MERRY CHRISTMAS

I saw this at Nicecrane Designs Calling Cards and thought it was perfect to:

WISH YOU ALL THE HAPPIEST OF CHRISTMAS'S

AND

BLESSED NEW YEAR!!!

Hugs always

Sandy O

Stitched Snowflake Card

I have missed hand stitching on cards. It is so relaxing (when I don't make any mistakes, lol) When I saw this new stitching design Ignacio created for his Nicecrane Designs store, well....I just had to make it.

I used my very favorite Christmas color combo, blue and silver. At first I thought a nice Thomas Kinkade image would look nice in the center. But...when I went through my 15 or so TK stamps, I realized that I only have summer and fall images. The new owners of Cornish Heritage Farms did post that they will, in the future, be selling the TK again, YEAH!!! Here's hoping there will be some winter ones to add to my collection.

I decided a nice snowflake would look really pretty instead. I have not used this SU set in a very long time and I still think this snowflake image is soooo pretty. I used some silver micro fine glitter on it. The layer around the snowflake is actually a very shimmery silver paper, though it shows up white in the photo.

Here is a close up of the pretty stitching pattern. It really is easy to do and is perfect for beginners. Ignacio made the directions so easy to follow. After printing out the patten to 51/2 x 5 1/2" I pierced the blue card stock making very small holes since they are close together. Then I stitched using a #10 needle. I chose to use some silver thread. Since the holes are a bit on the small side, I separated the 3 strands that the strand off the spool is made out of. If you use regular embossing floss, you would want to separate the strands also. Then only used 1 of the separated strands to sew with.

All in all, it only took me about 4 hours to pierce and stitch the complete design. That includes letting my 3 pups in and out, one at a time of course. They never seem to have to go out all at the same time, sheesh.

The inside was a bit hard to photograph because of the light reflecting off the pretty shimmery silver card stock. The snowflake and sentiment are stamped with a dark blue ink which matches the blue card stock. It does show up well in real life. The sentiment says, "May the blessing of the season shine upon you" and is from SU also.

The card looked a bit naked without any embellishment, so I added some outline sticker corners. Cards just NEED to have some embellishments, lol

I, again, thank you so much for stopping by and spending some time with me!

HUGS, Sandy O

Ice Fairy Gifts

I finally finished some of the gifts for my husbands family. They are for the nieces and nephews that have no kids. The ones that do have little ones, we just buy for them. What a huge family he has. Thank God I have a very small family or we would not be able to eat for a month, lol

They are made from real medium size goose eggs and are called Ice Fairy. I made 4 in blue, 1 in purple and 1 in yellow/gold.

I was only able to get the purple photographed and one picture of the yellow/gold before my camera battery died.  I do not have time to wait for it to charge to make this post, so perhaps I will posts the blue later (which happens to be my favorite)

Why? Well, I have the next 2 weeks off of babysitting my grandson so am planning to go through my house top to bottom. It has not been done since my illness last year! Yikes, I think it will be quite the chore, but a wonderful way to start the new year. I know my husband will be thrilled, lol.

In this photo you can see the icy snow around the opening pretty well. You will not believe what is used for snow on eggs. It is bath & tub silicone! I would never have thought for a second that this could be used on egg art! It works so well and dries completely in 3 hours if the correct one is purchased. Of course, a ton of white glitter is added to the outside and inside of the snow.

This is the very first egg I cut the opening out myself. Such a simple opening, I thought it would be so easy. But it is much harder than I ever thought it would be. The shell is thin then thick which makes the dremel tool kind of bounce around. So glad that the edges are covered, lol
This is a fairly good picture of the inside details. Isn't the fairy so cute. She is made out of porcelain and hand made and painted. A dear friend sent these to me for her cost which was $10.00! And then she added all the do dads needed to complete the egg. My mother has quite a supply of the eggs, so the final cost for this was the fairy, a tube of silicone and some glitter.

The back trees are in three layers, one layer in front of the other, getting smaller at the layers get closer to the front. It is hard to see but it adds a really nice dimension to the scene.

This kind of shows the pretty chain bottom decoration as well as the Swarvoski crystal beads for the top hanger. The ribbon is not part of the egg, I just used it to hang it on the stand.

Oooooo...Look at that glitter. I used micro fine glitter from the Art Institute Glitter called Lavender. What is so good about the micro fine glitter is that it covers completely with one coat. One 1/4 oz container completely covered 4 of these eggs. Just imagine how long a 1/4 oz would last using it for paper crafting.

