Snowflake Tag/Ornament

Yeay...I finally got something done in my newly organized craft room, lol.

Such a pretty snowflake ornament. It was really quite easy too...well, to put together. The blue gems were a bit difficult to cut until I figured out the easy way. Both sides are exactly the same. The little burrs on the edges of the legs can't really be seen in real life. Funny how when I get the new camera to do what I want, it picks up details that the eye really does not see.

Hmmmm...I just noticed that the cord to hang it fell off! Yikes! LOL

This is what I cut them from. Isn't it so pretty. I bought it from Cynthialoowho (I am figuring her real name is Cynthia) at her Etsy store HERE. It is a 1 yard by 4 3/4 inch roll for only...ready! A wopping $6.99! She has lots of colors too. I can see using it for card borders and on eggs, so bought 4 colors.

Isn't the center flower stunning! She also sells these at her store HERE. She has these in a few different colors, too.

I wanted to get a photo showing the clear crystal in the center of the flower. You can kind of see it here. You can see it a lot better if you click on it to get a look at a larger photo.

I did not come up with this idea on my own. I saw a link on a blog to a tutorial on YouTube for it. I can't for the life of me find it now. I wrote her to get the link, but never heard back. So if you would you would like to know, just shoot me an email.

Hugs to you all...
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

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

Gift Box Worth Keeping

I have been thinking about what I am going to give for Christmas gifts this year. I most likely will give items I have made or will make out of real eggs, such as ornaments. One thing I like when I receive gifts for Christmas is when the item comes with a box to keep it in. Especially breakable items. When I saw the Christmas Birds pictures from Nicecrane Designs, I though they could be used for an adorable gift box to put gifts in for storage.

I ordered some of the gift boxes from SU and they are really small! Now that I have 2 packages of them, I have no idea what to use them for, lol. I am willing to bet that you have items you bought that are not what you expected too! Have you ever found something to use them for? I would love to hear about them!

I found some good sized gift boxes and though they are not exactly white (there are just too many different whites out there...soooooo confusing when ordering on line!) they are the perfect size for what I needed, which is 4x4. I only wish I could remember where I ordered them from...grrrr

I really wanted to use this vellum paper with the sparkly dots and "x's" but could not see the sparkly design when placed on the gift box. I decided to put some colored cardstock behind it, that matched the pictures.

To add some dimension to the pictures, I added some of the SU glitter glue (just like stickles but dries much faster). I only placed it on the snow that is at the forefront of the picture so that the back snow really looks like it is further back (did that make sense ? LOL)

Here are photos of the other 3 sides:

I kept the top really simple. I had this poinsettia from last years supplies. It was way easier then trying to make a nice big bow, tee he he Sadly I only have 1 white and loads of red. I did not like the red with this, the white really looks so much better. I guess I will just HAVE to go shopping...darn...

The center was gold, but I did not like that either. I really wanted it silver. What I did was cover all the gold with Aleene's glue and dipped them in the beautiful SU silver glass.

Here you can see not only how pretty it looks, but that I missed one! I had no idea until I took the photo. When I went back to fix it and take another photo, I just could not find it! WOW...I know it is there somewhere, because it is quite obvious in this photo.

I guess you can see that I am not the perfect crafter, lol. I like when I find a blog that it's items are not exactly perfect. Makes me feel like I am in good company, ha ha ha When items are so perfect, well, I feel like my items are just not up to snuff...know what I mean.

I am sorry if the photos are not very clear. My camera is giving my such fits! It is shutting off on it's own while I am trying to take photos. Then when I down load them, some come up blank :o( It is about 10 years old, but I really liked it...LIKED being the main word right now. I guess it is time for a new camera too, but that does not fit into my crafting budget. I am hoping that it will last until Christmas (I am dropping hints now, tee he he)

Have a super duper weekend everyone...

{{{HUGS}}} Sandy O

Butterfly Wedding

Phew...finally got my computer back. We have been without power for 5 days now. A co-worker of Paul's got his back and offered to let us use his generator! WOW...now we have hot water, a running refrigerator, one lamp, TV, a coffee maker (the top priority, lol) and computer. I am hoping that the one lamp will light my craft room enough to play today. I am really sick of reading by flashlight!

I do have a wedding card I made while I was on break.

As you know, I LOVE shimmer paper. I also can't get enough of this nestie die. Butterflies seem so perfect as a couple begins their new life together. I added lots of pearls to kind of make up for the lack of pattern paper and they just look so pretty. Of course, as always, I purchased these from Pizzazz Aplenty.

