Monday 31 December 2012

Happy New Year!



Wishing you a very healthy and happy 2013!


(Memory Box die cut in white, coloured with copics, McGill punch for fireworks, using holgraph card and copics, unknown clear sentiment)

Sunday 30 December 2012

FS308 - CASing Sabrina


It's been a while since I've played along with Splitcoaststampers' Featured Stamper challenge. This week's Featured Stamper is Sabrina, who has a HUGE gallery - so much to look at and choose from!


I chose this card of Sabrina's to CASE - the 3x3 grid appeals to my 'spreadsheet queen' mind (accountants often have this condition!). I stayed with a blue colour scheme and curvy sentiment but changed the season (in my opinion, now that Christmas is over, spring should arrive!). The flower is from Inkadinkado and the sentiment is from Papertrey.

Actually, as you can tell from the photo, it's a lovely, sunny day here in Toronto - we're going toboganning this afternoon, with any luck, for the last time until next Christmas! lol!

Saturday 29 December 2012

OLW120, LIM99-100 - Baby Needs a Drink!




This week's One Layer Wednesday challenge is hosted by Karen. The challenge is to make a card with a drink on it. This week's Less is More challenge is to make a card with a drink on it.

What is sweeter than a new baby girl (one of my friends had a baby girl right before Christmas), and that girl has got to be drinking some milk, right?

I used MFT's Vanity Plate Alphabet and Papertrey's baby bottle and 'welcome'. The bright pink ink is one of the colours in my Kaleidecolor Berry inkpad.

I hope you've all been having a wonderful break. We've been busy with Christmas and family and now some snow and next is New Year's. I'm not sure how regularly I'll be posting until the kids go back to school, but on Monday December 31, CASology will be revealing the new members of the Design Team and on Tuesday (yes, New Year's Day!), the next Cue Card will be up at 9:00 Toronto time so I'll definitely have something new for you then.


Sunday 23 December 2012

Jingle!


You may know that my church is The Salvation Army, which started in the late 1800s in England with a mission to help (and save!) those in need. One of the very old Army traditions was "Open Air" services - church services held out on the streets. In order to draw attention, The Army developed the bands (which you probably are aware of) and timbrels (or tambourines), which you may be less aware of.

Timbrels are biblical. Way back in the Old Testament, it says "Praise Him with timbrel and dance". Interesting that The Army embraced the timbrel, but shunned dancing! (but that's a whole other story lol!)

And here we are in the 21st century, and playing the timbrel, even in The Army, is becoming a rarer and rarer thing. In order to try and reverse this trend, I volunteered to be the leader of the young girls at our Corps (church) who wanted to learn to play.

This year, our highlight was playing for the General of the Salvation Army at a rally held in Toronto.



Look at those smiles (they had been bribed with chocolate!)

We will be playing on Christmas Sunday at our church. I like to give each of the girls a little gift for Christmas, and this year, along with the usual candy, I will give them each one of these cards (as well as some of the ladies who still play their timbrels) to remind them of how special I think they are, and of the special way in which they are sharing what they believe with those around them.

The stamp is an old Stampin' Up set (God's Children), the silver 'jingles' were cut using Papertrey's Cover plate (circles) die.

Saturday 22 December 2012

CASology 24 - Seeing Stars



This was my other option for this week's CASology Cue Card - Star. Similar in some ways to the one I actually posted in the challenge, but a lot more stars. I wasn't sure it was CAS enough, but I do like it!

I drew the lines with pencil before stamping the stars, then adding the black lines in Copic Multiliner. There are spots of Stickles, to add sparkle.

I hope you'll play along this week! Don't forget the deadline is Sunday at noon (CST).

Friday 21 December 2012

OLW119 - Silver and Blue


This card, for OLW 119 (Blue and Silver) was inspired by this photo on my Inspiration Board on Pinterest:


Página do livro Cartazes Musicais, de Kiko Farkas


I thought it could make a cool abstract snowflake, so I got out my The Craft's Meow Typically Teen set and used the paint swoosh. I rock and rolled the stamp in versamark before inking it up with Marina Mist and stamping it onto Whisper White.  I wanted the silver just on the edges of the snowflake.

