Jingle Belles - Just a Little Bell

We're on the last day of the Jingle Belle bell challenge and I did have other, slightly bigger bells to choose from but I was coloring this image and realized that the gnome riding the bear had a jingle bell on his hat.  He is carrying the pouch and delivering Christmas mail to all the other gnomes who are anxiously waiting to see all the beautiful handmade cards that they will be receiving from their friends and family, so of course he needs a bell to let them know he's coming.  

I used a combination of General's Watercolor Pencils and Inktense pencils to color this.  I must admit that I am really liking how versatile the kraft cardstock is for coloring with different media.  This is 110 lb. kraft cardstock and has some tooth to it.  The stamp I used is Katzelkrafts The Bear and The Gnome and the sentiment came from a PolkaDoodles set called Christmas Fishes (which also has gnomes that I haven't inked up yet).  Can you see his little silver bell at the end of his cap? I hope so.  It is shinier IRL.

I knew I'd be coloring during football on the weekend so I made two.  

Now I'm off to chime in with my comments on the Jingle Belle blog.  You can visit by clicking here.

Kintsukuroi and a Neutral CAS

What is Kintsukuroi?  It is a Japanese art form or more specifically "the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. The idea behind it is that the piece becomes more beautiful and valuable because it has been broken and has a history." 

This technique or practice was the subject of the Mix57 challenge on Splitcoast.  Below is an example of a piece of pottery that was repaired in this way.  

I have had these papers out on my work table and found some inspiration with them.  I started out by stamping the Wild Flower from Amuse Stamps ramdomly on the Baked Brown Sugar paper with Soft Suede Ink.  Then I took a gold Prismacolor pencil and highlighted the right side of the design and filled in the little blossom ends.  I then took a white gel marker and highlighted the left side of the design.  (This makes it almost look like the bandana technique.)  I touched up the original images with a Soft Suede marker.  I used the pencil again to make the "repair" lines and then went over them with a gold glitter marker.  

Needless to say, it was a little difficult to photograph this with all the metallics.  I used a piece of woven scrapbook paper at the bottom and, in looking over the bits and bobs I had laying on the table, found this letter X in Early Espresso over which I painted some gold shimmer paint.  The final touch was to add the gold glitter dot in the center of the X.  Perhaps you can see the sheen a little better in the picture below.  HWNSNBP asked what the X was for and I told him nothing really, I just thought it would make a cool embellishment.  It kind of looks like a buckle or some belt loops or a slide.

I have a large coffee cup that I got some years ago at IKEA that has a small chip in the rim near the handle.  I keep on using this cup because of it's size and I don't really mind the chip, but I wouldn't mind getting a little gold touch-up on it.  With or without the gold, in this case, I'll just keep on using it. 

Today I stamped that Wild Flower image on another piece of Baked Brown Sugar paper and this time only filled in the blossom ends with the white gel pen.  I also extended the stem.  The CAS262 challenge was to use neutral colors.  So I took the stamped image that I had been playing with and added the scraps from the first card in a nice simple design.  I had thought about stamping the image in VersaMark on the card base but I wanted to keep it uncluttered and let the textured papers shine.

I can add a sentiment to it later.  

Teapot Tuesday 113

Yikes, something changed on Blogger and I'm having such problems posting these pictures tonight.  Let's see if I can get through it.  

This is our teapot for this week's challenge and it has a wonderful story to go with it, but more to the point, the destination station this week is to honor those people that are caregivers to Alzheimers patients.   Be it professional or lay people, the amount of dedication that it takes to give the needed attention to those afflicted with this disease is daunting.  Certainly they deserve a word of encouragement and much needed thanks for the job that they are doing. 

In conjunction with this Teapot Challenge, there is a card drive hosted by Carolyn King (aka Cammie) on her blog in honor of her grandmother who had this disease and passed away not all that long ago.  Please visit her blog and you will see the wonderful giveaway that she is having and all the wonderful companies and stampers who have contributed to it.  You can also enter the giveaway yourself just by following the rules in her post.

My card also uses the sketch in the CAS challenge this week.  I used the hostess set Fast and Fabulous and stamped the flower in Basic Gray on Whisper White cs.  I then took my aquapainter and my ink pad and quickly swiped the Rose Red ink onto the flower image since Whisper White doesn't take to water too well.  It's not going to matter if there are noticeable lines in the coloring because when the ink dried I ran the image through the Big Shot with the Square Lattice embossing folder.  I think this makes the image look like it's part of a needlepoint.  To add even a little more interest, I snipped some So Saffron cs up to use for filler for the flower center.

