crafting this and that

Hi!  Just wanted to share a couple of more mitten ornaments/tags that I made for Cheryl's kids.  Mitten dies are from Spellbinders and the snowflakes from MFT's Die-namics dies.  The snowflake dies are so delicate but I really love how detailed they are, especially the smallest one.  I really had to take care not to pull too hard on the smallest one since it was felt and if I tugged too hard, it would break. Here's close up of the smallest snowflake.  I tried not to make this one too girly. This is the reverse side.  I just die cut their initials in felt also.  I love the lace too. The finished product/packaging.  My 3 kids also decorated their own mittens since they were on vacation.  The boys even wrote down their Xmas list on a piece of paper and stuck it in their mittens.  My daughter never knows what she wants.  She's always been that way.  She never asks us to buy her anything, not even toys when she was younger....

Hi!  So I guess the theme this year was calendars!  I made a whole bunch.  Last year I made a whole bunch of little notepads and note cards for Christmas gifts.  This took me a while to do.  I made some for teachers, friends and family.  Above is the CD insert using the PTI Calendar Basics set. The teachers' ones looked like the one above.  I used PTI's Teacher's Apple stamp set.  The calendar pages are die cut with their calendar die and all the individual calendar pages are from PTI also.  A lot of cranking of the Big Shot. This was the first teacher calendar I made.  It was also the last one to use patterned paper cause after doing all this I couldn't fit it into the CD case!  It was too thick.  So only a few pages will fit at a time in the CD case if you embellish too much.  That's why I decided to just stamp on the cardstock instead. I made a couple of sets using PTI's All About You stamp set with fresh snow i...

Hi!  Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  Our kids were so very excited.  They unwrapped all their gifts but are still in the process of opening and playing with each of their new toys.  I even got to venture out and do some after-Christmas sale shopping.  Maybe I should have just stayed home but I really wanted to take advantage of the sale at Hallmark.  I love to collect those ornaments.  I had to do some squeezing in at the store cause it was really crowded.  After just a handful of stores, I was ready to come home.  I remember the days I could walk the entire mall and spend my whole day there.  That is not the case these days. Just a simple card to share today.  It was for one of my daughter's teachers.  Stamp is from Claudia & Co. called School Time Lucy.  She's a cutie! Well, I'm gonna get to some cleaning and organizing so I can start crafting again.  Thanks for reading and have a great week!

I needed a card, so I borrowed the Club Anya sketch for this week . Although I didn't use a TGF stamp so I'm not posting it to the gallery. I pretty much used just PTI cardstock and paper. The stamped number was from 7 gypsies, it came out a little crooked and spotty, but oh well. I mostly wanted to play with my new Sizzix edger dies, although most of it is covered up. Again, sentiment from PTI's birthday basics. I don't know how people stamp nicely using the white ink, sometimes it looks like I put too much ink, or if I press too hard when stamping, the letters look a little smooshed too. I tried some diamond glaze on the circles to make them look raised and/or epoxy like. Problem was there were air bubbles so it's not completely smooth. Maybe I was shaking it around too much beforehand because the tip always gets clogged and I have to stick a pin in it. Eva, I don't know how your kids don't get into your craft things and mess stuff up. This is my son...

If you're familiar with PTI, then this card might look familiar also.  Debbie Olson of Thinking Inking had made the sweetest card so I had to case it too.   The little birdie comes in the Tiny Treats Christmas set. A little close up of the birdie.  I added some stickles to his cap. I think I am finally done with my Xmas list and with wrapping presents.  My problem is that when I see a cute idea or project I try to think of every single person I can make that for which explains why I mass produce so much.  Like the little hats, I have to make it for almost every little girl on our list.  I have to tell myself that I can give it next year too.  So I was going to make some little school scrapbooks too this Xmas but just don't have the time or energy to mass produce those.  So I'll save that for next year.  I haven't even made our Xmas photo card this year!  I'll send out New Year's cards and start a new trend. Well, I wanted to ...

Hi!  For some reason this font seems huge but I think it's the same as usual.  Everything looks different since we've changed our computer.  So I also had to reset my watermark but I don't have that cute font I used to have before.  For now, this will do.  Anyway, for Xmas I also crocheted some little hats.  It's the same pattern as the one I mentioned in this post .  Since the hat looked a little girly, I thought I'd pick some pinkish yarn instead and decided to give these hats to some little girls on our Xmas list.  I actually made 6 of these but already packed up 2 before I took this picture. I hope the hats fit!  But the yarn is stretchy so it should conform to their heads.  The yarn is a recycled organic yarn too that I bought at Lion Brand Yarn online.  Here's the hat on my daughter's doll.  Fits her nicely even with all that hair she has.  Hope you're all done with Xmas shopping!  I'm still finishing u...

This is probably the last Christmas card I will make since Christmas is nearly upon us. I finally used a Hero Arts card for the base. I should have used one sooner because it's nice and white on the inside to write a message. This year I have been reading along with Tim Holtz's 12 tags of Christmas and in the video, he was demonstrating a neat way to ink the embossed image with ink directly on the embossing folder . Except I didn't visualize it correctly and actually inked the back of the Cuttlebug snowflake folder, oops! Luckily the ink wasn't too dark and I could just turn it over to use the other side for my card. I also tried the distress ink as embossing ink with clear embossing powder for the sentiment which I also saw on a Tim Holtz video somewhere. The candy cane is a Sizzlit, don't look too closely, the leaves and berries were hard to cut out nicely for layering. I colored the candy cane stripes with a "cherry" marker, I didn't realize it was ...

