St. Patrick's Day - Getting Caught Up Part 5

I have really come to appreciate St. Patricks Day in the last couple of years.  It wasn't something I ever really celebrated until I did a little research on St. Patrick and decided that I really respected him as a missionary to a place where he had been kidnapped and enslaved, and a man who was a fellow sinner saved by grace.  Knowing that, I personally celebrate St. Patrick's Day much differently than the rest of the world. No leprechauns, luck, or beer for me, but lots of green, shamrocks and focus on the blessings in life.

That being said,  I do know that everyone else doesn't necessarily go along with me. ;-D So I keep that in mind when I am designing.

I have a source for a TON of book innards. So I wanted to think of something I could do with them. Well this crazy, silly idea is what came out of that designing session.

I dyed some trim with Lucky Clover Distress Stain, The bow is a scarf from the Dollar Tree, all of the clovers and shamrocks are cut from American Crafts green burlap and cut using the Tim Holtz Heartfelt Die.

I also made rosettes using the Tim Holtz Rosette dies, and the photo mat on top is the Time Holtz Prostage Stamp die and lg. rectangle mover and shaper die. The little clovers are the Tim Holtz clover punch

I made several kits that were on sale at my local LSS. and I actually made the rosettes for the kits.  This was a big hit with those who bought the kits.

I was also pegged to design the Make n Take for my LSS's March crop.  At first I thought I was going to use the Charmed collection by Authentique, but didn't have any when designing to I just used scraps to see how the design would work.  This was the scrap paper planning version.

 I liked it! I used the Tim Holts ticket die, shield die, pinked medallion die, clover punch, and lucky word die. I felt like this was going to work well, but once I got the Authentique paper with the little bingo cards I knew I needed to change it.

 There were two bingo card types. some with just words and some with words and people. I gave croppers a choice between the two. If it had a person on the card they only got one medallion and word, otherwise they got two.  Everyone took a make n take and exras were put on sale for a steal in the LSS.

 To maje this ticket I used the Sizzix banner die by Lori Whitlock and the lace die by Tim Holtz, and well as his lover punch and pinked medallion punch. The hastag stamps are Tim Holtz - Stampers Anonymous.

 I framed mine for people to be able to take a photo to refer to when assembling their make n take.

This little hanging cutie was just a sample I used when I did the February make n take with the hearts spilling out of the envelope. It is hanging as a sample in the St. Patrick's section of my LSS. I used the Tim Holtz postage Stamp die, heart punch and clover punch along with the Sizzix Eileen Hull envelope and gift tag. The paper is some old green corrugated paper, Graphic 45 March paper and a piece of Echo park paper as well as some other scraps from my stash.

I had grand plans to make other things with my Authentique paper collection pack, but alas, time got the better of me and this was all I got done.  I'm not worried though. Now I have a package of stunnin paper for next year.

Leave a Little Sparkle - Catching Up part 4

 In January I attempted the Tim Holtz 12 Tages of 2016 Remix.  I loved both of the techniques and wanted to use them to make some Valentine tags that would go perfectly on my kitchen mantle for decor.  I was so surprised when my tags were chosen! Mario and Tim sent me a stamp set, and Distress Marker.

 I was immediately inspired by the man with the umbrella because National Umbrella Day was right around the corner. So I got out my Distress Ink Refills, some water, a brush and I was ready to water color a card when Patriot decided to drink out of my clean water.  I guess he thought kitty spit would make it work better.

 I added some Distress Rock Candy stickles here and there and used the Tim Holtz stamp for sentiment. It was a quick and easy card in honor of National Umbrella Day.

More Valentine's Day Crafts - Catching Up Part 3

So despite the business of January, I managed to plan the Valentine Banner Class featured yesterday, and two make n take projects for the January Crop at my LSS and the February Crop at my LSS as well as a couple of fun Valentine sample projects just for display.

 

This was the January Make n Take. We still had a lot of the Distress Colors of the Month from 2015 (remember, I think they got in a double order) so I used the Candied Apple and Hickory Smoke for this Valentine candy holder I found on Pinterest.

 This was the actual Make n Take, but the ones below showed some options for other sizes and colors.

 

Before I knew it, the February crop was upon us and I needed another make n take.  We had been featuring dies for the make n takes and there were quite a few of the envelope/gift tag dies I had been given to design with in November, so I broke it out again for the February crop and used it to have a bunch or hearts spilling out of the envelope. 

 

Once again I turned to the Tim Holtz Heartfelt die and heart punch. 

I had a lot of cutting to do to get those kits done!

 Patriot didn't care. He decided to nap in the middle of all my neatly stacked piles and leave kitty hair on everything. What is a girl to do?  He insisted that he was the most important.  After all, his little kitty life had been completely turned upside down with all the rescue kitties taking over his house for months. 

 He demanded one on one time with me and was willing to go to any lengths he had to to get my attention.  So, I obliged, and petted him, cuddled him and loved him.  The kitting could wait.  My baby needed me.

 Eventually He got his fill and I was able to tidy my paper stacks and get back to it. As you can see, the base of this make n take was the Tim Holtz Postage Stamp die. The word Forever is from a Crta Bella die set.

