Blog giveaway winners!

The winners have been chosen, contacted and have their prizes going into today's mail!!
Click here to see the details!!

Thanks for playing everyone!!

Happy Creating!!

Therese

Circle flower card

A card for an online friend who is going through a difficult time!!  I love the softness of this card - all the elements work so nicely together.
I started by creating the "flower" using five 1.25" circle punchies of double sided paper from my stash. You can check out a tutorial here on Splitcoast Stampers. Each circle is folded into a triangle shape, positioned on a circle support, adjustments are made to the folds to fully cover the support and then each one is glued into place.  Love the look!!
I glued mine to the center of a large white scalloped circle (NS), added a coordinating center circle punchie and attached it with a brown brad.  I paper pierced all the scallops as well.  I added a length of lace and ribbon to my kraft card front once I had embossed my greeting with white embossing powder.  I adhered my flower element to overlap the lace and ribbon and finished off my card by adding a couple of paper pierced swirls!!
I will be uploading this card to Splitcoast Stampers for last week`s Technique Challenge - Circle Flower.  I have decided to be more active on Splitcoast this year and participate in some of their challenges.  If you are looking for a community of paper crafters to be part of, Splitcoast Stampers offers a wide variety of options. Check them out!!

There is nothing that can replace the feeling of receiving a handmade card!!  The card is a constant physical reminder of the connection you have!!

Therese

Cards with waxed fabric accents

I have had this piece of waxed fabric on my desk since I created it and made these cards.  You can click here or on the wax crayon label and see the others I have created as well.
I managed to make five cards!!  For the first one I layered several colours of cardstock strips to make a layer onto which I stitched my three inch square of waxed fabric.  I trimmed their ends diagonally, paper pierced the edges, added a ribbon and adhered this element to a green card front.  My greeting is a laser printed punchie, layered onto a scalloped oval (SU) and adhered to the card using 3D foam tape.

The next two cards are similar.  I embossed the bottom edge of the card front, added an embossed strip with some ribbon and stitched on my waxed fabric square.  On the left, I added my greeting as I stitched and on the right I added a gold cord on the ribbon and adhered a layered greeting over it.

For these two I cut my waxed fabric into small rectangles which I stitched to a coordinating layer.  I added a layered greeting and ribbon on the left one. On the right one, I added a cardstock strip which I embossed with a stitching embossing folder (CB), border punched the bottom edge (SU) and added a layered silk flower accent.

Very happy with my cards.  I will be sending two of them out to my partners for my Canadian Card exchange for January.   When I was taking photos I realized that #1 and #2 would work very well in the portrait format by simply rotating the greeting!!  It never even occurred to me to do them differently but that is the joy of taking another look sometimes!!

Therese

Blog Giveaway!! Book pendants

BLOG GIVEAWAY!!
Winners:
Marilyn C, Brenda F
and Cindy C!!

January 14th,
Congratulations to the three winners!!  Thanks to all of you who left comments on this post!!!  It was great to hear from so many of you!!  All three prizes will be off to the winners in today's mail.
Happy Creating!!
Therese

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My first blog give away - what a great way to start the new year!!!
These three little book pendants are the prizes!!  To enter the draw please leave a comment that includes your email address on this post and I will randomly draw three winners on Monday, January 13th!!
So I look forward to your comments and please feel free to spread the word to your friends and family and any online groups you belong to!!

Therese

My January Christmas cards!

I am setting the goal of making Christmas cards monthly again this year!!  I am following my sister, Sylvia's monthly Christmas Card challenge.
January's theme is embossing so I have incorporated both dry embossing and thermal embossing in my card.
I started by laser printing this Christmas rose and holly digital image from Beccy's Place.  I added the gold embossed greeting using my handmade stamping jig, watercoloured the images and glued them to a black layer.  I punched a slot (SU) on the top left hand side and strung a piece of red vintage seam binding through it.

I mounted it to a green embossed layer (CB-Swiss Dot) using 3D foam tape and adhered the ends of the seam binding to the back using double sided tape.  I then glued this element to a red card front.
Here is a look at my handmade stamping jig - I used Legos to make it!!  It works really well and I have put it in my tools drawer to be used next time I need to stamp an image in an exact location.
UPDATE:  For those who asked:  I have used a piece of vellum to stamp my greeting on and saved it in a envelope stored with my jig. You can also use a piece of acetate (transparency or packaging works well).  This method allows you to reuse the acetate if you use dye ink to stamp with as it will wipe right off the plastic.
I am submitting this card design to the following challenges:
Christmas cards all year round - anything goes
Sylvia's Christmas card challenge - embossing
Beccy's Place - any project with one of her images

It feels good to be back to cardmaking!!

