Art Journal Inspiration and Valentine’s Day Cards!

Good evening friends!  Tomorrow is about “LOVE” for Valentine’s Day!  I hope that whatever you’re doing that you spend it with those that you love or at least tell someone how much they mean to you!  I have a special post this evening that is dedicated or inspired by love. ❤️

First up is my art journal page with the prompt/theme of “LIGHT/KEEPING IT LIGHT” that I’m guest hosting this month for the Art Journal Journey Challenge.   It’s been so fun to see all of the wonderful art created so far!

This page was inspired by not just the “light” prompt for the challenge, but it was also inspired by the love of my life.  We have spent many moons together and have enjoyed our time in the moonlight as we both love nature and have spent some time traveling and seeing some beautiful things.  I’m so thankful to have had these special memories with him.

For the background:  I started with a 5.5″x8.5″ watercolor with pre-punched holes at the top with my Zutter machine.  I used my watercolor to create the blue sky background with an idea of where I was going to place the moon.  I left that area to watercolor in the yellow rather than the blue.  I then used some white opaque copic watered down and splattered over top for stars.  The “moon” was die cut in white with a heart shaped die and I added a moon stencil over top to make it look like a heart shaped moon and glued it in the center of the watercolor background.

The bottom portion was made with just ripping some cardstock and ink blending one with the greens and one with greys and black.  I die cut the trees in black and glued them in place and then added the ripped layers over top.

I stamped the Lavinia Stamps “Star Gazers” stamp in black in and fussy cut it out.  I colored the rocks they were sitting on as well as their wings and popped them up on the grey ripped border.  I also hand drew more rocks around them and used a white gel pen to highlight.  I added some glitter to the wings.  Lastly, I wrote over black cardstock with a white gel pen, cut them out and attached to the ripped green border.  I then used a black pen to doodle around the words.

Next up are a few Valentine cards that I’ve made.  I’m actually really bummed because I would’ve shared another two cards that I made, but I forgot to take photos of them before I sent them out!  I used a pizza theme and they were so fun! 

This first one is for my husband and I’ve used the Craft Roulette #201 parameters to create it:

We had to make an easel card, so I decided to make a heart shaped one.  I’ve used the cute skunk from Lawn Fawn with all of the “sweets”. (which was also one of the parameters)  My husband loves his sweets!  I also had to use “quiet” colors and some sort of bokeh, so I’ve made a bokeh background and used a solid heart stamp in white over the blended colors.  It reminds me of those conversation hearts.  This skunk makes me smile!

This is another fun card that I’ve made for a friend!  I couldn’t wait to use this fun mosaic heart from Taylored Expressions.  It came as a freebie for a limited time with a Valentine release.  I like that it comes with the solid heart backer which makes putting it together easier.   I ink blended a panel in two shades of pink and then die cut the heart with the pieces.  I used the frame cut in white and then popped in the ink blended pieces inside the frame.  

The embossed heart background was made after cutting out a piece of Bubblegum cardstock with the postage rectangle die.  I stamped and die cut the sentiment over top of the heart and added some gold rhinestones. 

And this card was done for the Inky Stamper FB challenge which was to create a square card.  I have made this one 4.25″ square and used the cute Snail stamp set along with some Doodlebug papers which you can also find in their store.

I just stamped, colored and cut out the images, added a border at the bottom and cut out a scallop square in white and stenciled some clouds at the top.  More pink papers onto a white square card base and called it done!  There’s nothing better than getting snail mail!

  • I hope you’ve enjoyed my heart-filled post today and you’ve been inspired in some way!  Thanks so much for stopping in and I’ll see you again on Thursday for a new challenge to try!  Happy Valentine’s Day!