I backed my flower image with a scalloped square of Old Olive that I got from the Big Scallop Square Duo die.  I had to make the large scallop one scallop smaller on two sides to get my frame right.  The top of the card was polka-dotted with Rose Red ink and a dauber using a stencil I made by punching the 3/8" circle punch into a small piece of scrap cs.  The bottom piece of Marina Mist has polka-dots of Whisper White punched circles glued to it.  I added the Rose Red stitched wide grosgrain ribbon (retired) with a strip of White taffeta over it and made my bow out of white organza with a button in the middle tied on with white cotton string.  With the exception of the cotton string, this card uses all SU product.

So who will get this card?  I am debating whether to send it to one of the destinations that Cindy or Cammie have posted or someone that I work with who has a family member that has been affected by Alzheimer's. 

I know there are cardmakers out there who visit, but even if you aren't a cardmaker, perhaps you would like to perform a little Random Act of Kindness for someone this week and send a message of thanks or encouragement to someone who could use it. 

Clean and Simple Challenge 79 and a Special Lunch

I've been anxious to do some challenges lately and time has just not presented itself until today.  I checked out the CAS challenge on SCS and the theme was "Garden".  Well, I have plenty of stamps that could represent my garden, but I decided to use the stamp that I won on Judi Rose's blog - the PTI 3rd Anniversay Set.  Judi is one of those wonderfully creative stampers that I really find inspiring.  You should go visit her and see what I'm talking about. 

This is a really cute set that has many possibilities.  I chose to use the stamp that I thought looked like sunflowers.  It was stamped in Wild Wasabi on Whisper White.  I then stamped the image again in Summer Sun and Close to Cocoa and cut out the flowers and their centers.  They were popped up to give it some dimension.  The butterfly was stamped both directly on the card base and once again on a scrap and cut out.  I bent up the wings and added some antennae.  The last touch is the ribbon which is inserted under slits I made on either side of the main image.  It's attached at the spine by a Chocolate Chip brad.  Ooops, and then I stamped the sentiment in Close to Cocoa.  The clear stamps made it very easy to line that up.

It was great to get back to some creating.  I think my trip with a couple of friends to "Pumpernick's Deli" today helped bring back some of my mojo which has been dormant for a while.  Wanna see what I had?

This is called a Rachel - one of their famous sandwiches.  It's the sister of a Reuben, the difference being it has coleslaw instead of sauerkraut on it.  I chose to have mine open-faced and with turkey.  And yes, I ate the whole thing!  All this and a pickle bar too!  It was a delicious lunch with great company.

Black Jack Valentine

This weekend HWNSNBP and I went to an Orchid Show.  It was a bit of an adventure as we took an indirect route there which involved reading maps.  But we got there and the flowers were beautiful and I took lots of pictures.  I'll put up a slide show of them later this week.  I couldn't bring myself to purchase an orchid as the one's that I really liked ran in the $45 - $50 range.  Instead we picked up two smaller plants.  One is a miniature African Violet in a cute little urn with birds on it that we both liked.  The other is this little blue plant in a green self-watering pot that I really fell in love with. 

When I saw the CAS challenge today and browsed the Candy Crate inspiration website I knew that I wanted to do a Valentine and this was my inspiration..........

and here is my card............

See my little blue flower - it was a ... uh huh.... to cut out but I'm hoping HWNSNBP will know that it's there for him. 

The quick recipe:  stamp is from Holiday Best, embossed in White on Basic Black cs.  I stamped the flower portion in Basic Gray on Whisper White cs and colored it with my SU markers.  Then I cut the flowers out and glued them over the white embossed ones.  I used the large oval punch which just fit around the image.  Then I added the white stripes on each side and the punched oval to the Bashful Blue background.  This is not a standard size - it's 5 x 3.

Not your typical Valentine colors, I know.   What would you use for non-traditional Valentine colors?

CAS Challenge - Teal's the Deal

HWNSNBP and I had the day off today and he was nice enough to take me a couple of places while we did some errands this morning.  One of those places was AC Moore.  There was a coupon in the Sunday paper for 50% off one item today...... and I had two of them.   I found these cute little bird brads and had to have them.  It helps having HWNSNBP along when you have two coupons because he can also use one - and if I'm really lucky, he'll actually pay for the item too!  Dare I tell you that I also talked the cashier into letting me use a 40% off coupon too.  She quietly rang me up twice to do so.  Wasn't that kind of her!  I'll show you another time what else I got.