Therese

Star tags

 I needed some Christmas tags for an exchange that I need to mail away shortly so I decided to experiment with the size of the star card to make some tags instead.  I found a sheet and half of this beautiful 12 x12 paper in my stash and adjusted the size until I could get enough tags.  I was able to cut nine 6" equilateral triangles which gave me enough tags for the exchange and a couple for myself. The 6" equilateral triangle measures 5.25" on the center line, and you score each point at 2.5" (valley fold) and 1.75" (mountain fold).  Once I scored and folded all of my points I sponged all the edges to hide the white core of the paper and the few places on the folds where the top layer had cracked to reveal the white core.  I created a layered embellishment using a beautiful digital image of a pointsettia from Beccy's Place which I laser printed and then watercoloured, a green circle punchie over a black scalloped circle punchie (SU).

I embellished the scallops with dots from my clear Star Dust gel pen and also added some to the points of my star.  I punched a hole on the top point and added a hanger made from heavy crochet cotton.
I left them so they could be unfolded and have something inserted in them and the back is appropriate for adding TO and FROM information. I could have also chosen to glue the embellishment to all of the top layers instead.
Really glad how these turned out!  I will be putting mine into my Christmas ornament box to be enjoyed for years to come.  These would make a beautiful ornament embellishments for a Christmas card!!  Another option for me when getting my Christmas cards made for this year.
I will be submitting this project to Beccy's Place January challenge which is to use any of her images in a project.  I love her images and use them quite often in my creations!!  Check out her website here.

Therese

OSW with Japanese paper

 My aunt gave me a wonderful package of Yuzen Japanese paper over the holidays and I decided to make my holiday thank you cards with some of it. The sheets were 5.5" square and I did not want to waste any of it so I came up with a cutting template that would create three cards from each sheet.  See the cutting diagram below.

My first card (center) used A - 4" x 3" and B - 4" x 1".  I mounted both pieces to a coordinating card front -small one at the bottom, larger one at the top. I cut a 4" x 1" piece of white cardstock, gold embossed Thank You on the right side and added a little bow to the left using vintage seam binding. Added a gold embossed butterfly punchie (SU) with gold cord antenna using 3D foam tape to finish it off.

My second card (left) used C - 5.5" x 1.5".  I gold embossed my greeting (SU) on my card front.  I layered my decorative paper onto coordinating cardstock to create two accent pieces - one to fit above & another for below which left me a scrap of decorative paper - E.  I added a butterfly using 3D foam tape and used a push pin and a scrap piece of solid foam to create a paper pierced flight path.

For my third card I used D - 4" x 1.5" and E - scrap.  I layered both of these onto a coordinating piece of cardstock 5.5" long.  I added a vintage seambinding bow to cover the joint.  I embossed the right hand side of my card front and glued my accent piece to the left.  I added a layered greeting created using a laser printed greeting oval punchie (SU) and a scalloped oval punchie (SU) in a coordinating colour.  

I used five different pieces of paper and really love the way the cards turned out!!
Here is the cutting template for the decorative paper I used for these cards.

Of course, you could cut the pieces you need from scraps of decorative paper instead and make up these cards in a jiffy!!

It is blessing to receive gifts over the holiday season and an exercise in gratitude to send little notes with our thanks!!

Therese

Star Card

On one of my groups I joined a Star card swap.
What a fun little card to make!!  You can find a tutorial here at Splitcoast Stampers.  I have modified the dimensions (see below) so I could put my card in an A2 envelope.
You start with an equilateral triangle, score each point twice, make one valley and one mountain fold and then tuck the flaps into each other!!     I added sponging and stamping to the other points, created a layered embellishment and added stitching with a blue gel marker on the points.

My embellishment started with a round greeting layered onto a blue scallop circle layered onto an embossed silver one and finally a larger white one.  I added blue glitter glue to the greeting and the blue scallop and a blue sequin flower which I attached with a silver mini brad.

Here is what the card looks like inside and the folds on each point.  I added a white equilateral triangle to the inside which is also embellished with faux stitching using a blue gel pen.

