Truck of Gifts

Hello there!  Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Today I'm sharing a card with you created with some great Stampendous® Stamps!  This card uses Truck of Gifts for the main image and  Holly Bird Perfectly Clear Stamps™ and Christmas Charms Perfectly Clear Stamps™ on the tag.  If you've gone shopping on "Black Friday" you may have brought home your own truck of gifts!  For me, I'm staying home and as far away from the mall as possible!  So, here's my card:

I love this old truck!  Definitely one of my favorite stamps for creating masculine Christmas cards.  Here's what I did to create this card:

Stamp image, color as desired and trim closely around edge
Create card base from Bazzill
Trim patterned background paper
Trim mat for image
Create bow and adhere to lower portion of patterned paper
Adhere patterned paper to card base with bow attached
Adhere image to mat and then adhere matted image to card
Punch out tag and stamp as shown
Using glue, adhere glitter to tree branches as shown
Tie tag around ribbon and, using a foam mounting square, attach to the card

These are the products I used:

Stampendous® Truck of Gifts
Stampendous® Holly Bird Perfectly Clear Stamps™
Stampendous® Christmas Charms Perfectly Clear Stamps™
Stampendous® Crystal Micro Glitter
America Crafts® Jolly 6x6 Paper Pad
Bazzill® Embossed Dot Card Stock in Red
Bazzill® Green Card Stock
Neenah® Classic Crest Solar White
Fiskars® Tag Punch
Beacon Adhesives® Zip Dry™
Archival Ink™ in Vermillion
Tim Holtz® Distress Ink™ in Iced Spruce
Aunt Lydia's Crochet Thread® in White
Seam Binding in Dark Red
Copic® Markers as listed:

• Sky - B41; BG0000
• Truck - G21, 24, 28; C00, 0, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7; E35, 37, 39, 43, 44; R35, 37, 39
• Christmas Tree - G94, 99; R35, 37
• Gifts - R56, 59; BG72, 75
• Pine Tree Needles:  G94, 99
• Snow - BG0000; 0 (Colorless Blender)

Easy peasy, right!?  That's all there is to it!  Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you again real soon!  

Hugs,

Lea

The Gift of Writing

Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope you're able to spend the day with loved ones while you're counting your many blessings!

Tuesday Morning is one of my favorite places to treasure hunt. I found a gold journal in the stationery section and thought it would be really cool to alter.  I've had it for a couple of months now just waiting for the right idea to pop into my mind and happened to pick it up the other day when I was looking for something else.  Boom, there it was!  I knew what I wanted to do.  I've been suggesting to one of my daughters for a while now that she should keep a journal.  She keeps telling me she doesn't know what to write about and my response is to write about life.  Write about your day-to-day actions, thoughts, feelings, anything! 
 Write about whatever pops into your head whether you think it makes sense or not.  So, with that said, here's what I did for today's Dreamweaver Stencils post:

The lotus flower is used in some religions, especially in India, to represent awakening to the spiritual reality of life.  This fits right in with my daughters way of thinking and is perfect for her!  For starters, I covered the portion of the cover that I wanted to paint with gesso and let it dry.  Once the gesso was dry, I added my Richeson Acrylic paints using violet, crimson red, phthalo blue, and cerulean blue.  I chose these colors because they're her favorites!  Once that layer was dry I added a little interest using LJ 806 Hexagons and phthalo blue paint.  When that layer dried, I paste embossed LG 720 Lotus stencil as shown with white embossing paste. More drying time as the theme to Jeopardy played in my head!  The paste dried and I rubbed some DecoArt® Metallic Lustre™ in Gold Rush over the white paste.  I pulled out my Basic Grey chipboard alphabet set, selected my letters and covered them gesso; they were a bright green but I wanted them to be purple.  Once the letters dried, I added some violet paint and, using Beacon Zip Dry, I attached them to the journal.  Voila!  Now I have a stocking stuffer ready for my daughter!  You'll notice that I arched the paint and Metallic Lustre™ as that mimics the lines on the pages inside the journal.  One of the other things I liked about it was how the lines were arched and not your typical journal with straight lines.  It kinda suits us!

Here's the list of my teammates with projects to share with you today:

Dream It Up! 

Linda Neff (GD)

Lea Kimmel (Me!)
Louise Healy  
Terrece Siddoway 
Pam Hornschu 
Cherylynn Moser

 

Thanks for stopping by today and you can find the step-by-step instructions for this project on Paper Craft Planet!  See you again tomorrow with another fun project!

