Christmas Card Holder

Ho Ho Ho

Merry Christmas from the Rock !!!

Well I don't know about you, but I feel that Christmas should still be a few months away NOT a few days away!!!
 I have yet to tackle any baking, my cards are made and addressed but not mailed and I still have some shopping left to do...sigh.

But, on a brighter note, I DO have my decorating done and I did get to play in my craft room today! 

I made a Christmas gift for my Secret Santa recipient over at Crop Circles. Unfortunately I can't share it with you yet cuz I don't want her to see it !

After I finished making my gift I decided to take some time and make a new piece for my Christmas decor. I recently saw a Christmas card holder made from an old book on Pinterest. I love anything made from old books {remember my Christmas frame from a Reader's Digest book that I did two years ago? You can check it out HERE }.

 This is the holder I saw on Pinterest. It was created by Amy and is on her blog www.fourcornersdesign.blogspot.com

It's lovely isn't it?  

I love the clean minimalist look of it. 

However, my decor tends to run toward traditional reds and greens, so I decided to try my own version. 

For this project I used:

an old Funk and Wagner dictionary 

{cover removed}

a red charger plate from Wal Mart

one glass ornament from Michael's

some moss and dried mini pine cones

Dollarama acrylic stars

Dollarama Christmas stems

Prima Christmas stems

Merry Christmas stamp from Unity Stamps

a length of jute ribbon

Dazzling diamonds from Stampin' Up 

Gold Perfect Pearls powder

Strips of sheet music

So let's get started !

First I folded the pages of the book in towards the centers. I doubled up my pages.

Then I realized that it wasn't supposed to have the cover on , so I removed it with an exacto knife and attached it to the charger plate using sookwang double sided tape {aka Skor tape}. It looked pretty stark and not vintage enough for me so I then mixed some gold Perfect pearls powder with water and washed all the paper edges.

While that was drying , I decided to add a little extra sparkle to the plain acrylic snowflakes I bought at Dollarama. I painted them with Mod Podge and sprinkled on some Dazzling diamonds powder.

See the difference?

I glued down some dried moss for a base. Then I just started adding my little pieces until I was happy with the results...some little pine cones, the pretty sparkly stems and the newly glittered snowflakes.

I rolled little strips of sheet music around a pencil and inserted them into the glass ornament from Michael's. I finished off the ornament with a stamped sentiment from Unity and tied it on with a little piece of jute ribbon.Glued the ornament in the center and viola! Pretty little card holder for my Christmas cards.

 Here's the finished project!

Close up

  
Here's wishing you all a safe, happy and blessed Christmas season!
Thanks for popping by today. Toodles!

Halloween Tags at CCC

Happy Fall everyone!

I soooooo enjoy these crisp fall days and all the gorgeous fall colors!Sadly it's followed by winter ! Blech. 

 But enough complaining...it's reveal day over at CCC !

Our October tag challenge is tags for the little Trick or Treaters.

I chose to make a tag resembling my favorite Halloween treat...Candy Corn!!!! 

Funny thing about candy corn...you are either a lover or a hater...there doesn't seem to be any middle ground when it comes to candy corn.

 Here's my tag:

Pretty simple and quick to make. 

I cut a triangle of whisper white card stock  and then cut stripes of More Mustard yellow and a wider strip of orange which I adhered with double sided tape. Ink the edges. 

I then added the "BOO" with some SU rub ons and added a couple of googly eyes in the centers of the "O"s. I thought they added a cute little giggle factor to the tag. 

 A cute little "Happy Halloween" banner from the Teeny Tiny wishes set and voila!

Can't promise those candy corn will make it till Halloween for me to hand out though.

Toodles and Happy Haunting everyone! Be sure to play along over at Catherine and Cathy Create for a chance to win this month's prize!

"If you want to be happy, BE" canvas inspired by Christy

 Wow summer sure sped by! I hope you all had a lovely summer and are enjoying these crisp fall days. I love fall! Too bad it's followed by winter ...blech. I propose starting a movement to ban winter. I'd be quite happy doing spring, summer, fall....SPRING! But alas, living here on the Rock, I doubt that will ever happen . Oh well...one good thing about winter is that it encourages nesting...and a girl who nests gets lots more scrapping done!

A few weeks ago I helped my daughter re do her bedroom { read ...she started it, got bored and too busy with university restarting so guess who got stuck with finishing it????? And I had no choice as all her "stuff" was piled in our bedroom and we were tired of burrowing through the tunnel to find our bed each night...think "Hoarders"!}. I always like to do some sort of handmade decorative piece for a room and really enjoyed Christy Riopel's article in the summer edition of Canadian Scrapbooker magazine. She had an awesome article teaching how to paint faces from photos on canvas. I couldn't wait to give this a try! Check out Christy's blog HERE for lots of awesome ideas and tips. She's a very creative lady!

