It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I can't believe we're just a couple days away from Christmas. My family exchanges gifts on Christmas Eve, Santa brings stockings on Christmas Day and somewhere in there we do a family celebration with my husband's brothers and aunts. That's the big family gathering, with tons of food, presents, talking, laughing and hugging. This is the tree from this year.

I love catching up with all the nieces and nephews and there are 11 on my husband's side of the family. Our aunts are in their 80s and are a hoot and a holler. They're around 5 feet, Italian through and through and opinionated as all get out. They're hilarious and they are loved by everyone who meets them, practically...but I'm guessing Aunt Katie has ruffled a few feathers in her life. Aunt Mae is the exact opposite of that. My favorite perfect example of this is when Aunt Katie told her younger sister, "you're cold, put on a sweater." And Aunt Mae did!

This is a tag I just finished with some vintage elves from an old postcard, tiny words from Cosmo Cricket and poinsettias made with a die I won from Poppy Stamps. I went for the grunge look and used a tag I had already painted and foiled lightly. The black stars are foam and the candy cane I made from a pipe cleaner that was already red and white. I used a Pitt Artist's marker for edging.

This last Christmas card I'm sharing uses a Power Poppy digital on kraft paper. I love white pencil on craft. I used white Uniball pen and some light colored pencil too. The plaid paper is Carta Bella.

Happy Holidays!

Chark

I'm Feeling All Christmassy

I wanted to enter A Blog Named Hero's Christmas in July Challenge and so I used one of my favorite dies from Hero Arts—the Layering Bear die on a white card. 

This die doesn't cut out the bear unless you use the outline die too, but I just put him straight on the card front. I used a glitter pen to add sparkle and a little pink and black paint to watercolor him. I added some snowflake "sequins" from Kat Scrapiness as accents. You can see the glittery part better in the second photo.

 

For the Lawn Fawn Challenge, Little Things, I kept on in the Christmas mode and made a tag with the little bulbs from the Trim the Tree stamp set and words from Peace, Joy, Love set. I love all things mini, so this challenge was right up my alley.

Hope you'll join me in both these challenges!

And click here to enter my August Crafty Giveaway!

Happy Weekend!

Chark

Happy Christmas

Since Christmas is just a few days away (and tomorrow we're hosting a family Christmas at my house), thought I'd pop in to say Happy Holidays and show a few gift card holders I've made with the Technique Tuesday pull-tab die. I bought it and the little saying stamps that fit it when I won a gift card from them.

Here's a close-up of the pull tab on one of the cards. 

I picked up the pad of Christmas paper at Tuesday Morning, a great place to find craft supplies at a discount. You never know what they'll have, but that's part of the fun. And lastly, here's a little papier mache box I got at the craft store. I added Doodlebug Design paper to the lid and the My Favorite Stamps Santa here. I fussy cut him out after coloring with pencils and gel pen.

And with that, I'll sign off and say, "Merry Christmas!" Hope you get a lot of crafty stuff and time with family this season!

Happy Friday!

Chark

Bunnies from Santa

Yeah, I know the holidays are over and it's back to school and work and all that, but I have one last Christmas card to share. It uses an adorable stamp from Lily of the Valley Stamps that I got for free from Kit and Clowder on Facebook. It's a great group with coloring classes and lots of support and freebies. 

I just love the lines for this digi stamp...they make the bunnies so elegant looking and still adorable.

I used glitter paper cut in half diagonally just for fun. I could've put a different color paper in the center, but I went with white. I used Prismacolor pencils as usual. 

Next Up: No more Christmas cards! 

Happy Monday!

Chark

All Dressed Up Cutie

Isn't this image just so cute? It's from All Dressed Up stamps. I love their digi images and their style. You can see some more of their images here on my blog.

Now, I wasn't entirely sure how to do her hair and I've noticed some people leave the circle in the middle of her little bun things open, but I assumed it was all hair. At any rate, when you have pink hair and antlers, you can do whatever you want! Her skin didn't come out as smooth as it could've but I liked the hair.

I used some Nuvo drops for the little ornaments and holly berries and her eyes. The scrabble letters were in my stash and the torn papers behind her are from a 6x6 pad. Here's a close-up of the drops. 

You can head over to the All Dressed Up Challenge blog on the 15th to see the new challenge. Happy Wednesday!