Hugs,
Lea

Sleigh Bells Ring...

...are you listenin'?  In the lane, snow is glistenin'.  It's glistening on my card, too, while these adorable penguins have a little downhill fun!  This set is called Penguin Sleigh from Stampendous and available for purchase exclusively at Michaels.  Here's my card:

Here are the steps I used to create this card:

Stamp image with Memento onto white card stock and color with Copics

Cut red Bazzill for card base and tent fold

Trim patterned paper  leaving 1/8” edge and adhere to Bazzill

Using VersaMarker, color circles on sleigh, add Lavender Tinsel EP and heat

Trim image closely, trim blue patterned paper to create a mat with an 1/8” edge and adhere colored image to mat

Stamp sentiment with Memento onto white card stock and trim closely

Stamp snowflakes over sentiment using Boss Gloss, add Crystal EP and heat

Create a mat for sentiment and adhere sentiment to mat

Adhere matted main image to card base

Adhere matted sentiment to card base

Spread Zip Dry on corner of paper beneath sleigh, sprinkle on Shaved Ice and allow to dry

Here's the list of products and tools I used:

Stampendous® Penguin Sleigh

Recollections® Lavender Tinsel Embossing Powder

Recollections® Crystal Tinsel Embossing Powder

Stampendous® Shaved Ice

Recollections® Jolly Holiday 6x6 Paper Pad

Bazzill® (Red)

Memento® Tuxedo Black Ink Pad

White Card Stock

Stampendous® Boss Gloss™

VersaMarker™ Pen

Copic® Markers:

R81, 83, 85, 35, 37, 39

G12, 14, 16

BG000, 01

YG01, 03

V12, 15, 17

YR12, 14, 16, 21, 23

E23, 25, 27, 29

C1, 5, 6, 7, 9,

0 (Colorless Blender)

Zip Dry™ Adhesive

Heat Embossing Tool

Paper Trimmer

Hope you like my card for today and I'll have more posts this week, so please stop back by!  Thanks for taking a peek today!  See you soon!

Hugs,

Lea

Santa Claus is Coming...

...to town!  First he's making a list and checking it twice so you'd better be good!  Stampendous® has the best Santa stamps and Cling Jumbo Dear Santa is one of my favs!

For this card I stamped my image in Memento® Tuxedo Black and colored it with Copics®.  I trimmed my image down to the desired size and edged it with Tim Holtz® Distress Ink in Bundled Sage.  I created my card base from Bazzill® and my patterned papers are Recollections®.    I trimmed the patterned papers to the size desired and adhered them to my card base as shown.  I added some twine to three buttons and attached the buttons with glue dots.  This is a larger image so I prefer to keep the card simple and I just love it!

Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see you again soon!

Hugs,

Lea

Portrait of an Indian Princess

I'm really excited as this is my first post as part of the Desert Island Crafters Challenge Blog Design Team!  Woohoo!  Fun times ahead for sure!  For my first card, our sponsor is Bombshell Stamps and my image is from the Indian Princess set.  This is how it works, on the 1st and 15th of each month a challenge is posted to create a project using the items listed on that week's Desert Island Itinerary.  Each Desert Island Itinerary will have 10 items/techniques/colors. Your challenge is to use at least 3 items on the itinerary. Here's the itinerary of items for this week, dreamed up by Kathi from the Bombshell DT:

 1. Use Indian corn colors of Rust, Gold, Deep Red, and Tan

 2. Thank you or Thankful Theme

 3. Dry or Heat Embossing

 4. Three Layers

 5. Metal

 6. Die Cuts

 7. Charms

 8. Photo Corners

 9. Ribbons

10. Lace

Here's my card using 1., 4., 8., 9. & 10.:

I created my card using the digital version of the set so I printed out the main image on Neenah Classic Crest, colored it with Copic markers and trimmed it down to the desired size.  I edged it with Tim Holtz distress inks in antique linen and then a little tea dye.  I created a mat for the image, adhered the two pieces with Zip Dry and added my 3L Scrapbook Adhesives Photo Corners in gold.  I set the matted image aside and created my card base from Bazzill and my other patterned papers are My Mind's Eye Stella and Rose collection.  The crochet lace is also part of the Stella and Rose line as their Decorative Trims, the gold ribbon is May Arts.  I trimmed and adhered all of my papers and trims, then pop-dotted my image onto the card base.  And here you have my portrait of an Indian Princess.  I think she came out rather pretty!