What a surprise when this funky Star of David appeared! Perfect card for my daughter's Jewish teacher along with his "Christmas" present of Tickleberry's (chocolate covered blueberries from British Columbia).

This is my first-ever Jewish card (even though it was unintentional). My daughter's school has quite a few Jewish teachers and from time to time, they ask if I make Jewish cards. I haven't in the past (despite owning Mazel Tov, the Papertrey set), because I don't know much about Jewish traditions and holidays  and I would hate to get the colours or symbolism wrong (even now, I'm wondering if it's offensive to offset a Star of David like this - any advice greatly appreciated!).  Maybe this will be the year I sit down with one of the teachers and discuss some designs.

Thursday 20 December 2012

LIM98, DD33 - Golden Anniversary




For this week's Less Is More challenge, to make an Anniversary card, and for this week's Dynamic Duo, Black and Gold.



I was inspired by Shirley's card here. I love this Stampendous Glasgow Cheers stamp, in the style of Charles Rennie MackIntosh (look him up - he's a bit like a Scottish Frank Lloyd Wright, in my opinion). And I use it all the time, embossed in gold for weddings and anniversaries.

I didn't end up doing exactly what I had pictured when I saw Shirley's card, but I do think it's very understated and pretty. I stamped the image in Versafine Onyx and then embossed with clear embossing powder. I then used the small tip of my Versamark marker to colour in the champagne, before embossing it in Enchanted Gold embossing powder - it's a very sparkly, pale gold powder - just perfect for mimicking champagne! Here's a close up:


Wednesday 19 December 2012

OLW119 - Silver and Blue


This week's One Layer Wednesday challenge is being hosted by Heather and it's a colour challenge - Silver and Blue. How appropriate at this time of year!

I played around for a while before settling on this pretty Memory Box snowflake wreath. I embossed it (and the Hero Arts sentiment) in silver and then overstamped with two different sized dots - the larger in Cool Caribbean and the darker in Island Indigo.

I hope you'll play along - it's always so fun to see how everyone interprets the challenge slightly differently!

On another note, Tuesday was a 'strike' day. Our teachers staged a one day walk out to protest a new law that will limit their ability to negotiate and strike, as well as limiting salaries and radically changing sick day policy, among other things. I had two of Kate's friends over for most of the day, as their parents both work.

My friend Kelly Griglione (SOOOOO creative and inspirational - go check her out!) recently posted a tutorial about how to make some simple folded Christmas ornaments, so I quickly reviewed it and got out all the stuff for the girls to make their own. We SUPERSIZED them and used neon paper, adding glitter at the end (should be done earlier in the process, by the way, but we didn't know if we would have time for it to dry!). Here's some photos of the girls working away and the finished products:




Tuesday 18 December 2012

CASology 24 - Star


This week's CASology Cue Card is Star!



I love Christmas, and I'm really looking forward to it, but I admit to becoming a bit 'done' with making Christmas cards, so I was happy to interpret this cue card in a non-Christmas way!

This is an old Michael's sentiment, masked so that the row of stars could fit in between the words. The precise angle of the stars was achieved by drawing a vertical line on the panel and then stamping them straight up and down from the top and from the bottom, before turning the panel on the side and adding the tiny little sparkly star (Stampin' Up Silver Glimmer Paper, cut from a Martha Stewart border punch).

Now it's time for your star to shine! Show us what 'star' means to you!

Don't forget to link up by Sunday at noon (CST)!

Here are links to the blogs of the other members of the Design Team - check out how they interpreted 'star' this week:




 
and this week's Guest Designer: Elise

Monday 17 December 2012

OLW118 - Flurry of Fun



Toronto was dismal and grey this weekend, which always challenges my already limited photography skills! This is a quick card for this week's One Layer Wednesday challenge, Snowflake, hosted by Cheryl.
 
For this simple card, both stamps I used are old A Muse Artstamps stamps. I used my Spectrum Kaleidecolor inkpad and some Stickles for sparkle.

Sunday 16 December 2012

US189, CCC23 - A Gift on the day that got away....


