Scrapping by Design

Oh my gosh, I am SO far behind in updating this blog. What can I say? Life gets in the way.

Anyhow, this picture is a mixed media project taught in Week 3 of Lifebook 2016. The instructor was Melody Ross.

I’m trying to remember the details, but we created a background using stamps or stencils, handwriting and acrylic paint. We drew a woman holding a box of wisdom. The box of wisdom contained some of the life lessons that we have learned thus far in our journey on planet earth.

If I recall, there was supposed to be a flap on the front that opened to display handwriting or something. I opted not to do the flap and just went with the picture as shown.

A few days ago, I was one of the lucky winners of Quietfire Design’s blog up. I won a package of unmounted Christmas and Winter Holiday stamps.

The stamps arrived today. They are absolutely gorgeous. I am going to get them mounted soon and use them in my Christmas cards and other holiday craft items.

If you have never mounted stamps before, it is not difficult. You can get the supplies at eBay. This eBay search shows you what is currently being auctioned:

Visit Quietfire Design’s blog to see some of their beautiful work and projects. This is the link: Quietfire Creations Blog

Those Christmas cards from the CST group are still coming.

This beautiful silver and blue card features snowflake embossing on the metallic blue paper and a swirly embossing on the silver paper.

The star at the card top is a punched shape, I think, and the Merry Christmas is stamped in blue ink.

Another interesting feature of this card was the gorgeous envelope it came in. The envelope is hand made out of a calendar. The outside has an attractive design that could be any kind of paper, but when you open it you can see the calendar boxes inside.

I plan to save calendar pictures to make envelopes from now on. What a great idea.

Thanks to Melanie Wortman for making and sending this lovely Christmas card.

The most recent Christmas card to arrive from the CST card exchange is this delightful and fanciful card featuring stamped, colored and glittered reindeer.

The card is matted with brown card stock. The inside matting is a pale green that is stamped with tiny snowflakes and the sentiment “Merry Christmas.”

The stamped reindeer are matted on brown and white, and colored brown except for the red saddles and Rudolph’s red nose. A line of glitter emphasizes the snow underfoot, and a silver cord is tied on the small Rudolph tag.

This is a lovely, cheerful, whimsical card. Many thanks to Judy Preston.

Today’s mail brought this adorable stamped Christmas card from another member of the Canada Stamp Talk email group.

The stamped image is colored with Copic markers. At least, that would be my best guess. The stamping is done on a white circle which in turn  is layered over a green circle, which in turn is layered over a red scalloped circle.

These circles are centered in the middle of green and red striped scrapbook paper, and the paper is double matted on a layer of white and red.

The red Merry Christmas sentiment is 3-D’d on the card and decorated with two red rhinestones.

I find this to be a most unusual and appealing card. What a bright and cheerful item to brighten my day.

Thanks to the sender, whose name i will include if she permits.

Today’s mail brought these two lovely stamped Christmas cards from the CST stamp exchange.

The elegant  top card features hanging balls or ornaments stamped in navy ink on a light beige card stock. The beige is matted  on a slightly darker  brown card stock, which in turn is bordered with a silver frame.

The card itself has a solid navy card stock on top and a light brown card stock with tiny navy triangles as a border.

The sender, Christal Dueck,  included a note saying the border stencil is by Creatis.

“Seasons Greetings is a silver sticker along the right-hand side.  The card’s  inside is beautifully and simply stamped with the word Peace.

The second card, equally lovely, was a bit of a mystery to me.  That is, it was a mystery in that  didn’t know if the background paper came with the subtle shading or if the card maker colored the paper.

The card creator, Dianne King from Montreal,  kindly shared the secret: “I used smooth, white card stock and with a sponge built up layers of different blue dye inks, beginning with the lightest shade.  If I recall, the image itself was colored with alcohol markers and then I added some Twinkling H2Os to give it a bit of a shimmer,” she wrote.

Tastefully applied glitter also  appears here and there.

Tiny silver snowflakes, which I believe are stickers,  enhance the card further, and a delicate band of gold highlights the layers.  “Celebrate the Season” is stamped inside.

Thanks, ladies. These two stamped Chrismas cards are simply lovely.

It’s such fun knowing the mail carrier is bringing these lovely, hand made holiday cards instead of the usual collection of bills and junk mail.

I made these Wreath Christmas cards using a combination of techniques: rubber stamping, heat embossing, paper layering, eyelets, Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Scalloped Circles Die Template and ribbon.

They look considerably better in real life than in the scanned images.

I cut the wreath shapes with the Nestabilities dies, then stamped them using the Peruvian Lily Set by Rubber Stamp Tapestry. The set contains a dragon fly image, which I omitted. I substituted a candy cane stamp that I had in my collection since I was going for a Christmassy look and feel.

I stamped with Ancient Page die inks, then heat embossed the entire wreath with Versamark Ink and clear embossing powder. After having made several cards, I remembered a product in my supply shelf called Simple Shine by Simply Stamped Papers and Rubber Stamps. The Simple Shine was faster and did a nicer job than the heat embossing.

The sentiment is a stamp from Hero Arts.

I used various colors for the backgrounds — some red, some green, some brown and some bronze. All have four white eyelets at the corners and all have a small green, flower-shaped rhinestone in the middle. Ribbon varies depending on the background color.

These wreath Christmas cards went out to various friends this year.

Yesterday, I received this lovely Christmas card from Ardelle McFarland, a member of the Canadian Stamp Talk (CST) Yahoo group. We are participating in a Holiday card exchange.

As always, Ardelle’s card is perfection. It combines  Cuttlebug embossing, a Spellbinder Nestability shape, stamped images, a small punch art flower with a beaded center and striped ribbon. The inside is just as lovely.

All elements in this card are perfectly color coordinated. Even the gray and maroon striped ribbon is an exact match of the card stock and the stamping ink.

Thank you Ardelle! Yours was the first card to arrive.

Birthdays take on a whole new meaning when you receive so many lovely birthday card RAKs as I have this year. This one is from Julie Beaulieu, another member of CST (Canada Stamp Talk) Yahoo group.

Once again, I am cursing my scanner for distorting color. This gift  is a beautiful rich purplish-violet colored card, layered on a white background and elegantly embossed with a floral design around the bottom and right side.

“Happy Birthday” is stamped with purple ink on white, and a similar purple flower is stamped inside the card.  It’s quite lovely.

Many thanks to the card’s creator and sender. This birthday card is  simple, elegant and beautiful.

We made this Thomas Kincaid Christmas Card with Burnished Velvet Glitter at Clipper Street Scrapbook Company open house. The scene is one of the Thomas Kincaid Christmas scenes, stamped in black ink.

We covered the stamped image with burnished velvet glitter. If you aren’t familiar with this technique, please refer to my video demonstration of Burnished Velvet Glitter.

We didn’t color any part of the stamped scene, but some of the demo cards in the store had been spot colored with  Copic Sketch Markers.  They were stunning.

I didn’t buy the Thomas Kincaid stamp because last year I made about 35 holiday cards featuring a snow covered house. Still, the stamps are lovely.