Crafting with Lindsay the Frugalcrafter - Bird of Paradise

I get so inspired by Lindsay the Frugalcrafter that I'm planning on crafting to her videos to practice my owns skills.  So this may be a series if everything goes as planned. I watched the video first and then I played it again pausing as necessary as I am much much much slower at drawing than she is. In all, this probably took me around an hour and 15 minutes.

Lindsay's post and video. I changed things up by using black Recollections cardstock and Prismacolor Pastels. Also my pastel is 8.5 inches by 5.5 inches as I wanted the option of making it a card front.

I'm pleased with the result but obviously need more practice.  I may even try it again with my Prismacolor pencils as I don't have Artstix.

Christmas Roundup - the disasters...

So part of the reason I started this blog is to share my crafting journey and every journey has those memorable incidents that makes the rest of the journey look like smooth sailing... thus, we come to the Christmas disasters.

All year I collected our soup tins that had a pop top lid carefully opening them with my special can opener and cleaning them and saving them to make santa tins to fill. As Christmas approached I filled them with a bag containing of chocolate nuggets, kisses and those soft peppermints you only seem to see at Christmas.  Then I glued them with E6000. Now I did this in a well ventilated area and was sure this was going to be the cutest novelty gift ever for our friends' kids.

So of course I test them on my kids first. They open them and the strong glue smell is inside the can. Oh no! Then the youngest eats some chocolate and complains it tastes funny.  I had a bit and immediately realized that the glue smell had permeated the chocolate.  Thank goodness I hadn't distributed them further than my own kids. I threw them away. My husband pit.them in the recycling bin. I didn't care as I was devastated and greatful at the same time.

My other disaster this Christmas were my Santa/Grinch (or elf) ornaments. I had a brain blip and painted the black of the belts with acrylic paint which dried flat and scraped off as I was doing the buckles. I thought I could touch them up but um let's just leave it at that didn't work either. So they are on a shelf to see if I can salvage them.  At least I didn't wax the insides...I've read that fails after a year...why wait a year when it can be in real time! LOL

A hint of vintage birthday

So if you follow my blog you know I start the year with quite a few birthdays and events.  Doesn't everyone? And every year I lose my mojo in January. ..it's a plot I tell ya! So this year I decided to not stress so much if this was the most perfext unique card for my BIL and just create.


I pulled loads of stamp sets and decided to use a Tim Holtz set that hadn't seen ink... I love the look of Tim Holtz inspired work but it is that little bit beyond my realm of logical comfort. I over analyze.  An internal dialogue of "oh my that is beautiful" versus "why?" "This doesn't really fit in your decorating scheme", "Would you want to dust it? " etc...



Hopefully I came up with a happy medium.  Is there such a thing as CAS (clean & simple) Tim Holtz?

BTW I am so excited over the card base I used. I know talking card bases isn't sexy but this card stock is a great weight and a great price especially with a coupon!

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Recollections 110 lb white; kraft
Stamps - Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz The Journey; Kitchen Sink Stamps: Whole Family;
Ink - Gina K Design black; Memento gray flannel, love letter, espresso truffle;
Accessories - Spellbinders gears; clockworks embossing folder

Christmas Roundup - knitted hats and scarfs

So thanks to the frugalcrafter Lindsay I discovered the joys of knitting and loom knitting.  That's a general link to her blog. I was ill with one of those coughs that keep you up all night so I put my earbuds in and watched and listened to Lindsay. She was my Lemonade when I was handed lemons.

These are all loom hats and a 6ft scarf.  I have since completed a blue, yellow and white hat and scarf and a red and white scarf.

Also I' ve made 2 ruffle scarfs for my MIL which I forgot to photograph.

The red and white hat needs to be reworked on a smaller loom...but that's the learning curve!

Here is the direct link to the knitting tutorial.  I can't stress enough how helpful I found it. I have been trying to learn to knit for years... now on to crochet!

Christmas Roundup Part 7 - frosted gingerbread houses

Well I didn't say it was food! 