 



Saturday got away from me - by the time I got around to thinking about cardmaking, it was already starting to get dark. So I dug around and found this card I made a while ago, but never posted. It was inspired by a sketch in an old Papercrafts magazine. It qualified for this week's Unscripted Sketch:


I stamped the stripes (Papertrey Faux Ribbon) using each piece of my Spectrum Kaleidecolor ink pad. The gift image is from My Stamp Box. (don't forget there's still a few hours to play along with this week's CASology Cue Card - Gift)!



I'm hoping for a little more crafting time in my craft room on Sunday, but after the hurricane of making over  200 cards for various people last week, what it really needs is a good tidy up!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Saturday 15 December 2012

M(ilit)erry Christmas?


Yesterday as I was taking my walk, I saw a display in a window of 3 big red stars. My first thought was that it was very festive, but then I got a USSR-military feeling and I wondered how appropriate it would really be as a Christmas card.

And then I remembered that I have a son for whom this design is PERFECT. He's a member of the Royal Canadian Air Cadets and loves all things military. And yesterday, I bought him a new pair of shoes in size 11!!! My husband's feet are not much bigger than that, and Struan still has a few years of growing!

Anyway, I stamped the stars in Cherry cobbler, and then again, slightly to the left, in London Fog, to create the 3D effect. My favourite Stampabilities sentiment is perfect because it is all in caps, but not too serious. I added a simple frame cut with my square nestabilities to break up all the white (did you ever think I'd say that?)

PS - no problems with W8 so far (except that some of the keys on the keyboard are different and mysterious). Still, it will take a bit of time to get used to the little changes in how to do things. On the upside, Photoshop is WAY faster, so that makes me very happy!

Friday 14 December 2012

Volunteer Thank You Sets




One of the teachers at my daughter's school asked me to make sets of thank you cards for the volunteers she coordinates. This is the last big batch of cards I need to make before the holidays (phew!)

She needed 7 sets, so I made 8, so that I could give one set to her.  I spent Thursday making these sets of cards, which she will need first thing Friday morning as the volunteers start their final weekly shifts before our winter break.

Here's my advice for keeping the process efficient:

1) Start with Stampin' Up!'s precut 3.5x5  notecards - they come in sets of 20 with matching envelopes. They are made of Whisper White, which I generally find to be quite flimsy, but in this small size, they're pretty good. This reduces cutting time.
2) Make 8 each of 10 designs. This reduces design time.
3) Use or adapt designs you've used before. Another reduction in design time. (some of these probably look familiar to you!)
4) Make the designs one-layered.
5) Minimize stickles (they take a long time to dry)
6) KEEP YOUR HANDS AND WORK AREA CLEAN! (don't ask how I know this)

If you want the card recipes, click here to go to my splitcoaststampers gallery, where I've listed all the supplies used.

Happy Friday everyone!


Thursday 13 December 2012

CTS9 - Happy Birthday, Felix


For this week's CAS(E) This Sketch challenge:



I needed a birthday card for my nephew Felix, who has just turned 6. I turned the sketch around to see what I could come up with, and on its side, I immediately thought of race cars. I wanted to personalize the card, but still stay true to the sketch, so I added his name in iridescent embossing across the top (can you see it? It's tricky to photograph!)- a subtle touch that makes it special, but without cluttering the front panel of the card.

The car is Inkadinkado , the exhaust is a sun ray stamp from Practicing Creativity Designs, the 6 is from Impress, the sentiment is an old Lizzie Anne Designs stamp and the "FELIX" is the Tall Solids Alphabet from My Stamp Box. I used Kaleidecolor Desert Heat for the orange stamping.

I hope you'll play along - I can't wait to see where this sketch takes you!


Wednesday 12 December 2012

OLW118 - Snowflake Geometry


This week's One Layer Wednesday challenge is being hosted by Cheryl and the challenge is to use snowflakes.

For this hand-drawn/stamped snowflake, I went back to math class and got out my ruler and protractor and measured angles. I drew the 12 lines in pencil first (6 long and 6 short), then I got out two little easily forgotten stamps from Paper Smooches' Sugar Rush set (an empty circle and a teardrop) and stamped them over the pencil lines. Finally, I got out my Copic Multiliner and the ruler and joined up the shapes before erasing all the pencil, colouring with Copics and adding tiny dots of Stickles in each teardrop.