Chark

Christmas Mini Pizza Boxes

I saw some mini pizza boxes on a craft blog all decorated for Halloween and set out to find them...they are sold by Stampin' Up and I don't order from them, so I had to find a rep so I could get these cute boxes for Christmas. 

I knew they'd be perfect for cash and gift card gifts. And they were just $6 for 8 boxes. Okay, I had to make the shipping worth it so I might have purchased a couple other items :)

The woman who made those Halloween pizza boxes had made a belly band for the box but I knew I didn't want to do that, I just wanted to decorate the top. So I broke out my Christmas papers, including the new Doodlebug goodies I had and went to work. I just put the lid down on the paper and marked it with a pencil to measure the size.

These first two are more vintage looking than the others and are made from my stash.

These are the cute boxes, made with a mix of Doodlebug Design stickers and papers. It's Sugar Plum and Milk and Cookies.

And here is my favorite, using the My Favorite Things Santa stamps I have loved for a couple of years but resisted buying. I finally got them and am so glad I did. He's seriously the cutest Santa I've ever seen!

And here they are opened, with the gift cards and mini pizza sugar cookies I added for fun. I used brown M&Ms, mini red and green M&Ms, green Mike and Ike's cut up and shaved white chocolate for the cheese.

These were super fun to make and didn't take long at all. I may just need to order some more. This time I could put an actual pizza in them.

Happy Wednesday!

Chark

Ornaments Infinity Dies Card

I've been hooked on die cutting on my Big Shot a lot lately and the Hero Arts Ornaments Infinity Dies are so festive I've been cutting all kinds of ornaments. Today I have a card to share. I used some foil cardstock in gold, and die cut three ornaments. Then I put flat glitter (not chunky) behind them and covered with a piece of packaging acetate. It's not a shaker card per se, but the glitter moves a bit. I wanted it to more or less stay in place and it does.

The two colorful ornaments are made from alcohol inks dripped onto shrinky dink plastic and then die cut. But I didn't shrink them, I just left them full-size and then popped them up with tape. The plastic takes the color nicely. The strings are stickers and gold Stickles. I added a strip of striped gold and kraft paper at the bottom. And that's it!

Happy Friday!
Chark

Winter Cards of Cuteness with Doodlebug Designs

So I made some cards for kids for a card drive (see here for more info) and I used some cute Doodlebug Santa Express papers and stickers to create some of them. I cannot get enough of the Doodlebug goodies...they are always so stinkin' cute and just right for cardmaking.

The background paper is from the Christmas 6x6 paper pad. What's cuter than Doodlebug 12x12 papers? The designs miniaturized for the 6x6 pads. Look at these little candies! I used Nuvo drops in Caribbean Ocean on the corners. 

This train is a sticker from Doodlebug but I ran out of gingerbread men for the conductor, so I just went through my Christmas paper and found one that I could cut out and fit in the engine.

The background on this one is washi paper from Martha Stewart and the stickers are more Doodlebug. I just cut the snow from white cardstock.

These were fast and easy, just so I could meet the deadline and participate in the card drive. I am sooo last-minute on a lot of things. Speaking of which, I need to go create for the a2z Scrapbooking blog right now...more holiday supplies to play with. Well, if I gotta, I gotta!

Happy Monday!
Chark

Merry Christmas

Hi, my crafty friends, can't believe it's almost Christmas...especially since I still have to get some things!!

Thanks for stopping by throughout the year and for commenting, I always look forward to seeing who stops by. 

Here are some free digi tags if you're like me and still have to wrap some things. This is my favorite one, little chubby Santa.

Hope you have a lovely holiday season!

Happy Friday,
Chark

Sometimes You Need The Big Cup

Happy Coffee Lovers Hop! Don't forget to link up your coffee/tea/cocoa project to try to win some awesome prizes!

For my second coffee card, I paired a little elf from Hero Arts (a kit stamp from last year) with a cup stamp from Your Next Stamp. And what I got was an elf who needs to be extremely caffeinated during this busy season—sometimes you need the big cup!

The cover plate is from Reverse Confetti and the Christmas lights paper and Christmas tree papers are from two different paper stacks from Michael's. And, yep, I stickled the cup and hat and shoes.

