Polar Bear Love

I finally put the finishing touches on this layout I started a few years ago. I added some Pure Glitz Ruby Slippers around the edge of each photo, making the edges a little irregular. I am still amazed how much photography has changed, from the pictures of my childhood "DON"T touch anything but the edges" and carefully measuring the days adventures and possibilities against my allowance of film and now I'm drawing on them lol.

The paper had snowflakes on it, but I added more. Thank goodness for hide contour (I did this on my Gypsy). By  hiding the inner cuts, solid space is made for writing. I was a die-hard two page layout thinker, but I've converted to one page layouts so I can take them out of the scrapbook and put them in 12 x 12 frames.

This week Simon Says Family : ). 

Bugs and Kisses, 1.1

This is a tweaking of a layout I did a few years ago (you can read the details here). The border ribbon never lay right for me, so I decided to replace it. I used my Gypsy and welded bugs & kisses (from the Cindy Loo cartridge) to a rectangle. I cut a second "g" and glued it on the title,and then outlined everything with a fine line black pigment pen.

I used a "decorative accent" from the candle department (around 2010 these were known as "skittles" by the crafty crowd I ran with) dyed with alcohol ink for the dot for the "i". One of the things I liked best was the ribbon came off (with a little bit of tugging, but the paper still had adhesive on it. Luckily I had some freezer paper left over from another project (okay it was a year ago lol) so I just put that over the adhesive until the new title was ready.

A Tardis Snow Ornament

The sparkle doesn't show up much in the picture, but this is chock full of aurora borealis flakes so I'm thinking it's something different for the Simon Says Sparkle challenge. It's the Tardis in an ornament. The cardstock (except for the windows) is beige dyed heavily with a Faded Jeans Distress Ink bath. Repeatedly. A crystal seed bead serves as the light on top. I found a whole new level of love for my new camera when I found out it has a "shoot through glass" setting.

La Vie en Rose Monster Style

Simon Says Make It Sparkle, so I did. I adhered a piece of Anna Griffin paper to the front of an A2 mat cardstock and then cut the rectangular frame from Make It Market: Shakers and Sprinkles. The pieces were then re-assembled and stamped with my hand carved monster stamp and heat embossed with gold Embossing Powder.

The two outer pieces of the mat were lined up with the A2 Papertrey Ink Ocean Tides card front and the center piece was attached to the card front. A piece of heavy plastic is glued to the bottom of the mat and the opening surrounded by two layers of foam tape. 10 mm gold sequins were added for the shaker. The middle piece will be used in another project, the "frame" is made with the Ocean Tides cardstock showing through where it would have been.

Bits of Sparkle

This Wednesday Simon Says Make It Sparkle. So out comes the Diamond Stickles. The "U" is from a Martha Stewart alphabet stamp set stamped in Papertrey Ink Ocean Tides. "Miss" comes from Paper Tray stamp set. And a little watercolor to ground everything.

 And I love to do variations.

WOYWW 270

If you are wondering why I am taking a picture of a tiny blue box and you start humming a galloping soundtrack complete with oooooooooooo eeeeeeeeeeee oooooooooooos, you are spot on. I am indeed making a tiny Tardis to hurl into that large Christmas ornament with ferocious snowmen and tiny whoville houses.. And the tardis will be wearing an "I heart heart Whoville" bumper sticker and be dangling (if I can manage it in 2 days) by a string held by the hand of the grinch. (It's a Doctor Who Goes to Whoville at Christmas mashup because the Grinch has a heart that's two sizes too small and the Doctor has two hearts). Faded Jeans Distress Ink got me in the Tardis color ballpark.

If all that is making you go huh? here is a nice soothing picture of a drawer that's been cleaned out, sorted and put back. The cloth is a piece of tack cloth to pick up all the sparkly embossing powder, the pink with the cord is my neglected glue gun, the light blue is my frequently used corner chompers and the pink is crop-a-dile, a round cork for pinning things down while they dry some baby wipes for cleaning. It is missing the cutting board with a handle (one side for heat embossing, the other for stamp carving and pyrography) .

And just reading the comments last week from all you smart creative Deskers, led me to a solution to the "Where are the hornets exactly" question. I put my camera on a tripod, a long, long tripod, set it to video and stuck it under the deck. Now I know exactly where it is, completely unsprayable because it is straight up from the edge but I'm thinking if I go out with a long hose wand and the nozzle tied to stun I might be able to blast them off at a distance. On the plus side, they are getting tired of vinegar lol.

I made a lot of things this week, used a HEAP of Jingle Bells, wrestled Cricut Craft Room and have been heat embossing for Scotland (you can scroll back if you've time and interest) and two cards with Moo-ment, but these two are my favorites.

This one is a larger, altered cow you've seen before. Altered so the legs can move (thanks to Tim Holtz tiny brads) and a moon made out of a white 2" circle punch and daubed at random in a "circley crater way" with the edge of a beauty sponge and Rusty Hinge Distress Ink. Less than an hour.

This one took 2 days to finish lol. You'll have to go to the post to read about it here because it's too long to type here.

So if you are wondering about WOYWW and you want to see other crafty Desks (or floors or tables) around the world, hop over to Julia's Stamping Ground and have a gander. A goose will still have to be found on your own : D.

Happy Day card

It's rare that I spend two days working on a card, but for this one I did. The Papertrey Ink dies I used to make the border cut from non-border dies are the Strip Stitch die and the butterfly and "happy" from Pretty Peonies. After watching the video carefully, I promptly cut off the wrong side lol. So I had to run it through again with a second A2 mat.

I found some stunning deep brown (with glitter) paper from K&Company Classic K Specialty Paper Pad which I wanted to show through under the Strip Stitch die cut I butted the border cut up against. I also left a lot of the dots in the cut. I distressed the non-image parts of the border and the K&Company paper with the edge of a pair of scissors.

Then I stumbled across a very very old piece of  pearlized vellum paper (easily 15 years old) and cut 2 butterflies, the peony and leaf image and "happy", then stamped them with Versamark and embossed them with Zing Chocolat Opaque embossing powder (except for the leaves which I stamped in black ink and left unembossed. The butterfly on the flower is stamped and embossed whole and then folded in half. I used Scor-Tape to attach the flower and butterflies, I ran the "happy" through my little Xyron.

At first glance, it might appear that the star of the card is the Pretty Peonies stamp set and matching dies, but to my mind the even bigger stars are the Strip Stitch die (and the stamp I made out of fun foam with it) and this fabulous Sprinkle N Sparkle Cosmic Semi-Transparent Pineapple Embossing Powder. It is the tiniest little jar (I bought at the 2010 CHA Supershow), and I still have almost all of it even after embossing all this. I was really pleased with how the foam rubber stamp lined up with the border cut and matched that up with the die cut.

I put everything on an A2 card with about an inch cut off the front so the border images (especially the Strip Stitch die can be seen to best effect : ). All the cardstock used is Papertrey Ink's Stamper's Select White which is heavy enough to stand up to all the additives.

I felt bad that the K&Co paper was so covered up, so I added a small strip of it on the inside.

Make It Monday #175: Creative Card Borders Using Non-Border Dies and Simon Says Anything Goes (note to self, second entry)