I'm Back....

Here are some easel cards I made. Terri and I got together to "play" last week and I started these cards using my Greeting Farms and Lilly of the Valley stamps. They are not finished I still want to dress them up with some embellishments. These three below are from Lilly of the Valley. Here are my Greeting Farm cards....

Terri and I also challenged ourself to use our Cricut Cartridges. We had to use "Wild Card & Straight from the Nest". This was my card. Terri of course blew right by me, and created I think, four cards with a lot more detail. Still I was happy with what I came up with.

On another note.....

I was recently told my hours at work would be cut. I keep hearing on the news about the economy getting better, but it's not true. I do not know is anyone else listens to Coasttocoastam on the radio or visit their site, but those who do and heard Gerald Celente this morning know that it is going to get worse. Food is going to get very expensive, jobs wil continue to leave the U.S., Students cannot find work and cannot pay their loans (but thanks to Mr Bush cannot file bankruptcy or get any release), and big companies continue to sell us out. What I did not know was that the Senate are getting ready to pass a bill (#510) which will kill off the small farmer! The people pushing it? The big food conglomerates (Kraft, etc). Yeah it's going to get ugly.

I guess I will be planting a garden this year....

Card Making...

Spent last night making a few "last-minute" Christmas cards. These are a bit "sweeter" than my previous version posted below. I bought a few new Christmas stamps this year and had to make a few cards to justify their purchase, heh heh..... I am not known for being a person who "likes" syrupy sweet images, not a big fan of "cutesy", so it comes as a surprise to many of my crafty friends that I really like the House Mouse stamps, from Stampabilities. They are so sweet, they are hard to resist, especially ones like the two huddled below waiting for Santa. Then I found the, dare I say, a cute little elf from Stampendous. Complete with sentiment for the inside. I also played with my Gypsy for the first time and cut the Santa out from Winter Frolic. I have to say it would have used more paper and time if I had not had the Gypsy to help separate the many pieces...... The background paper for the Santa cards and the Elf cards, courtesy of my daughter Kim. She is a "Free-gan" so reuse and recycle are her goals in life. She found a stack of scrapbooking papers thrown out and collected them for me. Some Imaginess, Basic Grey that would have cost quite a bit. She gave me them back in July. Now going to good use this year on my cards. (thanks hon). See below the sentiment for the Elf card "Have your Elf a Merry Little Christmas"! I used one of my dies to cut the cards and the envelopes for these sweet little cards.

Here is my Santa i cut using my Cricut Gypsy! I have found that the cheaper paper packs from Joanns and Michaels cut so much nicer on my Cricut! I used my embossing folder on the snow, more paper from my "Kim" stash, a punch from Fiskars, and the sentiment is from My Pink Stamper............ For all my friends out there, yes, of course I glittered and stickled, but I did show amazing restraint. Everyone knows the answer when they ask "What does this card need?" my answer is "Bling"! I do love the sparkle.

Holiday tinkering....

Okay not your average Christmas card, but a lot of fun. I love humorous card, and adore these stamps by Stampotique artists Daniel Torrente and Jill Penney. One flaw is that they are "long" which does not lend them to the smaller cards easily. this image (Noelle) is one I am using for my cards this year. They also had the phrase stamp. The problem was making it fit. I decided to make the words look like ornaments by punching each out with a circle punch and adding a stickles top to them. Now I am going to "tame" them down by changing the "d" word to "darn" for most of the ones I will send out. However those that truly know me, and can tolerate my dry, sometimes sarcastic humor will laugh and know right away who sent the card before they even open it. I told my friend Linda, I was in a "cranky" state of mind when I decided to make these cards, but that isn't really true. I think they are funny, and to be honest who doesn't occasionally feel a bit "Scrooge-like" running around for the holidays. I played with my sewing machine and added some stitching, they are distressed and made to look a bit battered. It matches the rough and gritty feel of these images. They are so neat, I have a wish list for more of them!

Inside I used a sentiment from Stampotique (bla bla) and one from Archivers ($1.99 stamp Merry Christmas). I love it, I think I will make some birthday and other cards like this. It made me chuckle, I am notorious for "skimming" sentiments when I get a card. They can be a bit syrupy for me at times. Being a "get to the point" kinda gal, I think this reflects that feeling as well as my sometime off-beat humor.

