Wishing you joy

Wishing you lots of joy this Christmas season!


Gold heat embossing and glitter go together like peanut butter and chocolate. I think it really dresses up this beautiful "JOY" stamp. I have a brief tutorial posted at Betty Bee's Buzz today. I hope you have time to check it out :)


The J and Y would be plain without the silver dots added...

This is one of my favorite holiday cards to make. Metallic papers are tricky to photograph, but I hope you are inspired to try this technique to spruce up your stamped art work :)

Holiday thank you: Buzz, Brag & Bee Happy Friday

I found this blingy tree in my drawer of images, bits and pieces that never made it to a card. I knew I wanted to use BasicGrey Lime Rickey papers, but I still struggled with a sketch. I decided to start with a quilt card (easy tutorial here). I like layers and dimension, so I embossed the quilt panel with Cuttlebug Spots & Dots and the base card (DCWV) with Cuttlebug D'Vine Swirls.

What fun things have you created this week? Link your creation (or leave a lovely comment) at Betty Bee's Buzz. We love to hear what is going on in your hives!

Cocoa for Christmas - Teacher Gifts tutorial

It's crunch time to try to get my teacher gifts made. I think I will make a dozen of these to start with. I was inspired to make this from my friend, Shantaie. Click here to see her beautiful version.

Tutorial
1. Fill one disposable piping bag with 2 packets of hot cocoa mix. Cut off excess and fold over. *Place in a second disposable piping bag.
2. Starting with your smallest sized "sprinkle", layer your toppings. I layered mini chocolate chips, cinnamon drops, then miniature marshmallows.
3. Close bag with ribbon and attach tag.

* this will keep the cocoa from making your marshmallows look dirty :)


Are you in holiday crunch time too? Head over to Betty Bee's Buzz for more holiday treat ideas!

Happy Wednesday!

Doin' Disney...

I will be MIA this week (sort of...I have auto-posts already scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 15th and Friday, Dec. 17th) because we are going to Disney World!

dhDH (dear husband Doug Houck) has planned this trip for us, without our children. Seems a bit cruel, doesn't it? I have always wanted to see DW at Christmas...this is a dream come true for me.
We will return on Dec. 16th. I have a special post planned for Monday, Dec. 20th...hope you will have time to check it out :)

I hope you are enjoying the holiday season with the people you love the most!

EAD designs stickerz card & gift card holder tutorial

EAD designs is sponsoring us this week at Betty Bee's Buzz. This is my first experience with their products, and I am totally enamored with their stickerz. They are re-positionable, which was lucky for me, since I had to try each word twice to get them on straight! I used EAD stickerz for my sentiment for this birthday card.

But I could not stop there...
I have a drawer full of Altoids tins in my craft room to re-purpose. They have been there for more than 8 1/2 years completely untouched. My niece just turned 2yo (happy birthday, Addison) and I wanted to give her a Toys R Us gift card. How much fun would it be to girl it up a little?



I placed the EAD stickerz sentiment on pink paper and fussy cut around it.

Then I mad a little card to fit inside (the gift card is inside the little blue card).




Much cuter, right? This was so much fun, I know I will have to do this again!



Other supplies

card:

• Tim Holtz die and distress inks
• Hero Arts stamps (flower & polka dot background)
• K&Co. gem

tin:

• K&Co. papers, die cuts, and acrylic alpha stickers
• Bazzill card stock (blue)
• SU pink ribbon

I hope you check out these EAD stickerz...you can color on them with your markers to coordinate with your project...I gotta try that next :)

Masculine Birthday card

I made this card for my sweet sweet sister's dh, my #1 b-i-l (hi, James!)

I made the main image in Jennifer McGuire's Color My World class in September. I am pretty sure the stamp and base card is Hero Arts and the shape die is Tim Holtz. The inks are Tim Holtz distress inks Broken China and???? I layered the main panel on Core'dinations card stock (a dark grey) and fussy cut. The base layer is a navy Bazzill embossed with Cuttlebug Stars embossing folder(I'm not sure why it is not showing up in my pic...it is nicer IRL.) I added star embellies (punched from white card stock and gem stars, courtesy of Jennifer McGuire.)

Speaking of birthdays...EAD designs is sponsoring this week's challenge at Betty Bee's Buzz. Betty and the HoneyBees will be making birthday cards using fabulous stickerz by EAD designs (these will post Wednesday, December 8th.) In the meantime, head over to Betty Bee's Buzz to see an inspirational video on ways to use EAD stickerz by HoneyBee Court! She is fabulous, I promise :)

Happy Monday!!!

Buzz, Brag & Bee Happy Friday: ATC swap

I have a small group of very special paper-crafty girlfriends (Deanna, Sheryl, and Chris). We try to get together the first Friday of each month to share, laugh, and enable each other. Deanna named us the "Design Divas." On occasion, we set an optional monthly challenge. Deanna set the current challenge: create 3 ATC cards to swap with each other at the next meeting...which begins this morning @ 9:30am!!!

These are my ATCs ready to go. I am anxious to see the ones I will receive from the other divas.

Have you had a crafty week? Have good news to share? Please link up your recent creation(s)/leave a comment at Betty Bee's Buzz for Buzz & Brag Friday each week.

Happy Friday, Darlings!

Supplies
papers & gems: K&Co. Que Sera Sera
rub-on sentiment: Making Memories
punch: Martha Stewart

Have a monster-ously fun birthday, dh!

Today is my hottie husband's birthday :) Happy Birthday, Sweetie! He is 8 weeks younger than I, but we both like it when we are the same age. Now we are 44 together...and we met at age 19...yikes!
I have admired these monster stamps at Michael's for many months, and I finally purchased them in October. I used a balloon stamp (Flourishes) and fussy cut it out, then drew a string to the monster's hand. I was completely inspired by Michele Boyer's Stamping Bella monstah bash card in Paper Creations magazine Fall 2010 issue.

Other supplies

• decorative papers: Cosmo Cricket the Boyfriend and Early Bird deck
• black card stock : ACMoore
  
• black button from my stash
• copic markers
  

Fred She Said/ Tim Holtz vintage ornament card/gift card holder

It's a card and a gift card...
...all in one! I added foam tape to the back of the Tim Holtz shape die only at the top and bottom so that the gift card would slide in.

Fred She Said is sponsoring us this week at Betty Bee's Buzz. The beauty of digi images is the ability to print them any size you want. I knew I wanted to use my Tim die for this card and the BasicGrey Fruitcake paper "Vintage Ornament." I distressed the edges of the die with Tim Holtz distress inks. I colored my image with copics and Bic Mark-it. Before I invested in copic markers, I tried a set of Bic and Sharpies markers. I find they both Bic & Sharpie color well, but I had trouble blending colors for shading AND if I made an error it could not be erased. I love my copic 0 colorless blender...I make a few errors when coloring sometimes and this erases beautifully :)

Check out Betty Bee's Buzz and leave a comment for a chance at blog candy; join us for our challenge this week and earn a chance at winning a gift certificate to Fred She Said too. I hope to see you there!