Challenges:

  1.  Art Journal Journey – LIGHT/KEEPING IT LIGHT (art journal page only)
  2. Crafty Animals – #80 Anything Goes + animal (skunk card)
  3. Critter Crazy – #83 Anything Goes + critter (snail card)
  4. Pearly Sparkles – Love/Have a Heart (skunk card)
  5. Creative Knockouts – #514 Love/Valentine’s Day (skunk card)
  6. A Place to Start – Monochrome (mosaic heart card – pink)
  7. Aud Sentiments – #310 Dies/Love/Wed/Anniversary + sentiment (skunk card)
  8. Creative Inspirations – For Someone You Love/Special Friend (mosaic heart card)
  9. The Male Room – Valentine/Use a Heart (skunk card)
  10. Crafty Catz – Anything Goes optional: Valentine/Love (snail card)

Art Journal Inspiration-Advice from the Sun

Hello friends!  Back to share more inspiration for this month’s Art Journal Journey challenge theme of “LIGHT/KEEPING IT LIGHT“.  I’m hosting this month’s theme and I’ve really enjoyed seeing everyone’s interpretations with it!  Looking forward to seeing even more!

For the last few days over my way, we actually got to enjoy a few walks outdoors as it has been unusually warm and with some sunshine…finally!  So of course I’m going to go out and enjoy it while it is around!  This inspired my page today:

Now, I’m not sure if the sun gives advice, but if so, I’m thinking there might be a few of these to consider!  It’s hard to read, but inside the circle, I handwrote “Keep it light – Rise to the Occasion – Look on the Bright side – Shine – Keep a Sunny Disposition – Be Brilliant – Set sights high – Renew energy”  I’ve also handwritten with a gold paint pen on the black under the sun ” Light a Path wherever you go“.

For the background:  Started with a 5.5″x8.5″ piece of heavyweight cardstock that was pre-punched at the top with my Zutter machine.  I took a baby wipe and covered the top half of the page with yellow paint.  I then used a “Light Ray” stencil and blended a few yellow and orange ink colors over the painted background.  I also took some gold metallic paint and splattered over the background with a fan brush.  A die cut a circle to place in the center.  The clouds and “SUN” letters were cut out with dies.  I used my printer for the lettering on the clouds and some gold mirror cardstock for the “SUN” letters.

The bottom half of the page is all papers.  I started with a black piece of cardstock sized to fit under the sun rays and then die cut several different green colored pattern papers to create hills layered on top of the black.  (Happy to use some more papers!)  I also found a book page strip and cut it for a “path” in the middle of the hills.  I sponged the edges with some black ink and that’s when the gold handwriting was done.

Thanks so much for stopping in today!  I’m glad you’re here and I hope this has inspired you in some way!  

  • I’ve had a few people that have sent me a message from my contact page on my blog.  If you have contacted me, I’ve replied, but not sure if they’ve been received.  Please check your spam folder to see if it’s there as I haven’t heard back from a couple of people.  Thank you!

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – Light/Keeping it Light
  2. Paperminutes – No cards
  3. Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes
  4. Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media

More Inspiration for AJJ-Be Like a Feather

Hello friends and happy weekend!  I have some more inspiration for you using the “LIGHT/KEEPING IT LIGHT” theme over at Art Journal Journey that I’m hosting this month!  There are so many options to play with as well as inspiration, so hope you can join in the fun!

Loved getting messy with a rainbow watercolor on this one!  I fell in love with these feathers from Taylored Expressions and knew the large images would be wonderful for an AJ page!

For the Background:  Started with my usual 5.5″x8.5″ Canson Watercolor 140# cold press paper that was pre-punched at the top with a Zutter machine.  I stamped each feather with a grey waterproof ink.  I then used my set of Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolor and blended in the rainbow colors over the feathers.  After it dried, I splattered some of the gold watercolor over top.

I then used a large stamp with several words and stamped it second generation over the two opposite corners in the grey ink.  The words at the bottom and throughout the falling feathers were computer generated and cut out.  I inked around the edges and glued them to the page.  I did take a strip of gold mirror cardstock across the bottom and the “feather title” was made into a banner with a layer of grey cardstock behind it.  I added one gold rhinestone to each feather.

