The Spirit of Christmas

It's hard to believe that Christmas is less than two months away and Thanksgiving is less than one month away... where has this year went!!

This card uses new stamps from Quietfire Design. For the background I attached a piece from a book page to a piece of cardstock... painted over it with Adirondack paint dabbers, first with snow cap, let it dry, and then with pool, and let it dry and then rubbed on some aquatic splash Versamagic ink. Next I stamped a flourish in the upper left corner using snow cap paint and then stamped various snowflake images with aegean blue Versamagic ink. The quote is stamped onto printed paper with jet black Archival ink, the edges of the panel distressed with the tonic paper distresser and aquatic splash ink rubbed onto the distressed edges. This is layered onto a torn edge panel and then onto the background. An extra torn piece of cardstock and a piece of lace are added near the bottom of the background. "love" is stamped repeated along the bottom with jet black ink. Three snowflake charms are added - the large one I don't remember where I got it, the other two are from Quietfire design. They come gold - I sanded the front to take off any finish and then colored them with a Krylon paint pen. White glittered dome sticky gems are added to the center of each snowflake charm.

Nature Inspired - Tracie Lyn Huskamp

I was very blessed to win a give-away on the Craftside blog for Tracie Lyn Huskamp's new book Nature Inspired along with one of her prints and an original piece of her art. She also included a notecard and a tag. The book is wonderful!! I haven't read the whole thing or tried the techniques yet but will. The piece of art is truly a treasure... totally gorgeous... and will forever be displayed at my place along with the print once I get a frame for it. You can learn more about Tracie, her book, and her art at her website The Red Door Studio. Thanks again, Tracie, for an amazing package!!!!!

Photo Card

The beautiful picture used as the background for this card was taken by a friend, Melody, and I like it so well that I had to use it to make a card fro her. I embossed the scripture stamp (Our Daily Bread Designs) using Versamark ink and white embossing powder. Added gold paint around the edges and highlighted the centers of the flowers with dots of gold Smooch.

Musical Birthday

I made this card awhile back and never got it posted on the blog. All stamps are from I Brake For Stamps. Background is the polished stone with alcohol inks.

Tiger Birthday Card

I love using this tiger image (Embossing Arts) on cards for boys and my favorite way to color it is with chalk pastels... quick and easy. I also stamped some leaves along the top. Metal happy birthday tag colored with alcohol inks.

More Metal

Here again I've used Ten Seconds Studio metal, molds, and tool to create the background for this atc. The color of metal is periwinkle. After embossing it using a wheel, and two molds, I sanded off the high spots, then spritz on some Glimmer Mist turquoise blue over the bottom half while heating with a heat tool... once it was dry I again sanded the high spots. The collage image and stamped words are from Quietfire Design.

Fall is Beautiful ATC

When I went to those classes taught by Linda Cain over in Davenport I bought some of the Ten Seconds Studio metal tools and metal but I hadn't yet used any of it.. until now. The background of this atc is metal.... the pearl colored metal was embossed using 2 of their molds, and then I put some alcohol inks on it for a deeper color, and sanded the high spots... and mounted it to a piece of chipboard. Stamped the letters (Studio G) on the paper leaves. The collage image girl is from Quietfire Design and I added some spiced marmalade Distress ink, layered it onto black cardstock and cut a narrow border. "beauty" is from a sheet of words a friend gave me (Thanks Tea!!). Used a black Sharpie marker to color the sides of the chipboard up onto to the metal just a little bit.

Fear Not Card

The patterened paper used on this card is DCWV. The scripture stamp is from Our Daily Bread Designs. Spellbinders dies used to cut out scripture and the cream layer behind it.

Thank You Cards

I've been working on some Thank You cards. For this first one I started with a piece of canvas and did Tim Holtz's wrinkle free distress technique on it using Distress Ink scattered straw and shabby shutters, dried it and then stamped it with a Studio 490 background image with Archival Ink sepia. Next I sewed it to a piece of cardstock also adding stitching for the flower stems. The flowers are made using Maya Road mini chipboard gears... on two of them I used Duo Adhesive and variegated foil... on the other two I used Distress Ink and then Distress Stickles. For the centers of the flowers I used an Ideology foliage and buttons. The letters for thank you are also Maya Road mini chipboards, "jonathan", sponged with Distress Ink peeled paint and stamped with another Studio 490 background image using Archival Ink jet black. The butterfly is also a Studio 490 image stamped onto grungepaper with jet black, sponged with Adirondack ink wild plum, cut out, white dots added to the body with the Inkssential white pen, antenna made with craft wire. The whole piece was added to a green folded card.


The second Thank You card begins with a piece of white cardstock, I glued on a piece of striped tissue paper, then the flower paper, and then added the green strip of cardstock that was embossed using a Cuttlebug folder. "Thanks", a Quietfire Design image, was stamped on white cardstock. The metal frame was a color that didn't work so I painted it gold using a Paint Dabber giving it extra presses so the paint would be textured. I also sponged around the edges of the background with the gold paint dabber. Attached "thanks" to the back of the metal frame, added it to the background with brads along with the Prima flowers and attached the whole piece to a folded orange card.

Learning to Pause ATC

I started this atc with a piece of chipboard, sponged it with Distress Ink spiced marmalade, dried it, and then brushed on some Distress Crackle Paint dried marigold being sure to leave some areas unpainted. After the paint was dried and crackled I stamped a swirly image along the left with Archival Ink sepia. I also sponged some peeled paint ink around the edges. The words were stamped on white cardstock with Archival Ink jet black, sponged over with Distress Ink peeled paint and broken china, cut it up and added it to the atc. Punched a flower from grungepaper, sponged it with Distress Ink fired brick, dried it, added Distress Stickles spiced marmalade and let it dry. Added it along with some Ideology pieces to the left and finished it up with a sticky back gold pearl to the center of the flower. All stamps are Tim Holtz iamges.

Vintage 6" x 6" Page Swap

This is the front and back of the page I did for a Page Swap on the AllThingsTim Yahoo Group (that Tim would be Tim Holtz). The theme was vintage, the size 6" x 6", and you had to use something Tim related... product, technique, or even both... and we needed to make 20 pages. I started with 2 large sheets of Bristol board and to make the background for the fronts I sprayed the boards with Distress Inks mixed in mini mister bottles (old paper, tea dye, faded jeans, and maybe some corduroy - I should have wrote it down... oops) I also did some misting with water to help with blending and then while it was still wet I sprinkled on some walnut ink crystals. After they were dry I cut them up to get my 6x6 pages. At this point I wasn't totally pleased with how they looked and decided to add some scattered straw ink using the blending tool. I stamped the swirls on the backgrounds with Archival ink sepia and the words and bird with Archival ink jet black and finished by sponging a little black soot ink around the edges. The tag was stamped with jet black and color added with Distress inks using blending tools. The flowers were punched from grungepaper, colored with Distress Inks, and then sprayed with Perfect Pearls gold mixed in a mini mister bottle. The rickrack was sprayed with Distress Ink faded jeans. Embellishments are ribbon, a butterfly charm, a button, and Ideology snaps, washers, and brads. For the back I sponged the edges of the boards with Distress ink black soot, cut white cardstock 5 3/4" square, colored the white cardstock using the wrinkle free distress technique and distress ink broken china. The flowers were done using the Perfect Distress technique - fired brick and spiced marmalade inks and gold Perfect Pearls. The butterflies were stamped with fired brick. The edges were sponged with corduroy using the blending tool. My information is added using an Ideology journaling ticket. All the stamps I used are Tim Holtz images.