Today's CAS (Clean and Simple) Challenge was to use Teal.  I punched out some 1/4" squares from Taken With Teal, Bermuda Bay, and Cool Caribbean - all shades of teal to me.  This wasn't as hard as it may look.  I put the squares into my Xyron sticker maker which meant no gluing and lined them up using post-its and the graph from my work space.  The sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes and it's stamped in Taken With Teal.

I added a strip of Cool Caribbean that I used the Spiral Hole punch on.  I must admit it was hard to leave the background solid, but I did.  Without ribbon, I think this can be for a guy or a gal.  What do you think?

Vintage Vogue Fan and Some Photos

This came about purely by accident.  I was playing with the border stamp from Vintage Vogue and the paper moved and this idea popped into my head when I accidentally overstamped the image ..... at an angle. 

I thought it might make a nice lacey looking fan.  What do you think?   I started stamping it from the right side and used a long post it to mask each piece.  Then I took a pencil and lightly drew the shape of the fan blades.  The flowers were rock and rolled in Cameo Coral and Ruby Red and I added the half pearls from the Pretties kit and some Old Olive leaves.  I popped a few of them up to give it some depth. 

The CAS challenge for today was to Cut It Out.   The flowers and the fan itself were cut out and added to the Cameo Coral background cardstock.  I lightly drew the corner swirls in pencil and then paper pierced them, erasing the lines afterwards. 

On a totally different note, I've been having these photo moments in the car lately.  Some of them I've been able to capture, some of them not.  I've shown you some of the sunsets I managed to snap.  Last weekend, on my way to a friend's house I came upon a field near the river that literally had hundreds of geese in it.  When they rose from the ground it was like watching the vortex of a tornado.  I stopped the car and snapped this...........

This was only a portion of what was in the sky. 

On the same road, in almost the same place Saturday morning on my way to my Uncle's funeral service, there were two white geese crossing the road.  They reminded me of an elderly couple out for a walk.  Although I had to stop the car, they were much too quick for me to get out the camera.

Then this morning as I was headed to work the sun hit the windshield of the car and illuminated the frost that I hadn't had time to remove.........

A little further down the road, there were a half dozen deer just standing in the middle of the road.   Again, it was a missed picture.  I'm thinking I should probably have the camera out of my purse from now on so I don't miss those animal pictures.

I attended the funeral of my Uncle Dick this weekend.  He was my father's twin brother and the last of five brothers.  In spite of the sad circumstances it was good to see cousins that I haven't seen, some as long as 45 years ago.  Somehow we got involved in a conversation about cameras and not printing pictures and I remarked how most of my pictures are not of people but rather nature.  I don't know why that is.  I carry my little Olympus with me all the time.  It probably has something to do with the fact that I don't like having my picture taken.   I'm going to try to change that this year.  (ETA:  I'll be taking more photos of other people, not myself!)

Say cheese!

Combination Challenges

There were two challenges today I thought I could combine.  The CAS (Clean and Simple) challenge was to create a Valentine card and the TLC (Technique Lovers Challenge) was to do paper quilting.  I had a few ideas as to how to combine this, but when I went to get the new blade for my paper cutter out of the bag from Michael's it hit me - or rather it fell on the floor.  No, not me, the stamp that I had picked up from the dollar bin at Mike's this weekend.  You see, I was given a giftcard for Christmas and I decided to treat myself to some goodies and despite all my efforts (and all the stuff I already own), there are times that I just can't seem to resist the urge to use the 40% off coupon from the Sunday paper.

Anyway, while shopping yesterday I found this stamp with the squirrel that says "totally nuts for you" and added it to my basket, along with a new MS punch (Birds on a Wire), replacement blades for the cutter, and a selection of Valentine ribbons.  (Oh, I spent every penny of that giftcard plus a bit more!)

When the bag spilled open today and I picked up the stamp I knew it would be perfect.  The sentiment is good for Valentines and since it was square I knew I could build a quilt around it.

The stamp itself is a little over 1 1/2" inches.  I used my 3/4" square punch to punch out squares of some patterns from the new Welcome Neighbor paper that will be available from SU tomorrow.  I drew a grid on white CS and after running the punched squares through my Xyron, laid them down on the grid to make the quilted frame.  I added a simple white cotton string bow and some faux stitching around the edge of the card.  After I stamped the squirrel, I used my markers and blender pen to accent the image a little and stuck that to the back of the quilted piece.  Nothing like a pink squirrel!!!

I was pretty proud of this card and even showed it to HWNSNBP and told him it was his Valentine.  He nodded his head as usual and said "very nice" and then I went to take my pictures.  I even thought I'd provide you with a close up of the squirrel so you could actually read the background and then it hit me...... see if you notice the goof up............