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.)

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:

Art Journal Journey – Above Us Only Sky (New Year’s Eve Ball Drop on Times Square with stars in the sky!!!)
Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes #8
Creative Artiste – Anything Mixed Media Goes with option of Christmas
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.)

Snowflakes for {Cupcake Inspirations}

Hello friends! Happy Monday! Hope that you’ve had a wonderful weekend and are ready for Christmas to come! This Friday will be Christmas Day and I’m happy to have everything finished and ready to deliver the cookies and presents to family and enjoy the time with my husband. Hoping that next year will be looking much different too! Are you ready for Christmas or just ready for the year to be finished? 😉

Today is the start of a new challenge over at {Cupcake Inspirations} with the theme of “SNOWFLAKES“! The only difference for this challenge is that it is only lasting for ONE week instead of the noraml 2 weeks. Also, this will be my final post as a design team member for them as well. I have really enjoyed being apart of this team as what’s better with crafting than with a cupcake inspired theme, right?!🧁😋 So I’m sure I’ll be inspired to play along with the challenges in the future as I have been! Hope you’ve enjoyed my creations for this challenge. Here is my “snowflake” cupcake inspired project for today:

I thought it would be appropriate to create a New Year’s themed card for this challenge as I don’t really need to make any more Christmas cards, but sometimes I forget to send out a Christmas card to someone and don’t realize it until later, so that’s when a New Year’s card can come in handy! LOL!

I absolutely LOVE the fabulous slimline dies that Whimsy Stamps has! Such a huge selection of them and I spotted this gorgeous Elegant Snowflakes and Border die and thought it would make some really incredible slimline style cards no matter what color scheme you have in mind! I knew that I first wanted to try it out with some metallic mirror cardstock, and I was also inspired by these gorgeous Gilded Holiday papers from Whimsy Stamps with the snowflakes in gold and black colors. It looked elegant like the die, so I pulled out a strip to fit across the top, but because it’s 6 x 6, it didn’t fit, but I decided to piece the strip together anyway and I don’t really think you can tell that much until you look up closely to know that it’s there.

So, I then layered the gold metallic die cut piece right underneath the strip that was attached to a 3.5 x 8.5 black cardstock layer. There are also a couple of extra snowflake dies included with that border die, so I used them layered together (one in gold and another in black cardstock) on the right side of the slimline design.

To create the sentiment on the card, I used the Whimsy Stamps Happy Sayings Clear Stamp Set and gold heat embossed it along the bottom of the black card panel. I also took the Whimsy Stamps Happy Large Word die and die cut it out in black cardstock several times to layer together for thickness. Before attaching it to the card, I used a gold ink pad and brushed around the edges with it as well as the entire black card front panel before attaching all together. I then layered it over a white top folding slimline card base.

Here’s a closer view of the gold metallic die along with the gold heat embossed sentiment as well as the gold inked edges around the design. I’ve also decided to add some gold Drip Drops from Taylored Expressions in the center of some of the snowflakes as well as a couple of black sequins that I filled the centers with some gold Stickles with.

Of course I think it looks so much more elegant, shinny and sparkly in person as it’s hard to photograph and be able to capture all of the lighting that you see when you’re holding it in your hands!

Hopefully by sharing a few different angled photos, you’re able to see some of these details in this card design.

Please be sure to stop by the {Cupake Inspirations} Challenge blog and come join us with your “snowflake” creations this week and check out the inspiration from the design team whle you’re there! REMEMBER: You have only ONE WEEK to enter! Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Thanks for stopping by today and I’ll be seeing you soon with another post soon!

Challenges:

A Bit More Time to Craft – #130 Anything Goes
QKR Stampede – #410 Anything Goes
Watercooler Wednesday – WWC302 Anything Goes
Cute Card Thursday – Anything Goes
Creative Knockouts – #381 Anything Goes
Crafty Catz – #532 Anything Goes optional: Anything New (new die!)
Allsorts – Sparkle and Shine

Celebrate for a Hoppy New Year!

Happy New Year friends!! Here’s wishing for a very HAPPY, HEALTHY and CRAFTY 2019 to you all!!

So… to be festive and join in on the celebration everywhere, I’ve decided to make a special card just for the occasion! 🙂

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I’ve used this really fun digital stamp called Max and I have used my Prisma Color pencils to color him in with over some Canson Mi-Teintes Pastel paper. I cut him out with a circle die and then ran some glue around the edges with a Nuvo Medium Tip Glue Pen and sprinkled some Copper Jewel Glitter over it. I mounted another circle behind it that I’ve cut out with some Tonic Burnished Rose Mirror Cardstock.

For the background of my card, I’ve used some Adhesive Sheets that I’ve cut out in different sized circles and then added some of the same glitter that I’ve used for around the frog image panel. I cut a few more circles out with the same mirror cardstock as well.

Before attaching the circles, I’ve heat embossed the sentiment over the A2 sized top folding black card base with some bronze Rose embossing powder, which I think matches up beautifully with that mirror cardstock! Right underneath the embossed sentiment, I added some 1/4″ Tear Tape and sprinkled on some more of that pretty glitter that I’ve used all over this card. Then I added all the circles in the background including the frog image panel and cut off the circle part sticking over the edge on the right side.

Taking a closer look at the “party Max frog”, you can see better how he’s colored in and a few other details that I’ve added to him. For the olive shine, I’ve used some Nuvo Morning Dew Crystals Drops and for the “liquid” glass he’s sitting in, I’ve taken the Nuvo Medium Tip Glue Pen and sprinkled some Waterscape glitter over it. I’ve also used the Nuvo Gold Coast Glitter Drops to add a bit of sparkle around Max’s head. (I’m assuming that it’s a bit of “champagne pops” from the glass! Tee Hee!)

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Just like Max here, I’m just as happy to dive right into the New Year in 2019!

Thanks so much for dropping in!! Enjoy your first day in 2019!

Embossing at Cute Card Thursday

Hello friends! It’s time for another Cute Card Thursday challenge this week! We would like to see some “embossing” on your creations this week! You can make it heat embossed, dry embossed or I would say embossing paste would work too! Or you could challenge yourself and try to combine more than one kind! 🙂

We are sponsored this week by All Dressed Up Stamps, so be sure to enter the gallery for your chance to win a prize!! Here’s what I’ve created for this week’s challenge:

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This is such a cute and fun image! I thought it would make a really fun “New Year’s” type of card, so I created with that in mind. This image from All Dressed Up is called Season to Sparkle. I colored her up with Copic markers and then used a gold gel pen to color in her crown. I’ve also taken the Spectrum Noir clear glitter brush pen and colored her dress with it. The sparkle on her wings are liquid glue and loose glitter.

I’ve cut the image out with a Zig Zag circle die and then layered a piece of gold mirror cardstock cut with a circle behind it. I attached the circle image panel over a dry embossed black card front panel that I’ve also wrapped some gold ribbon around and attached the bow to the front.

I also heat embossed the sentiment with some gold EP and cut out a banner strip to pop up over the circle image panel. I cut the tail end to match the card front. This card front panel was layered onto an A2 sized white top folding card base.

Here I wanted to show you a closer look at the image panel and the close-up details of the frantage embossing powder over it. (This is such a fun embossing powder to play with! You have to heat it up from underneath.) You can also see the gold embossed sentiment too. I did take some gold tinsel Stickles and added a few drops around the image for more sparkle.

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