Holiday Girls

     My inspiration for this card came from the new Inspiration Avenue (IA) that TAC recently released.  On page 26 of IA there are three really cute projects and two of the projects feature a little girl image from the Holiday Girls stamp set.  I used my Copic markers to color the little girl...love my Copics!  The sentiment is from Tag Tidbits, the red flower is from the Ava Embellishment Jar, and the white flower is from the Neutral Mix Bitty Blossoms. 

Reece Christmas Cards

Here are three more Christmas cards that I made with some of my Reece scraps.  I've made two more 3x3 cards and then another fun size - a 6 x 3. 

I used one of the Reece tags and a large eyelet for this 3x3 card.  What a quick and easy card!  The sentiment is from Trendy Greetings.

 
The stamped images are from Sweet Goodies and I used red stickles on the berries. 

 

On this card I used just a small scrap of Reece paper, added some ribbon, and a sentiment from a Level C Hostess set.  Quick and simple!

Christmas Card - 3

     This is the third card that I demonstrated.  This card measures 3x3 and uses TAC's Reece papers.  The stamped image is from Christmas Circles and the word 'thanks' is from Tag Tidbits.  I have a lot of fun making 3x3 cards because I can usually go to my scrap box for what I need.  I made three more cards from some Reece scraps and I'll be showing those to you tomorrow! 

Christmas Card - 2

     This is the second card that I'll be demonstrating today.  I really wanted to use a white ink for the white snowflakes, but the three different white stamp pads that I have just wouldn't show up very well.  I ended up embossing with white embossing powder.  I love the look, but don't enjoy the mess and hassle.  I used three different stamp sets for this card : Ornamental Snowflakes, Tag Tidbits, and Joyful Ornaments.  My inspiration for this card came from a card I found over at splitcoaststampers.com.  Thanks for stopping by again and be sure to come back to check out some more Christmas cards that I've been working on. 

Christmas Card - 1

     

     Several businesses in downtown Oswego, KS, are having open houses tomorrow afternoon and Taylor Newspapers asked if I'd like to come and demonstrate a few Christmas cards.  I've prepared three projects and I'll show them to you over the next few days. 
     The card shown above features TAC's Amelia paper collection.  It is great paper to use for Christmas cards.  Do you see the the pierced holes just below the patterned paper?  I used the Scor-Pal and the Scor-Bug Embosser to make perfectly spaced holes.  So quick and easy!!  No more measuring with a ruler and making holes with my paper piercer.  I ruined so many projects that way...I'd always get something crooked.  The sentiment on the card comes from a Level C Hostess set in the current TAC base book. 
     Thanks for stopping by.  Be sure to check back in the next couple of days so that you can check out my other Christmas cards. 

Joy Christmas Card

I've got a card to share with you real quick. I'll be demonstrating this card at a FunShop next Tuesday. It's a quick and easy card! I just love TAC's circle stamp sets and how they coordinate so well with the scallop circle and regular circle punches. I used 'Christmas Circles' for this card.

I feel that this card is still needing a little something...I'm not totally satisfied with it yet. What are your thoughts?

The details- I stamped my images with Landscape green Palette ink. I colored the little berries with my red Tombow marker and I added Crystal Stickles to the snowflake in the middle. (you can see it much better in person) I also added some pop dots under the snowflake image to add a bit of dimension.

Supplies-
Christmas Circles stamp set
red and green Bazzill cardstock
Red Tombow marker
white cardstock
Landscape Palette Ink

Crystal Stickles
Giga Scalloped Circle
Mega Circle
1 inch circle
pop dots

Mini Pizza Box

I've seen these little 'Pizza Boxes' on other blogs and I decided to try making one. I used my Scor-Pal and found a great mini pizza box tutorial at the Scor-Pal site. These boxes are so quick and easy to make! I nugget box is still my favorite right now, but the Pizza box is pretty cute, too. :)

Supplies-

Reece SWIC patterned paper
Aqua Bazzill Cardstock
Mega Scalloped Oval Punch
Super Jumbo Oval Punch
Scor-Pal
Gold ribbon
Trendy Greetings

Coaster Ornament

I have TONS of round coasters and decided I'd better start using them! I really like this Christmas tree image from TAC's Joy of Christmas set. I inked the edges of my coaster with Noir Palette ink and then I used my circle Coluzzle template to cut a slightly smaller circle of red cardstock. I glued the red cardstock to the coaster and then I stamped my images with Versamark and embossed with black embossing powder.

Please disregard the '2008' that I wrote on this. I really wanted to put the year on it, but I don't have number stamps that would coordinate wtih this. After I wrote the year, I realized the ink did NOT match the embossing. Other thoughts for this project are to raise the word 'Christmas' up a little higher and then add a photo. I really like the black and white polka dot ribbon. I think it adds a fun touch to the project.

