thanks for stopping by. 

Tim Holtz layered Angel wings with Debbie Mumm Christmas banners as gift tags. 

I did layer some mostly plain pieces to the backside to stamp the to from on. ( those are from the old Stampin' Up Christmas is here set colored with a red fineliner pen) and no stickles on the backsides.

the Inspiration tag is still coming a little later tonight. thanks for looking. 

The back side of this Spellbinders Tiered Tray and Tiered tray decor the tiny tree is from the Impression Obsession set and the to/from is from the Stampin' Up Christmas is here set. 

This tag is a combo of challenges jump started by this pin found on this weeks Inspiration destination at Pinterest and the fact that I am hosting the non traditional shapes tag challenge for Fallidays. The sentiment embedded into the letter board diecut is from Conners Collectibles. I did use a bunch of scraps to cut up all these pieces you see here. And then used Daniel Smith watercolors to add some color to the Gnome. The edges of the trays are inked with some Distress Oxide Vintage Photo ink. I will do another post with some of the other things I have finished so far during the Fallidays Challenges hopefully this weekend. Thanks again for stopping by.

A do - Over

 Jean has a recycle an old Christmas card into something new challenge for the Fallidays where you are to start off with a photo of your original card. And my original card, is actually one I made that came to me in the mail in 2016. (the original blog post is here) It was one of those simple things that, was one where as soon as you shoot the shot, you see the goof. ( I had the printed paper on the cardbase upside down from the hanging "Joy" diecut tag. And I had made this to be a filler card for the booth. And I must have said something to June about it, because I didn't know this at the time but, she always helped me do the booth and sold cards and such too. but, that year for Christmas this card came back to me in the mail from them. 

So, Jeans challenge was to recycle one. And I started playing with this tag thinking, ok you could doctor that up or something. and as I played with it, I realized the ribbon would slide right off that half the printed paper as it was just looped around the gatefold on the left side. 

 as you can see I have barely a square foot left to work in since the piles have grown around the edges of the desk as Fallidays continues.

I had recently bought this stamp on ETSY from Laddstamps ( seen here ) and when it came in the mail I had stamped off a few on scraps on the table then painted the leaves and berries. This particular one was die cut with a wonky stitched circle die from picket fence studios. So, I picked it up and decided to drag some paint around the edges in a wonky way since its not a perfect circle to begin with grabbed a box of previously die cut from cheap watercolor paper scraps box and started digging for flowers. Didn't find that but, did find some sprigs. Added some paints to those. I did have a diecut doily on the other side of the table I had been pushing around the other day making gift tags and used that for a backer to tie the hemp string to. 

I did end up pulling up the ends of the printed paper on the left hand side to tuck that vintage lace behind the glitter paper. Lucky me, I did it without ripping it. ( happy side not the bazzill and dcwv papers tend to have plastic in them, so they are easier to move things after the fact) ( which is handy when you glue things on upside down eh?) slipped the original green ribbon back on and just tied it into a knot this time, trimmed the ends and used some foam pop dots under the doily on the left half of the card so the panel does not wiggle much. And I think I will pop this back in the mail on Monday to them again. I am debating if I want to just draw a line on the liner and write a note across the other half of the inside or totally make it a new piece. I am leaning towards writing in the blank space so she can laugh about it too. If you'd like to see what all the fun is about with the Fallidays Challenges you can find them here at Splitcoaststampers to play along. Thanks for stopping by.

Painting Poinsettias

 There are fallidays challenges going on now, and I have more than half of them done, will work on more uploads soon. But, a few of them have a lot of photos so, since this card done for Holly's floral challenge has a gorgeous IC photo in the chat thread seen here. I decided I would do a blog post for the process. a little bit before I seen Holly's challenge I had come across this Painting poinsettia cards for the holidays from Creationsceecee on YouTube ( seen here) and decided to kinda do something along the lines using the colors from Holly's challenge and the transparent petals from ceecee's video.

first layer of paint, this is Windsor & newton red. ( its a real red shade for color, I am reaching for it a lot lately) 

 The greens are a couple shades from Daniel smith, one of them is called ocean? ( its sucha  shimmery color) this is wet.

And this is dry what I came home to monday after work. This one made it onto instagram.

Second layer of petals painted along with some gold dots to the centers ( which mostly faded and or bloomed into the petals) I did end up splattering this whole piece with Dr. PH Martins bleed proof white too before I cut it up, and more gold to the centers.

I decided that white space would work really well to tuck in a sentiment so, I did ink this a few times in the Misti because, the white splatter were already dried into that space too ha ha. the whole painted panel is up on foam pop dots. This is A7 in real life. Hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by.

A Few Fallidays Projects

 There are fallidays challenges & tutorials going on now at Splitcoaststampers that started earlier this week and so far I have the first days challenges done and am still hunting for my gilding flakes to try the tutorial.

The very first challenge is to include a bird on a holiday card from Lydia. So, I chopped up some Arches watercolor scraps with these Poppy Stamps Whittle birds and Pine Wisps from the Greetery and painted them with Daniel Smith (mostly) watercolors that were on the palette. ( I did swipe the backsides of the sprigs as they are only glued near the stems.)