So, check out the blog here, use the link on the blog and all the instructions are listed on the right side.  I hope you enjoy my card, I can't wait to see what you create!  Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you again soon!

Hugs,

Lea

Cutest Christmas Kiddos

This week the Stampendous Design Team is showcasing our adorable Christmas Kiddos.  I absolutely adore the Kiddos line of stamps, they're just the cutest little guys and gals!  This particular Kiddo (and the sentiment) is part of the Toyland Kiddo set sold exclusively at Michaels.  It's one of my favs and is perfect for fast and simple Christmas cards.

I started off by stamping my image and the sentiment with Memento® Tuxedo Black on Neenah® Classic Crest and coloring them with Copic® markers.  I trimmed them down to the size I wanted and added a red mat to each with Bazzill®.  I also used red Bazzill® to create my 5"x5" card base with a tent fold.  I trimmed a piece of 3 Bugs in a Rug patterned paper for my background and adhered it to the base with Beacon® Zip Dry.  I adhered the other pieces with Beacon® as well and mounted them to the card base as shown.  This was a super quick and easy card to create but pretty darn cute!

Thanks so much for stopping by and I'll see you again real soon!  Hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Hugs,

Lea

Damask Book

Have you played along yet with our new monthly challenge, "Holiday Celebrations?"  For the entire month of November we will be demonstrating ways to use Beacon Adhesives' entire line of products with Dreamweaver to create special projects in home decor and gifts of love.  For today's post, I've created a book that could be used for a variety of purposes.  It could be a mini gratitude journal, a place to write your thoughts or you could add some photos, whatever you choose!

Here's the inside, I've randomly stenciled each page a little differently.

Slightly different view to show the thickness.

To create this book, I painted both sides of my chipboard covers with antique linen distress paint and inked the edges with distress stain in tarnished brass.  Once dry, I stenciled on the forest moss distress ink using LX 7001 Damask stencil.  I stamped my sentiment from Stampendous using just the top half of the stamp and layered it onto my papers with Zip Dry.  Using the distress paints, I painted the metal festive foliage findings and, once dried, adhered them to the cover with Gem-Tac.  I cut my interior pages to size, punched the holes and stenciled them randomly with antique linen distress ink.  I had rings to hold it all together but I wanted to use something different so I threaded tulle through the holes and knotted it off loosely so I can still turn the pages with ease.  I like the girlie look of the tulle!

Here's the list of products used:

Dreamweaver Stencil LX 7001 Damask
Melody Ross® Chipboard Book
Stampendous® Kind Friendship
Beacon® Zip Dry
Beacon® Gem-Tac
Bazzill® French Vanilla
Basic Grey® Blitzen Collection
My Mind's Eye® Lost & Found Two - Breeze
Neenah® Classic Crest in Natural White
Tim Holtz® Idea-ology® Findings - Festive Foliage
Tim Holtz® Distress Paints™:
     Antique Linen
     Forest Moss
     Barn Door
Tim Holtz® Distress Stain™ Tarnished Brass
Tim Holtz® Distress Ink™:
     Forest Moss
     Antique Linen
Memento Tuxedo Black Ink Pad
Antique Gold Metallic Tulle

Check out the rest of the team's creations as well as our guest designer for the month, Linda Neff!

Dream It Up! 

Linda Neff (GD)

Lea Kimmel 
Louise Healy  
Terrece Siddoway 
Wendy Jordan 
Pam Hornschu 
Cherylynn Moser

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  Please visit again soon as I'll have more creations to share with you.

Hugs,
Lea

Charmed, I'm Sure!

Stampendous® has turned some of our favorite stamps into tiny stamps perfect for jewelry or tags or atcs, and they're referred to as our Charms Sets.  We have Christmas, Steampunk, Butterfly and Halloween Charms and they're all fantastic!  Today I used the Christmas Charms Perfectly Clear Stamps™ set to create a card and that doubles as a gift!  This card would make a great hostess card/gift. 