Here is Chelsea's pretty room after 'we' finished. At almost 21 years old, she had certainly outgrown the bright turquoise and purple walls of her earlier teenage years. This grey and soft blue colour scheme is so much more suitable for a young lady.

Ah no...the canvas propped up on her headboard is not the canvas I did . We'll get to that in a minute. Speaking of headboards...isn't that a cool one? Hubby and I made it several years ago from an old door we rescued from a house that was being torn down. A bit of crown molding , a piece of pine shelving and a coat or two of paint and viola! Awesome unique headboard ! We also did one for our room.

So on to my canvas. {I apologize up front as I forgot to take photos as I was going along...stop chastising me KELLY ! LOL} I started by following Christy's tutorial in the Canadian Scrapbooker magazine and painted Chelsea's  face. It was so easy to follow and I was pleasantly surprised that it actually turned out looking like my daughter! Next I mod podged wrinkled up tissue paper onto the surrounding canvas, then added some shapes with stencils and molding paste.I followed this by randomly adhering chipboard pieces, embellies, wood pieces and flowers on the canvas.

And then I made my big mistake!!!!

I had a picture in my mind but it really wasn't translating to the canvas and I couldn't figure out how to include Chelsea's red hair as I wanted to use the cool greys and blues that were her new room colours. First I decided to paint a wild, Medusa looking hairstyle using dark versions of her colour scheme...and I absolutely HATED it!!!  Sorry for the crappy pic { I saved it from my phone } but that's OK cuz it's so ugly I'm embarrassed for you to see it anyways !!!! LOL I only show it so you can see that even something ugly can be salvaged!

"Oh Cr#p"  I thought " Now I've gone and ruined it!!!" I was peeved at myself and all I could think of was all the embellies I had "wasted 'on this canvas that I now wanted to chuck in the garbage. Plus I was really pleased with how her face turned out and was afraid I wouldn't be able to replicate it again on a new canvas. I walked away. Then I took a photo and sent it to Kelly and my friend Susan with hopes that they might see what was wrong and guide me in a new direction. I listened carefully to their awesome suggestions, took a big breath, and......PAINTED the whole dang thing over with gesso!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! { except for the face}. Sometimes you just gotta go back to square one and start all over again.

So I ditched the paints and dug out my inks and sprays instead. A lot of what I disliked on the original was the heaviness of the paint. The inking and spraying allowed me to build up the colours a little at a time and the light airy concept that I had originally had in my head all along slowly came to life on the canvas...PHEW!!!! I was so relieved to be able to salvage it! 

As a final step, I asked Chelsea to pick a quote that she liked to add to the canvas. She really liked this quote by Tolstoy. I gessoed the chipboard letters and added some sprays to blend in with the original canvas. Little hint: use Glossy Accents or similar glue to adhere those chip stickers as they'll only fall off the canvas if you don't!

A close up of the texture that the crumpled tissue paper added.

I used a combo of chipboard pieces,wooden pieces, metal charms and paper flowers.

 

A Tim Holtz stencil with molding paste.

Close up of a letter and also a Heidi Swapp stencil with molding paste.

I'm happy to say my daughter LOVED it !

Thanks for popping by today! Toodles!

My Fairy Garden and a few Tutorials

So, though I spend most of my craft time scrap booking and card making, I occasionally turn my hand to different crafts. I also loooove to spend time cruising around Pinterest. Wow! There are a LOT of very talented crafters out there!

Many moons ago, even before I had children, I was fascinated with doll houses and all things miniature. I built one doll house from scratch and after my daughter was born, I also made a doll house for her. These doll houses now live in the attic ...perhaps for the enjoyment of grandchildren some day {though not any time soon I hope!}.

I also love gardening and .....FAIRIES! I have never outgrown my secret hope that fairies are real and want to live in my garden. 

A big trend on Pinterest these days is Fairy gardening! What a perfect match for me! Gardening,fairies and miniatures all rolled into one!

Check out My Fairy Board on Pinterest.

The Internet is host to many wonderful fairy garden sites and shops where you can buy just about anything for your mini garden. It's also a lot of fun to make your own accessories. I have used a combination of purchased and homemade items in my garden and would love to share them here with you today.

First and foremost I needed a house for my fairies to live in! I started with a small birdhouse that I bought at Dollarama.

Sorry ...I forgot to take a photo before I started! The little door was from Michael's {they have a small supply of miniatures}. I started by hammering the little bird landing post into the house and then I covered the bird entrance hole with this Michael's fairy door. I then used a combination of small decorative rocks {Walmart} and aquarium gravel  to decorate the sides of my stone house. I used Glossy Accents glue to hold things in place and worked on small areas at a time...first adding a few bigger stones and then filling in with the smaller gravel.