  • If I haven’t mentioned why I like to art journal, it’s simply something that gives me the freedom to create any style, any medium and no fear of trying something new as this is something personal for me only.  I don’t give away my art journal pages.  It’s something that I can release in art what comes from my heart and head…and that’s fine with me.  If you haven’t tried it, I encourage you to just have fun with it and let go.

I thank you kindly for stopping by and for your kind words…I truly appreciate any way that you interact with me and I’m glad you’re here!  See you next time!

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – LIGHT/KEEPING IT LIGHT
  2. Try it On Tuesday – Add Some Text
  3. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes

Art Journal Journey Host for February

Hello friends!  I have some really exciting news to share today!🎉  I’m so honored to have been asked to host this month’s challenge for  ART JOURNAL JOURNEY!  The winter months can be not only very cold over my way, but dark days with less sunlight hours can really take a toll sometimes.  I’m always searching for something at this time of the year and so I thought it only appropriate to help with that for this month…

The theme that I have chosen for this month is “LIGHT“.  Light can have so many different meanings and so many different ways to interpret it.  Here are a few examples to get you thinking:
1. sun, moon, stars, candle. lantern, bulb, illuminate
2. colors (subtle or subdued tones or shades)
3. an idea (‘shedding some bright light on a subject’)
4. interpretations (light as a feather, light snowflakes, let your heart be light, let your light shine, etc)

* Please be sure to catch the rules to enter on the left sidebar of the challenge blog* 

Here is my starting inspiration for this month’s theme:

I’ve started my page with a 5.5″x8.5″ canvas paper with pre-punched holes at the top using a Zutter machine. 

For the background:  Pulling out a white, black, grey, yellow and light yellow acrylic paints, I found the center point where I wanted it and painted my yellow spot.  I worked with each color while it was still wet to help it blend together.  I worked outward with the light yellow, then white, then grey and finally the black.  Some of it needed to blended in with the next color, so I just worked it back and forth until I got the look I wanted. 

After the blends were dry, I used the detail brushes to create the light bulb and cord.  I drew/painted the lightbulb in the center of the yellow and worked around from there and lastly added my black cord hanging down.  It’s hard to tell in the photo, but I covered the bulb with a glitter brush pen application to give it sparkle.  (I have never done a page that was completely hand painted…so this was a challenge for sure!)

The Dumbledore quote was added with a white gel pen.  One of my favorite quotes.

  • I hope you enjoyed my approach to the “LIGHT” theme and you’ve been inspired to create something in your art journal today!  I can’t wait to see how everyone interprets it!
  • I will be posting several art journal pages throughout the month with this theme, so please be sure to stay tuned in to see more inspiration with it!

I’m sure you’re used to seeing only one monthly art journal page from me, but this month will be filled with several of them throughout and I hope it helps inspire you to bring some LIGHT to your creation in some way.  

Hope you have a brightly filled day!  Thanks for dropping by!

Challenges:

  1. Crafting from the Heart – Anything Goes
  2. We Love to Create – Anything Mixed Media/Paper Goes
  3. Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
  4. Penny’s Paper-Crafty- Anything Goes

January AJ Page-BRR!

Hello friends!  Hope you’re enjoying your day so far and staying warm!  We’ve just recently survived a very cold below freezing temps in my area, so going outdoors is not that pleasant even bundled up!  So with that, I stay inside and find crafting to be my happy space!  

I’m very excited to be joining with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) for another year of SMASHING OUR STASH!🎉  I love the inspiration that we bring each other as well as accountability for getting those piles of stash used up!  Thank you for joining me again and please be sure to check out the wonderful inspiration on her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with this month’s prompt of “COLD” (anything related to this word):

Of course when I think of cold, I think of my favorite animal…the penguin!!  I pulled out some Lawn Fawn stamps to use on my page today.  Lots of blues and silver and sparkle help with the feeling of cold too!  I have so many sparkly items, so it was great to use some up!