This was a fun one to design and it was a very well received make n take the day before Valentine's Day.  Lots of customers made it into a card right away to give to a loved one.  I framed mine and displayed it it in my home as a decor piece.

 

Lastly, to inspire some Valentine creativity, I used one of these burlap bags we had in the store, added some trim, made a heart screen and filled it with Glossy Accents and then covered those with fine red glitter.  So simple and I just love the look.

 I also used one of my new (new to me anyway!) Tim Holtz Cupid dies on the toilet paper roll spool. I was inspired to make this after seeing a bunch of cupid spools on Pinterest. There must have been some sort of challenge or swap or something because it was crazy how many people had designed cupid spools!
This is definitely not my style. Way too foofy, but I had a lot of fun dying all the trim with Tattered Rose Distress Stain, and glittering the cupid, and dying the paper roses with Tattered Rose and Fired  Brick Distress Stain.  It was nice to step out of my comfort zone and get a little foofy!

 Last but not least is this cone of Valentiney goodness. I had never made a cone before and made several mistakes even though I tried following a tutorial.  I used a lot of Tattered Rose and Fired Brick on the flowers and trim for this one as well.  I also used the red glitter and some pink glittered paper that I cut out with some Tim Holtz Mover and Shapers dies.
Again, this is foofy, but the Graphic 45 paper I used on both of these just lends itself to over the top foofiness. Totally fun and totally not my style. ;-)

Well, other than a couple of crazy tags and some cards, that is about all I had time for in January and February.  Thanks for sticking with me through this entire blog entry! Wow!

Valentine's Day Banner - Getting Caught Up Part 2

January and February proved to be just as busy for me, but as the foster kitties got adopted one by one, my life was slowly getting back to normal.  Of course there was CHA in the middle there but I decided to plan a Valentine's Day Decor piece to teach at my LSS as a quick and easy Friday night craft.

I has a lot of fun designing this piece. The main piece was the Tim Holtz Heartfelt die.  I added a couple of other die cuts to it. The base die is from Sizzix and it is by Lori Whitlock.  It is urrently one of my FAVORITE dies.  I'm using it on everything! Scrapbook pages, mini books decor pieces....I want more big dies like this one, please SIZZIX!  Please make more big affordable dies like this!

 I found these Christmas baubles in the  sale bin at a local crafts supply store and bought two packs. 

 I wanted them to be pink for this project, but a special pink and not as pinky pink as the Pink Sherbet Alcohol ink and not as peachy pink as the Shel Pink, so I mixed them.

 To color the beads, I left them on the thread and put the whole string into the plastic bag, then squirted some of each alcohol ink color in with them, worked them around in the ink until everything was covered.

 I let them dry on my nonstick craft mat. and then I separated them into the kits.

 I wanted to use some grey corrugated paper I had but it was just too dark, so I used Spun Sugar Distress Paint and Candied Apple Distress Paint on top of it and that lightened it up and made it fit the project a littte better.

 One thing I really wanted on this project was to have texture. So I cut hearts out of burlap, corrugated paper, felt, ticking, and canvas that I colored with Spun Sugar paint and stain as well as Candied Apple paint and stain.

The only other thing I colored in the kit was the grey lace.  I dyed it with Hickory Smoke Distress Stain.  The kits were small, but organized into columns for easy assembly.

 Everyone finished their project in class 

and they were very happy with it!

Including my youngest student who not only finished her project but she finished first AND posed for a picture with me.

 

It was such a fun, creative night! 

 

Christmas in March? Getting Caught Up.

I am way behind in my blog postings and so the next few posts are my attempt to catch up. I had a pretty crazy December and despite my home life being in complete chaos due to a huge influx of rescue foster kitties, I still attempted to do some paper crafting when possible.  Most of what I did was to design make n takes and samples for my LSS. The owners of my LSS had over-ordered on the Distress Colors of the Month (over ordered?) well at any rate, they had a LOT of the new colors, so I challenged myself to try and make some Christmas cards with the colors I had at the end of November.  As you can see I was missing the red Candied Apple and the green Lucky Clover, but that would have been too easy.

So I used the Distress Markers to color in some of the Christmas Blue Prints in non-traditional colors.

I updated on my Instagram account as I went along. It kind of keeps me accountable to finish the projects that I start, especially when I don't have the time to upload photos and write a blog post. 

 Here is how they turned out!

 In the meantime I needed to come up with a simple, easy make n take for the December crop at the LSS. I decided to use an oldie but a goodie. Faux painted wood background using Distress Paint and Distress Stains.  Customers got a chance to make one of the background tags below and then they added a silver foil die cut Christmas Tree and added a little gold foil around the edges with the Ranger Collage glue stick and the Ranger foil sheets. Quick and simple but very popular! Customers loved it!

 I used some similar backgrounds to make card samples using the Distress Watercolor Blueprint stamps.

 Lastly, along the Christmas lines, at the November crop I was given an giftcard envelope and tag die and Christmas paper to design with.  So I made these little Christmas mini gift tags using some Tim Holtz dies and punches as well as Ranger Collage glue sticks and Ranger gold foil around the edges.

That pretty much does it for my own December creativity.  The rest of the month I only did craft kits and projects designed by others.