I'm getting ahead of myself...I also painted a white square on each side of the door and penciled in a window opening which I then surrounded with a stone frame...

 I finished off the windows by adding grills made from little sticks.

. 

My house didn't have a chimney so I created one by cutting wide Popsicle sticks and gluing them together to form the chimney and then covering them with the aquarium gravel.  The slits in the roof made it easy to attach it. I finished the roof by "painting" shingles with a combination of brown and black paint.

I also created a stone pathway with the aquarium gravel. I cut a winding shape from a thick chipboard and then, using the Glossy Accents again, I filled it in with pebbles and left it to dry. 

So what's a fairy garden with out a bit of furniture? Every fairy needs somewhere to sit and and rest her bones and maybe have a cup of tea right? 

Using a combo of Popsicle sticks and little branches from my cherry trees, I made a little table and chair set. I used the Popsicle sticks as bases for the chair seats and the table top and then added cherry pieces to build up the furniture.

Bottom of the chair....

and here it is after I added all the cherry wood {excuse my glue strings!}.

I made two chairs and then added a table using basically the same construction.

My little lunch was made from sculpting clay and then painted after it hardened.

I also made some picket fencing using cut up Popsicle sticks and fine wire ...but I forgot to take pictures...oops! You'll just have to see them in the finished garden. 

My next step was to find a container to build my garden in. I originally picked up a decorative silver bowl at Walmart but quickly realized that I had too much "stuff" to fit in the bowl. I had seen several gardens on Pinterest done in broken terra cotta pots so imagine my excitement when I noticed my neighbor's garbage yesterday and sitting there in the middle was a huge broken terra cotta pot! Be still my heart! I'm sure she thought I was nuts when I asked for her garbage but she was quite pleased to see the finished product today! She said it took some of the sting out of her beautiful pot breaking to know that it still had a good use. Thanks Tina! I was also fortunate to find that one of my own terra cotta pots had become a freeze/thaw victim over the winter so I had a smaller pot to work with too. 

Here's how I started.

 I lined the larger pot with a little newspaper to cover the drain hole, added an inch or two of soil and then added the smaller broken pot  facing the cracked part inward. I built up this layer { it's going to be a patio!} and then using an even smaller broken rim , I added the top layer.  I used a combination of moss and saxifrage plants to help fill in the cracks and crevices. This helped to stop the soil from shifting.

I continued to added a stepping stone type of path up to the different levels using a combo of broken pot pieces and moss/saxifrage. I created my patio in the middle layer by layering in broken terra cotta pieces which I watered into place and then filled in between with white sandbox sand as my grout.A baggie with a tiny corner snipped off for the sand and a small paint brush were helpful in adding the sand. The archway was made from artificial pussy willow branches and a fake trailing plant. 

The top layer is"home"base. Here I added my fairy house and path and I also planted this super cute bonsai tree that I found in the plant department at Walmart. I added a fake grass {Michael's} on this level and then proceeded to add the finishing touches....a birdhouse, a birdbath complete with little stones and water { sculpting clay and Glossy Accents glue again!}. I love all the tiny accent pieces...did you see my handmade froggie on the patio level? Or how about my adorable clay mushrooms lining the path to the front door? The miniature terra cotta pots{Michael's} filled with moss add another bit of realism to my garden.

 Here's my finished garden complete with a little fairy . She's kinda lonely but will soon be joined by three others that I ordered from The Fairy Garden . Can't wait for them to arrive. Due to the fact that it is just barely spring here in Nfld, my fairy garden will be staying inside for a while yet! 

   

Isn't this little bird nest sweet? It's a Prima embellie...see I knew I could squeeze in something from my scrap booking stash! 

Thanks for visiting today...and now I must get back to my scrap booking! Believe it or not I actually did manage to get a couple of layouts done yesterday on National Scrap Booking Day. Hope you got lots done this weekend...whatever your craft. Toodles!

PS . I will be entering my fairy garden in this year's contest going on over at MAGIC ONIONS . Check out how to enter your fairy garden creation HERE !!!! I'd love to see any of your creations too!

A Negative Can Be Positive!

 Happy Spring! okay ... I know I'm lying, judging by the mountains of snow out there...but a girl can dream can't she? 

It's Tag Reveal Day over at Catherine and Cathy Create and our topic this month is using a negative.  I figured there were several ways to interpret that.

1. You could use an actual film negative.

2. You could leave lots of negative space aka white space

3. You could use the 'negative' space left over after you punch a shape.

That's the route that I chose to go.

 I used the negative space created when I punched a few hexagons from a piece of card stock as a stencil for my tag. I stenciled in the hexagons on the white card stock using More Mustard ink. I then punched out a few more hexagon shapes using the beautiful papers in the designer series " Attic Boutique". I covered some of my stenciled hexagons with these punch outs...and raised a few of them with Dimensionals  for a little added interest.