I started out by creating my card base from Bazzill with a basic tent fold.  Using Basic Grey's Fruitcake collection I trimmed and adhered the striped patterned paper to the base leaving a 1/8" edge of Bazzill showing.  I trimmed the top piece of patterned paper and using Zip Dry, I added glue to three sides only to create a pocket.  Next I set about creating four little gift tags.  I stamped my images with Ranger's Archival Ink™ in Jet Black and then spritzed each tag with Dylusion Spray Inks (Postbox Red, Vibrant Turquoise, Fresh Lime, Dirty Martini, Crushed Grape and White Linen).  I set the tags aside and gave them time to dry.  While they were drying, I cut some "Hug Snug" seam binding and brushed on some Tim Holtz® distress ink™ in antique linen.  Next, using the "Merry 25th" from Holly Bird Perfectly Clear Stamps™, I stamped my sentiment on some scrap Neenah white card stock with Memento® Tuxedo Black.  I inked it with antique linen as well and adhered it to a mat of Bazzill.  By this time, my tags were good and dry so I added my ribbons to the tags, added a bit of removable adhesive to the back of each tag and tucked them into the pocket.  Card's done and the receiver gets four cute gift tags for their personal use!  Pretty sweet!

Thanks for stopping by today!  I look forward to seeing you again real soon!  Happy crafting!

Hugs,

Lea

Don't Stress, Distress...

...with Ranger's Tim Holtz® Distress™ product line!

Ready to be festively distressed once again? The Dream Team has been playing with Ranger's Distress Paints™, and is ready to inspire you to be distressed as well...paint distressed that is! Dreamweaver Stencils are the perfect choice to mix with all things festively distressed, as nothing shows off color and texture better than great designs. By following our hop and leaving love along the way, you have the opportunity to win a great prize package including five Ranger Distress Paints and five Dreamweaver Stencils! Here's the lineup for today, including our November Guest Designer:

Dream It Up!
Ranger

Linda Neff (GD)

Cyndi Bundy

Lyn Bernatovich

Terrece Siddoway

Wendy Jordan

Heidi Erickson

Cherylynn Moser

Laura Drahozal

Louise Healy

Stacey Rumsby

Pam Hornschu

Lea Kimmel

This is also our first posting day featuring our new monthly challenge, "Holiday Celebrations", and for the entire month we will be demonstrating ways to use Beacon Adhesives' entire line of products with Dreamweaver to create special projects in home decor and gifts of love. Here's mine:

I started off with a cheap wooden frame I purchased at Wal-Mart for $0.97.  I liked it because it really lends itself to being stenciled upon!  Look at all that flat surface just screaming for paint, stain, ink, and stenciling!  I started off by staining the wood with Tim Holtz® Distress Stain™ in Vintage Photo.  I love the warmth of this color!













Here's how the front looks completely stained!

This is the back side completely stained with the exception of inside the hole where the dowel goes to make it stand.  I'm showing you these pictures so you can see how it looks with just the stain.  I think it looks great!

For my next step I waited until the stain was dry and I put a light coat of Tim Holtz® Distress Paint™ in Antique Linen over the entire front of the frame.  This gave it a bit of a washed look but still allowed the stain to show through.   Once the paint was thoroughly dry, using LX 7001 Damask and Tim Holtz® Distress Ink™ in Frayed Burlap, I stenciled my pattern over the stain and paint base.  I let that sit for a bit to dry and then coated it with Beacon Fast Finish to create a seal.  You can tell in the picture below that it's coated as the light reflects more on the top showing the was of the paint off more so than at the bottom where the light isn't hitting it directly.

I know that home decor items with numbers is very popular right now so using Tim Holtz® Idea-ology® Numerals, I added my favorite number, 24, to the front.  The numbers are silver in their natural state so I coated them with Tim Holtz® Distress Paint™ in Forest Moss leaving a little of the silver showing through for a nice distressed look!  I added the brads and attached the numbers with some glue dots (that I boosted the holding power of with Beacon 527 glue).  I added some scrap green paper where the photo would go; since I plan to give this as a gift I didn't want to add a photo.

Just for fun, here's a close-up of the numbers!  Don't they look old!?  I love it!

I must admit, I'm super pleased with how this turned out!  I love it when a project I have pictured in my head comes out just the way I envision it!  I have to say, I love Tim Holtz® products of any kind!  I think I use at least one of his products on almost every project I create.  I love the vintage feel his products invoke.

I do hope I've inspired you to make a few gifts for your family and friends, especially when you can save so much money in the process.  Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you'll stop by again real soon!

Hugs,
Lea