I have a new Moleskin...

Hi all. More sharing today. I got a new Moleskin before Christmas. I had been searching for this for awhile. I had seen some online that had watercolor paper. I finally found one! I did Alisa Burke's Watercolor bliss class last year and hadn't been able to put much that I had learned into practice. Find the class here:

http://www.shopalisaburke.com/collections/online-classes/products/watercolor-bliss

It is a wonderful class. I have lots of watercolor paper, but this notebook is just what I needed. I can do just a small page at a time and even take it with me if needed. I decided that each page would have only watercolor and pens. 

This is teaching me patience. I love banging things out with stamps and moving on to the next project. This is teaching me to do a little and let it dry. Add a little more and then let it dry. The result emerges over time. I have smeared a few pages and this is so frustrating. I am learning.

Some pages, like this one I might add more to later. I like this page because I didn't draw anything out beforehand. It was all experimenting.

This page keeps getting a little more added to it. I look at it and then I put a little more in.

This page was fun. I learned a little about how the color can puddle. I layered on more color in a few spots too. Fun!

Are you learning anything new this year? Try something new. I think it increases my skill in other areas and teaches me something about myself as well.  Thanks for stopping in to look.

More catching up.

**Forgot to include a link to the free tab top towel pattern. So sorry!

http://pinterest.com/pin/234890936785872040/

 

 

Thanks for all your patience. It seems that Blogger isn't working with Internet Explorer. Google Chrome fixed it up so that I can keep on sharing. I promised in my last post to share some more projects I made over the holidays. Here is a super easy pattern I found on Pinterest. These tab topped towels. They were super easy and fun to make. I decided that all of the kitchen towels I was finding, on the cheap, were so thin and crummy. I went to Big Lots and found some bathroom hand towels for very cheap and used them. They are thick and absorbent and luxurious. I took the towels into my favorite quilting store and found matching fat quarters. I was able to top one towel, cut in half to make two, with one fat quarter. Very economical and luxurious. I used my huge collection of buttons to make each one look sparkly and special. They were fairly quick to make as well. 

This one below I added a ribbon as a fun detail.

These I added a vintage stitch detail to this set. I then wove a ribbon through the stitching.

The silver snowflake thingy is actually a piece of chocolate. :-) It looks funny there, sorry.

After Christmas I was invited to learn how to make chocolates with some family members. It was so much fun. I had never used plastic molds before. It was a great way to use your imagination. These are some right out of the molds. I had fun using different colors and even adding peanut butter candy.

Afterwards we added color with powdered "paints" that are iridescent. It made everything sparkle. 

Speaking of sparkle I had some fun with my twinkling H2O's. 

This card was done with one of my new background stamps. I love it. Blue and white always make me sigh. It is fresh and cool feeling. So beautiful. 

More gratuitous chocolate!! I make these buckeyes each Christmas.

Here is something that my husband has been helping me with. My crafting area in our basement is in a little corner. He suggested that we move my desk and create a little space on the wall to add vertical storage. So here it is before.

Here is what I will be storing.

(Just kidding.)

Here it is after. We just turned the desk and it feels a less roomy, but better with the wall exposed. We will hopefully be finding a way to add vertical storage for punches. We have a plan, we just need to work around those drain pipes you see.  I also want another light fixture. They aren't too expensive. Maybe I can have it all fixed up for Valentine's day. (Are you reading this honey?)

 My shelving and Ikea Alex drawers.

So that is what I was up to over the holiday season. Lot's of hard work. It makes me happy though to give handmade gifts and cards. It is much more special and personalized for the people you are giving to. I have been wanting to purge and re-do in my crafting area for a long time. This little project is getting me motivated to keep going. I am worried about having time, there is Girl Scout cookies on my horizon. :-)

Blogging troubles

Have any of you had any challenges with using Blogger? I have been experiencing a lot of them. I can't seem to upload any photos to my posts right now. What is a blog post about crafting without any photos? Boring!!!!  I am continuing to try and figure this out. I will post some more projects that I made over the holidays when you can see what they were. I hope you all are having a happy and healthy new year.

What is new this New Year?

Hello everyone and Happy New Year!  This is a very photo heavy post. I hope you enjoy catching up with me. I've missed making time for blogging.

 

I entered this card into the Pin It to Win It contest that Hero Arts had. It is hard to photograph, but the background is shimmery. So pretty!

 

 

Here is the prize that they sent me. I am so lucky. 

 



 

I realized that I never finished the Holiday card workshop. This is a card I made last month to use one of the techniques I learned. It turned out simple, but cute.



 

I colored the snow with my stardust pen. I love that sparkle.

 

My daughters turned 10. I can't believe my babies are 10. This was a few of the party invitations we made. the front was stamped and the backs had a computer print out of the party information. We had a color blast party. We decorated cupcakes, played games, and each girl made her own colorful headband. It was SO fun.