Here is the one picture of the yellow/gold egg. You can see how they are the same but different. It is hard to see the glitter that covers the egg in this photo, but am pretty sure you can see it better if you click on it to see it a bit enlarged.

Thank you so much for stopping by!!! HUGS, Sandy O

Cards and Gifts

I have been so busy the past couple of days trying to finish my Christmas cards. Boy am I glad I decided to make them all the same this year. I really should follow others example of starting to make them in January.

I only made 34 of these, you can see the details here. I did make a couple of individual special cards, but that is it, you can see them here, here and here. I hope this is enough, lol. I guess I should have counted how many I needed before I made them. Certainly hoping my guess is right, lol. All I have to do now is sign them, address them and hopefully get them in the mail BEFORE Christmas!

I also made some bookmarks for my sister-in-laws. My husband has 7 older sisters, the poor guy, lol. They like to read, so I thought these would be nice to give. They are made with real quail eggs, so all are different sizes and shapes.

Here is one of them which I think you can see a bit better than the pic with all of them laying down.

The eggs are covered with 5 minute epoxy which has pearl-ex mixed in. I must say that it is really hard to get the epoxy to coat the egg evenly before the epoxy starts to dry, lol. Here you can see the glitter like sparkle the pearl-ex added.

The rim is a Swarvoski chain wrapped around the top thingy (for lack of being able to remember the name of them right now) that the jump rings are put on to make the egg hang.

These balls (can't think of the name of these right now either, lol) are also Swarvoski crystals. They are so pretty as they shine in different colors depending on how the light hits them.

I really hope they like these. I am not sure how to wrap them yet. I am hoping to have time to get to the craft store to see if they have some long skinny gift boxes.

Thank you for spending some time with me today...HUGS...Sandy O

3D Display Globe Card

Ohhhhh...I am so excited to show you this card today. It is the first oval aperture card I made from Flower Soft. I used the 3D kit called Christmas Snow Globes. This kit is not die cut so you have to cut the layers by hand. I did not find it hard to do or time consuming at all.

After adhering all the layers with dimensionals, I added lots of the Ultra Fine White to make the snow on the church, trees and ground. I just had to snaz up the star so I added some of the Flower Soft Diamond Range Silver.  I am not sure if it looked better without the silver, since the silver is not ultra fine. I do wish it came in ultra fine. Actually, it would be nice if more of the colors came this way as well as the original Flower Soft.

Here you can see the layers. As I added the snow, I did not completely cover the trees, roof, hill, which is on the right side and the snow in front of the church. You really can't see the snow mounds in front of the church well in the photo, it looks like the loose glitter I added to the globe is covering it. But in real life you can see it pretty well.  I chose to just add the Flower Soft where I thought the snow would pile up. Kind of like how it would pile on roof shingles and mound on the hill and along the walkway in front of the church. I think that is kind of hard to see too, unless you click on it to see it a bit enlarged.

Oh My Gosh, isn't this paper just the prettiest! I found it at a scrapbook store and just had to have a few sheets. Kind of which I bought more, lol. The corners gave me such fits, grrr. It was so hard to get the sizzlet (I think that is what they are called) to cut through the silver card stock. I tried so many times, I used up just about a full sheet just to make 4 corners.

I am going to have to try gluing the bottom of the pearls again, I think. This is where the ends connected and the ends just would not stay around the oval. I could of held it in place for a half hour or so, but...sheesh...who wants to do that!

I made the inside using the same gorgeous paper as the front. It embosses so well. The sentiment came out perfect even with such a small font.  The paper also takes ink well, so there was no problem using it for the layer where a personal not would be added.

I am a bit disappointed that the loose Flower Soft clings to the globe a bit. I guess I expected the globes to be static free or something. It is not to bad, certainly could be much worse.

This card absolutely will not go through the mail without lots of extra postage, so I think I will give it to someone I would hand it to in person. Maybe my Pastor. I have a few more I can make, since the card kit comes with enough to make 5 cards. The 3D sheets also come in 4 scenes, so hopefully I can make the 3 others. Then think of 3 people I will be handing the card to in person. LOL. Hmmm...I will have to check to make sure I have enough of that pretty paper.

Well, off to make my mailable Christmas cards, which you can see here. I thought I made a simple design, but when making 20 or so, is does not seem so simple, lol Oh well...maybe I will figure out an even simpler one for next year.

Thanks for spending some time with me today! HUGS...Sandy O

My First 3 Stick Pins

I entered a stick pin swap over at Crafters Digital Art Center. We are to make 3 different pins for the other people on our swap list, which is 5 other people. There were 2 categories to choose from, Love or Spring. I chose Spring. Pizzazz Aplenty is sponsoring the challenge. There is still plenty of time to join if you would like.

