Christmas Challenges.

Hi Everybody,

Well, I have finally found a few minutes to blog.  Things are moving along, slowly.  Renos will be done in a couple weeks, hopefully.  I have a fellow in doing the mudding on the gyprock and he should be finished in a week or so.  Then painting, new flooring and then the bathrooms.  OK, maybe it will be more than a couple weeks :-).  I have been taking boxes in to town with me nearly every trip and storing them in the Big Room (my name for the partially finished part of the basement).

The garage sale went well.  Made close to $500 when all was said and done.  Now I am gearing up for the next one.  This one will have fishing gear and tools.  I am also selling on our local Face Book buy and sell.  Some of the bigger ticket items.

Anyway, enough of my life.

 

On to the card I made for a couple Christmas challenges.  This card was so much fun to create and I really like how it turned out.  This is the first shaker card I have ever made.  I go through an amazing amount of double sided tape from the Dollar Store.  And I have been saving the blister packs that it  comes in.  Perfect size for this card.  The image is my all time favorite Christmas stamp from Penny Black.  It was one of the first stamps I ever bought.  The white layer is embossed with a Cuttlebug folder.  I used my fiskars circle cutter to cut the circle, 'cause I did not buy the Spellbinders circle die.  I am still trying to use up all the turquoise ribbon left over from my daughter's wedding so I used turquoise for the base card.  And the bling is from a package that my little granddaughter bought (with her own money) for my birthday because we both love Shiny Stuff.  I used a lot of double sided tape to assemble everything.

BTW, the inside of the card says "Friends make Christmas Special".  It is part of a House Mouse stamp that I only inked up the sentiment.

These are the challenges that I am entering.

Christmas Card Challenge-  use somethin new. 

 I may be stretching it but the new thing I used was the technique.  Oh and the bling.  I have had it for a while but this is the first time I have used any.  My granddaughter on the other hand,  who loves to play in my rubber room and like her grandma, loves anything sparkly, has used quite a bit.  Gotta love it.

Crafty Hazel Nut- use your favorite color.

My absolute favorite color is blue, any shade.

Unique Crafters-use sparkle on the card.

That is a given.

CCAYR-Make a card for a kid.

I think the image on this card is very Kid-worthy.

So that is about it for me today.  Back to cleaning and sorting and packing.

Hope you all have a great week.

Theresa in Kitimat

challenge card

Hi everybody.   I have a quick post today to show you a card I made and want to enter into a couple challenges.

This is a very simple card that is folded at the 5 1/2 inch mark.  The image is one that I won from Teri at Delicious Doodles.  Don't you just love it?  She has the most amazing digi images for sale.  You should check out her site.

I printed the digi on white cs and colored with Prismacolor pencils.  I added the two layers of white punched (Martha Stewart) paper and glued that to the blue cs.  Added the sentiment using a Dollar Giant set of baby stamps.  I inked the edges with the same blue ink and added the bling.
And I was done.  How easy is that.

The challenges I am entering are:

Delicious Doodles Challenge blog -The Woner of Life (you do not have to use her digis to enter)

Unique Crafters Challenge Blog - Anything goes (new blog with a great prize)

Pattie's Creations - Anything goes (must use image digi or stamped)

That is about it for today.  Hope you are all having a good one.

Theresa in Kitimat

Finaly, posting again

Hi everybody,

Sorry I have been mia for so long.  Life happens.  I spent time preparing for a card workshop I presented at our Seniors' Center and then had a Birthday bash for 2 of my children.  I have also decided to sell my house so am in the midst of cleaning and decluttering for the appraiser who is coming next week.

Anyway, I have been creating during this time and want to share some of the cards I have made. 
I have been bit by the "challenge" bug and the card I have today is for a challenge.

I am submitting this card to the Do You Stack Up challenge blog (use plaid).

I have made a masculin card, which is hard for me.  The card is pretty straight forward.  Navy cs base card, layer of grey plaid background paper printed from the computer, layer of red cuttlebugged paper which was cut with nestabitities.  Cut the white paper with nestabilities and left the metal die on to sponge the blue color.  The image is a retired Stampin Up image.  I used a piece of plaid ribbon over this.  I used my cuttlebug to cut the letters, glued them on the white piece, sponged the edges, added some bling, glued over the ribbon, and I was done.

I have nearly a dozen cards that I have created over the last little while, so hopefully I will be posting them over the next few days.

Happy day to you all.

