Been meaning to do a little giveaway to one of my previous commenters with no warning - just as a thank you for taking the time to leave me a message. Thought I would share 20 Fantastixs...
I used these in my video the other day and just love them. They are great for applying ink, chalk... just about anything. You can get more info about them HERE. And the lucky winner is... Linda! I emailed you.
Hope you all had the merriest of holidays. We are still celebrating. Love spreading it out. Today? My mother-in-law's birthday celebration.
Just a quick share today using two of my favorite companies - Hero Arts and Papertrey Ink. I stamped the leaves and added highlighting with colored pencils. I then used gems to create a flower. After making the card, it seemed too "cutesy"... so I roughed it up a bit by fraying the edges of the stamped piece with my paper edge distresser from Tim Holtz.
Supplies: Papertrey Ink leave stamp, Hero Arts greeting stamp and gems, corner rounder, Tim Holtz paper distresser, colored pencils
Hey... are you on Facebook? If you are, be sure to follow Hero Arts HERE. Lots will be going on there.
Off to do legos with the kids. All of our kids - ages 3, 12 and 14 - still LOVE legos. BIG time. Such a great toy.
See you soon! (Have more Card Drive prizes to share - working on them. They are good!)
And Happy Birthday to my mom, my mother-in-law and sweet baby Jesus. I love you all more than you know.
Since you are all my dear to me, I wanted to share my family Christmas greeting with you...
Supplies: Incredible photos by Lisa Russo Photography, snowflake digi elements by Hero Arts, Hero Arts metallic decor, twine and a lot of time assembling.
I created the card in Photoshop and printed them at 5x7. I matted with cardstock, added a twine bow and metallic decor gems. For me, this didn't save time, as I am a slow mover. But I had fun doing them anyway.
Merry Christmas, everyone. I pray your day is filled with lots of joy.
Before sharing, I have a quick confession: I am extremely behind on email. Extremely. (Unread emails in my inbox? 1416. Yikes.) I will be catching up on them after the holidays when I am at my in-laws. But, in the meantime, if you need something, please email me again. Sorry and thanks! Oh, and I will be sharing more Cards for Kids prizes next week, too.
Thought I would pop in to share a quick couple of cards. I have two friends who recently had baby boys and I wanted to take a different spin on their baby cards with these cute whales. The background is Cuttlebugged, sanded and then I made some of the white resulting dots blue with a marker. Fun.
Supplies: Hero Arts greeting, Martha Stewart felt sticker, Cuttlebug, Hero Arts notecard and pearl, Copic Makers, corner rounder.
Off to make more cards. Will be back tomorrow with a holiday giveaway. Night!
I am totally exhausted from making so many cards yesterday and today... but I wanted to stop by before heading up to bed. I have about 60 more cards to do tomorrow for gifts - oh my!
Anyway, I have a winner from the Blog Hop on Friday. The lucky one is Cariena Basson! I emailed ya. Thanks!
I thought I would share something quickly. This was a reject unused piece from a project I did a few weeks ago so I decided to turn it into a card for my hubby. The flower was fun to create. I first covered watercolor paper with Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink and then sprayed it with a Perfect Pearl and water mix. After drying, I punched a bunch of hearts from the paper and inked the edges. Finally, I assembled them into a flower... I so wish you could see the shine on it. The rub-on is a favorite of mine from Lily Bee.
Supplies: Tim Holtz Stamp, Lily Bee rub-on, Distress Inks, Perfect Pearl Perfect Pearls, Stampin' Up Punch, sewing machine
So... I hope you are all ready for the holidays. Anyone else done with their shopping but still have things to make? I love it, though... I gotta admit. What gets me every year: my mom and my mother-in-law both have birthdays on Christmas Eve. (Cool, huh?) And they are two I like to make gifts for... thus the many I have to do tomorrow. :)
I am so excited! It is the first Hero Arts blog hop, in celebration of our new 2010 catalog! I have a few things to share with you today, including a video and a prize. Talk about celebrating! (Oh, and if you want to do some spending, click HERE for all the stamps at 2Peas :)
First up, here is the video showing how to do Pearlized Stamping with new Hero Arts stamps, Distress Inks and Perfect Pearls. Lovin' this technique. Unfortunately, you have to see this card in real life to really capture the shine - photos just don't do it.