The first 2 are butterflies. Everything used on them are from Pizzazz Aplenty with the exception of the tear drop ones on the yellow pin. Those are from Stampin' Up, which I purchased eons ago. They come clear, so I used my copics to color them to match.

The 3 beaded pin also came in white, so again I used my copics on them. Using my metallic gel pens, I went around the top pearls, the pink silver, the yellow gold.

I love this tiny butterfly. I am so glad it matched the rest of the pin.

For the 3rd one, I wanted to use flowers. Everything here is again from Pizzazz Aplenty with the exception of the large Prima flower, the charm and jump rings. I seem to grab these where ever there is a good price for ones that I like, so I have no idea where I got them.

To get the flowers on the pin, I simple wrapped the stem around the pin 3 or 4 times. I cut off the remainder of the stem and added glue to the back of the flower and kind of squished it against the stem to keep it from sliding down. I thought it would look cute to have the flowers smaller as they went down the pin.

I love these tiny rose buds. I only have them in white and red, so, of course, I colored it with a copic.

Lastly, I wracked my brain about what to do with that hole at the top of the pin. These have always made me think I did not want to make stick pins because I had no idea what to do with it. How in the world would I cover it. I could just leave it, but it looks unfinished to me when it is. I decided to add a charm to the pin. I have none of those chains others seem to have (not really sure where to get them) so I used some jump rings. After going through my gazillion charms, I found these leaves.

I really hope the others in my group really like these. I know that styles/colors of paper and embellishments change all the time, but I doubt that butterflies and flowers will ever end up on the old style list.

I thought that all three pins could be packaged together in one box per person, but after rereading the "rules" I think they need to be wrapped individually. Grrrrrr, I purchased some really pretty gift boxes that are the perfect size to hold all 3 from, yes, Pizzazz Aplenty, so I hope my first thought was right. I just posted the question on the forum...wish me luck on that, lol

I hope you all have a super duper weekend...Hugs...Sandy O

3 Cards, 1 Image

Hi everyone! Today I want to show you the adorable Dolly Dingle 3D Image < (link directly to Dolly Dingle) from Nicecrane Designs. Such cutie pie image using the Campbell Soup type girl images.(remember them?)  I love Ignacios' images and paper as well as making 3D images, as you all know. Well, I just could not wait to use this wonderfully adorable Dolly Dingle.

I had so much fun with her, I ended up making 3 different cards. I am only going to show you the outside of the cards since I did not take the time yet to do the inside. I was enjoying her just to much!

On this card I think I may have added to many pearls (is that possible, lol) Believe it or not, I find putting on pearls and jewels quite relaxing now that I discovered the bottle and tip that makes tiny dots of glue. You can see what bottle I am talking about in my post HERE. The top layer just under the embellies is a patterned paper with some very pale pink swirls. I just could not get it to show up well, so the layer looks white.

For my first card, I used the image as the directions indicate. Isn't she just so cute.

This is the first time I have made the green twirls to use with the flowers. Ever since the first time I saw someone use them, I have been wanting to use them too. I had no idea how to make them or where to buy them though. I asked one blogger but she never got back to me. Finally, I found a blog where she told how to make them. I wish I could remember whose blog it was, but I don't and did not book mark it for some reason.

TIP: It is so simple, I felt silly for not thinking of it. You simply twist the stem of the flower on a small round tool, such as an embossing tool (which is what I used) I am not sure if others leave the stem on the flowers or not, but I cut mine off and then twisted them. This gives the ability to put them where ever you want.

Here you can see the layers on the image. They are big enough to make cutting them out easy. I used quite a thick card stock to print it out on, which left the edges showing white. I simply used my Copic C3 marker around all the edges before adhering them.

For this card, I printed the image out 2 times. Both of them fit on one sheet when I cropped off the directions. I made it as the directions indicated, then took it one step further. Using the second set of the image pieces, I cut them down even more. An example would be just the rim and flowers on the hat and just the toe part of the shoes. This made the image have 5 layers.

Once I was finished with this card, I still had one of the bottoms of the image left. I decided to use it for a "flat" card. Again, the paper is not showing the colors correctly. The plain paper is actually Old Olive from SU. I have no idea why it looks kind of grey. Hmmm...This new camera just may be to full of bells and whistles for me. I did finally figure out the "white" setting, but I guess getting the correct colors to show is another setting...sigh.

