The Moments

Welcome here! I am back from a wonderful Christmas break. Hope you all enjoyed the time with family and friends...we certainly did!
I am back in the creating mode and I have a fun card to show you today with a quote that I think is perfect to kick off a new year!

This is one of the new sentiment sets that is to be released on My Favorite Things release day of January 4th...today is a peek!
This sentiment set is called "Clearly Sentimental about Time". It has a great collection of sentiments.
No coloring today, fun with dies instead! I used the "Flower Silhouette Die" from My Favorite Things and a few scraps of felt.
I used the "Framed Greetings Die" for the sentiment which I embossed in white.

It is teaser time and you know what that means! It is getting close to the monthly release time at My Favorite Things! Here are a few details you should know about this month's release:
Teasers begin December 31st and will happen every day until and including release day. You can find the list of designers for teasers each day on the MFT Blog.
The release party will be happening on the MFT Forums on January 4th beginning at 8pm EST (that is 5pm for us here in the pacific time zone).
Don't forget to check out our guest designer contest this month. You can find all that info in the forums HERE.
The big "Hop and Shop" day will be release day (January 4th) where you will be able to hop and see all the goodies on the designer's blogs and then do a "shop" the festivities will begin on the MFT blog.

They followed a star....

A fun alteration project with Melissa Frances Christmas papers. The "Home for the Holidays" collection is wonderful!
I had this large metal star from the clearance bin (I paid $1). It was an ugly yellow that I painted with Claudine Hellmuth's paints and then while the paint was still wet I covered it with this paper.

Here is a little close shot of the tag, using some resin pieces and chipboard....you can also see it featured on the Melissa Frances Blog HERE.

Lastly....have you seen Ellen's new E-magazine? Some fantastic articles, step by step projects and a little article I contributed. I chatted a bit about starting your copic collection. You can purchase it for $3 HERE!

Merry Christmas!

Eating a little crow....

I said I would never do it....made jokes about people who do it....now I am doing it! Yes, look at my little princess dog. She has a sweater. I used to think, why on earth would anyone put a dog in a sweater? That is why they have fur!
Well, Lucy actually has hair, not fur...but that is besides the point. We couldn't prolong getting her a haircut any longer as she could no longer see due to her long hair so she needed to be groomed. The poor little things shakes because she is cold at this time of year so.....I bought her a sweater.
Yes, laugh at me. As I age I am SLOWLY learning to never say the word "never".
I admit, she does look pretty cute too!

I just thought this was funny and wanted to share. You will notice that my blog will be pretty quiet till after Christmas. I am still doing crafting, but nothing that I can share till after CHA in January.

I am looking forward to things slowing down after this weekend as the kids are done school and their programs. I am also done all of our shopping...yeah! The week before Christmas has become very special to me as it is a time to reflect on the true reason for the season. The gift of baby Jesus.

I would like to THANK all of you who read my blog and wish you and your families a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS.

VIP Blog Hop and Shop

Welcome to the VIP blog hop and shop! If you have hopped over from Susan's Blog you are hopping along just fine...
I have a fun "Who's That Girl" project to show you tonight.....January is creeping up and I know I will have a few holiday pounds to work off and there is nothing more encouraging than writing down my fitness goals and progress.
For this little fitness log book I used ends of cardstock that were cut off when I make square cards from a 8.5x11 sheet of paper. It would be a shame to throw these very usable strips of paper away.
Here is a photo of it laying open....did you notice my little lulu lemon logo on my yoga pants? I did that with my white gel pen.
Here is what the VIP kit contains this month:
Let's Get Physical (Who's That Girl) Set
Get a Move On (Exclusive mini sentiment set)
Layered Label Die-namics Die!

So now in true EXERCISE form you can HOP over to BARBARA'S blog...see what fabulous thing she has whipped up!

A La Modes Teaser

Welcome to the My Favorite Things "A la Modes" teaser! This sweet "Key to my heart" girl is going to be released tonight! I just loved coloring her....I love the flirtatious movement of her dress....
I paired her up with Cosmo Cricket's DeLovely paper line. I also used the pretty little keyhole resin piece from Melissa Frances.
Here is a close shot of the copic marker coloring. Her skin is colored with E50,21 and 33. My favorite grays for black hair are the Toner family....not too brown and not too blue...perfect! Her dress is R30,35,37,59. The shadowing around her is done with E41,43 and the key is colored with E11,17,19.
Be sure to check out the other designers' blogs, you will find the full list of them on Kim's Blog by 11am EST.
A little about the a la modes if you are not familiar with them....
- Each set is produced in the USA using the highest quality rubber, with the deepest etch possible.

- Each image and sentiment is backed on cling foam and scroll cut, making it ready for stamping right out of the bag!

- Packaged in a clear hang bag, we've also provided the ideal storage solution by including a thick laminated header card in each set that can be used to store the stamp set, in its entirety, after purchase.

I have a fun VIP hop project to show you tomorrow night....so be sure to check back a little later!

Enjoy the little things

Here is a quick little project I did capturing a "little things" moment at Christmas last year....in the midst of the chaos, paper flying, gifts unwrapping at Grandma and Grandpa's....my daughter was sitting and enjoying the moment with a bow on her head.

