Sneak Peek of almost-finished Designs...

I did it! I put all the cards together except for ... embellishments. So you're just going to have to come and RSVP for the workshop to see the finished designs!

Used in this set of cards:
* Embossing folders
* Shinhan Touch Markers
* Cricut carts - Art Philosophy, Artiste and Artfully Sent

Date: Nov 22, 2015
Place: My house - contact me for address/directions
Time: Anytime after 1:00 PM.

I will need to put the order out soon to make our Nov 22nd workshop deadline, so please let me know ASAP if you are attending and how many you would like to make. Without further ado...

Card #1

Card #2

Card #3

Card #4 

Card #5

Card #6

I look forward to seeing you all at the Christmas Card workshop! Hope you are staying warm this chilly day.

Playing with Greens

The fun part about commissioned cards is that I can use whatever I want. In this case, I found a few sparkles, embellishments, and I just had to break out my Cricut machine once again.

The inspiration for this card is here: http://nikkispencer-mysandbox.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/just-add-ink-227chipboard.html.

I used Liquid Glass to make the red Baker's Twine behave on the front of the card but it wasn't easy as Liquid Glass takes some time to dry. Then, I cut up a few snowflakes with the Cricut and I used a few snowflakes.

I brought the eyes of the owl and the patterned cardstock inside the card.

Other
* Cream cardstock
* Copics B24, B21, Y11, Y13, Y21, R24, R20
* White cardstock

CTMH:
* Bundled Buddies - retired
* Shinhan Touch Markers R11 and C46
* Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge
* Pear Ink
* Ponderosa Pine Ink
* Blue and Green Adhesive Rhinestones - retired

The little Christmas Village is lit and the Christmas lights are on!

Cyber Monday - 20% off all Cricut CTMH Collections!!

For Monday (Dec 1) and Monday only, CTMH is releasing a first-ever sale of 20% all Cricut collections! That includes

 Artiste

 

Art Philosophy

 Artbooking

Artfully Sent

In case you've ever wondered how I cut all those awesome shapes for my workshops, like those snowflakes, wonder no more - they are located in the Artiste / Art Philosophy cartridges!

And the packages have more than Cricut in them - depending on the package you'll receive cardstock or dimensional elements that coordinate with the cartridge you buy.

Third bonus - you've noticed stamp sets with a red outline on them - that means they have a corresponding Cricut shape! Each stamp set now also tells you what page and which cartridge it corresponds too printed directly on the protective plastic sheet.

Contact me for details!

Halloween 2013...

I always love creating for my office!! This is an old photo that never got posted - I made up these little boxes and also decided I'd do something different than the chocolate and candy floating ALL over the place. So I made spiced nuts as well.

I started with a basic container, and then just fiddled until I got something I wanted.

I filled them by buying freezer bags, spooned some spiced nuts (an almond and walnut mix) into them and tied them off with some orange ribbon I had laying around. Tags were cut with Art Philosophy and I used scissors to cut out the little counts and ghosties.

Other:
* Patterned Cardstock
* Ribbon

CTMH:
* Art Philosophy CTMH Cartridge
* Artiste CTMH Cartridge
* Creepy Creatures
* Magic Potions
* White Daisy Ink
* Outdoor Ink

Still hoping for this snow to finally go away,

Two Year Work Anniversary

My boss made it to his two year anniversary on Thursday last week. My coworkers were talking about buying a card until they remembered the work that I do and I volunteered my card making skills.

Today's inspiration is from Case Study #117 : Maureen Merrit

I always find boy cards a challenge because a lot of the images I have are more female centered than male centered. However, by using boy-colors: blue and brown it helped to give it a more boy-type feel.

My favorite technique is to bring the colors and images to the inside of the card to tie it all together.

Other:
* Solid cardstock

CTMH:
* Dreamin' Level 2 Paper Pack
* Blue & Green Adhesive Rhinestones
* Silver embossing powder
* Hello Blooms
* Jardin
* Scrapbook Statements - Poets
* Card Word Puzzle
* Artiste Cricut Cartridge
* Cocoa Ink
* Outdoor Denim Ink

Happy Scrapbooking Month!

As you know this month is when I start to think about switching my winter performance tires out for summers - just in time for Mother Nature to dump more snow on us. I'm not sure it's a good idea but I guess it has to be done sooner rather than later.

As well it is National Scrapbooking Month! This brings of course a new SOTM as well as a super awesome promotion and I'm really stoked about both of them.

This month, spend $35 to receive this beautiful paper packet for only $10 more. Each sheet has a unique glossy resist pattern that's sure to add that extra "oomph" to all your projects. The papers are designed for this packet only! Promotion valid from April 1 - 30th.