All 3 cards are so similar, making them was quite easy since the designing part was done with the first one. AND....WOW...MIRACLE OF MIRACLES...I found the perfect paper for all three in the first paper pack I picked up!!!

The dragonflies are from Penny Duncan who has a store on Etsy. She sells the finished dragonflies as well as some butterflies. She also has directions on how to make them if you prefer to do so. I prefer to purchase the finished ones, lol. The tutorial included free cut files so you don't even have to cut them out by hand. How great is that! What a sweet person she is. You can find the tutorial HERE. OK, not only that!!! She has loads of free cutting files for you to down load and enjoy. Check out her blog HERE.

Phew...This post is a bit longer than my usual posts, so if you stuck with me...THANK YOU :o) I hope you like the 3 ways to use this image.

Have a super duper week...HUGS...Sandy O

Beautiful Swan

I have, for quite some time, really wanted to get this die cut from Cheery Lynn,  but it was so expensive. I just did not want to use up that much of my craft money just on one thing. I finally bit the bullet, though. It came in last week and I got right to using it (unlike a lot of other items I buy, lol)

As you all must know by now, I have a really hard time using black. For this card I just could not think of a better color to use.

I used some of my much horded Washi paper for this card. I decided that the die cut was deserving enough to pull it out and finally use it. You can see it much better 2 photos down.

This black ribbon is so pretty with it's ruffles, but looked a bit plain by itself. I added this cord with gold intertwined through out it. The black makes the gold show up really nicely.

On the inside frame and parts of the swan on the outside, I used a gold gel pen to add a bit of shine to match the shiny gold in the paper. For a gel pen it is much shinier than I ever expected. I think it is even prettier than my beloved Kryon gold leaf marker.

Now, this inside frame is part of the swan die cut. It surrounds the swan. No matter what I did, the frame would cut completely off. I am not sure if this is supposed to happen. Instead of trying to adhere it around the outside image, I decided it would be really nice on the inside.

This die was much harder to do than I expected after watching the videos on the Cheery Lynn site. Not so bad that I would never use their dies again, though. Some of those tiny triangles had to be poked out, actually about 1/3rd of them did. If you have the patience (and the money, lol), I would say to not shy away from these dies.

Thank you for stopping by. To those I follow and those who follow me and leave comments, I am excited to stop by your blogs to see your latest projects. As of right now, my computer is being REALLY slow. Grrrr...So it might take me a bit of time to visit.

Hugs, Sandy O

Flower Soft Die Cuts

WOW, Have I been busy. I did not realize just how busy until I saw the date of my last post. I had some really minor surgery yesterday and because of the endocarditis last year I had to see several Dr.'s before getting the OK to have it. Sheesh.

I had to purchase a new camera, which I love. It has so many bells and whistles. The manual is 250 pages long though, so I am still learning to use it and will be for quite a while I am sure, lol. I use the macro setting most of the time so read that section twice. I am still having a hard time getting it to focus on that setting though. Then, even without the flash, the pictures come out a bit bright. I tried changing the "white" setting, but I have not read that part of the manual. Anyway, all that just to say I am sorry the photos are not the greatest. Hopefully I will get used to it soon.

I have worked on this card on the couple of the days I did have to play. I had been wanting to try the Flower Soft Die Cuts for a while and finally bit the bullet and bought some.

They are so easy since everything is die cut. All you have to do is take your embossing tool and rub the back side of the cut leaves and flower petals. The center oval had a peach colored rim around it, but it did not match the paper I chose. I simply cut it off and went over the edge of it with one of my SU ink pads. I also do not have the right color Flower Soft  for the center of the flowers, so I just colored some white pearls with my Copics and glued them on.

In this photo you can see the color of the flowers much better You also can see the layer using some pretty home made paper I bought years ago and never found a project to use it for. The lace was hard to see alone, so I added some ribbon under it, now the details on the lace show quite well. It looked a bit naked, so I added some flat backed pearls on top.

The sentiment I chose is from Stampin' Up. It fit the oval perfectly. I don't own many sentiments. I used to think that I could just type one up and print it, lol. What was I thinking! Imagine trying to get a sentiment printed in the center of a die cut oval! I will be watching for more rubber sentiment stamps, that is for sure.

Agggg...look at how bright that is :o(  I even edited it! Well, even though the colors are not showing up well, I am sure you get the idea of how the inside looks. I really like the home made paper here. The texture it adds is wonderful and the dried flowers and stems in it show up more.