I have to say, I really like how everything blended together. The small amount of pattern paper I do have here is a digital paper I got from Bearly Mine Designs.  The light embossing of the 3rd layer is from the SU Texturz Plates. Doesn't it add such a pretty and soft look.

Here you can get a better look at the pattern paper. I am so at awe as to how well digital paper prints out. I find a lot of them print out as an 8x8 pattern, which seems to waste a lot of paper. The patterns are so pretty, though, so I use them anyway, lol

I so wanted to use the smaller version of the die, so decided to add it to the back of the front (back of the front, lol, sound so funny!) It was a good way to get some ribbon on there too :o)
Have super wonderful day!!! {{{HUGS}}} Sandy O

Winter Birds Ornament

I made this adorable Christmas ornament from Nicecrane Designs yesterday. If you have not visited or purchased from here before, check it out, really. Ignacio is such a wonderful artist and person to deal with.

I love the shape of this ornament. while taping it together I learned that the ATG is definitely not the way to go, lol. Finally I thought of my scor tape and, WOW, how much easier that was. The best part of the scor tape, compared to the red line tape, is that it is ripable (no scissors needed) and the liner does not cling to everything.

There are different pictures on each side of the ornament

The cord, pearls and gemstones are all from Pizzazz Aplenty. Another wonderful site for embellishments. Judy is such a sweetheart and a pleasure to deal with.

If you click on one of the photos, you can see that I added some glitter glue to the snow. This time I tried the SU equivalent of Stickles.

Here is a photo of the ornament from the top. I just love the effect that the pearls and rhinestones add. I would have used all pearls or all rhinestones...but...I did not have the color or size I needed in both. Looks like I need to place an order, lol...Judy, here I come!

See the two edges that are a bit bent? Those are 2 I tried using my ATG for. As you can see, with the scor tape I was able to keep the edges straight.

Since I printed the ornament out on white paper, the edges were white. I fixed this with one of my Copic markers. It worked wonderfully.

Have you made any Christmas ornaments yet? I REALLY would love to see them and maybe glean some ideas ;o) Leave me a link if you would like to share and I will leave you some love!!!

{{{HUGS}}} Sandy O

Note Card Set

I was asked to make a note card set for the pastors wife that will be speaking at my church's mother daughter banquet at the end of the month. We are giving her a nice thank you basket filled with lots of goodies.

I decided to use a note card folder I purchased quite a while ago from Papertrey Ink and designed my Lauren Meader . It is a great folder which I have used a few times already.

For the butterflies on the folder I used a new to me set from Kitchen Sink Stamps. The paper is the beautiful white diamond from Paper Temptress that I use quite often. I did not take a photo of the shimmer since there are quite a few photos already for this post, lol

I adhered the inside pockets backward on purpose since the folds to make it look like an envelope were not even for some reason. I think it was my printer having a hard time with the card stock. I punched the half circles to help remove the cards and envelopes easily. I actually like the pockets better this way. I did notice while editing the photos that I should have stamped the butterflies the other way, lol.
 

I made 2 of each card to include in the set. In this group picture you can see the pretty shimmer of the white diamond used for the folder, which I also used on the 2nd from the right card. All of the cards were made with colored shimmer card stock and the paper truly makes the folder and set look stunning.

Since these are note cards, I left then inside blank for lots of writing room. The paper really makes it look pretty anyway, lol Here are some photos of the individual cards.

I had a hard time making these so that they will not cost extra postage. Embellishing without pearls, rhinestones, flowers, bows, and all that fun stuff is not easy, lol I hope she likes them.

I am entering this into the following challenges:
Daring Cardmakers: the darling "bugs" of May (desinger paper does not count), I chose butterflies
Creative Cowgirls: anything goes
Scrappy Frogs: anything goes
Crazy Challenge: anything goes
Make It Monday: anything goes

Hugs,

Mother's Day Butterfly Card

WOW, do I put things off until the last minute! I finally finished my mother's card yesterday morning, lol. She loves brown, gold, ivory (off white) and butterflies. I searched my stash and was quite surprised when I had hardly any brown! I was able to use the lovely butterfly paper from DCWV called Mariposa. I was also lucky enough to find a package of plain glitter paper that matches this butterfly paper perfectly the other day. It is also called Mariposa.