If you have been paging through the catalog you'll notice that this month's SOTM has some funky red lines around several images.

That is because each shape with a red line around it means there is a corresponding image on one of CTMH's exclusive Cricut cartridges. In this case, all the shapes come out of Artiste, but I definetly love Artiste and Art Philosophy. 

Hoping for the snow to permanently go away,

The picture itself is pretty self-explanatory...

... often I have a clear picture in my head of what I want to do and why. However, past the chocolate and Easter I had no idea other than the 3-D object I was creating and the rapidly decreasing amount of hours I had to put it together and still be awake for a major presentation to my stakeholders the following morning.

Thankfully, I have had plenty of practice at delivering presentations while teetering on 3 hours of sleep back in my University days. I really don't recommend it!

I was so pressed for time that when I walked into my office I had the boxes completed and nothing stuffed. Each contains a Hershey's Oh Henry Egg. But thankfully with a bit of quick stuffing, I was good to go. These little guys were all images (minus the rabbit and the ribbon) from CTMH's two awesome Cricut cartridges, Art Philosophy and Artiste.

It's amazing how you can take patterned paper and mix and match to your heart's delight. In the same tradition as the last card I made the tops and bottoms are from Pear And Partridge, Fall/Winter 2012's Xmas pattern. What a nice compliment to Florentine's blue side... and when I flipped them over, they made for gorgeous eggs to back Sensational Season's rabbits.

Other:
* Cream colored cardstock
* Blue ribbon

CTMH:
* Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge
* Artiste Cricut Cartridge
* Florentine Paper Pack Level 2 (retired)
* Pear and Partridge Pack Level 2
* Chocolate Ink

Happy Easter, everyone - hope you all got a bit of chocolate today!

When you don't have time...

... you make the time.

I'm still trying to get my Easter project for my office completed by tomorrow morning. So my pre-cut 3-D shape pieces, paper trimmer, and glue gun have been living under my desk for the last four hours in hopes that I will be gluing it all together during the lunch hour.

Today's card was inspired some time ago by Random Acts of Creativity but I can't remember the exact card.

Happy birthday to my father-in-law! I admit sheepishly that yes, today is his birthday and I haven't yet sent the card, but he snowbirds in South Africa over the winter months so I still have to find out where to send it to. I pulled out some random embellishments from CTMH that I have been saving for a little while and cut out a shape from Art Philosophy's cart in different sizes for the top of the card. I distressed the edges of the sentiment in Olive and created a bowtie by tying a knot in CTMH ribbon and then cutting the ends.

I brought in the stamping under the bowtie to the inside of this card as well. Can you recognize the paper? If you guessed Stella, you're right - I would have never thought to use Stella in a male card.

Other:
* Solid cardstock

CTMH:
* Ribbon
* Stella Level 2 Paper Pack (retired)
* Dreamin Level 2 Paper Pack (retired)
* Opaque Pearl Adhesives, Mocha
* Random CTMH embellishment
* Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge
* You and Me (retired)
* Love Life
* Olive Ink
* Chocolate Ink

Happy Easter everyone! With luck I'll be able to get the Easter project up in the next few days.

Chocolate, Cricut, and 10 minute cards...

This year for some reason has been doubly stressful and more jam-packed than last year.  What I did not mention in previous posts is that I lost my job in late August which led to a new job and a new team. As I always enjoy doing, I make little chocolate packages accompanied with Christmas cards.

This is cut using the latest CTMH Cricut cartridge, Artiste. The neat thing about this cartridge is that due to all the 3-D options available on that cartridge, it comes with a how-to-assemble manual for all the 3-D options. The two snowflakes too are from the same cartridge. Learning my lessons from last year I broke out my trusty glue gun and everything stayed put.

A trick for those of you with unsightly glue-gun "strings" after your project is done - give it a few once-overs with your embossing heat tool and they will disappear.

After I was done this I was so exhausted but you just have to pair these with a little Christmas Card.

You'll have to pardon the yellow lighting, as these photos were taken late at night. I was cruising through a card store one day and noticed some cards had a second piece on them and one image. Taking that for inspiration I simply cut these little bases: 3x3, and then picked one color and finished all 7 cards in 1/2 hour. That's a new record!

The best part is that they were the perfect companion to my much fancier chocolate boxes stuffed with Ferrero Rocher.

My Stash:
* Solid color cardstock
* Ribbon
* Foam tape

CTMH:
* Wonderland Level 2 Paper Packet (retired)
* Pear and Partridge Level 2 Paper Packet
* Barn Red Ink
* Ponderosa Pine Ink
* Itty Bitty Sparkles
* Blue and Green Adhesive Gems

Thank you all once again for being such avid readers. Merry Christmas!!

