Christmas ornaments

It's late on Christmas Eve, and I'm waiting for midnight mass, so it seems like a good time to pop in with a quick post to share the Christmas ornaments I made this year.

I didn't keep any supply lists, so leave me a comment if you have any questions.

I found a tutorial for these adorable gnome ornaments on the Ruffles & Rainboots blog, and I knew right away I wanted to make them. Their pretty easy to make, and once I got the hang of it, they came together pretty quickly. (My biggest issue was the strands of hot glue everywhere!) I did try using yarn instead of craft fur to create the beards for two of the gnomes, and that was a lot trickier. I had to cut and glue quite a few pieces onto the base so the beard was full enough, and then I had to unravel the yarn a bit. It looks a little like they have dreadlocks, but I think they're still cute.

When I started these snow globe ornaments (I made twelve total), I thought they looked too plain, but by the time I was done I really liked them.

I found packages of bottle brush trees at Target, and I painted white gesso on the edges of each tree to create the look of snowy branches. I glued a tree to the bottom of a plastic jar (from Michaels) and added the artificial snow. (Tip: I rubbed the inside of the jars with a drier sheet first to reduce the static electricity and help keep the snow from sticking to the jar.)

I tried making a hole in the lid so you could hang the snow globe, but that plan didn't work. So these are sitting ornaments instead. I decorated the top of the jar with patterned paper and card stock, and wrapped twine around the lid. I tied it off in a bow, added a piece of pompom trim and glued a whole star anise over the knot.

For these ornaments I bought the sign shapes (with the top string attached) and painted them white. I die cut the letters out of black card stock -- three pieces for each letter -- and glued them together. (This was the most time-consuming part.) I added a top layer to each letter cut out of black glimmer paper to give a little sparkle and glued the letters on the sign. I strung the felt bulbs on crochet thread and glued the ends to the back of the sign.

This is another sitting ornament. I found these tiny animals (called Good Luck Minis) at my local art supply store. I originally wanted to put them in the snow globes with the trees, but the scale wasn't quite right. I needed to add a lot of "snow" to the jars, and these little guys would have been totally buried.

So instead I created a mini woodland scene. I painted the top of a birch round with white gesso, glued on the tree (with painted branches) and animals, and then glued on a light layer of snow.

I made three of these ornaments, and I still have a few of the animals left, so I'll have to come up with another ornament design for them next year.

I hope you have a very happy Christmas filled with joy, peace, and moments to remember. Thanks for stopping by!

Bold etched flowers

When I was in Iowa with my aunt back in October, we stopped at a fabulous scrapbooking/stamping store. There were so many amazing products that it was easy to get overwhelmed, so I focused my energy on the wall of stamps and dies. I found the Etched Flowers stamp set, from an Australian company called Darkroom Door, and new immediately that I had to get it. The stamp set includes three etched-type flower images and four wonderful all-occasion sentiments in a font that looks handwritten.

Supplies:
Stamps: Etched Flowers (Darkroom Door)
Paper: Whisper White, thick Whisper White card stock (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Sea Glass, Tranquil Teal, Lucky Clover, Key Lime, Wild Dandelion (Gina K Designs); Memento Tuxedo Black (Tsukineko)
Accessories: Shimmer mist (made with Shimmer Liquid Watercolor [Taylored Expressions] and alcohol), sparkling clear sequins (Pretty Pink Posh), Art Glitter Glue (Art Institute)

This card was so easy to make, but I think the blocks of bold color are really eye-catching. I chose one of the images in the set and started by stamping the light green image in the middle of a piece of white card stock. Then I just switched ink colors and continued stamping the surrounding images, staggering the top edge of the images. I just eyeballed the placement of the images, so they're not perfect, but I think that works just fine with the style of the stamp.

Once all the flowers were stamped, I added the sentiments using black ink. I love that these two sentiments could be used alone or combined, as I did here. I coated the whole panel with shimmer spray and then adhered it to a white card base. For a simple finishing touch I added a scattering of clear sequins that follows the sentiments from the top left to the bottom right.