Theresa in Kitimat

SAS4K challenge

Hi Everybody,

Today I have a card that I made to enter into the SAS4K challenge.  This challenge is to make a Spring or Easter card suitable for a child (as always).  I made several of these and they will be added to the cards I will be sending to Lynnette to take to Stollery Childrens' Hospital in Edmonton.

I love the way these cards turned out and they are easy peasy to make.  I used a center step tutorial on Split Coast Stampers for the base.  Beacause i wanted the center panel to be a little wider, I changed up the measurements a little and made the side panels 3/4" instead of 1".

I used an oval nestability to make the mask and sponged around it to highlight the area where the little chickie goes.  Also used nestabiltiies for the sentiment label. 

I have seen many variations of the chick and so not sure who to give credit for that.  I used Stampin Up punches- large oval and scallop circle and sponged the edges.  And of course, googlie eyes and a tuft of feather.  The eggshell is a Hot Off the Press clear stamp called Small Easter Chick.  I used markers to color the stamp, stamped it, used the same oval punch and then trimmed off the top chick part.  Put everything together, and I was done.

Hope you liked my card today.

Now I am off to get the SAS4K package ready to mail.

Wishing a Happy Day to you.

Theresa in Kitimat

Finally, CCAYR challenge cards

Hi Everybody,

Well, I have finally finished my cards for the CCAYR challenge.  Since it is Valentines month, the challenge was to use a heart somewhere on the card. 

I started these cards right after the challege was announced and just finished them today.  I used a free digi from Beyond the Fringe Crafts.  I am adding a link to the actual digi here.  If you use digi stamps, you really should check out this site.  Carmen is a Canadian gal and she has a lovely site and the most delightful digis.  Thank you Carmen for all the digis I have downloaded from your site.

The cards I made are really straight forward.  I printed the digis, colored them, cut them out and used a black paper for matting.  I then found matching papers for the base and more matting paper.  Added some bling and/or glitter and I was done.  Oh, and amazingly, I only used one little piece of ribbon.   I do love to use ribbon. 

Not sure why it took nearly three weeks to finish these cards :-).

So, that is my post for today.  I hope you are all having a super weekend.  Mine has been good so far, except it is snowing.   Please, please, no more snow.  I NEED sping to come soon.

Happy Day to you all.

Theresa in Kitimat

I'm a kid, at heart.

Hi Everybody,

I am busy finishing off my card package to send to Lynnette for Stollery Hospital but I want to do a quick post to show you the card I am adding to the SAS4K challenge(anything goes).  You should check this out.  There are prizes to be won :-).

I always try to add masculine cards for the boys, even though they are somewhat hard for me to make.  These cards are a lot of fun, though.

The images are from Stampin Up.  The slider tag was cut with my CB and the ep is Black Opal from Judikins.

And now, the fun part.
 I remember the spin art kit my kids played with when they were young.  Well, when I was watching my granddaughter (before she started school), we would spend some time playing on the computer.  One of her favorite places was nickjr. and we found a spot where you could generate spin art.  We made sheets and sheets of spin art and printed a lot of them.  I have since made a few of these on my own and found that it is better to email them to myself and then print from the image I save from the email.  I can get two spin arts on a page and resize if I like.  If you check this site out, you have to move the bottle around quite a bit to get it to put down color.  It is a lot of fun, even if you are a tad older than a Nickjr.

Here is another site I found to generate spin art.  This one is cool too, but you are limited to the colors you can use.

So, that is it for today.  I hope you all have a great weekend.

Theresa in Kitimat

Cst challenge

Hi Everybody,

Happy Thursday to you.

Here is a card I have submitted to our weekly CST challenge.  This week is winged things.

The focal image is a cut out design.  I saved this image ages ago and I am sorry, I have no idea where I got it from, but I do have the design saved.  I printed the dragonfly and then used the template to cut out the black silhouette, being careful to leave the outline in tact.  I used the outline to sponge the background color.  I sponged the brown and then the blue with pigment ink and then added sparklie ep to the wings.  Then I glued the cut out black design over the background, offsetting it just a little.  I added the sentiment (actually, I stamped the sentiment first) and then lined everything up.  I added a few layers of matting and I was done.

If you have any questions or would like the template, please email me.

Hope you are having a great day.

Theresa in Kitimat

CST challenge

Hi Everybody,

Well, I fianally got busy and did some crafting.  I needed a Birthday card this month for a good online friend so I decided to enter it into the CST challenge (make a birthday card).

