Taking A Dip

Hello Everyone!

How's your New Year's Eve plans coming?

Last night DD & DH went to the movies...Avarator or something like that... When I found out it was 2 1/2 hours long I knew I didn't want to go. I was happy to stay home and play the Wii. I'm now first in a bunch of levels...lol It's a challenge staying ahead of everybody else. Seems like I have to practice three times as hard or else they get lucky once.

See my new stamp. I know another house mouse. Can you believe I didn't know Hobby Lobby carried stamps. I had been there a few times but missed the stamp isle. They keep it in a back corner. DD & I went to the store and that is when I located it and just had to have the stamp.

The pattern paper was from my Costco stash. If you look closely I put stickles on the paper to give it a little more bling. Just on the dots in the centre of the starburst. Once again I used the copics for coloring. You just can't beat them. Cardstock and ribbon is from SU. The words Happy Birthday are embossed using the distress embossing powder. Crystal Effects on the sunglass lens. So nice to do a cheery/springy card.


I'm off to the scrapbook store today for some cardstock. Getting ready to work on a scrapbook page and I need to match up some paper. Not much else to do here today cause it's raining again. Ugh!

Bye!

Yvonne

Asian Flair

Hi There,

Most blogs have been pretty quiet. Everybody enjoying family togetherness. I've been getting a few cards done late at night when everyone is sleeping snugly in their beds and I'm wide awake.

The stamp set used for this card was one of the first free stamp set I earned with Stampin' Up back in 2003. It was a hostess set. I finally mounted it! It's a set of six or seven pieces. Really quite cute.

Birds & Swirls is the cuttlebug folder used in the background. Nestabilities for cutting out the ovals. You can see how I used dimensionals to vary the height.


The fan was stamped with versamark and then embossed with black detail embossing powder. The images were colored in with copic markers. Look at all the little pearls. Adds a touch of elegance.

When I was making this card I would have liked to have had the bamboo cuttlebug folder for the background. Would have matched so well.

How's those New Years Resolutions coming?

Enjoy your day!

Yvonne

Merry Christmas & A Little Gift Box

Merry Christmas To All!

Had a relaxing Christmas day with DH & DD. Unfortunately my son and his family weren't able to be with us this year. This was the first that DS didn't spend Christmas with us so that was a little weird. We had nobody to hand out the Christmas presents! We were able to chat in the afternoon so that was good!

As always Santa spoils me...and he always seems to find some crafty stuff to surprise me with. I got a new cricut cartridge to help make calendars. Every year I want to make calendars for Grandparents but always leave it too late. I think I need to start now and do one a month...I'm good at the planning stage...execution...I need to work on that aspect.

The project I'm sharing today is supposed to be an advent calendar. If you make two of them you will have 24 days. I only needed a 12 day one ... a drawer for each day that DD is home. You can use matchboxes for the drawers but I made each one of my own. It turned out not bad. I would change a few things if I was to make another one. Make sure you are really accurate on the folding. lol



If you're wanting more detailed directions check out the mini calendar on the top right side of my blog. It's under December 1st box.

It's going to be a pretty busy week as we hope to get out and tour around with DD and see some sights so there may not be many posts. I'm already thinking ahead to 2010 and New Years Resolutions - blog more often...

A little tidbit of what is to come in 2010 - I'll be attending the CHA Show in Anahiem January 22 - 27. I'm registered for the show and to take some classes so I'll be letting you know what those are and keep you up-to-date on new releases at the show.

Enjoy your holidays with family & friends.

Yvonne

Black & White Snowflakes & Tags

Good Morning,

So how many more sleeps until Christmas...not enough! How's your Christmas preparations going?

I have some presents wrapped now and will be heading back out for a little more shopping today. Wrapping presents meant I needed to make some Christmas Tags. So the second photo today is all about my tags. I actually used my Cricut machine to cut out the tags and then I simply used my stickles and liquid applique to decorate them. Pretty quick to make but drying time was overnight on the stickles. I think I was a little heavy on some of them.

