I see a birdie!!!

                                     I personally wish everyone a much better year in 2013.

Lucy is enjoying her new cat condo stand. We sprinkled bird seed in the bushes outside the window to attract some birds to entertain the cats. It took 2 days for them to find it but now the cats have birds to watch. Lucy was a hoot the 1st day. She kept trying to climb the window to try to get out and to the birds. Now she sits and twitches her whiskers and flicks her tail. These will be fun pages to scrap. Someday. I still haven't even got to do my tigers pages yet.

Reindeer Noses

This was a cute idea I saw somewhere and sine we carry different sizes of clear tubes at the store...I had fun with it. There is a red candy in each along with Whoppers. I gave these to my boys and nephews for Christmas.

Coal

This was another project for fun for stockings. And I asked my sister at Christmas which of her 3 boys were the naughtiest this past year...she was saying it was a toss up between 2 oldest....so I gave them each one. The tubes are filled with Whoppers and I used left over papers from previous xmas tag projects for the tags.

Hershey Reindeer

As promised, I will share the last minute projects I made for my nephews and family for Christmas. I ran up to the store xmas eve to whip them up and do some paperwork....THAT never ends when you own a business!

My grandma gave me a large candy bar every year for xmas. And I have to say I had gotten choked up several times going through the grocery store and seeing them since she passed away. This year I decided to carry on the tradition in memory of her. I just used regular sized bars and I plan to decorate them each year now for family. She'll like that.

I used a circle punch and white gel pen for the nose, spellbinders twig and googly eyes. I saw the idea somewhere and flipped it to tools I had available to me.

Merry Christmas Gift Card Holder

Last tag. don't you wish now you had taken the tag class.....look at all the fun tags you could have done for Christmas?  This one is actually made from a toilet paper roll. I flatened it and then covered with patterned paper and embellished it with a banner and poinsettia die. The inside piece I used a corner punch to hold the gift card in place and then aded ribbon to pull the card out with ease. This could easily be done for birthdays, graduations or any time you are giving a gift card. 

Tags

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. Still posting tags from a week ago classes. Then I can start posting some fun things I made for Christmas for my nephews off from ideas on Pinterest.

The top tag is using a Our Daily Bread stamp and matching tag die. Copics were used to color.  The bottom tag is just holiday papers, piece of ribbon and a tree brad. So you could use your scraps and make your own Christmas tags or any type of tag so keep that in mind for future gift giving.

Merry Christmas

                                                        Have a meowy Christmas.

Tags

More tags. The bottom is the snowflake dies from My Favorite Things....I really like the detail.

Cosmo was on Santa's "Good" list this year

Cosmo got to give santa his wish list when Santa visited Picture This this past Thursday. And I got to give him my wish list too. I hope everyone has a very safe and special Christmas with their family and friends.

Tags

The top tag is using Spellbinders poinsettia die that I have used a lot!! Love that die set. I used a white gel pen to add the accents and a gold Candi dot for the flower center.  The curly gold ribbon has wire in it so I wrapped it around a pencil to get the curly Q's. We have several different colors at Picture This.

The bottom tag is using the Lifestyle crafts candy cane die. We just had Alan here from Utah last Thrusday doing a make-n-take with their letterpress system and he gave away $240 in a shopping spree along with a lot of prizes. It was a lot of fun and I feel honored to have him come to my store.

Tags

The top tag is using a Memory Box die and just fold in half and glue several together to form your 3D ornament. I stamped some tiny flakes and added some sprigs and poof! A cute tag.
The bottom is using a Judith tree stamp. Easy peasy.

Tags

I had a Kids Tag class and another tag class Sun/Mon and so the next several posts will be totally tags!!  I was having fun creating a bunch of them once I got on a roll making them. The top one is from an older Spellbinders die. I just used a border punch for the white and added some jute and a button and a snowflake.
The bottom is also using Spellbinders dies (circles and scalloped circles) and I used the banner die for the red part and folded it back. I have seen it done on cards so I shrunk the idea to a tag and added a Candi Dot for the top of hat. I also dug out my eyelets for the tags too.