For the background:  I started with a piece of Canson Watercolor 140# coldpress 5.5″x8.5″ pre-punched holes at the top and covered it with blue colored acrylic paints using a baby wipe.  I also went around the edges with a darker blue and then used a number stencil with white paint which you can barely see as I’ve covered most of it up.  I then splattered with white paint using a fan brush for the snow.

  • I also found a cool icicle border and cut it out with my Cricut machine in silver glitter cardstock for the top of the page.  I then used my Zutter machine to punch the holes again and used a corner chomper to round the top edges.

For the bottom:  I used all Lawn Fawn border dies for the mountains and snow hills.  The blue ice water the penguin is standing on is just a straight piece of blue cardstock covered with a glitter brush pen.  I also used Stickles glitter to cover the snow cone that the penguin snowman is holding.

The lettering was done with a Lawn Fawn alphabet die that I ink blended in blues and covered with crystal effects.  I foiled over the “January” word with blue foil and cut it out with a die and placed a couple of silver rhinestones next to it.  This was popped up with foam underneath the “BRR” letters.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today and have been inspired in some way!  Thanks so much for stopping in!

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – It’s On the Calendar (January is COLD!)
  2. Kreativ-Tanten – Snow
  3. Once Upon a Time – Mr. Popper’s Penguin book cover
  4. Penny’s Paper-crafty– Anything Goes with Paper
  5. The Sisterhood of Crafters – Winter Blues

2024 Calendars Completed

Hello friends!  It’s that time of year when we turn over a new year and then realize that we need a calendar to keep track of our days…at least I do anyway!  I don’t feel ready for the year ahead until I’ve got my calendars up and ready to roll!  Usually, I’m ready to go by the end of the year, but I ran out of time with the Holidays, and I had planned on giving calendar gifts which I sent late, but I did get them done!  I still feel in Holiday mode because of this…Ugh!

So this month I’ve been working on several calendars and spending most of my time coloring them up.  It’s been very cold over my way, so I actually enjoyed doing them.  Here are a few sets that I sent out for gifts:

I think these Taylored Expressions Feisty Square Calendar Cards are my favorite!😆  I was laughing at each one as I was coloring them up!  The cards are already printed and makes it easy to get them colored up and attach them to the Desk Calendars.  All of the image cards are blank so that you can use them however.  I decided to just create my own background with each one using my markers in different ways while I was coloring them up.

I gave this set as a gift and wasn’t sure how they would choose to be displayed, so I added a magnet on the back of each one and also included a Walnut Wood Display, so they had a couple of options to use.

This next set was put together the same way I did the calendar above, expect these are the Taylored Expressions Scratch-Off cards.  (This one is not available in the store because I received the entire set with my Advent Calendar purchase.)  I thought these pups and cats were too cute and a perfect gift for someone that has both a dog and cat in their family.

After I colored them in, I added the Taylored Expressions Scratch Off Stickers to cover up the joke punch line.  I then used the TE Square Tear Off Calendar dies to create the design around the edges and a layer of cardstock to coordinate behind each one before placing on the calendar cards.  I also stamped “scratch off” under each card so that the person can scratch off the joke punch line for every month and see a new joke.

I also added a magnet on the back of each one as well as include a Walnut Wood Display so the recipient can choose how to display the calendar.

  • Click on the photos to enlarge on website!

Every year I always get the Inky Stamper Calendar kit that gets put together at the end of each year.  There is usually a number limit on how many are available each year, so if you are interested, you might want to click on the link to get one because I’m not sure how many more there are left.

These were also fun to put together and color.  I chose to stamp my own images and cut them out.  You still get the pattern papers and white sentiment strip with each month.

I absolutely love how this calendar turned out!  I’ve used the Taylored Expressions Friendly Square Calendar Cards and I thought they were so uplifting.  This time of the year positivity is something that is very important to me and can be hard to come by.  The days seem to be gloomy and short with little sunshine, so coloring all of these was great to fill my time with.