The Black & White Snowflake card is one of my favorite. The snowflakes are cut using the Spellbinders snowflake dies. The white background is the snowflake embossing folder on white and I cut it into strips. The ribbon was from Costco and the sentiment from Stampin' Up. The snowflakes are all raised on dimensions and the white layer on each snowflake is covered in glitter ritz for a bit of sparkle. To do that I ran my cardstock through my Xyron machine and then I used the snowflake die to cut out the shape. All I had to do then was peel off the protective paper and apply my glitter. No mess at all (except for the little bit of glitter I got on myself). I placed a little pearl in the centre of each snowflake and on the ends of the tag sentiment.



I need to go to the postoffice today. Mail out last parcel...yeah it's going to be late, just a little...think of it as a longer Christmas. A couple more cards to pop in the mail and then a little shopping.

Hope you're enjoying your day and I look forward in checking in with you tomorrow.

Yvonne

Santa & Acrylic Paint - Who Would Have Thought?

Hello Folks,

Little late in the day for my post but housework really does take longer than you think and groceries were on the to do list today too. I'm all set now for a couple days of either crafting or Christmas shopping.

This card is a little bit of a fancy fold as you can see from the second picture. What I want to focus on though is Santa himself. The image was stamped using stazon on a plastic window sheet. On the backside of the window sheet I sponged acrylic red paint into the santa area and then used a green paint and finished sponging the background. You don't have to cover it solid as you want a bit of a marble effect.The piece of cardstock in behind the window sheet is vanilla colored. While the paint is still wet place the window sheet over the vanilla cardstock and press the two pieces together. When the paint dries it attaches itself to the cardstock and no need for glue. Click on the picture for a better view.



Going to go and barbeque some turkey burgers for supper.

Enjoy your evening. Maybe watch a Christmas special.

Yvonne

Is There A Mouse In The House? - Recessed Window

Hi There,

Sunday - what are your plans? If the fog burns off here we are planning on going for a drive. Going to go to a flea market and then DH has something else planned but I can't remember exactly where it is but there is a boardwalk and maybe some neat things to see. Must remember camera this time. I haven't taken any pictures since I moved here...except for pictures of my crafts.

I have posts to share with you all week now. I'm taking some new mediction for my back but it seems to keep me wide awake. That's okay, my back hasn't felt this good in three years.

You must go and check out my actual blog site. There is an advent calendar at the top right hand side. Everyday you can click on another box to reveal a project and instructions. They cover a variety crafts. The one for December 1 I want to recreate. It's definitely a papercraft one! lol Go have a look...I know you want to.

I'm back to my house mouse stamp again. I've had these colored up with my copics for awhile now but just needed to get them made into cards. Both of these are the recessed window card. The instructions are at Splitcoaststampers. I did make a minor adjustment. You can see in the third picture I have a 1/4" spine on my card. It helps so it will close like a traditional card. If you've clicked the link above you can see how they have the card stand more like an easel.

I've added Dazzling Diamond glitter, crystal effects on the berries, some dew drops in the corners and krylon gold pen to edge most of the card. Gold Embossing on the sentiment and I'm so pleased with myself that I used some of my pattern paper that I've had since 2001. It finally just worked with the cards.




That's all I have for this morning.

Yvonne

Quick & Easy

Good Morning,

Well it really is morning, about 4:00 a.m. to be exact. I've been up scrapbooking and then thought I should blog for a bit.

Today's share is a card made at the class I took last month. I love the colors and it was super simple to stamp. Some days I need a few more of those quick and easy cards. All products are Stampin' Up.

Popped most of my Christmas cards in the mail today. All those extra layers and embellishments add extra postage to the cards. They can't go through the regular metered mail so there is a surcharge on each card. Works out to about a $1.00 a card. The line up at the post office wasn't too bad either.