I printed a script background onto an 8.5" x 11" piece of white cardstock.  On the back of my printed sheet I measured and marked the center and then used my ruler to make the two other sides 8 1/2" as well.  I used a metal ruler and exacto knife to cut out the triangle.

I added some free form flowers similar to those I created in this Watercolour Flowers tutorial. to my triangle card base.  Next, I figured out where to score my points and then folded the card.

To make a star card to fit in an A2 envelope you need to cut an 8.5" equilateral triangle (center line is 7 3/8").  You need to score each point at 2 1/2" (mountain fold) and 3 5/8" (valley fold).  This creates a small equilateral triangle on the inside of your card.

Here is what it looked like before I added my stamping and the layered embellishment.

Have go with this card!!  Would work really well with a double sided cardstock which has a more subtle pattern on one side of it.  You can easily make this card into a gift by adding a hanger on the top point of the card to make it an ornament.   I will be making some of these for Christmas next year!!!

Therese

"Watercolour flowers" cards

 Here are a couple of cards I created using the backgrounds I created using this Watercolour Flowers Tutorial I created.  It is a quick and easy technique that requires minimal supplies and gives you very unique & artsy looking flowers. Check it out!!

For this card I trimmed the quarter sheet background down just a little, added a piece of black lace across the lower section, mounted a layered silk flower accent with a small black brad and added an embellished layered greeting.  I mounted this element to a black card front.  It still needed just a bit of something so I added five feathery leaf punchies (MS) in two colours of green.    Loving it!!

For this card, I trimmed the background quite a bit more and mounted it to a black layer.  I stippled the outside edge of my blue card using black ink and a stipple stamp (SU).  I added a piece of 1/4" black ribbon across the card front and added the layered accent over it.  I used the same ribbon to create a flag embellishment, glued it to the back of the layered greeting and glued this element to the card front using 3D foam tape.   Pretty happy with this one too!!

I am really loving the artsy look of these backgrounds and am looking forward to creating a few more with different elements!!  Hope you will give it a try!! If so, please leave a comment and a link to your creation if you can.

Therese

TUTORIAL - watercolour flowers background

Watercolour Flowers Tutorial

Start with a quarter sheet of white cardstock and some watercolour crayons.  

Using different colours of watercolour crayons start making circular scribbles

in groups of five.  Add a yellow circular scribble in the middles of all of your flowers.

Now add little oval shapes with a line down the middle using a green 

watercolour pencil to create leaves for your flowers.

Next spray your decorated cardstock with water and spread the water colour

using a paintbrush.  

Once you have watercoloured all of your flowers leave your cardstock

 to dry.  I used my heat gun to dry it more quickly.

Next, use a black fine tipped Sharpie marker to make circular shapes over

all of the petals of your flowers.  Add dots to the yellow centers.  

Add swirls and dots in between the flowers as you wish.  

Here are a couple more I made using this technique.  On the left, the flowers

are really close together - on the right, they are farther apart.  Either way works well and
gives you a bit of a different look.  I also added dips & lines to my petals in these ones.

This is a quick and easy watercolour flowers technique that you can use to create

backgrounds in minutes.  It is all free form so can be varied as you wish

to give you the kind of background you are needing for your project.  

By making elongated ovals instead of circles you could create dragonflies.

Large squat ovals in two different sizes would create butterflies.

Make only one flower and use as the main element on your project!!

Try it out and see what you are inspired to create!!

You can see a couple of cards I made with my backgrounds here.  

Therese

Masculine card with sponging

Another masculine card for my brother!!  He lives in northern BC and I am sure he regularly sees the Northern Lights.  I tried to make the sponging look like them but it was not as effective as I would have liked.  I laser printed the dog sled image (CLKER) on white cardstock, cut it to size and sponged on several colours of purple and blue using the torn edge of a piece of bond to create the layers on the background.  I added a black layer and adhered it to a white card front on which I had already printed the greeting.  I added some coordinating fiber and a layered snowflake accent.

Therese

Masculine birthday card

I have a few early January birthdays and so I am working on getting those out on time this year!! Here is the card I made for my nephew!!
I started with a beautiful stamped image of the light house which I received in a swap a while back and watercoloured it.  I added a layer of handmade paper which coordinated, some flag ended pieces of ribbon and sewed them all in place with black thread in my sewing machine.  I layered a colour printed greeting with red and attached it with 3D foam tape.
Really happy with how it turned out!!