Next up, I did a super quick candle with this Silhouette Grass stamp. You can see on the bottom of it that I dropped it and put a dent in it. Nice, huh? So I will put it on a candle stand with some rocks around it. Quick and easy. Just stamp the image with Distress Ink on tissue paper (for wrapping) and lay on the side of a candle. Heat it gently with a heat gun and the tissue paper gets surrounded by wax and looks great.
Next, I thought I would use this fun Row of Houses stamp to make a little onesie for a friend who is having a little boy soon. Keep in mind - Colin helped me stamp the houses, so they are a bit smudgy, but the gift is from him so I wanted him to make it. :) So fast and easy!
Supplies: Hero Arts Row of Houses (new) and alphabet. Staz-On ink (for letters). Versacraft Ink (for houses).
Next up, I just had to use the gorgeous butterflies from the Antique Engravings set. I am in love! These butterflies will be part of a set of cards I am making as a Christmas gift for my mother-in-law. (I told her not to visit here for a few days so she doesn't see them.) I haven't decided what the cards will look like, but I went ahead and colored and cut out a bunch for now. I will share the completed cards when they are done. Aren't these delicious? I just stamped a ton on paper and colored in very sloppily and quickly with Copics. Yummmm...
Supplies: Hero Arts Antique Engravings butterflies (new) and Copic Markers. And a good movie to keep me entertained during coloring and cutting. Four Christmases - it is a good one!
I can't tell you how excited I am about all these new products. Can't wait to show you them all!
In the meantime, as a thank you for joining us in this blog hop, I have a $35 gift certificate to 2Peas to give away... so that you can buy some new Hero Arts stamps. Woohoo!
For a chance to win, just leave me a comment on this post telling me what your favorite new 2010 stamp is from the hop today. Do so by 11:50pmEDT on Sunday when I will pick a winner of the gift certificate.
NEXT UP ON THE HOP... I have the honor of linking to the fabulously fabulous Deborah Nolan. I highly recommend bookmarking her blog. Not only is she talented, but she is incredibly funny.
I know people were a bit uneasy/sad/unsure about some of the changes happening in the new year with Creating Keepsakes magazine. I, too, will miss Ali and Becky's columns. However, CK has many other great things up their sleeves that I think will be wonderful. January's issue just arrived here and I love it. I love seeing goodies from Maggie Holmes and other rockin' artists. Really - very inspiring. If you don't get the magazine, be sure to check it out when you go to the grocery store or book store. It has great stuff.
Here is one of my projects from the issue. My article is still there and now has step photos for some of the projects. I like that. This layout shows making a dimensional border with punches...
(c) Creating Keepsakes. Photos by Lisa Russo.
This shows creating patterns with score lines on punched shapes...
(c) Creating Keepsakes.
Next... some fun links for today:
Fabulous card HERE by Mariana - one of my new favorite stampers.
Check THIS out. Sweet Elisa Ingram shared some fun photos from her church group making cards for Kate. What a great way to get kids to send cards to kids. So giving. Thanks, Elisa.
AMAZING cookie idea HERE by Erin Lincoln. I am so doing this for Colin's school holiday program next week!!
Sweet Kristina has an adorable blog. She can now help people with making over their blog. Check out her post on 11/29. She also has a lot of fun crafting inspiration often.
Sweet Kathy was the one who told me about Eric, the boy from our last card drive that passed away in October. On her blog HERE, she shares about the great impact the cards had on their family. Wow. Thank you, Kathy.
Quickly - if you are a Cards for Kids person, please scroll down to the end of this post.
So... I am the host over on the Hero Arts blog this week. I am doing some ideas for "cards that give" - cards that hold or incorporate gifts such as cash, gift cards, etc. Be sure to click HERE to see today's post. This is very similar to the card I posted over there... I taught this one at a class here in town.
A quick update on the Cards for Kids card drive. I have done a lot of thinking about this and decided to extend the prize sessions from one month to two. There are many reasons. First, the holidays. I know we are all busy. Second, pulling the prizes together takes a ton of time - time I would love to spend making cards for the kids instead. So. Here is the thing: The prizes I am announcing will be given on 1/31. So anyone who sends in cards by then is eligible. And for those of you who rushed to get cards to me this month, I am sorry. However! This gives you more time to make more and get them in. I hope you all understand, and that this will result in more cards for these kids. So - in summary - the first set of prizes will now be given on 1/31 instead of 12/31. Thanks!
Next, two of our kids could use our prayers. First, Kate starts her 5th round of chemo tonight - a really tough round. Please keep her in your thoughts. (Click HERE for more info.) Also, sweet Sami has hit a pretty scary bump in the road. I pray she gets home quickly.
