Many years ago, my sister (-in-law), Judy, Retired2stamp, invited me to a Stampin' Up Party. I was drawn to the 6X6 recipe card swap our local group was doing and had wanted to scrapbook too. I wasn't really interested in card making because I had witnessed my brother (in-law) Ed fold up a handmade card and put it in his pocket. I almost fainted and I didn't even make the card. But after a few parties, I was hooked and now make more cards than I had ever thought I would. My most recent passions are ATCs, tags & altered art. As you look through my blog I hope you can see how I've grown in my crafting ability!

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

'Tis The Season - Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2016 Technique Remix - December 2016

Our group got together yesterday at The Craft Shack to make Tim Holtz's last tag for 2016.  It's bitter sweet because we loved the technique remix but we can't wait to see what he has in store for 2017.  I pulled the instructions together & made my tag as a sample then Lisa gets all the tools & supplies including various embellishments, papers, etc ready.  Everyone in the group chose what they wanted to use to put their own spin on the tag.  We always look forward to getting together for a few laughs!

The 1st technique was Shadowpress from May 2014. The debossed shadow press folders & shadow press station are genius!  I decided on 'TIS THE SEASON from the Christmas #1 set. It was so easy putting the embossing ink on with the mini brayer & I love how the Ranger Gold EP looks.  On the tiles I used Yuletide paper, "believe" typed token with a star fastener, a snowflake with a mini brad, a "25" mini plaquettes, a Christmas word band, ephemera & a large mirror star.

The 2nd technique was Burlap from December 2015 & Punches.  On the burlap I used the Nordic stencil with peeled paint spray stain. This is one of my favorite techniques...just love the texture.  I don't have the punches so I used the mini holiday greens cut from different colors of kraft core cardstock & hot glued them together,  I added 2 jingle brads & a bow at the top.

To finish it off I splatter white picket fence paint over the entire tag.

Thanks to Tim for another great tag!  TFL!

Thursday, December 15, 2016

This Christmas

For my 2016 Christmas cards I decided to use the tree from Tim Holtz's Doodle Greetings #2 stamp set.  The SU Whisper White card front was embossed with Tim's Distressed Frame Texture Fade before being stamped.  I still can't believe how easy it was to mass produce my cards using the Misti!  Using markers, I colored the stars & snowflake with Mustard Seed & the pines with Peeled Paint then stamped.  The tree was then inked with a Fired Brick ink pad & I wiped the red off the stars, snowflake & pines before stamping.  I was then able to touch up using markers on the stamp & restamping with the Misti.  Once I had finished inking all the cards, I cleaned the stamp, went over it with a static remover & using Ranger's Emboss-it Dauber added embossing ink to the entire stamp.  After heat embossing the image with SU Peppermint EP (it smelled so good!) the card front was mounted on SU Cherry Cobbler.

Oh & I only stamped the snowflake at the top on a couple of the cards.  I should have stayed with ink but I tried a couple of different things...gold embossing powder melted together & you couldn't see all the details.  I also tried stamping with gold Wink of Stella but some of that ran together too so for most of the cards I left the snowflake off & added a star brad.  This card was one of the 1st ones I did so I put the brad over the snowflakes & it looked pretty good.

Thanks for looking & I hope everyone has a great holiday!



Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Christmas Thoughts

This card was a project for my SU party & was really easy to make!  I try to do a technique I haven't done before & I found the crimped diamond technique by Lee Conrey on SCS.  I used Cherry Cobbler & Crumb Cake cardstock which are 2 of my favorite colors.  The sentiment is from White Christmas stamp set & stamped in Basic Black.  The pine bow is from Wonderland stamp set & I used Garden Green & Early Espresso markers to ink the stamps.  The red twine is retired & the sentiment panel is popped up using dimensionals.  I almost forgot the most important tool...the crimper!!  All the supplies are from Stampin' Up except the crimper & the bling.

Hope you give this one a try & TFL!