September Christmas cards...

 I received a HUGE box of rubber stamps from Scott's mom over the summer and FINALLY made time to use one of them... it's only ONE of hundreds in that box!  Ou vey!  The stamp is made by Hero Arts called Kris Kringle dated 1996... wow!

 

 I started coloring this, off and on, at the beginning of the month.  It was all finished except for mounting on the card back on the very last day, almost the very last hour...

 

This morning, October 1st, I added the twine and heart brad and put glossy accents on the fur of his coat.  There sure was alot of work involved in coloring this so, it definitely won't be our personal card, but it was really fun to do...

Stuff around my desk...

 SO, I was doing some rearranging in my Studio (getting ready for a Scan 'n Cut to come live) and had quite a stash of miscellaneous paper and ephemera in a pile next to my work space.  Instead of figuring out where it should live or putting it away, I decided to make a few cards from it.  Not a bad collection... :)

 

 This one used two chipboard frames stacked upon each other, leftover paper from 6" x 6" pads, star paperclip, chalkboard circle and ephemera from my Project Life stash...

 

 Paper from 6" x 6" pads, frame and ephemera from my Project Life stash and twine from my Etsy shop..

 

 Same as above AND enamel dots made with NUVO crystal drops, a freebie from one of my Scrapbook Expo classes...

 

Five cards, not bad.  The rest of the stash had to find a home.  I can't possibly be creative in this mess... ROFLMAO :)

 



Demo cards from Scrapbook Expo...

At the RUBBERNECKER booth of Scrapbook Expo, I had the pleasure of watching the creator of these stamps do his magic.  He gave me the two I watched him make and I turned them into the two cards you see here, once I returned home.  I purchased two stamp sets from him.  One is called Poppy Bunch #926 which I created and turned into tags.  I'm still not sure where I'm going with these yet but I'll post them when I do.  And the other is Freehand Frame.  I used it around the two images I turned into cards.  WICKED cool stuff!! :)

 

At the Sizzix booth, they were demoing a die-cut set that makes this card.  Since I was the ONLY one watching the demo, she asked me to pick the papers.  She cut all the pieces EXCEPT the middle white piece.  She said she forgot to bring that die.  Now, to me, Cindy OCD, that is completely unacceptable!  I was ready to throw the whole thing away when I got home.  I found it useless without the middle piece.  WELL, my house guest, Miss Jeanne, wasn't going to let that sit!  Not no way, not no how!  She created a template for me that exactly fit the middle.  I used it to trace around this sentiment from my stash and voilà I have a card I will use... aren't crafty friends THE BEST?!!

Love you Jeanne... :)



Cards from Scrapbook Expo...

 At Scrapbook Expo last month, I took a class called "Layering Background Stamps" put on by JustRite Papercraft.  It was very, very fun!  Not only did we work on the backgrounds for these three lovely cards, we went home with a stamp set AND a background stamp.  Talk about BANG for your buck... :)

 

 We did a technique called "smooshing".  Using Zig markers on a piece of acetate, we added water and moved our cut watercolor paper over it.  Then, with different background stamps, gelatos and inks, we added to the background.   I took this class with Jeanne and while at her house last week for an overnight, we did our best to complete these cards. With crisp black ink, we stamped our image over the whole card.  What a lovely effect... 

 

Using Jeanne's "celebrate" sentiment, I heat embossed it on a partial piece of background with black embossing powder...

 

Jeanne also had some silver paper and the connected stars die-cut, I think from Simon Says Stamp, that I used and added to this card...

 

All our goodies AND written directions to do it all again.  One of the things I was really pleased with, besides the "take home", was that the instructor did not have us do the stamping in class.  So many times, first stampings of a new set DO NOT come out well.  Rather than do all this work on the background and then spoil it with a bad print, she sent us home to do it.  I SO VERY MUCH appreciated that...

 

Jeanne also did a blog post on her cards which you can see HERE ... :)

 



Cards, cards and more cards...

 I have this little box where I put random backgrounds and partial pieces from cards I've done in the past.  As you can see, it's overflowing!  My goal today was to create or finish at least ten...

 

Without too much effort, I completed a dozen... woot, woot!  I'm on a roll!! NOW, I'll try to find as many people to whom to send.  I wonder if I'll be just as productive with that... :)