The butterflies are from Kitchen Stink Stamps. This set is 3 step. I just love their stamps! I stamped the last layer in versa mark and embossed with gold. Made 2 for each layer, adhering the top layer with dimensional. then added some Swavoski gems.

I do wish the gems were a gold tint instead of silver, but wanted to use the best I had for my mother :o) She did love it, which is nice :o)

I am going to enter this into the following challenges:

Mother's Day Challenges:

Aud Sentiment Challenge

Craft Us Crazy

Fairy Tale

Paper Cutz

Tuesday Throwdown

Creative Card Crew: OR flowers

Other Challenges:

Cute Card Thursday: Chocolate (color, theme or embellies)

Paper Crafting Journey: Bling

Card Makin' Mama's: For a loved one

Creative Inspirations: Glitzy and bling

Let's Ink It Up: Embellish it (no digis allowed)

Stamping Sisters In Christ: All things beautiful

Claudia and Co: Butterflies

Try It On Tuesday: something at least 6 months old AND something at less than 6 months old

    (my ribbon is over a year old and the stamps were just purchased 2 weeks ago)

Amber's Crafts and Stuff: Special lady

I hope you all have a superb day! hugs,

Cards To Have On Hand

If there is one kind of card I never seem to have, it is a sympathy card. Seems when I need one, I find my self thinking, "grrr...and I was going to make one to have on hand too".

I made this card last week to keep in my box of cards. When I showed it to my son Patrick (he is great at critiquing my projects in a nice way, lol) he said
"OH, this would be perfect for Linda".
"LINDA???, Why???" <<<me in shock
"Well. her mom just passed away" he said matter of factly.
"Oh, NO, why didn't anyone tell me?" sniff
"I don't know." as only a 23 year year old son could say

Linda, her husband and kids moved to PA a few years ago and we keep in touch through the kids, lol. The kids went to school together since 2nd grade. My boys have become like adopted sons to them and Travis has become an adopted son to us. Homes away from homes...I love having Travis around.

I used the stunningly beautiful White Diamond paper from Paper Temptress. This paper can make a card stunning if you only stamped an image on the front and left it at that! So pretty. There is no photo of the paper on her site, since the glimmer of it makes it impossible to capture on film. You would be patting yourself on the back if you sent for a free sample though. Just pop over and ask Patricia for one. Oh my gosh...you will LOVE it.

All I did was use an embossing folder for the bottom layer, score edges with my Score-pal. run my Krylon gold marker around the edges, emboss the sentiment in gold, added a little gold to the flower with the marker, put on a pretty ribbon (also from Paper Temptress), add pearls colored with the marker and adhered with dimensionals, giving me a fast and pretty card.

Phew...that sounds like a lot of steps, but they are all so quick.

For the inside sentiment, I stamped in gold and embossed with clear powder since the metallic inks never seem to dry for me and I was not sure if Versa Fine would stamp clearly.

This was such a quick to put together card, I now can make a few to keep on hand.

They other type of card I need to make and keep on hand is a masculine card! But that is a whole other post....

I am going to enter this card in the Blogger Challenge Embossing Challenge which is Embossing this week.

Hugs,

A Childs Birthday

A young child's card is one thing I have very few of (well...as of today I have 1, lol). The other kind of card I am desperately lacking are masculine cards. Today, I am sharing the 1 child card I have.

Wink Wink Ink makes these adorable images. I used the sets Teddy Bear Messages and Birthday Necessities. I decied on the precolored images for this card, since, as I said previously, my week have been super busy. All I did was add some dots and swirls. I thought a small child would like a 3D type card. I made the bear using 3 layers plus the sentiment.

Playing with the images in PSE is so much fun. I did not allow for the sentiment to bend when sizing it. To compensate, I used some toothpick that I cut into small pieces.

One thing I need to practice, which really should be very easy, is adding polka dots to images. Anyone have any tips?

To make the balloons shiny, I covered them with mod podge, not wanting to wait for crystal effects to dry, such a Sandy thing, bwaa ha ha.

My grandson will be 1 year old the end of December so I think I will save this for him. His favorite toy is a huge teddy bear that my daughter got years ago. It must be 4 feet tall, lol. He loves to climb on it, bounce on it (forget the Johny jump up!), cuddle with it, grab its fur and pull it, rub noses with it...you name it...this bear is his favorite play buddy. I think he will love this card, if I can hold on to it until then!

Have a super day, and please don't forget the blog candy! There is only 2 days left before the lucky winner is drawn :o) Good luck to everyone.

Hugs,