How is the weather in your neck of the woods? Super windy here. Which - since my neck of the woods has lots of big tress - means power outages. It was on and off most of the day, making many things a bit frustrating. But, I guess being forced to slow down is a good thing, huh?
I have received a lot of questions about my holiday cards. Yep, I have done them and most are in the mail and on their way. I send quite a few (150+). Why? I think receiving cards is a great feeling, so sending them is even better. I will share my holiday card a bit later (want friends and family to get them first), but in the meantime, here is a peek at the pile before heading to the post office. (Bad photo - taken with my iPhone.)
But more on mine later...
Here is a photo card I created for Ken's sweet cousin in Austin. She had a ton of amazing photos from Dunlap Portrait, so creating the card was fast and easy. All she has to do is get this printed at 5x7 and mat them with cardstock with a finished look. I also think a touch of glitter pen on the flourishes would be nice, too.
Simple, simple, simple. Oh, and for a fun added touch? I always like to get photo stamps printed at stamps.com.
My Pastor gave the most amazing sermon last night - one of the best I have ever heard. When leaving, I thought of the perfect way to spend my Thanksgiving morning.
I took a couple hours to create thank you cards for people who would least expect it. One for Colin's doctor. The nurses. The mailman. The UPS man. The lady who works at Brueggers. The grumpy lady who works at Walgreens. The nurse who gives me allergy shots. I came up with 17 names... so I made 17 cards.
With my family close by (Kay doing some amazing drawings, Audrey making cards, Colin gluing everything in the room together and Ken looking at football stats), I created these cards using a Hero Arts greeting set, a Papertrey Ink leaf set and some embellishments.
And I loved it.
On soft yellow and cream notecards, I stamped the leaves with green ink. I then added quick shading with colored pencils and blended with Gamsol. To add a tiny bit of shine, I scribbled a little glitter pen on the leaves. My favorite Hero Arts set provided all the greetings and I picked out favorite pearls, flower embellishments and etc. for some added fun. (Forgive the bad photos - I am too tired to redo. And there are a lot of them.)
For these first ones, I used gorgeous handmade flowers from Pixiepetals. I LOVE them and am off to buy more. You must check them out.
These next flowers were originally white. I then pressed Distress Ink on them to color and then spray a lot with pearlized water. (Perfect Pearls in water.) They end up so fab in real life. I make a bunch of them at once.
Was thinking about some friends that I am feeling especially thankful for these days. And it reminded me of this card I did last spring. After making it, I realized that it made more sense to just have two owls, instead of three, so I took the left one off. :) I used a Bazzill scallop edge piece that was a little smaller than 6x12, folded it and put it on a 7x7 brown sewn piece. Just wanted to do something different.
Supplies: Hero Arts stamps and inks, My Minds Eye patterned paper, Bazzill cardstock, colored pencils.
Let's see... what's next...
People ask a lot about how I find time to do anything. First, the answer is - I don't. I really don't find time for everything and fall short at a lot. But at the end of the day, if I can put down my head on my pillow and be happy for my family, then I am good. (Which means that my house is never perfect, etc.) But! I do look for timesaving measures.
One BIG one I found is Google Reader. Google Reader has been a HUGE for me and I highly recommend it to anyone who checks out a lot of blogs. You can see all your blogs in one place. It shares any new additions. Fabulous. HERE is a video from Google explaining in a simple way. And THIS video shows more details, step-by-step. I can't recommend it enough.
Other things worth sharing:
THIS is one of my favorite blogs lately. Mariana is so very talented. Be sure to check it out.
I am so excited for my dear friend Lisa Russo and her success. Check it out HERE.
Thrilled that 2Peas has Studio Calico papers HERE.
There is a giveaway of one of my favorite stamp sets HERE.
... Health for little Keegan, Crystal, little Ethan, Naomi, Bill, Joshua (http://joshuakoman.blogspot.com), McGuyre and Bobbi... Strength for Tammy and Elena... Comfort for Michelle's mom and aunt, Erik Smith and the family of Morgan McRae
... Jobs for Greg, Leslie, the Youngs, Thomas and so many more
... Comfort for 14 babies... Happiness and comfort for Surprise... comfort for 8 kids who shouldn't be on tv... prayers for Katie...
... and thankful for our fast-growing kids... photos that capture life's greatest moments...
What I do
Hero Arts Honored to be on this wonderful design team.