So I made a few more quick Christmas cards. I don't usually buy too many Christmas themed things because I don't typically make things to give away at this time of year. Even all those well intentioned Christmas layouts are still in the "photos have been downloaded but not printed" stage. Maybe one of these years I will try a December Daily album ... that I should probably start preparing in January. But for now, this is about all I can do. Last year I bought some clearance Sizzix dies (which I almost forgot about until I was cleaning my craft area) and now I have some Hero Arts Christmas stamps. The huge snowflakes are supposed to be ornaments, but since they were so huge, there wasn't much more to add to decorate a card. The green paper is from a Christmas paper pad from We R Memory Keepers that I got during their Black Friday sale. I inked the edges of that and the snowflake with some distress ink, it might have been Frayed Burlap. Then I added a "h...

Hi!  Here are some mitten tags I made from Spellbinders mitten dies.  One side has the red felt and the other some PTI cardstock so we could write the names on.  I used Liquid Stitch to glue the mittens together and the snowflake.    The red felt I just bought at Ben Franklin.  It cut pretty well.  The snowflake is the medium sized one from My Favorite Things Die-namics dies.  I used PTI felt for the snowflakes.  I tried using less expensive felt but it just wouldn't cut cleanly even when I tried to fatten up the layering recipe on the Big Shot.  Even with the PTI felt I used a sheet of cardstock to cut the snowflake out nicely.  I used some ribbon for the trim and red baker's twine.  I colored some clear bling with my red copic pen for the center of the snowflake. On the reverse side of the mitten, I used PTI's Tiny Treats Xmas set (I use this set a lot!).  I thought the mittens matched so nicely.  I added some ...

Well, no snow for us here, of course but I still love this little stamp from Milton & Co.  I made this card to take a break from my calendar making.  He was fun to color and I got to play with flower soft.  The sentiment is from PTI's Tiny Treats Xmas set. And what a cute birdie! This will be a short post.  I'm off to finish some gifts for the kiddies' teachers.  Only 2 more days of school left!  Thanks for reading and hope you're having a great week!  

My first completed calendar.  I love taj characters--they are so cute! Originally, the calendar came like this huge rolled up sheet.  I got 3 of them for free when I made a recent purchase at their store.  Every year I think the calendars are so cute but I don't know what to do with them cause I don't have a large enough space to hang it up.  This year I decided to cut each month out and attach to an easel card.  Click on the photo above to see a closer picture of each month.  I like the sentiment--very fitting for the paper and for a calendar, I think. The calendar was rolled up for so long that I had to smash it down after I cut the months out under a heavy container for a couple days.  Then I just put some glue on top so the pages would tear off.  The only thing that throws me off is that for January 2011 they have the "year of the tiger" since they print their 2010 shirt designs on the 2011 months.  2011 is the year of the rabbit. ...

Hi!  Here are the mittens we made for my daughter's class.  Twenty-seven pairs in all.  My daughter placed 2 mini candy canes in each mitten.  Usually we don't give goody bags for my daughter's class cause now that she's in the 4th grade, I'm thinking they're not too into those kinds of things.  But my daughter really wanted to make something for her class and this was relatively inexpensive.  Time consuming, yes, but expensive, no.  Basically, I would cut and glue at least 10 pairs of mittens for 5 nights and then slowly also stitch them one pair at a time.  My older 2 kids got to glue on the rick rack felt pieces but they had to use a lot of Elmer's glue.  Even then, some wouldn't stick very well so I'd have to go back and use the Liquid Stitch.  I hung some on the tree to see how they would look.  I think our tree is already dying.  What's the secret to keeping a tree fresh? I made a few extra pairs of mittens.  Tha...

Hi!  Thought I'd take a break from all that mitten making to make a card.  I missed coloring and putting together cards so instead of going to bed, I decided to put together this birthday card following ACLP's sketch challenge .  Plus I really wanted some crafting time especially after chasing around the 3 kids today.  I needed a break!  I used Claudia & Co.'s Party Time Noah which was an Xmas release but thought he looked so handsome all dressed up that he could go to any kind of party.  And I think he looks kind of Asian with his cute bowl haircut.  Paper is from SEI and I used the birthday embossing folder from Cuttlebug.  Well, I'd better go to bed before I regret it tomorrow.  It's another long day.  And I have to begin the next phase of my Xmas mass production madness--calendars.  Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Hi!  So I  haven't blogged in a bit cause I've been busy making all these mittens.  And this is just for my son's kindergarten class.  I have yet to finish up my daughter's class.  I made 22 pairs of mittens for my son's class.  I first saw this on a Splitcoast Stampers tutorial .  I had some leftover inexpensive felt and lots of white yarn.  I did end up buying more felt, yarn needles, and something called Liquid Stitch from Walmart cause I don't yet know how to use my sewing machine.  So all the mittens were first glued around the edges (wait 24 hours to dry with something heavy on top) then hand sewn.  My daughter helped sew too!  The Spellbinders mitten dies are super cute.  There are small ones too like the ones I used above to stamp the child's first initial and the year using Just Rite Stampers.  I crocheted the handles too, just a simple chain stitch and tied them on so it can be hung like an ornament.  The ...