Whirlpool of Imagination

Another Bauble

I had an extra ornament shape cut out from the purple ones I did a few weeks ago so I decided to try another color scheme today. One of my favorite color comboniations for the holidays is evergreen/forest green and burgundy. I had some florist ribbon in both those shades so I threw this together. The scan does not show the true colors. It originally scanned really dark so I had to play around with the picture.

I'm still cutting all the shapes out for my Christmas cards. I probably have about 1/3 of the cards made so I think I'm in good shape. I just need to keep doing a few a day and I should be all set. Other than that, I didn't play with any new designs today - not much studio time today.

Noel Trees

Its been a few weeks since I've just been able to sit down and stamp. So this evening, I decided on a little time for me. A couple of weeks ago I got the new "Merry" set from Purple Onion Stamps. This is the cutest set and I pulled it out tonight. The trees and the noel are from the set. The textured harlequin is from Cornish Heritage. The trees are watercolored and the little snippet of patterned paper is from Daisy D's. This came together so easily - it felt nice to make something that I didn't HAVE to make, just stamped for the pleasure of stamping.

I've been busy with some Christmas card orders (along with my own cards) but now that I've gotten a chance to just "play", I hope to be able to keep it up.

Soup Anyone?

I finally have a snowman soup example. I was making my own cardstock mugs (which looked cute but were very time consuming) when I found some adorable holiday mugs at Michael's. I picked up some (using my trustly coupon today) and put together an example. I tried to get a closer view of the tag but the flash kept washing out the snowman. I had seen some of these with just the snowman soup poem but they felt like they were unfinished. I really wanted to have a picture of a snowman on the tag while still keeping the size manageable. I ended up making two tags. The poem is on the white cardstock underneath. The red tag is scored near the top so it can be easily lifted and the poem below read. And the two tags are attached with an eyelet. I'm really happy with how they turned out and these will make some cute gifts for people on my list!

I joined the madness called Black Friday shopping today. Out the door by 5:30am, at the stores before six. Some stores were pretty crazy, others were pretty pleasant. My mom and I got a lot accomplished but after six hours, I was tired! I made a pretty good dent in my shopping. Now, I need to get working on all the presents that I make myself rather than buy.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Have a wonderful and safe holiday today. My poor blog has been last in line these past few weeks. I'm hoping to get back to it shortly. Happy Turkey Day!

Trimming the Tree

Nope, its not a Christmas tree card. We actually put up the tree with the kids tonight. I've realized that I have no picture to put in with the cards this year. Usually I have some sort of theme but I'm stumped this year. So we thought we'd try a picture in front of the tree. The kids actually had a blast - they have their own ornaments - ones they've made and store bought ones and they put those on the tree. (Ahhh, the fine art of spacing things out evenly is definitely a LEARNED skill). Everything on the tree this year is unbreakable because I'm guessing a certain three year old boy will not be able to control his urges to touch the tree and potentially bring the whole thing down! Tomorrow I'll pull out the camera and start snapping away. I'm hoping for some cute shots (and then I must get back on track actually making my cards this year).

I have some really cute slide ornaments that I made - I will have to take some pictures and show them off. They are actually really very easy to make and have some grreat sparkle. And if I can figure out a way to keep my copper foil tape from tarnishing, I will be very happy indeed!

Phew - fairs are done!

This has been a long week but now its over. I'm hoping to get some time in tomorrow where I can relax in my studio (after I clean up the disaster is has become!)

Busy Days

Its been a crazy couple of days lately. If you've read my blog lately, you know I've been sick. On Sunday we had to make an unscheduled trip to the hospital. Luckily all seems well, except for a case of acute bronchitis. I'm still fighting it but hopefully I'll lick it soon.

That said, many things I'd planned for my craft fair just didn't happen. But I decided what is, is and took what I had. I've still got lots of items, just not some of the new stuff I'd planned. Today I have a card I made last week. I had played around with this design last year but had made it in a blue/silver color scheme. For this fair, I wanted to branch out a bit and use different color schemes. The background technique on this is a bit messy but one of my favorites when I'm looking to get my fingers messy. I take regular white cardstock, sand it with sandpaper (I used just 100 grit) - I sand in both directions. Then I use plain old acrylic paint to paint the cardstock (this is where you get a bit dirty). I then use a baby wipe to wipe off some paint from the cardstock. Here you have some control on how much or how little you take off. Then let dry, which happens amazingly quickly and you're good to go. The stars are cut from a quickutz die.

I don't think I'll be making many new designs this week but I hope to take some pictures of the fair set up if I remember to bring my camera.

Little Nuggets

Here's a real quick post. I'm taking a break to have a little breakfast. I like these little nugget boxes. They're a cute little treat gift and are pretty easy to make (that is, if you have a good scorer which makes all the difference). The outside is decorated with a quickutz die and the candies inside are stamped with a peppermint stamp from Close to my Heart. The pattern for these can be found on SCS.

This cute little snowman is a Yvonne Albritton stamp and the outside snowflakes are Close to my Heart. The snowflake stamped on the candy is from Spunky Stamps, I believe.

Alright, back to the studio for me.

Sweet and Salty

Well, I finally got my camera out to take a few pictures. For the sweet, I have kisses boxes. These boxes contain 5 hershey kisses inside. I'm calling these snowflakes although it can be many different designs. The stamp is a wheel stamp from Stampin Up. Since I'm not much into the idea of having to buy more inks for the wheels, I unmounted the stamp from the wheel and remounted it onto ez mount and then stamp it as usual. There is a bit of blue stickles that looks cute in person but didn't really show up on the picture.

The second kisses box is a holly box. This stamp is from the new "Merriness" set from Purple Onion stamps. This set is VERY cute. Michele has a bunch of new stamps up at her site - some really great designs. I used the stickles again for the berries - the little sparkle just adds the right extra touch.

For salty, I have popcorn covers. These were one of my best sellers at last years' craft fair. The stamp designs are from Sugarloaf stamps. (wood mounted ones). The wording is computer generated except for the "poppin" - those letters are from a Close to my Heart set. I also used some snowman rub ons for some of the designs (Michael's was having a sale).

Today I'm trying to work on snowman soups and just recreating some more card desings. The official count down has begin, just three days left until the fair starts.

Blast from the Past

I need to take some pictures tomorrow. I'm trying to get ready for next week and have made popcorn covers, nugget boxes, kisses boxes and I still need to work on snowman soups and little kisses bags. So today I'm just going to take a design from the past. This is my little pudgy snowman. I used colored pencils at the time to color him in - I'd like to try it again with the pencils, turpenoid and stumps to mix the colors in together. I'm not really proficient with that technique but I've seen what others can do so its a technique I'd really like to get better at.