I have tried several times to get a good image from these stamps and finally was able with Gina K's white ink. I have literally had this card design in my head for years! And finally it is out and I love how it turned out.



Ingredients
Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Recollections kraft; Neenah Classic Crest;
Stamps - Martha Stewart Gingerbread
Ink - GKD Color Companions White; Memento Love Letter;
Accessories - stickles

Christmas Roundup part 6 - smooches

Love how this card turned out with all that white space. I had to extend the branch for the mistletoe to anchor it off the top edge of card.

To add a bit "extra" I pierced the mat edges and drew in the lines for faux stitching.  I'm still 50/50 on whether it was the right call. Sometimes I love it and others I think it is too colloquial for a polished card. I am certain that the barely there stickles added just the right amount of bling. Love it!

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5 x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest Solar White; Recollections Red;
Stamps - Kitchen Sink Stamps: Holly & Mistletoe;
Ink - Memento
Accessories - paper piercer; stickles

Christmas Roundup part 5 - GinaK inspired

Gina K Designs had a sale before Christmas and I took advantage and picked up these stamps and ink. Oooooo I love both. I love the coverage of her white ink and the elegant simplicity of the trees.

I will be honest what looks like a white layer is meant to be more translucent and soft with the "Brother & Sister in Law" floating softly...it really doesn't look that way IRL either.  Oh well. I still sent it LOL.

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5 in by 5.5 in
Cardstock - Recollections blue; The Paper Studio Translucent; Neenah Classic Crest
Stamps - Gina K Designs: Merry Tree ; Kitchen Sink Stamps: Whole Family;
Ink - GKD Color Companions white; Versamark;
Accessories - Kaleidoscope Embossing Powder; Snowflake embossing folder; Stickles

Christmas Roundup Part 4 - telescoping easel snowman

So I hand this card over to my test subjects a.k.a. the husband and kids and none of them knew how it worked... I quickly drew a diagram on a sticker on what it looked like expanded. 

Hopefully the recipient liked it and worked it out.

I doubled up the snowman diecuts so the brads wouldn't be visible from the back where possible.

Ingredients
Card size - (closed) 5.25 x 5.25 inches
Cardstock - Neenah classic crest solar white; Christmas paper; Recollections red cardstock;
Stamps - Justrite Stampers;
Ink - Memento Love Letter;
Accessories - shimmer chalks; circle Nestabilities; Brads; Ribbon.

Christmas Roundup Part 3

So I was in such a rush to get my cards out I only managed to photograph a third of the ones I made.

I made all the envelopes with my envelope board and matching cards from the off cuts.  I love how they turned out.

I went through the paper pad and pulled everything out that was absolutely Christmas. That was 34 different patterns x 3.

These were meant to be simple cards but I don't know if you can call it simple to round all those corners...

Stamp and die cut the greeting and matc...

And score and paper pierce the strips of red cardstock to add texture and interest.

So much for that "Clean and Simple" Christmas I had promised myself to do this year!

Ingredients

Card size - A2;

Cardstock - Recollections red cardstock, Fa La La La paperpad; Neenah Classic Crest Solar White Smooth;

Stamps - Justrite Stampers

Ink - Memento Love Letter

Accessories - We R Memory Keepers Envelope board; Scor-pal; Cutterbee piercing tool.

Christmas Roundup Part 2

This guy never made it outside this year. He was supposed to be the centerpiece to my grand outdoor masterpiece and it just didn't work so he stayed inside.

This is probably may favorite wreath I have made so far so I was gutted when I couldn't get it to work. Still... there is always next year.

Christmas Roundup part 1

I made a lot of new decor for our home's exterior this year.

First I reworked this large wreath for the gable end that was looking sad. It got new ribbon and red berries. I may add more bling before next year.

 

Using an old Christmas tree I made a swag for our light...

And window garlands...

 

Then I used deco mesh for wreaths and a garland around the front door. TBH although it was pretty it didn't quite pack the punch I wanted. Oh well I have a whole year to rethink it. I am open to suggestions. I think either the wreaths are too big or I need the garland to be higher/wider.