Love Buds

Last creation from my time Saturday. The new Valentine papers are already arriving in store so figured it was time to make a fresh V-day sample. And my sales rep for American Crafts-Pebbles-Studio Calico-Crate was here Thursday after the awesome Lifestyle Crafts guys were here giving away a ton of prizes. So I got to see all that is being released at Winter show in Jan. and preorder all that. Lots of fun stuff!! I want to order it all but have to pick and choose.

So Sweet

     This started as a page for sale but I think I will put it above the cardstock isle for now. Friday Dawn and I rearranged so all the 12x12 was together and then the 8x11 is together. Those fixtures are darn heavy when they are full!!  And Saturday Tracy and Dawn rearranged all the cardstock by color then. Something that has been on the want-to-do-list and since we just finished inventory on the cardstock...it seemed like the perfect time to do it. I hope you like that change.  Anyhoo, I noticed the samples needed some refreshing above the cardstock so this will go up there for now before it becomes a page for sale. And I used my wonderful dies to complete the page.

Stocking

Goodmorning. I love the new folders that cut and emboss at the same time. The stocking is a Memory Box die and I used the fun double sided ribbon for the final touch.

How many of you created gifts this holiday season?  Be sure to check out our Facebook page and upload a project you made and then get your friends to like our page and vote for your project. The post with the most likes by Dec. 31st will win a $25 goodie basket and a gift certificate from me for $13 for 2013. 

Family Traditions

I got to play a little at the store Saturday. I found these goofy looking wood dogs once and bought them as a gag gift to my stepfather. That was about 10 years ago and every year we take turns giving them back each Christmas in some form. Huge box weighted down and wrapped several times...you name it. Well a couple years ago my lil sis made a large cookie to resemble the goofy dogs and that was then given. I think they are in my possesion this year to come up with a clever idea to transfer them back.

Copic Santa

Last card from the other nights class. Advanced Copic people are afraid of reds or don't like using them since they are a bit of a challenge. So I decided to use it in my Copic 101 so they didn't even develop that fear. And everyone did just fine. On this image I used a piece of flour towel and put some blending solution on it and pounded it lightly over the red parts. On the closeup you can see it is "textrued' then. You can do a lot of fun effects with the blending solution.

Now notice the little section where the red went outside the line? Use your chisel end of your Copic and 'push' the color back into the section it belongs. When working with darker colors like red...push a little and then let it dry. Then do it again and let it dry.  If you just keep trying and it is all saturated with the alcohol...it will start to just bleed everywhere. So the trick is to let it dry between each time.

Copic Angel

This is another project from the Copic 101 class. They got do do face tones and work on highlights in hair. They all did a great job.  I used a white gel pen after I finished the face and added dots to the cheek areas.  The stamp is a Magnolia stamp. This face tone was accomplished using E00, E000 and E93 for the blush.

Prayers for Connecticut

Got home last night to the awful news of the school shootings in Conn. I can not even imagine what that community is going through. My small community has lost several children in car accidents in the past couple years and everyone knows everyone so your heart shares the sorrow. This is so many and so senseless. So my prayers go out to them.


I offered a Copic 101 class the other night and now more people know how awsome these markers truely are. This was a easy one they got to start off with. Seeing how they can lay the blush on cheeks and then go over it with the browns to blend it all together with no brushstroke lines. I usually use R20 for blush when doing browns. The browns used are E31, 33,35.  The bear is a Judith stamp.

Kitties new toy

We picked up a cat tree yesterday and Ramsey assembled it for me. The cats were sure loving it. The front of my house is 2 stories of all windows and I would love to have one that is 2 stories tall.....but that would cost an arm and a leg. So they will have to be content watching birds from the bottom level of windows.
You can see the snow we were getting yesterday as well in one of the photos.