 

After Thanksgiving and the party I got serious about my Christmas cards. I challenged myself to use only supplies I already had. The only things I bought was adhesive refills. :-)

 

Here I had a big leftover piece of watercolor paper. I heat embossed a bunch of snowflakes on it in white and went crazy with the Distress Stains and Pearl Mist.

 

 

I loved how it turned out so I did a few more, but I did the stains first and then the heat embossing.

 

Both ways turned out beautifully. Do you like my ugly paper board. I do all my spraying and painting on it. :-)

 

I cut all the panels into strips and put them on the front of my cards.

 

 

Here are some fun bookmarks I made. I found the glittery Santa hats at Archiver's and they fit my owl punch from Stampin Up perfectly. Oh, I guess I did buy something. The hat stickers. Oh, well.

 

 

I got bored making all of the cards the same, so I tried to mix it up. I got this fun idea.

 

I have to admit this card is one of those great ideas that I wasn't sure would work. I literally had to make 5 cards before the heat embossing worked. The star is die cut out of a silver scrap I had. The greeting is stamped and heat embossed in silver on a blue shimmer scrap I had. It was hard to photograph this one too because of all of the shine.

I love the blog of Alisa Burke. She recently had a free download of some gift tag elements that I printed out here.  Here is a link:http://alisaburke.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-free-download-for-you.html

 



 

I decided to cut out an element and use it on a card.

 



 

I didn't take a lot of pictures of all of the cards I made. This one I did make three of. One for each of my daughters and one for my husband. I LOVE these new little wooden letters from Studio Calico. LOVE!

 

 

The first thing I did when I won the Pin It to Win It drawing was try the Hero Arts birthday card kit. It made 8  great birthday cards and had lots of leftovers. Those kits are a great value and I love that they are sold at Target. They are available everywhere.

 

Thanks for stopping in and taking a peek at some of the projects I have been doing. I'll be back again soon to share some more. I hope everyone has a safe, happy and healthy New Year. Leave me a comment or a link telling me what you have been creating.

Day #4 of Holiday Card Workshop

Day #4 for my Holiday Card Workshop is here. I decided to try out the techniques in Jennifer's cards. I colored one image three ways.  It took me awhile, but I just kept coming back and working on them a little more.

 

 The one on the left is done with water color pencils, the middle with copics and the sky done with chalk pastels, and the right done all in colored pencil.

The stamps are both by Stampendous. The image stamp is V121 Holy Family. The greeting is K043 Script Peace.  I used Momento Tuxedo Black ink so that I wouldn't have to worry about smearing or water fastness.

This is the copic colored one.

This is the watercolor pencil one.

This is the colored pencil one.

I went over the star in each image with the Stardust pen by Sakura. I love that pen!

This was a great exercise in trying different coloring methods to decide on which one you want to use to mass produce. It is also a great way to break up the boredom if you are making a lot of cards and don't want to do the same thing over and over.

Holiday Card Workshop Day #3

Hello everyone.  In the Holiday Card Workshop on day #3 we learned some fun techniques for dry embossing. The third one intrigued me the most.

It was called highlight embossing. I had to try it! I made my own mask and decided to keep it simple. I just used two layers of chip board and cut a circle in them using a circle cutter. It was very simple to do.

I used my leftover snowflake from day #2's card and added it inside the circle. I also added a greeting from Hero Arts stamped on Vellum, a punched snowflake and lots of gems. This was quick and simple for my first successful attempt. I love that holographic embossing powder. It is so fun!

Thanks again for stopping by and taking a peek at my projects. I have day #4 almost done. I will try to post that one soon. ;-)

Holiday Card Workshop Day #2

I am finally on to cards for day #2 of the Holiday Card Workshop. The theme this day was background stamps and ways you could use them.

 

I used a background stamp on the front of this card. I also used some holographic embossing powder to make it look like glittery snowy swirls on the front of the card. I was intrigued when Jennifer made a cut out window on the front of her card and had a greeting on a small banner across the front. I was going for the same kind of effect. Not as cleverly done as hers, but I got the idea. 

 

I like that it is unexpected. I can try to re do it, or make another that is similar in the future.  I used an Archiver's exclusive Stamp and Cut set from Hero Arts. The large snowflake stamp and die cut are made to go together. That is a wonderful idea for crafters. There are so many ways to use that product.

Next I used Lisa's idea of using background stamps to create strips that you adhere to a card. I liked her examples using non traditional colors. These blue pink and lavender cards are definitely not traditional. They are kind of fun to piece together and embellish too.

Here is a picture of the inside. Sorry it turned out blurry. :-( You get the idea, right?

 

There was a third example in class of a kissing technique. I decided to skip this one. I'm familiar with the technique and I ran out of crafting time. I think I will be attempting only one or two of the examples for each day. I just don't have time to do them all every day.

 

I will be back soon with my Day #3 card.  I hope you all are having a safe and healthy autumn so far.