What else have i been doing? Well, I am still soldering away here. Have been lucky enough to have a few orders for some vintage Santa charms. Also playing with some ideas of my own. Feeling in a festive mood I sent a few out to some of my fellow "Bloggers" (you know who you are) who still visit my blog. I should have taken some pics of them to share with you here, but hopefully they will like them and perhaps share them with you. the truth is it doesn't matter as long as it brings a smile to their face. After all who doesn't like getting a nice surprise in the mail?

I will share the one charm I made for Suzi blu. She has been trying her hand at soldering. (I had also made her a bracelet a few years ago when her beloved cat "Pooh" past away). I decided I would include her in my list of people to surprise. Using a couple images(and for her charm only) of her work, I decided to make a shadowbox. I added some little glitter stars and dots that float around inside. Although I know I posted that these are a pain (and they are). I think I am starting to get the hang of them. It was fun, and I hope she likes it.

On the back I placed another of Suzi's artwork. I added a bit of "bling" with glitter and a beaded accent in pink and pearl.

After a rough Thanksgiving (our daughters car broke down the day before, in Kalamazoo. My husband and son had to drive up and tow the car home that night. then my husbands truck broke down while towing, and well from there it doesn't get better.... we are fine now, broke, but okay. I am ready for an "uneventful" Christmas.

Banner Day!

Yesterday my friend Terri (terrisbloomingideas.blogspot.com) came over for some creative fun. She had cut out these cute banner shapes for us. She wanted to do them last week, but obligations and time did not allow us to make them. So we were going to work on them here at my house.

We started the day cutting some shapes from some dies I had, for future projects Terri is working on. While I decided to cut a set of the little pennants (Terri had brought along her die) for Vicky, who was going to stop in to pick up an order from Terri. She had been feeling a little frazzled lately and I thought she could have a set at home to work on when she felt up to it. When Vicky arrived she pulled up a chair to visit for a couple minutes, after seeing the little kit we had prepared for her, decided to play along. What fun! We bought out the glimmer mists, beads, glitter, and ribbon.

Soon we were all laughing and having fun. My sweet husband was home (plant shut down for the week), and he surprised us with pizza for lunch, and kept hot coffee ready. I love when things seem to come together, I could not have planned a better day.

Huge Tag Die!

Okay, while perusing Ebay one night, I came across a die for tags. I put a bid on it on an impulse , then fretted because I should have read the dimensions. The tags are 10" x 4", I immediately panicked, what was I thinking?

A couple of days ago I was on Skype with my friend Sarah, from Scotland, we joked as I showed her the die that had just arrived. She said she would be checking my blog to see what I would do with it. Well I cut a couple of them out. As I worked with them a few ideas came to mind, they would make a great mini album if I stacked them and edged them with a die, or maybe make a door-hanger (like the do not disturb kind). For now though I thought I would just make a "large" tag, and play with my new edge dies from Sizzix and Tim Holtz.

I have to share with you there is something about Tim Holtz dies that do not like me. I have had issues with his flourish die, and now these. They stick something fierce on chipboard. So after many disparaging remarks made under my breath, I managed to get the snowflake die to cut and not shred my paper.

Using the Ella Blue paper collection, and some Sizzix snowflake dies (which worked very well), They are still not complete, I think I want to add a couple more things before considering them finished. I just couldn't wait to post them though.

Shadow box Charms

Okay these are officially a pain the butt! First getting them to stay together to foil, (yeah those little hearts are stuffed and stitched!) then of course the paper shifts, and to top it off the glitter on the back does a weird funky thing (on one of them). I was asked by my daughter to make one. I did two, just in case. I am glad I did, since I don't think there will be a third! LOL!

Charms

I have not been very active on my blog. Well it all started with a soldered charm I made for my friend Linda. She celebrates Halloween and decks out her home every year. I am always invited to the "open house" held by the people on her block, they go all out for this holiday. so as a token of appreciation I try to make or bring a little something as a thank you. This year it was a coffin shaped charm with her initial "L" in drippy red glitter, and some scary little clown children on the back (I should have asked, it seems Linda has a real aversion to clowns, who knew?)

From there it has snowballed to making them for friends of Linda's and mine. I have to tell you working with the lead-free solder is a pain, but I am having a lot of fun. I have been fortunate enough to sell a few of them, and have had interest from a local store. I just wanted to share what I have been up to. I feel so neglectful but with work I do not get much time to get online it seems.

Well I hope you like them!

****Check out my blog shoppe (upper right hand corner button) for charms and prices.