This photo was printed out in black and white then I used my copic markers to color her sweater and the bow. I also used my airbrush gun on the edges of this chipboard.

All the paper, resin and chipboard pieces are Melissa Frances. The paper is part of the "home for the holidays" collection.I love the soft vintage flair of this Christmas paper with the subtle text in the background. I also REALLY enjoy their collection of sentiment rub-ons! The versatility of them is fantastic...see how I could curve around the edge of my photo....Love that!

I am looking forward to helping get her all dressed up tonight for her school Christmas banquet! I am thankful that I get to share that "little thing" moment with her.....little does she know how BIG it is to me!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Chill Out

This is a fun shaker card that I created that is featured on the Melissa Frances Blog today. These are using the new "Home for the Holidays" collection. I airbrushed the fun jewel flourish with my copic markers to match the blue jacket.
Here is a fun little shot of the card being shaken....love these mica flakes from Melissa Frances! They look so snow like....
Wishing for some of the white stuff here....only rain so far....
Here are a couple of shots from the Santa Claus Parade in Vancouver on the weekend:
This was actually done at the Mission Parade....our boy is part of the Middle School Marching Band.
Here is the High School Band at the Santa Parade...We were thankful that it didn't rain!

This was our daughter's birthday too...she has such a great time with her band friends. She is the one on the far left...

Tag-a-long Day 7!

It's friday and I have a really fun tag to show you today...a bit on the altered arts side, but I love to dabble in that stuff too! Grab a cuppa as this is a looong post with all the step by steps. I love the world of fabric and I especially enjoy using my paper crafting tools to do a little double duty in the fabric realm.
Here is my finished canvas tag. Lots of airbrushing goodness on this beauty!
Here is a little close up .....and here is how you do it! Enjoy.....
First of all, my hubby thinks I'm a little nutty when I save all the cereal boxes and card board to use as a cheap alternative to chipboard....I call it "going green".
I used the Tim Holtz "Reindeer Flight" Alterations die that I bought from Ellen's shop HERE.
I ran a strip of fabric through my xyron and then cut out these FABRIC deer with the reindeer die. Now on their own they would be really flimsy because they are fabric so I wanted to adhere them to the chipboard.
I wanted a nice thick and sturdy reindeer so I glued a couple of the chipboard reindeer together.
Here you can see that there are two layers glued together.
I then pealed off the backsheet of the fabric to reveal the adhesive and stuck them to my chipboard.
I know you can buy canvas tags....but since I didn't have any in my studio I decided to make mine. I have canvas fabric....so I doubled it up and then traced the outline of a #8 tag.
I then stitched along my drawn line, this will be the backside of your tag.
I trimmed close to the stitch line and frayed the edges a little.
I created a mask by adding a few strips of adhesive to the back side of one my reindeer. (I had cut a few of them using up my spare cardboard).
Placed my mask in place on my tag.
Using the copic airbrush system I sprayed around my mask with BG02.
I kept my mask in place and added another fun mask. This one is a brocade pattern by crafter's workshop. I airbrushed with B37.
Added some fun green to the bottom of the tag with YG05.
I added definition to the edges of my tag and reindeers by airbrushing E18.
I adhered the reindeer in place with some Fabri-tac adhesive. Love this stuff for fabric!
I stamped this sentiment from the My Favorite Things sentiment set "Merry and Bright", there are a lot of fantastic Christmas sentiments in this set. All of them with different fonts...love it!
I wanted to lastly add a bit of glitz....I used Ranger's glossy accents as my glue and then sprinkled some glitz overtop.
For finishing touches I added an eyelet to the top and then tore a strip of matching fabric to loop through the top.
You will notice that I decided to only use one of the reindeer.....guess I'll save the other for something else!

I truly hope you enjoyed my tag-a-long series....I sure did enjoy creating them and am looking forward to giving them away!

Have a fabulous weekend, mine includes a couple of Christmas parades. Both of my kiddos play in their school marching band....Time to whip out the hot chocolate and enjoy the festivities!

Tag-a-long Day 6!

Welcome to day 6 of the tag-a-longs! Today's tag I did up for my "cherry baby" for Christmas. I have my kraft roll of paper ordered from Amazon and am looking forward to papering all my packages and attaching these fun tags to them!
Here is the finished product.
The close look at those yummy cherries! Here is the how to :
First off I took a #8 ranger tag and ran it through my creatopia xyron machine to apply adhesive to the entire front. You could do this a few different ways, there is fantastic glitter tape you can apply if you don't have the xyron.
Apply glitter to the adhesive.....the whole front of the tag!
I found a cute cherry piece of scrap paper. I believe it is from Webster's Pages Petite paper pack.
I stamped my cherries. This is an engraved fruit set from Hero Arts.
I used an aquapainter filled with copic colorless blender solution and transferred my color "palette style" to my cherries.
Here are the copic colors I used for the cherries.
Here are the colors for the stems and leaves.
I rounded the corner of my tag using my corner chomper.
I airbrushed the edges.
A deeper green.
I just love this bird screen from Tattered Angels...I use it a lot!
I finished off the hole with a large eyelet. I also added these fun cosmo cricket letters!
Finished off with some glaze....you can use any kind of glaze this is just what I had closest to my desk!

There you have it! Enjoy your night!