Surprise Announcement and a Card

🎵🎵I'm so EXCITED and I just can't hide it...🎵🎵anymore.

I made it onto the Krafty Chicks Design Team. Oh yeah, bring out the bubbly 🍷!! I've been holding onto the secret for a while. Ok maybe I told a friend or two. Do you know how hard it is to keep news like this under wraps??

 I can't wait to play with these gals. They are very talented and I'm a little intimidated but I got this. I'm going to be a Krafty Chick Stampin' Up! style starting next week. You can visit their, I mean OUR, blog Krafty Chicks Challenge here to see my INTRO and find some amazing inspiration. I do hope you play along with us. It's a great excuse to get into your craft space and unleash some creativity!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! to all my family and friends and crafty acquaintances. It's time to let go of 2020, and kick it's ass to the past.

I saw this idea (donkey kicking 2020 into oblivion) on Facebook by Lilliam Kemp, known as Stamper's Niche and I thought I'd create my own version. Found an old layout in my Sketch Book: CAS #361 from way back in March 2020 and altered it a bit.

In this photo, are the products I used. Darling Donkeys (item #155264) is a Sale-A-Bration (SAB) product that you can get for free with a purchase of $60. Come on, they're adorable and I know you want it!! The Designer Series Paper, Oh So Ombre (item #155225) is also free during SAB. And check out the Playful Alphabet dies (item #152706) from the Annual catalogue, not sure why it took me so long to buy them. Then, nothing says New Year's like a little metallic, I went with a bit of Gold Foil (item#132622). Finally saying GOODBYE! wasn't so easy. I do not have a stamp, current or retired, with the word "goodbye" so I had to use a journalling pen. Hey it works!

Hope you enjoyed today's creation and you feel inspired to get crafty. Until next time.

Calendar Easel and Post-It Notepad Card

 Good morning everyone and welcome to my blog!

I'm a little late posting this for the Krafty Chicks Challenge #538: CAS. But I'm still meeting the deadline by a few hours. Clean And Simple was exactly that for this week. I followed the free tutorial from Stamping Just For Fun. I also bought my mini calendars from this site. If you would like some, you can find them here. He's very quick at sending them out and if you are Canadian, it's pretty quick in the mail, under a week for me in AB.

Onto my project. I wanted to give something a little special to my Crafty Inkettes United Club Members and a few great customers this year. We didn't get to stamp much together in 2020 but I wanted them to know that I am thinking of them. This idea was shared to me late last year by my dear friend Carla and I made her one too.

I kept it very Clean And Simple but there's definitely a way to jazz that up and have fun with it. I'll be trying that with the few remaining mini calendars I have left.

Did you notice the DSP (Designer Series Paper)?? It's a new product that you can get for FREE in the new Sale-A-Bration (SAB2021) brochure that goes live on January 5th, 2021. I'll talk more about SAB2021 in another blog post after Christmas. Short description: purchase a minimum of $60 from the Annual Catalogue or the new January-June 2021 Mini and get something from the brochure FREE. 

It is called Flower & Field DSP. You can find it on page 10 of the brochure. What? You don't have the brochure?? Contact me, Canadians only, and I'll get one to you right away.

Hope you enjoyed today's little project. And stay tuned for more SAB2021, Jan-Jun2021MC, and new things happening in my little hobby business in the new year.

Happy Stampin' All!

Diane

Cherish The Season With A Gleaming Christmas

 Hello everyone. Hope your day is fantabulous. I had a day off yesterday and got a little crafty.

I’m played along with my friends over on Krafty Chicks Challenge. They are looking for a Christmas themed card in this week's challenge. I’m still in the holiday creating mood so my Christmas/winter stamps sets are close by, the hardest part was deciding which one to play with. I also went looking for a sketch to play along with. My first stop is usually at Freshly Made Sketches. They create clean and simple sketches that are easy to play with and jazz up. As soon as I saw this week's sketch, an idea popped in my head right away.

Here is what came out of that crafty session.

The tag required me to get a little inky. What you do is put a little ink onto your surface. I used my Tim Holtz glass mat but a large clear block would work just fine. The colours I used were Bermuda Bay, Real Red, and Coastal Cabana.

