Getting ready for the 'Holly Days'

I make lots of Christmas cards each year.... like about 75!!! For me, making all 75 exactly the same seems a little boring, so I like to make maybe 15 of each style, changing a little bit here and there to keep my interest.
For all of these cards I used the Christmas Holly stamp found on Sweetpea plate #12, and 2 of the fabulous vertical sentiments that are on Sweetpea plate #13. I also kept the color scheme basically the same - pink cardstock for the card, dark wine, deep mauve, or plum colored cardstock for the layering, white or light pink cardstock for the stamped image, and raisin Adirondack dye ink.
Also, for all of these cards (except the last one) I began by first stamping the vertical sentiment along the right side of the card and then stamped or placed the ribbon embellishment along the bottom edge. That way I knew how much space I had left for my focal point.
Quite some time ago, I had taken various colored sheets of cardstock and sprayed them with gold webbing spray. One those sheets happened to be dark wine, perfect for the color scheme of these 'Holly Day' cards. After stamping the sentiment and the holly on this first card I cut a piece of the dark wine cardstock to fit in the space left on the card front. I edged the piece of white card, that had been stamped with the Sweetpea holly image, with a gold krylon pen before attaching to the wine colored cardstock. After trimming the wine colored cardstock and punching all 4 corners with a decorative corner punch, I edged it with the gold krylon pen and then mounted the stamped piece onto it. Then I attached it to the card front.

Here's the second card... I mounted the holly stamped piece onto a slightly larger piece of gold cardstock and trimmed the gold to create an even border. Next, I mounted that piece onto a larger piece of web-sprayed dark wine cardstock. After using a decorative corner punch on all 4 corners of the wine colored piece I edged it with a gold krylon pen. I attached the piece to the pink card that had been stamped with the vertical sentiment along the right side, and a holly border stamp along the bottom of the card.






I had recently purchased a new decorative photo corner punch and wanted to put it to use. I cut a piece of the dark wine colored cardstock that was larger than the piece stamped with the holly image. I punched one corner, inserted the stamped piece, and trimmed the 4 sides to create an even border around the image. I edged all 4 sides with a gold krylon pen before attaching to a piece of mauve handmade paper. I trimmed the handmade paper with a straight edge scissors on 3 sides, but trimmed the right side with a decorative edge scissors. The vertical sentiment was stamped along the right side of the pink card and decorative ribbon attached to the bottom of the card.




Once again I started by stamping the vertical sentiment along the right side of a pink card. After doing that I attached the strip of decorative ribbon along the bottom of the card. I cut a piece of plum colored cardstock to fit within the newly created borders, but before attaching to the card front I trimmed the right side with decorative scissors and edged the entire piece with a gold krylon pen. I like the festive look that the krylon pen offers a card.
I cut a piece of gold cardstock slightly larger than the piece the holly was stamped on and layered both of those onto the plum cardstock. Can you tell by now that I like these color combinations???






I didn't use the vertical word stamp for this card. For the background I stamped versamark onto dark wine colored cardstock using a holly stamp that I have. I brushed gold 'powdered pearls' onto the card. The powdered pearls sticks to the ink and brushes off the uninked portion of the card. I edged both the background and the smaller piece with gold krylon pen. But before I attached the sweetpea holly image to the background I attached a piece of decorative ribbon vertically onto the background. The entire piece was then attached to a white card.

A 6-pack of birthday goodies!

I was rummaging through my craft area and found 2 of these 6-pack cartons that I had bought at a craft rummage a couple of months ago. An idea popped into my head and I was off and running. One of our granddaughter's has a birthday coming in November and this looked like a good way to 'package' her birthday gifts.


Alcohol ink seemed the best way to color this carton because the texture was somewhat glossy to the touch. After a few experiments with various colors of ink, I decided on these 4 (purple twilight, stonewash, pool, and silver). I used a felt applicator and blending solution to apply the inks to the surface.







I laid out my newspapers for this messy job and got to work applying the alcohol inks. In no time I was finished. It was easy since this carton folds pretty flat.



Here is a picture of the 6-pack carton after I finished applying the alcohol inks. Lizzy loves purple so this should be perfect to hold her birthday gifts. Actually, I like purple too!!







I pulled out some grungeboard letters and a couple of chipboard swirls, painted them with silver acrylic paint, and attached them with double sided tape to the side of the carton. I got out my fabric flower petals and Aileen's color mist sprays and kept spritzing on colors until I saw the colors I thought would look good. I attached one set of petals to this side of the carton with a rhinestone brad, and saved the other set of petals for the other side of the carton. I have some decorative ribbon, actually they are slightly padded fabric silver stars, and I attached to the bottom of the carton with glue dots.