P.S... I couldn't help but add the project (my triangles) to H2H's first challenge in 2013 :) 

Cricut Snowflakes

When I was cutting out snowflakes for my workshop, I noticed that there were several other snowflake shapes that are available in the Art Philosophy cartridge. I couldn't resist using them for this latest Christmas card.

Today's inspiration: http://tenealewilliams.com.au/2012/11/case-study-116/

I added two little star brads for the middle of two of the snowflakes, and finished it off with a little blue rhinestone in the middle of the third snowflake.

I thought I'd use the sentiment from October's stamp of the month which is a perfect partner to the snowflakes from the Snowflakes set. I also distressed the edges of the cardstock on both front and back with Indian Corn Blue Ink.

My Stash:
* Dark Green cardstock - Spice Market
* Background white paper (CM)
* Star brads

CTMH:
* Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge
* Very Merry Christmas - Oct 2012 SOTM
* Artiste Birthday set
* Blue Adhesive Rhinestones
* Snowflakes
* Indian Corn Blue Ink
* Sky Ink

I'm less than a week away from the second workshop and cannot wait!

It's going around...

... must be flu season. My only participant for last Saturday phoned and said she had the flu, so that got cancelled. I'll see what happens about her choosing another date to cardmake or if she'll join the other ladies at the end of Nov.

 

However, I was semi-productive and was able to make gifts for all my workshop participants last weekend. I took the new Artiste cartridge for a whirl and it's got so many fun things in it! It did unfortunately cut one of my shapes off center, so I decided to update the firmware for my E2.

I made little bags which contain a little something for each of them coming by!

I'm hoping that everyone is hale and healthy for my November workshop and for all of you - stay safe this Halloween!

Trick or Treat,

Winter's comin...

This feels like the last weekend of Indian summer, but I won't complain. With that fades into fall and then winter, and with winter comes Christmas!!

I did it - I have since made my first Christmas card of the year as I am thinking Christmas card workshops for October and November while we're still in September. I'm super pumped to do them - nothing beats a little wine, some munchies, and good company.

Today's inspiration is courtesy of Case Study: Case Study Challenge #95 based off Teneale's version.

Those dots look familiar, don't they - they're off the double sided stamp set featured in this month's promotion for National Stamping Month! And, I used the newest craze of "swiping" to give it a bit of texture. It doesn't show very well, but I used liquid glass to pop up the middle of the snowflakes and broke out my CTMH waterbrush to color in the little raccoon. He's colored with Grey Wool (retired), Barn Red, Blush and Pondorosa Pine.

I brought the blue inside the card and again used liquid glass for the middle of all those snowflakes. My favorite thing about liquid glass is that it takes on whatever color it's sitting on top of and it doubles as an adhesive if you have lost the adhesive backing on some of the smaller adhesive gems/pearls.

It would be fitting to enter my first Christmas card of the year into H2H's Christmas challenge!

Michaels, etc:
* Solid cardstock
* Ribbon
* Embroidery floss

CTMH:
* Snowflakes
* Bundled Buddies (retired)
* Pink/Red Adhesive Gems
* Opaque Adhesive Pearls
* Bling Assortment
* Liquid Glass
* Cricut Art Philosopy Cartridge
* Water brush

Designs for the workshop are well in progress!

Road trip to Seattle!

We're packing and about to head out to Kelowna tonight. I can't wait to get my fill of wine, good food, and good company. One of our friends in Seattle has a new house = card moment!

Today's inspiration is from Mojo Monday: Mojo Monday 256.

This looks like a crazy hodgepodge of patterns, but I had originally wanted to use the other side of the paper from Avonlea until I ended up putting glue on that side! I guess sometimes fate just wins out. I also distressed all edges of the other pieces with Olive Ink.

Interestingly enough I came across a blog that had talked about mixing and matching different paper packs from CTMH - and this card is no exception! If you look closely I mixed in Stella (retired) for a punch of pink.

This time I opted to not stamp a sentiment inside the card but I did decide to add a little growing tree - to symbolize a new house. I colored it using CTMH inks and a paintbrush. Bordering the writing area is the side of the Avonlea paper I originally had planned on using.

All papers from CTMH mix and match beautifully no matter what the color or the season you bought it in - keep that in mind if you have a few paper packets and are stumped as to what to do with them.

Michaels, etc:
* Solid cardstock
* Ribbon

CTMH: 
* Avonlea Level 2 Paper Pack
* Stella Level 2 Paper Pack
* Live Out Loud - July 2012 SOTM
* Beary Busy
* Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge
* Olive
* Barn Red
* Moonlight
* Cocoa

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Summer and more babies...