For this display, you may remember a calendar I had done a few years ago on THIS POST using the TE Snarky Calendar Cards.  I’ve decided to update that one and used the same display stand to create this one, which is why I prefer using this stand.  It’s nice and durable.

I have gold foiled each card and colored it.  I’ve made a new background display card with a layered stencil and I’ve layered everything with gold foil cardstock.  I’ve got a bag on the back to store my extra cards so that I can switch them out whenever I’d like.  All of the gold shine really catches my eye and is pleasant to view.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my post this afternoon and I REALLY appreciate you taking the time out of your day to leave me a comment.  It means very much to me as does your support!

Have a beautiful day and I’ll see you on Saturday for my first Art Journal Page of the year!

Challenges:

  1. Crafting From the Heart– Anything Goes
  2. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  3. Love to Scrap – Anything Goes
  4. Love to Craft – Anything Goes
  5. A Perfect Time to Craft – Anything Goes
  6. Crafty Calendar – Anything Goes
  7. Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes

New Beginnings at Sparkles Monthly Challenge!

Hello friends!  With January comes a new year and every year people are thinking about everything “NEW” like resolutions, out with old, in with new sort of things.  It seems with cold and snow winter outside; I’ve been doing a majority of my time organizing and figuring out what to toss or keep!  I’m thinking I need a new “for sale page” here on my blog!  I will need to figure that out and update later!

Today brings a new challenge for the start of the year at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge Blog!  For the start of the year and this month’s challenge, we have the theme: NEW BEGINNINGS!  I received a Lawn Fawn gift last year and this is my first time using it for my card today:

Of course, a baby is a wonderful “new beginning”, and I was inspired to use this darling Lawn Fawn stamp set called Elephant Parade plus the Add-On.  I stamped, colored and die cut all of the images to arrange a scene over the arch opening of my card front made with the Lawn Fawn Secret Garden Window die set.

I wanted to keep the colors gender neutral, so I went with mint and yellow type colors.  I blended around the inside edge and white heat embossed the sentiment at the bottom.  I found a very old scrap of decorative paper and ran a stitched cloud background plate die over it.  (I think it’s been retired) This was the background for my window opening.  I added foam tape to the back of the mint card front and attached it to the decorative paper.  Some of the images were glued directly onto the background and some were popped up with foam tape. I’ve added this panel onto a top folding A2 white card base.

I finished out the design with some clear sparkling sequins filled with Stardust Stickles and a few white and black dots with gel pens.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and have been inspired to come join us this month to enter your creation!  I look forward to seeing what you make!  Thanks so much for stopping by as I appreciate you taking the time!  Have a great day!

CHALLENGES:

  1. Simon Says Stamp – Cute Critters
  2. Critter Crazy – Anything Goes featuring a Critter
  3. Time Out – NEW
  4. CRAFT – NEW
  5. My Time to Craft – New in Your Stash (stamps/dies – first used for this card from gift given October 2023)

Happy New Year! Mixing Up with Mixed Media!

Hello friends and welcome to 2024!🎉  I’m looking forward to a year filled with many happy memories and fun!  I’m wishing these things for you as well!  So to get the year started, I’m inviting you to a fun challenge to play along with at the Mix It Up Challenge!

The theme is always ANYTHING GOES with an optional theme of MIXED MEDIA!  With these challenges, you have plenty of time to enter as they run for 6 weeks!  I look forward to seeing what you come up with!  

I know that mixed media can seem a bit intimidating, but it’s only using more than 1 extra medium of any kind on your creation.  I usually do that anyway!  Here’s the card that I came up with for this challenge using the Mixed Media option:

I’m really loving how this turned out!  I’ve used another fun card kit from Taylored Expressions with the Snow Crystals card kit. (no longer available)

Background:  I started by white heat embossing the Swirling Snow Background Stamp over watercolor cardstock.  I used different shades of blue watercolor with a bit of turquoise in there as well.  I spritzed it with water to get the “watermark” look and let it dry.  I then used some Copic opaque white mixed with water and splattered some over top for another layer of snow.  After it was dry, I also filled in the circles with a glitter brush pen.