I was going to stamp a Thank You inside but decided that if I did I would want to use it for something else. Then not be able to because of it, lol

Thank you all for sticking with me through this busy time. I plan on doing a few projects today. Because of the "minor" surgery yesterday my husband told me to take it easy today...OH, how I love that man!!! Tee he he

Have a super weekend everyone,
{{{HUGS}}} Sandy O

I Don't Know If I Like This

Hmmmm...To like or not like, that is the first question of the day. This card certainly did not turn out like my minds eye pictured it, but that is not unusual. This time though I almost did not post it. Since it is the only thing I have been able to make in the past few days, I figured I would just swallow and post, lol

I showed it to my son to see what he thought (he has a really good eye for this kind of thing) and he was not sure of the color combos. Hmmmm....I think I like the contrast though, which is the only part I do like, SIGH. What do you think?

What she is skating on is supposed to be ice. I added crystal effects to some vellum and when it was dry covered it with some of the new SU mica flakes. These are a bit to large for me, but they really are pretty.  They kind of covered a lot of the shine of the crystal effects.

Here you can see some of the details I added. The sentiment is embossed in silver and says "Be Merry". The paper tole image is from Sliekje Digi Stamps. This is not a digi stamp though. It is a 3D cut out sheet I was able to purchase from betsylurvink. At the time that I purchased it, there were only about 4 different sheets, but there are a lot more now. You can see them all here.

These sheets are not die cut, so need to be cut by hand. They are so cute though, I did not mind the cutting at all. The image is 4 layers and all the parts are large enough to make popping up with dimensionals really easy.

Being a bit bummed out about how it came out, I ended up leaving the inside plain. I think I may go back and add a sentiment and maybe some of the die cut snow flakes.

These are the first pictures I took with my new camera. I love it. It has a 250 page manual! On CD too, the stinkers. I had to print it out or I never will figure out all the dodads it has. I think it will still take me a few months to make all the fun things that cost extra worth the money, but...how fun it will be to actually understand and use all the modes, video recordings and stuff!

I ended up getting the day off babysitting today. My son-in-law's classes were cancelled due to the weather. Now I have a decision to make. Do I clean up my craft room or....just craft around the mess, lol

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving...{{{HUGS}}}  Sandy O

2011 Christmas Card #2

I finally got my camera to take a few pictures this morning. They are not the best as I could not get the editing software to remove some of the brightness. But this is the card I wanted to share yesterday and am glad I got some pictures that you can hopefully see well.

This wreath is from a Dufex 3D sheet. The sheets are die cut so they are very simple to make. All the Dufex sheets are so pretty and shimmery. They are a bit on the expensive side compared to others, but well worth the extra money. This wreath has 4 layers which were very easy to pop up with some SU dimensionals (1/8 of an inch high I believe). I added some yellow pearls to the center of the flowers and some tiny cranberry pearls to the red centers and berries.

I found this paper at a local craft shop, but it was flat with not shimmer. I decided to try spraying it with some Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist and it worked very well. HINT: one thing I learned is that you should cut the paper to the desired size before spritzing. The paper does curl just a bit and I had the hardest time getting a straight cut.

I did not have ribbon wide enough to go under this pretty lace ribbon. What I ended up doing was adhering 2 pieces of ribbon, one on each side, so that the gold peaked out from under the lacy ribbon. It still looked a bit naked, so I added a few pearls.

Popping everything up on with dimensionals gave a really nice dimension to the whole card. For the bottom layer I had to use dimensional dots which are 1/4 inch high due to the thickness of the ribbon. Because of the thickness of the wreath though, the added height of this layer ended up being just right.

I wish I had more of these Dufex sheets. I only had one that my mother bought for me a year ago to make for last Christmas. Since I was to ill last year to make cards, I was excited to pull it out for this year. The sheet only had 2 wreaths, this one and one with white flowers and some borders. I don't like the borders so will only get 2 cards out of the sheet.

This one came out so pretty. The pictures really don't do it justice. The shimmer of the whole card is perfect, just really hard to photograph.

Well, I try not to make my "talking" to long since I know that I have a hard time reading the whole post on some of the blogs that I visit. But I like to read the whole post before leaving a comment. If my posts are to long, I would love for you to let me know :o)

I found out last weekend that my grammar is really poor, lol. I don't use my comma's properly as well as my prepositions and things like that. My son and husband seem to know all the "rules". And my spelling, well, all I can say is I am sooo thankful for spell check! I am thrilled you all bare with me, lol. as I doubt I will ever learn them. <<<SIGH>>>

Have super weekend everyone...HUGS, Sandy O