Supplies:
Stamps: Etched Flowers (Darkroom Door)
Paper: Whisper White, thick Whisper White card stock (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Sea Glass (Gina K designs), Memento Tuxedo Black (Tsukineko)
Accessories: Tim Holtz Mini Stencil Set 40 (Stampers Anonymous), blender brush (Picket Fence Studios), black and white twine (Stampin' Up!), black enamel dots (Eyelet Outlet), Large Stitched Rectangle Stackables dies (Lawn Fawn), foam tape (3M)

For this card I stamped the daisy image on white card stock using Sea Glass ink and then die cut it with a stitched rectangle die. I stamped the sentiment in black right over the flower and then set that piece aside.

I struggled with the background for this card and couldn't decide what to do. Finally I pulled out some stencils and used a blender brush and Sea Glass ink to create a circle/diamond pattern on part of the white card front. (I'm curious, which pattern do you see first? My eyes are initially drawn to the white circles, and then I see the blue diamonds.) It has a little more of a retro feel than I was going for, but it's a nice contrast to the focal image.

I wrapped some black and white twine around the card front a couple of times and tied it off in a bow. Using foam tape, I adhered the die-cut rectangle over the twine. I added a few black enamel dots to finish the card.

I think I'm finally getting caught up with my Christmas prep. I finished making ornaments today, so I'll post those soon (although it may not be until after Christmas ...), and I have all my cards and packages mailed. I'm waiting for a couple of things to arrive on Monday, and I've got some wrapping to do, but the end is in sight. I am looking forward to a little time to relax!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy rainbow hearts

We're stuck smack dab in the middle of winter in my neck of the woods, which means there isn't much color to speak of outside. So looking at these two rainbow-y cards really makes my heart happy.

Supplies:
Stamps: Simple Strips Background (Taylored Expressions)
Paper: Crumb Cake, Basic Black, Whisper White, thick Whisper White card stock (Stampin' Up!); watercolor paper (Strathmore)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black (Tsukineko); watercolor inks: Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow, Lake Blue (Brea Reese)
Accessories: Hearts Entwined die (My Favorite Things), Simple Strips die (Taylored Expressions), shimmer mist (made with Shimmer Liquid Watercolor [Taylored Expressions] and rubbing alcohol), sparkling clear sequins and clear droplets (Pretty Pink Posh), Art Glitter Glue (Art Institute), foam tape (3M)

I love, love how these cards turned out, and they are among some of my all-time favorites. The starting point for them was a kit that contained a few Brea Reese watercolor inks. There were three colors in the kit -- Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow, and Lake Blue -- and I wanted to experiment with making them into a rainbow.

I cut a piece of watercolor paper to the size of my card front and spritzed it with water. Then, holding the paper vertically and resting the bottom edge (one of the long sides) on a paper towel, I squeezed some red ink along the left portion of the top edge. As the red ink ran down the paper, I added yellow near the middle, overlapping some of the red. I continued by adding blue, overlapping part of the yellow, and finally added a bit of red at the right side to combine with the blue and make purple. As the colors spread and blended, they made this gorgeous rainbow. (Hint: If needed, spritz on more water to help the colors blend. And you can tip the paper different directions to encourage the blending a bit)

Once that panel was dry, I die cut it with the Hearts Entwined die, making sure I saved all the little bits that fall out of the middle of the hearts. I adhered the border piece to a heavy white card base. Then I die cut the hearts again out of black card stock and glued the black heart outline into the "frame" on the card base. Then I glued all those little pieces back inside the black hearts. For the second card, I simply glued the die-cut rainbow hearts onto a Crumb Cake card base.

I embellished both cards with clear accents (droplets or sequins) and added a sentiment made near the bottom of the die-cut hearts. You can't see it in this photo, but I also added some shimmer mist. I made my own in a little mister bottle; I just filled the bottle about 1/4 full with Shimmer Liquid Watercolor and the rest with rubbing alcohol. It is the most gorgeous mist ever (but I do think I need to unclog my mister now).

Thanks for stopping by today! May your heart always be happy!