I knew I wanted to keep the background simple and I almost lost the birds in this design as the branches are so much large scale wise but, I am liking how this turned out. The background is an older Gel Print done from a fern clipping in my yard with Acrylic paints. The base here is PTI dk. Chocolate and finishes out at A7 in real life.

Next Up Dina has a color challenge that needs sweets and stripes to go along with it. So, out came this Cute Whipper Snapper Designs Ginger Berry Basket image ( I stamped it twice to paper piece the top one into the design on the bottom one and not cut out those bitty bows on the candy canes) It's painted with mostly Daniel Smith watercolors on Arches cotton wc paper.

And when I had red her challenge I grabbed my box of scraps and started die cutting a small pile of these tags from the Frantic Stamper Jumbo Merry Christmas tag die set (because, I love the stitching along the edge ) and it's size is nearly A2 in person. The berry basket panel was die cut with a Paper Rose lots of squares die and taped backtogether. The Joy is from the Taylored Expressions farmhouse sentiments set and I wanted to mat it but, didn't want a huge frame so I ended up using a paint brush to give the edge of the diecut a red frame. 

Lori has a white on white challenge with a subtle color sentiment. (not sure if aged patina is subtle or not ) but, the size of it is small enough that maybe it will pass. The pierced snowflake is a My Favorite Things diecut and the Merry Christmas here is from the Simon Says Stamp Joy To you and Yours set. same tag die, used a piece of Hobby Lobby crepe paper for the texture. That's about it from me so far, if you'd like to play along all the challenges that have gone live so far are here in this collection of threads. 

Thanks for stopping by.

A few Christmas cards

 

 

This was done totally inspired by this umbrella after my brain focused in on the upside down bird on the line. So, I just flipped this paper upside down after stamping the bird and I started out using colors similar to the umbrella and then once I got to the Santa hat I started going darker. added in some squiggles of paint to the body for feather movements. There is some stickles glitter glue on the hat trim also. This one is A6 in real life. The sentiments from Riley & Co. and the bird is from Woodware's fuzzy robin line.

 

 

Now this was done jump started by the October dirty dozen Christmas card prompt. the tall leaf is a Simon Says Stamp die etched tall leaf, and the shorter eucaluptus is a stitched one from paper rose. these have watercolor paints on them. the texture panel (TH engraved folder) was inked and cut in to strips to layer. this one is a full sized slim line 4X9.

This Emerson chick (American Art Stamps) was a gift from Hubs as he has been seeing me collect them lately. so, I colored up a couple of her and did two versions. the sentiment on this one is from Hero Arts.

 

The sentiment on this one comes with the image.

this was done from scraps on the table the white parts were cut from watercolor paper and the sentiment here is from the Simon Says Stamp fa la la set.

This one the dog is from Impression Obsession ( baxter) and he was painted with wc paints. and this was done after seeing this cute card inside Ema's gallery when she was featured stamper this week. the Sentiment here is from Stampendous. 

 

This old Elyzbells stamp was dug out after seeing Jocelyn's card here when she was Featured Stamper. the sentiment on this one is from the Simon Says Stamp Joy for you set. 

Now this was done because, I bought this pad of Memory Box printed papers and thought really you could just let it shine ( so added stickles to them) and silly sentiments. The sentiment on this one is from Impression Obsession.

 

The Sentiment on this one is from Our Daily Bread Designs.

 

The Fallidays tutorial on November third is a disappearing 9 patch from scraps project. (tutorial seen here) So, I ended up using deco scissors to trim the outside edges of the mat I gave mine and they don't cut completely anymore after all these years so, I took the point of some other scissors trying to "fix" the cuts, and after a while just grabbed some Antique linen distress Oxide to color dust along the edges. The holly here is a sticker that has an almost "felted" texture to it, it was a gift from June for my birthday this year, it came with some Poinsettias in the pack too from Hobby lobby. The sentiment here is from Tim Holtz great outdoors set.

 

This I finally finished from earlier in the week, I did add a smidge more paint to the bottom right corners of the top to bulbs to mimic the shadow I gave the bottom bulb when it was wet. The sentiment here is from the Altenew Holiday tag sentiments set. I added more of the white gel pen in a few spots where it was more of an outline rut from the first time around too.

This week Kia has us looking at the Putti fine furnishings for inspiration and I came across this metal tree.  And I had seen that Lydia has her first Fallidays challenge to do one of the old Watercolor Wednesday prompts that you may not have already done. and I knew there was a Christmas tree in a pot one seen here. ( I only did the one that looked on the Charlie Brown side) and while I was waiting for the last minute to make this, I had also seen Cathy issue an "Mini" slimline card challenge, so this fits that too. ( the cardstock was cut to 7" x 6" and scored at 3 1/2" on the 7" side) I know this will fit inside an A6 envelope but, I am also thinking I may have picked up a mini You can find this challenge here at SCS to play along with us. Thanks for stopping by.