Plans are to get my packages in the mail tomorrow that need to go to Canada. If I do it tomorrow I believe they will still arrive in time for Christmas. Once that is done I can concentrate on decorating the tree and shopping for the family that will be with me for Christmas.

Guess I should try and get some sleep.

Good Night.

Yvonne

Baby, It's Snowing Outside!

Good Morning,

Well I must share with you that I had snow yesterday. Not much in our area but non-the-less, snow! We were forcasted for anywhere from 3 - 5 inches but got away with a few flakes and a really good frost overnight. BTW having just recently moved from Nova Scotia to Southern Texas I wasn't expecting to see snow this year. The snow wasn't all that exciting to us but residents here were pretty excited about those white fluffy flakes. lol

In the meantime I finally finished my page of Xavier crawling. After I uploaded the page I realized I forgot to put a date on the page so will go back and put that on.

As always I used my Cricut for the shapes and letters. George & Basic Shapes was used to cut the 10" green circle. Zoobaloo for the animals (aren't they cute?) and lettering. Finally for those palm trees I used Life's a Beach. The leaves on the top were cut from green Co-ordinatins cardstock and then sanded slightly. It took a long time to sand inbetween all those leaves. The pattern paper and little animal brads were purchased from The Cutting Garden but I can't remember which line of paper. I bought all the pieces though cause it was just so cute for a boy.

The layout idea came from this sketch at So Sketchy! I changed quite a few things but I think you can still see the basic ideas.

Had a lot of fun with this double page layout.

Enjoy your week-end. I think I'm going to try and finish my Christmas cards. I've got most of them addressed but still need to do that Christmas letter. Actually DH is supposed to do the letter.

Yvonne

Slider Card "Holiday Cheer"

Good Morning,
December 1st already. I'm a day late on posting but things got in the way. Can you believe Christmas is 24 sleeps away. Yikes. I really need to do some Christmas shopping. Oh, I did do a little shopping on Saturday. I bought Xavier the cutest cowboy slippers. He won't be able to pull those babies off. lol

Todays card is a slider card. When you pull on the tab the window opens to reveal a message both on the tag and through the window. Most slider cards I've seen are just the basics of the card, they don't stand up. Or in other words they don't really seem to be a full card but more of a card front and there is no place to write stuff.

This is a standard 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" card. I'll give dimensions for this card but they are easily adapted. I cut in 3/4" on three of the four sides so I would have a 3/4" border. (I used my Fiskars cutter to do this)Measuring from the bottom edge of the card score in 1 1/2" and then 3" making sure you only score on the window portion. That second score line can be altered depending on how wide you want the window to open. Last place a score line at the top of the card. This should be at 3/4" and will connect the two vertical cut lines. I used a full cardfront to work with so I also need to have a piece of the same color for a backing. 4 1/4" x 5 1/2". Holding this piece in place behind the cardfront punch out a semi-circle so you will be able to see your pull tab.

The tag that goes in behind needs to be wider than the opening by about 1/2" and as long as the top of the card to the bottom of the opening. So in this case it was 3 1/4 x 4 3/4". You can round the corners on the tag, leave the square, etc. The bottom of the tag gets attached to the bottom of the window. I used double sided tape and applied it to the window portion (the 3/4" fold at the bottom of the window)Make sure you line it up even. Pull on the tab and the window should open. Once you're satisfied glue the back insert to the card to enclose the tag. Make sure you only put glue around the parimeter so the tag can move freely when pulled.

You can add pattern paper like I did or you could simply stamp images directly to the cardstock. Whatever image you decide to put on the front make sure you only glue it down between the first and second score line so the window can open.

You can also go to Splitcoaststampers and search under the resources for directions to this card. They do theirs slightly different but the window portion is the same and may give better pictures.
By the way the image was colored in with copics and the stamp set was Stampin' Up.

Have a great day.

Yvonne