There has to be something in the water at my workplace. My manager is expecting #4 anytime these days, the Business Analyst on my project is expecting in January and one of my fellow developers' wife is expecting in December. So I suppose I will be planning a few of these "lets get something from the office to show we care" things.

I'm not ready to follow suit however, but I do love kids - right now I spoil my god children as much as I can. They're 4 and < 1.

This was inspired again by the same Case Study (101), this time based off Iwona Palamountain's take on it. I just loved her tag and tried to borrow a few elements from it.

It's more on the simple side, but now and again it's fun to go on the simple side for a change. The shape for the sentiment is from the three sheets of Dimensional Elements shapes that come with the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge.

I carried over the same colors from the sentiment on the front along with the flowers - I admit I love doing this to give the card an all over uniform look.

Michaels, etc:
* Solid color cardstock
* Blue Ribbon

CTMH:
* Cricut Art Philosophy package, Dimensional Elements
* Card Word Puzzle
* Lucky Level 2 Chipboard Assortment (retired)
* Baker's Twine, Paradise
* Florentine Level 2 Paper Pack
* Dreamin Level 2 Paper Pack
* New Arrival
* Sky Ink
* Outdoor Denim Ink
* Sunflower Ink

Happy Heritage Day!

A card can say a thousand words...

Long ago, when a group of women and I were either stalking/members of/just offhandedly viewing a wedding livejournal site in hopes of getting married one day a set of us bonded so well we created our own group. Amazingly enough, that group is still strong and active to this day.

We have cried each others tears, jumped for joy, banded together to hope for good news for another and supported each other throughout hard times. The most amazing part is that we come from literally every possible career out there and every corner of the world.

And now one of them is in desperate need of cheering up - she learned recently that she had cancer.

Today's inspiration is from Case Study : Case Study Challenge 101, in particular the interpretation by Debby Hughes.

The two flowers are cut with the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge (exclusively through CTMH) and I used a rock and roll technique so that the bird you see has darker edges and wingtips. First you stamp your image in a lighter color, then rock and roll the edges of your images in a darker color. 

I was waiting for just the right card to use something from the Bling assortment, and this one was totally perfect. 

I simply stamped the inside with the sentiment from the set Find Your Style (retired) and left it at that. Sometimes simpler is so much more elegant. 

Michaels, etc:

* White cardstock

CTMH:

* Find Your Style (Jan 2011 SOTM)

* Dreamin' Paper Pack Level 2

* Stella Paper Pack Level 2

* Baker's Twine, Paradise Assortment

* Bling Assortment

* Opaque Adhesive Pearls

Now, how to relax my grip long enough on this card to give it away? 

July Surprise!

It was my birthday last week and I celebrated in style with Aussie wine and pizza from Bear Street Tavern in Banff with my bff and our respective husbands. Their pizzas are fantastic if you ever are in Banff looking for a bite to eat.

In celebration of turning one year wiser and the kick off of the new Fall/Winter 2012 Idea book

I will be adding a set of the new markers from CTMH to any order placed in July with me! They are alcohol based, and each marker has a corresponding lighter or darker color so that you can amp up your projects even more. They're just like Copics, but much more affordable.

The new cartridge - Artiste - comes with three sheets of diecut shapes and three exclusive D-Size stamp sets. There's so many fun shapes in there that I could totally use for stuffing my coworkers with chocolate and other random Christmas/Halloween items. 

Let me know if you'd like a copy of the latest catty! 

Graduation...

... I noticed, quite quickly I didn't have a lot of stamp sets for anything resembling graduation! A coworker of mine graduated today from SAIT and I saw the most amazing card that I had to hijack for this very occasion.

Today's inspiration comes from the winner of Case Study Challenge #92, Arlene from Water Dots.

The numbers are cut out with the Art Philosophy cartridge, and I felt like making my own little "tag" to go on front. The sentiment, which is most appropriate comes from an old campaign set called Pair A Phrase. I love how the gold ribbon gives it a bit of color.

On the inside I continued the statement and thought a firework rocket was appropriate for the occasion. I colored this one with the same paintbrush technique, using ink directly from the pad and working the gradient inwards. I just hope he likes it.

Michaels, etc:
* Solid color cardstock
* Paintbrush
* Ribbon

CTMH:
* Pair a Phrase (retired campaign)
* Outdoor Denim Ink
* Dutch Blue Ink
* Cranberry Ink
* Grey Wool Ink
* Opaque Adhesive Pearls, Mocha


This weekend I am off to run 10K in support of cancers below the waist - the Underwear Affair!