I happened to have this purple embellishment in my stash, so I attached it to the side of the carton with some glue dots.








On this side of the 6-pack I stamped images and phrases from Sweetpea stamps. I used permanent markers to color in the images because they didn't show up well when I first stamped them onto the somewhat darkly-colored carton. I attached the second grunge swirl to the right of the handle, the puffy silver stars to the bottom, and another couple of fabric flowers to the right of the stamped images.
Ready to go!!! I wrapped various items with colored tissue and dropped them into the 6 slots of the 6-pack. Lizzy likes some of the shower gels and body creams available at Bath and Body Works; and they fit perfectly into this package. I think Lizzy will like it. I'm thrilled with how it turned out.
I have one more of these blank 6 packs left. Hmmm, what shall I do with that one??

Dive journal for Terri

I had made another dive journal for Terri before; it was for her recreational dive trips. This journal will be for her professional dive trips... when she is teaching students or has a client that hires her to dive.
I started with 2 pieces of mat board for the front and back covers. Before painting them with color I decided to paint them with gesso. I didn't know if this was necessary, but I had a bottle of gesso, so why not? It wouldn't hurt anything to have a layer of gesso under the paint.

The front covers were painted with lumiere paints and some acrylic paints. I just kept adding colors until I was happy with the finished look.
I brushed the edges of the covers with gold acrylic paint to get a finished look.
Both fronts and backs were painted with the same color combinations.

Here's a look at the completed journal....
After punching the holes and inserting the o-wires with the bind it all I was able to attach the letters to the front cover. The letters, except for the word 'with' are from Tim Holtz grunge board alphabet pack. I punched the word 'with' using my cuttlebug. I painted them with gold acrylic paint and attached them using my xyron. That letter 't' just fits on the cover!!!

On the left is the inside of the front cover. That is an actual picture of Terri while diving. I had typed many of the South Florida dive sites onto purple vellum and cut them into strips with decorative scissors. Some of them are attached to the inside of the front cover and there are more on other pages.
I found the 'scuba' logo on the internet and thought it appropriate to add to Terri's journal. On the right there is a plastic pocket; it is actually a badge protector. I punched it with the bind it all and included it in the journal. My intention was that Terri could store some of her diving business cards there.
The right side of this picture shows the first page. It contains a list of Terri's diving certifications... well almost all of them. She is also certified as a cave diver, so I may be doing another journal for her in the future so that she can document her cave dives in style.
I also found this 'cartoonish' representation of Terri that was on one of her dive buddy's websites.

On the back of the first page I attached some cute pics that I found while searching the internet. There are also more vellum strips with popular South Florida dive sites.
On the right side you can see the first of the journal pages. Each page contains the same info. It is data that Terri documents for each dive along with plenty of empty lines for jotting down any other information that she may want to remember.
This is the inside of the back cover. Like the inside of the front cover I attached strips of vellum that I had printed with some of dive sites that Terri has been to. And down the center of the cover I attached pictures of various sea creatures that she has seen on her many dives.
I'll be taking this with us when we go to Florida in November to visit Terri. I hope she likes the finished journal.

Frame It!!!!!

Here's a great idea for a gift... or, for yourself!
Start with this Magenta frame. I got mine from Sweetpea Stamps.
It is a square frame and has some depth to it. There is a core of foam between the front and back chipboard pieces.
You could color, paint, or stamp directly onto the frame itself, but here is what I decided to do....





I took an 8 1/2 x 11" sheet of white glossy cardstock and applied alcohol inks (juniper, clover, sailboat blue, and silver) with a felt applicator tool. I applied glue to the frame and laid it down onto the back side of the glossy paper. I trimmed somecardstock from around the outside and using and exacto knife cut an 'x' on the inside of the frame. I folded the inside edges in and glued them down and then folded the outside edges in and glued them down also.


Now for the fun part...
I stamped a verse and a mermaid image from plate #3 onto white cardstock and colored with H2O's. I cut them out and glued them onto the frame in opposite corners. In the lower left corner I used glossy accents to apply a few small sea shells and micro beads. In the upper right corner I used glossy accents to adhere several pieces of colored sea glass and more micro beads.
Now, I just need to find a picture and frame it!!! Or, maybe I'll give it as a gift!!