Supplies-

Joy of Christmas

Noir Palette ink

VersaMark

4" Coaster

black and white polka dot ribbon

Black embossing powder

heat gun

red cardstock

Christmas in July

Nicole and I hosted our Christmas in July party yesterday. It was a lot of fun! We each provided three Christmas themed projects for a total of 6 projects for our guests to make. Two of the projects that I did were this ornament and a tag.

The tag uses paper from the Reece collections and the Simply Christmas and Christmas Circles stamp sets. The ornament also uses paper from the Reece collection and the Christmas Circles stamp set. For the ornament, I used the metal lid off the end of a frozen juice container. The Mega Circle 2-1/2" punch punches the perfect sized circle to fit inside the juice lid! And it also coordinates with the Christmas Circles stamp set. It made the project really easy to make. I used the Crop-a-Dile to punch my hole for my ribbon. The crop-a-dile punches through the metal like butter! I may have to use this project with my kindergarten students at Christmas.

Retro Santa

I had time to try out one of my new stamp sets today. It's TAC's 'Retro Christmas' from the Fall Supplement. The images are so, well...retro! They are one-of-a-kind in my stamp set collection. I created a set of these cards for my Etsy shop. I'm hoping to come up with some more cards from this stamp set. I have another free day tomorrow, so we'll see what happens!




Supplies:

Retro Christmas
VersaFine black ink
Apple Green 2 cardstock

misc. red and white cardstock

black eyelets

Prismacolor Watercolor pencils

Tombow Blender pen

Gray Tombow pen

Fun Technique

I had a chance to work at my craft desk the other night and pulled out my 'Camping' stamp set. I forgot that it had these two trees. As soon as I saw the trees, they reminded me of the 'stamping off' technique. The 'stamping off' technique allows you to achieve several shades of color from one ink pad and it also allows you to add depth to your project.

For this card, I chose to add depth to my trees. I inked my tree images with Landscape Palette ink and brushed the edges of each tree with Burnt Umber Palette ink. I firmly stamped the image onto white paper and then, without reinking, I positioned my stamp slightly higher and to the right of the first image and then stamped again. This caused the next set of trees to appear off in the distance. I continued this process across my piece of cardstock. Next, I used a kleenex to rub the Burnt Umber ink along the bottom of the white cardstock and rubbed just a little bit above the trees- just to get rid of the bright white of the cardstock.

This technique was a lot of fun. I honestly don't own very many solid image stamp sets. I tend to stick with open images that I can watercolor. It's kind of fun to step outside your comfort zone every once in awhile. I really should do this more often. :)

Supplies:

'Camping' stamp set

'Tag Tidbits' stamp set

'Ivy' Bazzille cs

misc. white and brown cs

QuicKutz diecut tag
Landscape and Burnt Umber Palette Ink, black ink

Heidie Swapp edge distresser

misc. red ribbon

Christmas Tag

It's time to start cranking out Christmas cards and tags! This is a tag that I'll be teaching at a workshop this week. I cut the tag with a Sizzix jumbo tag die. The stamped images are from TAC's 'Spirit of Christmas' set. It's such a fun set to use.

Speaking of tags...I've been tagged by Nancy Grant. I don't always take part in these, but I'll give this one a try.

The NAME GAME. The name of the game is to list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life, for each letter of your middle name. If you don't have a middle name, use the name you would have liked to have had. When you are tagged you need to write your own blog post containing your middle name and game facts. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged and to read your blog.

Michelle

M- Married...to my best friend, Chris. He and I will celebrate 8 yrs. in November!!
I- Intelligent...so my husband says.... :)
C- Crafty...I absolutely love to craft...always have, always will...
H- Happy...life is good and I'm so blessed
E- (can't think of a thing for 'E')
L- LadyGil...the name of my Etsy.com store
L- Loved...by my kindergarten class...I have a great bunch of kids
E- (same thing....nothing with 'E' comes to mind....)

_________
That was fun, Nancy. I'm not going to pass this one along...my name makes it a little difficult!

I'm so excited! I'm hosting a Christmas Card workshop next week and I just finished up with my card ideas and put them into kits. I've had 13 rsvp's so far...it'll be a full house! I announced it as a free workshop and that I would provide food and drinks. My new year's resolution is to go further with my stamp business. I've been a TAC demo for a little over a year and have done a few workshops, but I'm ready to step it up a little.

The rubber stamps that I used for these cards are from The Angel Company (TAC). http://www.theangelcompany.net/ My favorite one is the Joy card. I've had the circle alphabet for awhile and just hadn't used it.