GIVEAWAY: Just comment on this or any of my Coffee Lovers posts Friday, Monday, Wednesday or Friday to be entered to win this pair of stamps and dies from Lawn Fawn (I originally wanted to give a LF stitched rectangle die set, but I literally cannot find it, and I'm running out of places to look. But I know where these guys are!) 

If you comment on multiple days, your name goes in the draw multiple times (one per post, comments closing at noon EST Saturday, December 17).

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Monday!
Chark

Hero Arts Paper Layering Santa

Originally I was going to title this Santa Die Card but that sounded harsh (no, Santa, don't die), so yes, I used a die to make this card, but officially it's called Paper Layering Santa Face and that sounds so much better! :)

I used this die new this season from Hero Arts...it has an outline die too, so you can cut out a Santa face and I've used that to make tags, but for this card, I just used the die to cut into the card front, not to totally cut it out.

Then I used the script stamp from this new Vintage Christmas Wishes set from Hero Arts for the edges and then inked them with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I used Prismacolor pencils to color him in.

The Merry die cut is from this set from, yep, Hero Arts!

After adding some washi and ribbon, I used an aqua card base just for fun!

Happy Wednesday!

Chark

Striped Christmas

I made two striped Christmas cards with the Paper Pumpkin trial kit from Stampin' Up. The card bases were these cool gray/brown striped cards with all the elements you'd need to make some shaker pennants for those cards. For these holiday cards, I used my own black and white stickers.

And my own red glitter paper on this one.

This is what you can make with the kit.

It was fun to get acrylic stamps, ink, acrylic block, card bases, envelopes, stickers, acetate pennants, twine and sequins in one kit...on the other hand, there are some things in there I probably wouldn't use. The gold stickers aren't the greatest as far as adhering well, but it was worth a shot.

And there's nothing so fun as a box of goodies and surprises that you can use to create fun stuff. It's partly why I've joined in the Laura Kelly kickstarter campaign. You get a lot of bang for your buck and I love her style. And in addition to the craft kit you get when you donate to the campaign, she's added a free T-shirt with every level. Here's the link if you're interested in that. You've probably seen her fun style on calendars and those little stick families for cars too.

Have you ever gotten a card kit? Used all the elements? I haven't used everything in mine yet, but I do love the fun of receiving the mail and also having a lot of goodies to choose from.

Happy Monday!

Chark

Christmas with Hero Arts

I have a Hero Arts die that I absolutely love...it's a full card-size die, called the Frame Cuts Triangle Background and I have used it a ton in the past. It's not a new release, but you can still purchase it at Ellen Hutson and I still love it.

I love putting some of the triangle pieces back into the die in different ways. I made this card a little larger than a 4.25 x 5.5 card so I could do some fancy tilting and still use the whole die.

I watercolored the panel in a green ombre fashion and then die cut. Then I kept those green triangles for some other project and filled in with triangles of past die cutting. If you use a quick stick tool, it's so easy to place the little triangles. You can see what else I made with this die here and here too.

Another Christmas card I made that uses the Hero Arts Stamp & Cut Merry and Bright die. I love the ornament dies. You can use them on cards, scrapbook pages, as tags and even make ornaments out of them. 

If you look closely, you'll see I backed the die with red glitter paper (hard to believe I chose glitter paper I know) and the word is a red glitter sticker from some I got on sale last year. I added a silver glitter sticker as a string after I took this pic...can't believe I forgot the ornament string!

Happy Thursday!

Chark

A Doodlebug Christmas

I love Doodlebug Designs so much, their products are really the cutest ones out there imo. And I tend to gravitate toward the cute, even if I do like trying to branch out. Today I'm sharing three Christmas cards (even though today is actually Halloween) with Doodlebug papers and die cuts (from their paper collection). 

I'm joining with the Caring Hearts Card Drive, which collects holiday cards for seniors in nursing homes. My mom has spent some time in a nursing home rehabbing after falls and I gotta say, it almost doesn't matter where it is, or which you choose, there's always something a little sad about the places. Mostly because you know someone there doesn't want to be there, someone has been forgotten or someone is just missing their family and home.

So this card drive is especially important during the holiday season, when loneliness can hit anyone without family. If you want to join in, the details are here.  You have until November 27th to enter the card drive and you can even win prizes.

Happy Monday! And Happy Halloween! 
Chark