I die cut the snowflake die in navy and again in white cardstock 3 times.  I layered the navy at the bottom over the background.  The three snowflakes cut out with white were glued together and then I took 2 layers of sparkle silver embossing powder to heat set.  I layered the embossed snowflake slightly tilted from the navy snowflake and attached over top.  I also silver embossed the sentiment over a navy strip and added some “dash marks” with a white gel pen before attaching to the background.

Finished off the card by running the edges of the background panel with liquid glue and then attaching some chunky glitter to the edges.  I also attached a silver rhinestone in the center of the snowflake.  It’s so glittery and shiny in person!

Thanks so much for stopping in today and I hope that you will take the time to play along with us!  Be sure to check out the Mix It Up Challenge Blog for the design team inspiration!  

Challenges:

  1. Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
  2. Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes
  3. Allsorts – Cold & Ice
  4. Crafting Happiness – Anything Goes
  5. Gem of a Craft – Anything Goes
  6. Four Seasons – Winter Season

December AJ Page-Keep Dancing + book and review

Hello friends!  Hope you had a great Christmas and were able to make some wonderful memories!  I can’t believe that we are ready to close out another year!  The time just goes way too fast and there’s so much more to look forward to!  I think the theme for my upcoming year is in this title post – KEEP DANCING!!!🕺

The last Saturday of the month (AND THE YEAR!) brings us to the monthly Art Journal Page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month.  I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” December prompt of “Previous Prompt”:

Since this is the time of the year that we have a “look back”, I thought it would be fun to take one of this year’s previous prompts and come up with a new AJ page.  I chose April’s prompt of “SHINNY/SPARKLY”, and you can catch that page in the photos below or see my previous blog post HERE.

There’s nothing quite shinny or sparkly than New Year’s Eve!  I always think of the ball dropping on Times Square in New York, but it also had me thinking of a disco ball that is very sparkly.  Found this image online and printed it out.  Cut it out with a circle die and then added a bit of colored shading with my markers in grey.  I took a sponge to add glue to the entire ball and then covered it with chunky glitter.   I added some sparkle images and filled them with silver glitter and then die cut the numbers and glued them over top of the ball.

For the background:  It’s just a 6″x9″ black cardstock pre-punched at the top and then splattered with silver watercolor.  I added some music notes and die cut stars.  For the bottom, I used some woodgrain texture paper and cut strips to make a wood floor for the Riley the Moose disco dancer.  A silver metallic paint pen was used for the ball string at the top and the wording around the top of the ball.

I stamped, colored and hand cut the moose and popped him up over a die cut shadow for under his feet.  I typed a quote on the computer and printed it out over silver cardstock.  While it was still wet, I sprinkled clear EP over top and cut rounded corners for the page.  Lastly, I just popped up the glittered ball with foam tape and added some silver rhinestones at the bottom.

  • I thought it would be fun to do a review of all of the monthly pages that were created this year.  I put the months in order below.  (If you are on my website, just click on the photos to enlarge them.)
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November

I pre-punch the holes at the short side of the pages each month and then at the end of the year, I use my machine to bind them together to make a book.  I add covers and decorate them.  There is a post with last year’s book HERE.

For this year, I went with the vertical look and added a stretch cord to keep them together better.  I also tried out the napkin with the cover:

The napkin is at the bottom with the foil marble look.  My husband got some napkins for New Year’s, and I thought I’d try it out.  I added some chipboard, stamped and cut out numbers and added some wooden pieces.  I used the rose papers for the covers on the inside as well as the back of the chipboard covers.  It was put together with my Bind-It-All machine and coils.