Stampin' Up products used in creating this tag are:

Embosslit " Beautiful Wings"

"Feel Good" stamp set #129684

Designer Series pp " Attic Boutique"

More Mustard ink and card stock

Coastal Cabana ink

Coastal Cabana ruffled ribbon

 SU ticket corner punch

Be sure to pop on over to CCC to see the gorgeous creations of my fellow DT members and don't forget to play along with our challenges this month for a chance to win a cute Ampersand embossing folder!

Thanks for popping by today. Toodles!

Kelly's Teacup Canvas Birthday Present

Happy birthday to my dear friend Kelly Klapstein. I think it's birthday number 29, right Kelly?

Most people who know Kelly, know she's a girl who loves her tea...and not just Tetley like me, but all sorts of flavored teas {they are NOT my cup of tea ...bad pun I know...couldn't resist!}. This was my reaction when she served me a cup of a Newfoundland tea that I always send to her. Sorry, but it's only Tetley for me dear girl!

Last year I made her a tea box for her birthday. 

You can find the tutorial for it here .

This year, I inadvertently made her another tea inspired gift! I was trolling through Pinterest when I stumbled across this beautiful canvas by Jane Johnson from Great Britain.

 Isn't it gorgeous????

One of Jane's details that I absolutely fell in love with was the "gold plating" around the cup edges just like real china cups. She is brilliant! It makes it look so real! 

So after much fiddling with scrap card stock to figure out the dimensions and how to cut the paper to curve and look like a real teacup I came up with this....

Don't you just love the gold edging????? 

So here's the whole canvas...

This is one of my first attempts at a mixed media canvas. To be honest I always thought it was kind of  overkill but I have to admit that once I started slapping "stuff'" down on the canvas, well... I really got into it! I was scared to start{what if I added some wet product that I didn't like and then couldn't change it???} but I got over it and really enjoyed it in the end.

There's a whole lotta stuff going on with this canvas! Lace, paper doily, some gold embossing powder sprinkled on a dotted runner tape from 3L { a Kelly trick actually!}, ink spritzes and one of my fav Tim Holtz diecuts! The black shiny swirl stickers are K and Company and the flowers are a mix of Petaloo and IamRoses . The papers for the background{ yes, there's actually a sheet of paper under all that!} and the papers for the teacup are the appropriately named Tea Thyme collection from Prima.

So the question is....Did Kelly like it?

You be the judge....

What's with the popcorn you ask? Kelly loves the stuff but can't get it in Edmonton...I usually include a bag whenever I send her anything in the mail. Personally....I think she's more excited over the popcorn than the canvas hahaha.

Thanks to you for popping by today, and thanks to Jane Johnson for sharing her wonderful inspirational pieces! Please make sure to pop over to her blog and give her some love. She's super creative! Toodles! 

Happy Valentine's Day and Happy February Tag Challenge

 

Hey there Scrappy Peeps! It's tag time over at Catherine and Cathy Create and our tag challenge this month is....

 

WEATHER!!!!

 

Of course we also have a Valentine's inspired card challenge going on all month,

appropriately named Hearts a Flutter! and our color challenge this month is GOLD!!!!You still have two whole weeks to get in on these challenges for a chance to win this super cute stamp set!

 

Watercolor Happy...isn't it totally adorable????

 

So our challenge this month was weather ...and God knows we've been having some nasty and bitter cold weather going on around here this winter! I wanted to forget about all that so my weather themed project geared toward something warmer...fluffy clouds and rainbows!

 

 

I used the beautiful butterfly embosslit to create my rainbow effect.

 

 Hop on over to CCC and check out the beautiful creations of my fellow DT  members....and don't forget to try one, two or even all three of our challenges this month for a chance to win the beautiful Watercolor happy stamp set! Thanks for popping by today ! Toodles!

 



January Challenge at CCC

Happy New Year dear scrappy peeps! Hope the big fella in red was good to you all and that you are long recovered from any New Year's reveling...I myself was on call that night so it was a "dry" New' Year's Eve for this Chicky. The kids appreciated it though as that automatically made me their designated driver for the night. :)

 

 January's almost at the half way mark so that must mean it's reveal day for the tag DT over at CCC. This months challenge is ARROWS. 

 

Here's my little tag inspired by arrows. I think it would be perfect on a teenage boy's birthday gift!

 

 

For this tag I used this year's in colors of Baked Brown Sugar and Coastal Cabana.The sentiment is from the "Sweet Little Sentiments" collection and the Skater Dude is a stamp called "Extreme Skateboard"  #115179.

Thanks for popping by today and be sure to hop on over to Catherineandcathycreate to see the inspiring pieces my team mates , RHEA and CATHY have whipped up for you! Toodles