Therese

Dragon scale necklace

A dragon scale necklace I created for my grand daughter for Christmas!!  She was reading a dragon book earlier this year and I thought she would enjoy a reminder of the experience.  I cut the scales out of shrink plastic, punched the holes and then coloured them with alcohol inks. I love the wonderful variations I was able to get.  I shrunk them with my heat gun and shaped them over a metal teaspoon (old to be used for crafts only) while they were hot!!  I attached them to a silver chain using split rings and attached a little heart charm on the back which I signed on the inside.
It turned out better than I imagined!!

Therese

Gift Card holders!!

On one of my groups I signed up for a gift card holder swap - perfect for those last minute gifts for those hard to buy for people!! This one's theme was snowflakes/snowmen and required that we use a toilet paper roll as the base.  This was a fun swap!!
I flattened the toilet paper rolls but they are really springy!!  Had I known, I would have flattened them a month ago when I set them aside.  I am pressing them now but that means they will be a day late starting their journey to my swap partner.
For the right hand one, I used a piece of decorative paper about six inches long and wide enough to cover the base.  I sewed brown fabric trim to the bottom which in the process created the bottom of my holder.  I added a couple of snowflake punchies to a embossed handmade paper snowman paper cast using a brown brad. I used hot glue to adhere this dimensional element to the front of the holder.  I cut a tag that fit inside the holder from blue textured cardstock and sewed the same brown fabric trim to the top of it.  I have the tag out a bit on the photo - properly seated, the fabric embellishment tucks perfectly to the top of the holder.  I added a length of double sided tape to the tag so the gift card can be adhered to the tag and then inserted out of sight into the holder.
For the left hand one, I used a piece of decorative paper about 6" long and a bit wider to cover the base.  I used a label punch (SU) to punch a shape from coordinating paper and finished it off with a colour printed greeting punchie and several small snowflake punchies adhered with silver mini brads.  I adhered this element to the front using hot glue.  I created a coordinating cardstock tag for the inside, added a teal label punchie to the corner rounded top edge and punched a hole in which I threaded some white seam binding.  Really happy with the look of both of my gift card holders and it is a bonus that the base is reused!!
Hope you are well on your way to being ready for Christmas!!  We are here!!  The real tree comes in tomorrow to thaw and will be decorated on Wednesday!!  That is when the season starts for us!!  If you are not ready for Christmas, be kind to yourself and let go of as many things as you can so you can enjoy the season!!

Therese

Hostess Gift - pancake syrup

I am just getting ready some hostess gifts for the upcoming holiday season!!   I made up several of these little jars of high bush cranberry pancake syrup in the early fall and put them in the freezer.  We are invited out to a neighbour's for tea this afternoon and I decided to dress this one up to take along.
I cut a 4+ inch scallop circle (SU) out of glitter felt and tied it onto the top of the jar using white cording.  I added a scalloped tag which I colour printed and then punched out using the SU scallop punch.  I printed a full sheet of these tags and added the date by hand with a red gel pen so that I can use them in the future.
This pancake syrup is made from cranberries which I picked locally.  My Mom and Dad have been picking the wild variety for years to make syrup. Mine is a little darker than theirs but the taste is very close to the same. My favorite is to have it on crepes (french pancakes) with a little bit of cream.  We will be treating ourselves over the holidays!!

Therese

My little book pendant!

Here is a close up of my little book pendant!!  I added a heart charm to mine because hearts are my favorite thing!!  It was fun to create little danglies for each one of them!!

You check here to see the details of how these little book pendants were made!!

Therese

Book pendants

I am involved in a 12 Days of Christmas giftie swap on one of my groups and decided to create little book pendants for each of my swap partners!  I have been wanting to make some of these for quite some time and finally decided that now was the time.  I did quite a bit of internet research to see what others were doing and finally settled on making a real book - covers with a spine with accordion pages bound into it.  Here you can see the beginnings of my cover.  Two squares and a long rectangle for my spine of light weight chipboard laying on my handmade decorative paper.

Here you can see the chipboard pieces covered with the decorative paper (faux leather) and an extra strip added in the middle over the spine to create a bit of interest in the final book design.  I glued these pieces down with glue stick and pressed them to make sure every thing was well adhered.

After I had made all the covers and they had been pressed over night I added a 1/8" eyelet in a coordinating colour at the top of the spine.  This will be used to attach the book to the string using a jump ring.