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing my Art Journal Journey throughout the year as I sure have enjoyed doing them!  I get to pull from my stash to use, but there is also so much more to use!  So this means that I will for sure be continuing with this journey and I hope you’ll join me too!

Thank you so much for stopping by to have a look back.  Wishing you peace, love and health for the upcoming 2024 year!  See you in the next year friends!!!🎉

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – Above Us Only Sky (New Year’s Eve Ball Drop on Times Square with stars in the sky!!!)
  2. Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes #8
  3. Creative Artiste – Anything Mixed Media Goes with option of Christmas
  4. Alphabet – ‘T’ is for Texture (texture on the top page with woodgrain floor, the chunky glitter disco ball.  Texture on the book with chipboard, wood pieces and paste.)

Lots of Joy Mailed Out!

Hello friends!  I hope that you’re having a great start to your week!  We’re almost there as Christmas approaches us quickly!  I’ve been enjoying the Season and having fun keeping busy.  Currently baking cookies and decided to take a break from that to sit and make a post about all of things that I’ve been doing besides posting!😆

This is just one of the several similar cards that I created for my Christmas cards this year.  It came from a Christmas in July card kit from Taylored Expressions.  It mainly used the Wreathed in Joy Stamp & Stencil Combo set.  There are dies you can cut them out with as well as foilable panels which is shown on this one.

I do not like to make several of the “same thing”, so I’ve changed them up to different colors, layouts, etc.  So you can see the different versions I’ve done below.  (If you are visiting my web page, just click on each photo to see it enlarged.)

 *Apologies for the messy stack for photo taking…it was a lot to do all at once!

Most of these are blue and silver which is my favorite color combination for Christmas colors, so I did about 6 of these.
I think these look the most vintage with the soft tones. Only 2 of these.
These are more traditional looking with the red and greens, plus some were foiled and some heat embossed. There are 4 of these.
These are all pretty similar with the larger wreath used. I changed up the green colors a couple of times. There are 6 of this kind.

I thought these would be enough for all of the Christmas cards to send out, but I realized going back through my list that I wasn’t going to quite have enough. 

So I’m glad that at the beginning of this month I took a Hero Arts Stamp-a-Long and made several different types of Christmas cards.  Here are the results of these below:  (Again, if you’re looking on my web page, just click on the photos to enlarge them.)

background using sprays and coloring die cuts
simple CAS card
northern light mixed media technique
emboss resist background and dimension die cutting
gift tag card with a pocket inside for holding a gift card
reverse die cutting on gatefold card
layering tree stamp and gatefold card
using die cut plate for stenciling
Watercolor CAS projects
using a die cut plate for embossing and masking
mirror stamping technique and rub-on background

So some of these were also taken and used for sending out more Christmas cards.  I’m glad that I did the projects for this class or I probably would not have had enough cards.

BUT WAIT!  That’s not all!  I’ve also made a few other Christmas items that I’ve also sent out.  I’m also sharing some gifts and gift tags that I’ve made from a Taylored Expressions Advent Calendar that I got this year.  I made some more cards and tags.  (I tried out wax melting which is something I’ve never done…it was fun)  Others are from classes I took or participated in Craft Roulette for.

If you’re on my web page, just click on the photos below to enlarge each one.

a craft roulette challenge
another craft roulette challenge
Inky Stamper OOAK class
craft roulette challenge
stencil from my advent calendar
melted wax, tags, pine sprig die and stamp set from advent calendar
I usually make these every year along with a poem on the back for the hot cocoa ingredients. This one is called “Santa’s Soup”. I might add a few other fun items in there as well! The people that get one of these knows to look inside right away!

Wow, so that was a lot!  I know that my blog has been pretty sparse with posts lately and I am finally getting around to posting the things that I’ve been working on, so I hope you’ll get that and you’re able to take some time for yourself this season and enjoy the peaceful quiet moments!

I will be sure to take a moment and catch up with everyone before Christmas arrives.  In the meantime, it’s back to cookie making!  Thanks so much for stopping in today!❤️