Colored pencil flowers

Last month I participated in the 30-Day Coloring Challenge with the goal to color a little bit each day. Well, I didn't quite make it through the whole challenge (I think I got through the Nov. 20 or so), but I did color more than I usually do, so I consider that a success. I even put together a little coloring bag for work and colored during my break on a few days. Some days I worked on a page in a coloring book, but other days I focused on coloring stamped images that I could turn into cards. Here are the first few of those cards:

Supplies:
Paper: Whisper White, Basic Black Bermuda Bay card stock (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Powder Pink (Stampin' Up!); colored pencils: PC928, PC930, PC942, PC1002, PC992, PC1027 (Prismacolor)
Accessories: Scattered Floral stencil (Taylored Expressions), blender  brush (Picket Fence Studios), "smile" and "hello" dies (Gina K Designs), black enamel dots (Eyelet Outlet), gamsol blending kit (Taylored Expressions), Art Glitter Glue (Art Institute)

This was my coloring from the first day of the challenge, and it was a new technique, too. Kathy Racoosin explained the technique in her first blog post for the challenge, but basically it's no-line coloring with a stencil instead of a stamp.

I used a blender brush to apply very light pink ink over a floral-patterned stencil. This part was a little tricky because the ink is so light it's hard to tell if you're covering the stencil. (If you want to check, hold the stencil firmly in place and carefully lift up one corner to peek at your card stock.) Once that was done, I used colored pencils to color over the lightly inked flowers.

I chose pink, yellow, and blue to color the flowers and used gamsol to blend them and soften the pencil lines. Then I used darker accent colors to add centers to the flowers. Once all the coloring was done, I cut the panel in half, mounted each piece on black card stock and adhered them to Bermuda Bay card bases. To add the sentiments, I die-cut each word a few times from black card stock, glued them together and adhered them to the cards. One black enamel dot was the finishing touch for each card.

Supplies:
Stamps: Cosmos Background (Simon Says Stamp), Simple Strips Background (Taylored Expressions)
Paper: Lovely Lipstick, Basic Black, Whisper White card stock (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, VersaMark (Tsukineko); colored pencils: PC911, PC921, PC929, PC930, PC942, blender pencil (Prismacolor)
Accessories: Simple Strips die (Taylored Expressions), white embossing powder (Hero Arts), sparkling clear sequins (Pretty Pink Posh), foam tape (3M), Art Glitter Glue (Art Institute)

These cards have the same layout as the first pair, but this time I used a stamped background. I colored each flower in the image with one pencil, applying light color to the whole flower and using more pressure to add the darker details. I blended the colors with a blender pencils and, if needed, added more dark strokes. Then I cut the image in half, mounted the pieces on black card stock, and adhered them to Lovely Lipstick card bases. For the sentiments on these cards I used embossed sentiment strips, and I added a few clear sequins for a subtle embellishment.

If you're interested in participating in a coloring challenge, there's another one coming up in February. I encourage you to try it out; you don't have to officially sign up or anything, so you could even just follow along on the blog or Instagram and do your own coloring when you can. I don't often do a lot of coloring when I'm making cards, so it was fun to focus on that a little bit. And I ended up with at least a dozen cards with the images I colored (I'll be sharing them all on my blog)!

Thanks for stopping by today! I mentioned in my last post that I was going to be sharing some Christmas ornaments. I did make some yesterday, but I'm not quite finished yet -- and I need to get better pictures in the daylight -- so they're still to come.

Recap of 2019 Christmas cards

Well, my December blogging is off to a slow start. I can't believe I completely missed last week. This holiday season seems busier than most, and I'm a little overwhelmed with all the things left to do. (Or maybe every year seems this way, and I just forget once the holidays are over.) But I'll try to get back on track this week, and I'm starting with a quick recap of all my 2019 holiday card designs. (Click on each photo below to see a larger version. Or click on the title to go to the full blog post.)

January: Mod flower

February: Festive wreath

March: Winter songbird

April: Penguin shaker

May: Retro colorful trees

 
June: Over the river

July: Winter cardinal

August: Simple and traditional

September: Ho Ho Postage

October: Retro sparkles

November: Caring Hearts Card Drive

Holiday treat packages

I hope you found a little inspiration in these cards, either for this year (it's not too late to create and send some handmade cards!) or to tuck away for next year.

I'm going to try making some Christmas ornaments tonight, so I hope to share those soon. Thanks for stopping by!