Next I created all the accordion folded pages for the books.  I measured the inside dimension of my cover and cut the strips appropriately and folded them using mountain and valley folds.  I glued two strips together to made enough pages to fit in each book. I see that I have my cover sitting up side down in the photo.  The eyelet should be at the top!!

Here are all the pieces I needed to finish up the books.  I used a small piece of plastic canvas to bind my pages into a signature using coordinating thread to bind them.  I used a fairly slim needle and regular sewing thread (doubled) to sew my pages.

Here is a close up of how I bound the pages to the canvas.  I drew the thread up through a hole in the canvas, went across one of the valley folds and down through a hole on the other side.  Up again, through the same hole in the canvas and across the next valley fold and down the same hole on the other side.  There were three holes across the canvas so I just distributed the valley folds among them.  Once the pages were bound to the canvas, I added a jump ring to the eyelet and hot glued the signature into the cover.   I added the tie - a short piece of string and a bead to the covers and glued my end pages to the inside covers.  That completed the books.  I added a few danglies - a key and beaded charm to each of them to give them some character and make them unique!!

Here is a photo of all little book pendants I made!!!

They were really fun to make though a bit time consuming as I was inventing them as I was going along!!  I really enjoyed making them all different and using some of my hand decorated paper which made them unique!!  I am really glad I added some colour to the spines because that makes them look more like real books.
The recipients will be able to add to them any thing they wish - a favorite quote, a current affirmation, a poem they have written or even small photos or artwork to make them their own!!

We start our gift opening today!!  I had Day 1, so by now everyone will have opened their little gifts from me.

I made a few extras so will be having a give way!!
Check out this blog post for the details!!

Therese

Gifts of Imperfection - Gratitude

I am a bit behind in my Brene Brown course - The Gifts of Imperfection!!  Here is my double page spread on gratitude!!  We had to take pictures of everyday things that brought us joy!!  It is should a good way to remind us of the joy there is in every single day!!  I simply printed my photos and wrote on my page the joy I received!!
We did learn that gratitude brings us joy so it is vital to practice gratitude every day to keep ourselves in the joyful flow of life.  Our acknowledgement of our blessings keeps them coming!
Brene referred to her little moments of joy as twinkling lights and I just loved that analogy!!
As Christmas draws near there are so many more twinkling lights in our world - let them remind you of your everyday moments of joy!!

Therese

Birthday card for Dad

This card is for my Dad whose birthday is today!!  I will see him tomorrow!!  So glad to be close enough to participate in the celebration!!
I started with a white card front and added the black layer that had been stamped in white with a love definition background (SU). I also trimmed it on the right hand side with a border punch and added a piece of dark blue seam binding over the edge of the writing.  I tied a shorter piece to the long piece with a single knot to simulate a bow.  I added the layered train image, a length of blue cardstock that was trimmed with pinking shears which I tucked under the seam binding and added a colour printed greeting using 3D foam tape.  I like the way that the pinked border echoes the border punched edge.  A fairly quick and easy card!!

Therese

Gifts of Imperfection - choosing comfort

Working on my art journaling for my Brene Brown ECourse - The Gifts of Imperfection!!  I have used a fine tip black sharpie to create my letters - both using negative space and positive space.  I watercoloured the title with orange - not a "go to" colour for me. It has been super fun to see what I can create and not feeling that it has be perfect.  In this exercise we need to discover what drives us to numbing - taking the edge off the pain!!!
For this title I used a large marker and just wrote the letters free hand!!  Too easy!! I stamped over it in blue ink using a stamp I created using leftover rubber from trimming some stamp sets. I cut the scraps into small pieces and glued them to a small block of wood.   I love the randomness of this stamp!!  Needless to say, it is beneficial for all of us to know what our "go to"s are when we feel pain or stress - food, drugs, gambling, acting out, rage, shopping, etc, etc, etc.

For this title, I created the letters using a pencil, traced them with my fine tip sharpie and filled them in!!  I love the way they turned out.  I have been using my Creative Lettering book by Jenny Doh as inspiration for all of these hand lettered titles.  Comfort Wisdom is about learning what calms and comforts you and choosing that instead of numbing.  It is about consciously choosing your thoughts, words and deeds in order to create the life you want to live.
You can check out my previous pages here, here, here, here, here and here.
You should give hand lettering a try!  There are so many techniques out there that can be executed with a minimal amount of supplies - pen and paper in most cases!!

Therese