A Niece So Sweet!

Now just how fun is this card and it is rocking Non-traditional Christmas colors whilst being completely Christmas at the same time!  The background is stamped with Clear Dollar stamps and clear embossed.  The Gingerbread man is paperpieced with a bit of clear embossing to help the colors and peppermints pop.

And just how yummy is that banner with the "glazed" gumdrops to emphasize just how sweet we think our niece is!

Ingredients
Card size - 8 1/2" x 5 1/2";
Cardstock - Recollections 65lb white, kraft;
Stamps - High Hopes stamps: Lg. Gingerbread Man; Kitchen Sink Stamps: Whole Family; Clear Dollar Stamps - various sweets; Studio G alphabet;
Ink - Gina K Color Companions: Black Onyx, White; Copic Multiliner;
Color - Copics;
Accessories - Sakura white Souffle pen; Sharpie - white; Glossy Accents; Clear embossing powder;

Mother's Mittens

When I was making this card I was thinking about the patterns trend at the moment and seriously thought this card was going to be for our Niece.  Once I finish it, I liked how traditional it felt and decided I would send it to my MIL. Instead.  Yeah, if you look at it you can see placed where the pattern doesn't line up correctly, but isn't that sort of the point of handmade at times.  I could have stressed out and restamped that line of stamps on another background and had the same problem again.  I decided to just go with it.  

I decided that the mittens had to match and then to add the satin and velvet ribbons from my stash.  That velvet ribbon is an off cut from Christmas bow decorations I made.  I decided it wasn't that different to the flocked paper I have bought in the past and I think it adds the right level of luxuriousness to this card.  I love this card even with its imperfections. 

Ingredients
Card size - 8 1/2" x 5 1/2";
Cardstock - Recollections 110lb and 65lb ivory
Stamps - Gina K Designs: Warm Woolen Mittens; Kitchen Sink Stamps: Whole Family;
Ink - Memento: Love Letter, Toffee Crunch;
Accessories - Velvet ribbon, Satin Ribbon

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

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

Blue Christmas Skates

Over at StampTV they hosted a challenge last week (yeah, I got my card posted in time but the challenge itself is closed) for "Blue Christmas" and this is what I came up with.  On top of participating in the challenge I also used GinaK's tutorial for versamark resist.  Now I realize you will have squint, hold your computer at arms' length and possibly stand on your head to see it but there is a versamark resist snowflake background on this card.  The most prominent one is probably right under the main image.  They show up better in person.  Honestly!

What I think I learnt is that maybe the stamp was too delicate to pick up enough versamark for a good resist and maybe the blue I chose was too dark.  The ink itself should have been ok as it was Memento which is the same GinaK used in her tutorial just the next shade dark blue.  Failing that maybe it was a cardstock/moisture issue.  

Maybe I should find some candy have a find the snowflakes competition and the first one that finds all of them wins... like I would be that organized!

Oh and BTW this is One Layer card, I masked the skates and the circle. 

Ingredients-
Card size - 4.25 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest Smooth
Stamps - GinaK "School, Sports, Spirit", Inkadinkado "Warm Holiday Wishes"
Ink - Memento Danube Blue, Tuxedo Black
Copics - B000, B000, B00, C1, C3, C5, C7
Accessories - White Grosgrain ribbon, Sakura metallic silver.