On another note, my husband came home with my early Christmas present last night. It's a new computer with Windows 8 (I've been playing around a little with it in the stores - it looks SO COOL!). My current computer is almost 10 years old and has been in serious decline for the last little while. I'm excited, but nervous - I have no idea how to move to a new machine and very little idea about how my 'work routine' will look once I'm using Windows 8. If you don't hear from me for a few days, you'll know why! (Don't worry, my CAS(E) This Sketch card for tomorrow is scheduled - hope you'll play along!)

Tuesday 11 December 2012

CASology 23 - Gift!


This week's CASology Cue Card is Gift!




For a while now, I've been thinking about the idea of a black and white Christmas card - wondering if it was too stark and not festive enough. But I think for this wonderful, thoughtful image/sentiment stamp by Kathy Davis for Inkadinkado,  it's very appropriate - especially with just a pop of silver to add a little sparkle.

Of course there are many types of gifts - and now it's your turn to show us your gift of creativity!

But before you do, drop by and see how the other members of the Design Team  interpreted this week's Cue Card:




Monday 10 December 2012

US188 - Happy Birthday to the Music Teacher




 I'm so excited to have been chosen as one of the Top 3 at last week's Unscripted Sketches, for this card.  It was my first time playing and I really love how everyone interpreted the sketch differently, to make it their own.

For this week's sketch:


I turned the sketch on its side and went with an idea that's been in my head for a while. I love to make music cards for musical people and this will be perfect for Kate's piano/vocal teacher (once I find out when her birthday is!). I used the candle from Paper Smooches Hey Sugar set and drew the lines with a ruler. The sentiment is from Hero Arts.


Sunday 9 December 2012

LIM97, OLW117 - Snow in Rows


During the Christmas season, I take a few turns standing at The Salvation Army Christmas Kettles at our local mall. It is a wonderful opportunity to help out a charity very close to my heart (The Salvation Army is my church, as well as the second largest provider of social services in Canada, after the various levels of Government).

It is also a wonderful opportunity to people watch! I admit it - I love looking at what they're wearing, what they're carrying, how they've done their hair. Hey, we can't be serious and grown up all the time! lol! And I do try to be kind in my thoughts!

Long way of saying that this card was inspired by a bag someone was carrying last Wednesday.

I added Stickles to the centres of the grey snowflakes for sparkle (stickles make other colours of Stampin' Up ink change colour) and I will link this up to this week's  Less is More challenge, "In a Row" (I hope it's ok that I have more than one row!) and also this week's One Layer Wednesday challenge - Snow, which is being hosted by Susan.

For my row placement, I actually drew a graph on the front of my card, lightly in pencil, and erased it afterwards.  Even with clear stamps, it's not always easy to get the positioning perfect!

Saturday 8 December 2012

Inspired by Happy Dance!



As I was cruising blogs yesterday, commenting on CASology and CAS(E) This Sketch entries, I came across this card by Happy Dance:



I love the her use of the circles and it reminded me of this wreath card I made last Christmas, before I started MASKerade. And that made me happy, because I didn't have time to make a card on Friday (PD Day for the kids, so no crafting time!)

On another note, some of you have been asking me about my Christmas card orders. I made 134 cards for our Church to send to each family (I made these 12 at a time throughout the year, and if you want to see them, you can search using the label Church Christmas). Then I made 80 of these for a friend:



For the message, I used Melon Mambo embossing powder (rather successfully, I think (I was surprised at how well it showed up on the Night of Navy!)) and then I coated the snowflakes in glitter by putting a strip of 2" sticky strip on to melon mambo before cutting the snowflakes with my Cuttle Bug. Then I just peeled off the liner and popped them into the glitter. I used Lawn Fawn's Harold's ABC's - so easy because it's a fun font and straightness is not required! I embossed "from the Taylors" 80 times and then "Merry Christmas" 80 times. Another reason to love that alphabet is that it has 3 r's - someone was clearly thinking about how an alphabet would be used in real life situations!

Here's what my desk looked like:


Now I have 32 photo cards to make for another friend, and about 100 non-Christmas thank you cards for on of the teachers at my daughter's school to give to the breakfast club volunteers. Another busy weekend ahead!

