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