 Spritz a bit of water to get the ink moving. Cover this with a Window Sheet, I think mine is 5x7 and I only use it for projects like this. You can also use a clear plastic sheet from packaging here, recycling is good too and free. Don't move it around, just lay it down gingerly. Carefully pick it back up again, try lifting straight up otherwise the colours might muddle and you don't want that. You can then lay the window sheet onto your card stock and smoosh it lightly. If it doesn't cover your whole background, you can double dip back to your "palette", careful not to muddle the colours. I dipped back into the Real Red only and placed it where I wanted it then, dipped back into the other colours and filled the remaining white spots. Set this aside to dry.

Don't let the remaining ink go to waste. Hopefully it didn't muddle; mine did a bit but not too bad. I did spritz the ink with a couple of sprays then used a Whisper White card stock piece to "mop" it up. This will be used on another card on another day. Clean up your mess at this point. Wipe up your desk/block and window sheet.

Next I wanted splatters; it's a mixed media thing. I started with Coastal Cabana and also did Real Red (not pictured) because it needed a bit more something. First you'll want to cover anything surrounding your card stock. Splatters go everywhere, not only on your project. Add ink to your surface again, spritz with water again, and use your Water Painter to flick specks onto your project. You can tap the barrel onto your finger or run your finger across the bristles (will get dirty finger this method).

And finally, once your card stock is dry, you can assemble your card. I jazzed up my sketch a bit since in a "layers" kind of girl. Layered Real Red card stock behind the retired snowflake DSP and the tag. Also retired is the sliver cord. Stamped the ornament from the Christmas Gleaming stamp set in Bermuda Bay as well as the sentiment. Used the coordinating punch for the ornament and fussy cut the Merry Christmas. I used the middle jingle bell from the Sound of the Season Dies on a scrap Silver Foil sheet. Pop those elements onto dimensionals and voila: I'm done.

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you liked this card and try your hand at creating smooshed background. I'd be interested in seeing your creations.

CAS Congrats Moose

 Today I am playing along with this week’s Krafty Chicks Challenge: Clean And Simple. I’ll admit I’m not very good at this design type. I love me some layers, some technique, something more. And when I do try my hand at it, it takes a good sketch and a bit of time trying out different colours, which stamp set to use, pop this or leave it flat, add a ribbon. Needless to say, I over complicate things.

 I used the My Favorite Things Wednesday Sketch from a long time ago. They are currently on #516, and I used #180. I couldn’t scroll back that far to find it. When I find a sketch I like from a site, blog, Facebook post, or Pinterest, I screenshot it for future use. Hence this oldie but goodie sketch. 

 I knew I wanted to use this retired Dashing Along DSP because I have so much of it. I also used the retired Banner Die. Then I thought the layout was perfect to add the Moose Punch with a little bow. My Garden Green panel was too plain as a solid. I told you clean and simple is difficult for, didn’t I? So I had to stamp this perfect sized tree in the background a few times. The tree is from the Most Wonderful Time Product Medley. To complete my card, I laid everything on a Crumb Cake card base, which I had to control myself to keep it simple. 

I really like the way it turned out. How about you? 

 

Forever Greenery Birthday

 A special card made for a special friend’s birthday. It uses products from the Forever Greenery Suite and the Miura Card Fold. I first saw this fancy fold from a fellow demonstrator and just had to try it. Here’s the link to Debbie’s tutorial.

I just had to show you a close up of the Forever Gold Laser Cut Specialty Paper. It made a quick and elegant matte to the popped up sentiment.

This card needs a bellyband to keep it closed. It’s just an embellished piece of card stock that I wrapped around the card.

In order for the card to stand on display, I added a back panel (5 1/2x4 1/4).

Really hope you enjoyed this card and give the Miura Card Fold a try. It is easy, peasy.

Fall Congrats Slimline Card

Please be patient with me as I’m getting back into the blog world. I’m not tech savvy so I’m starting simple and unadorned until I get my bearing.

As my first post on this blog, I’d like to show you a Slimline card . These are the new rage in card making. And rightly so, especially with Christmas around the corner, it’s the perfect size to stuff cash in it.

 I created this for the winner of a contest I ran through Pizza D’Oro. Since it’s fall, I went with that theme. There are a few retired products used here, like the embossing folder, maple leaf dies, and Congrats die. I also used current products such as the Sunflower dies and the Forever Fern dies for the foliage and a simple label from Tasteful Labels dies to help highlight the sentiment.

And what about that plaid?? Are you a plaid person?? I didn’t think I was, I mean I liked plaid but didn’t go out buying everything plaid but I’m really starting to like it more and more. You can check out the Plaid Tidings 6x6 Designer Series Paper in the current mini August-December catalogue.