Friday 7 December 2012

ATCAS2, CTS8 - Merry Christmas






I had so much fun yesterday with this week's CAS(E) This Sketch challenge:



that I decided to use the layout for my entry to this week's Addicted to CAS challenge - Bauble.

This stamp is from an old Stampin' Up set called Park Avenue Patterns. The sentiment is from Hero Arts and is stamped in Versafine Onyx and then emossed with iridescent embossing powder, to match the stickles on the strings.

December 19 - Edited to add:

This card was chosen as one of the top 3 at ATCAS!


Thursday 6 December 2012

Wow!


This is turning into a fantastic day. Not only did I take the risk of highlights and a cut at a new salon in town, (and was happy enough that I didn't come straight home and get into the shower), AND I'm now on the design team for CAS(E) this Sketch (see today's earlier post), but Cath, the Trends Editor at Papercrafts Magazine chose this card as one of her favourites in this post!

So. Cool!


CTS8 - Happy Birthday!


I have BIG news! I'm now on the CAS(E) this Sketch Design Team! Isn't that just AWESOME? What an honour to be working with these talented and wonderful women. Seriously, go check it out if you haven't before! I'm just so excited!

Here's this week's sketch:


I used a Michael's sentiment (Versafine Onyx and iridescent embossing powder) and Papertrey's Super Stripes to make this very simple card. I hope you'll play along this week!

Wednesday 5 December 2012

OLW 117 - Snow!


Susan is hosting this week's One Layer Wednesday, and the challenge is snow! And that theme goes perfectly with the colours from this week's Colour Q:



This swooshy snowflake stamp is from Kitchen Sink Stamps - I spent a bit of time looking for it on line, but they don't seem to carry it anymore (or am I wrong about who makes it?!). I did add some Stickles for sparkle (are you playing along with CASology this week? hint, hint!) but they seem to have disappeared in my photo. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.

On another note, I feel I am going to have to lodge a complaint with the City of Toronto. The lighting they've been providing this week has made photography very difficult. Unfortunately, our Mayor probably does not have time to 'fix' this situation as he is busy appealing the ruling kicking him out of office due to a conflict of interest. Which was in addition to the fact that he ordered a city bus to go pick up the high school football team that he coaches when their game was cancelled. Which is in addition to having to spend time defending himself in a libel suit for accusing someone of corruption when he had absolutely nothing but a 'bad feeling'. And on it goes.... Don't get me started - I assure you that I did not vote for this man. Ah, politics!

In the meantime, any advice on light boxes? Do you use one? Which one? Do you like it? What would you change about it?

Tuesday 4 December 2012

CASology 22 - Sparkle

This week's CASology Cue Card is Sparkle!



You'd think that Sparkle would be easy for me. Pretty much every card I make has stickles on it - sparkle is one of my favourite things in the world! Maybe that's why it was difficult for me - trying to narrow it down to just one card!

In the end, I went with the sparkliest thing I own - the Silver Glimmer paper from Stampin' Up (it's gorgeous!). I simply cut out a Cuttlebug snowflake and added a few circles. To make it pop, I placed it on a black background - going for the elegant look!

Now it's your turn to sparkle!


Don't forget to link up by noon, CST on Sunday, December 9. And hey, while you're at it, if you love CASology, why not  thinking about joining the Design Team - Melissa has posted the details on this post.


Here are links to the blogs of the other Design Team members - don't forget to go see what they came up with!





Monday 3 December 2012

US187, LIM96, DD31 - Poinsettia


For three challenges:

Unscripted Sketches 187: (which my friend Geri plays along with - go check out her card for this challenge along with her other work - it's all amazing!)






and this week's Less is More challenge, which is also to use green and red.

I used my Uniko geometric flower to make a poinsettia. First, I coloured it with Copics. But I wasn't happy with the coverage and wasn't sure how to make the black centre yellow. So I turned to my favourite embellishment - Stickles, and just coloured it in. And then waited overnight for it to dry (that's always the hard part for me!)

And then it started raining. And it didn't stop, so there was not much light for this photo.

Don't forget to drop back tomorrow for this week's CASology cue card. (I'll give you a little hint - this card would qualify!)