This card is a little larger than the regular size, maybe about 5 X 6 1/2, not sure anymore.  I used a SU canvas backgound stamp and close to cocoa ink.  Sponged the edges.  I used a nestability for the scallop circle and my fiskars circle cutter for the inner circle and a nestabilities die for the leaves.

The sentiment is a Fiskars clear stamp set designed by Cloud 9.

I made the flower from pink paper and the how tos are from a video that is in the link further down the page.

I use a Fiskars clear stamp designed by Heidi Grace to stamp the flowers.

The little stamens are made with a Punch Bunch punch.

Here is the inside of the card.

This is a 7 flower pop up and here is the link on how to make it.  The video in the link shows how to fold the paper to make the flowers.

This card is a little time consuming, but the end results are really worth the effort.

I hope you liked my card today and try to make one yourself.  If you do, and have any questions, please email me and I will try to answer them.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you are having a great week.

Theresa in Kitimat

CCAYR January challenge

Hi Everybody,

Hope your week is going well.  It is very cold here so I have been staying inside, doing some creating.

These are the cards I made for this months challenge at Christmas Cards All Year Round.  The challenge this month was to make cards using non-traditional colors.

Since all the cards are different, I decided to scan them individually instead of taking a pic of the whole bunch together.

This first card is made using the old label technique.  I started by sponging the labels while they were still on the backing paper.  I used an anti static bag and stamped the tree (retired SU stamp) with versamark.  I then embossed with white ep.  I then carefully transferred the labels to the purple background paper.  After that was done, I used my stamp positioner and overstamped the second layer of the 2-stamp set with versamark and embossed with gold ep.

And it was done.

 The next two cards were pretty much done the same way.  I tore a couple large postit notes and masked the front of the card, leaving the center area showing.  I sponged this area with blue, green and purple.  Then I stamped the larger snowflake with Tempting turquoise and then the smaller snowflake with versamark and embossed with a purple ep.  I removed the masks, stamped the sentiment and used the same purple ep.  I added the ribbon and fibers and mounted on a purple base card.
The intensity of the colors on both cards is about the same.  I am not sure why one scanned lighter than the other one.

 This next card uses up some mistakes, er...leftovers, that I had from the cards I made for the November challenge.  You can see those cards here.  I used a Sizzlets die for the sentiment.

 And the last card is pretty straight forward.  The medallion is from SU.  The small image in the center is a small part of an old lovely stamp made by Stampendous and I do not know who makes the sentiment.

So, these are my cards for today.  Hope you like them.

I hope everybody is keeping warm.

Theresa in Kitimat

SAS4K cards

HI Everybody,

Here are a few of the cards I sent to Lynnette this month for SAS4K Canada.   The cards are pretty straight forward, so I won't give long descriptions on how I made them.  I really tried hard to include cards for boys.  This is a stretch for me because I am much more comfortable with flowers, butterflies, fairies, etc.  I did add bling, not so much for the boy cards.

The rest of the cards I sent were made using card fronts from swaps and some sent to me by Sue.  Once again, thank you Sue.

The sentiment on this first card was made using one of the first stamp sets I bought, many, many years ago.  It is a foam mounted set of words that can be put together for different occasions.  I can't remember who made it.

 I made the next card a long time ago when I was doing a lot of paper weaving.  The bear stamp is from a foam mounted set made by PSX

 This card was made with nesties.  It folds up at the top.  I stamped the sentiment and embossed with gold and then used a white jel pen to accent it.

 This card is made with an image I got in a swap and I am not sure who makes it.  The inside says "Happy Birthday"  It is colored with prisma colors and the wings are glittered and the ladybug has glossy accents on it.

 This card was made in 2003, when I joined Stampin Up.  I used one of the sets I got in my start up package.

 Here is one of the boy cards I made.  The zebra and background stamp are made by Stampendous.   The zebra is stamped on acetate which is mounted under the circle cut in the front of the card.

 This one is nearly the same as the last one, using a SU image.

 Here is a girly card using lots of bling.

Another prisma color card.  Finished with glitter and glossy accents the same as the other one.

 
 Another birthday card for a boy.  I think the image is from Penny Black.

 And finally, I used a card front I made over 10 years ago.  The image is PSX.  I actually embossed the outline on the colored fish from behind using a template I cut out from chip board.  I was cuttlebugging long before Cuttlebugs were invented :-).

I will be entering one of the Valentines in the SAS4K (US site) Valentines challenge.

That is about it for this post.  I have a couple more challenges I am entering today and so will post about them later.

Hope you are having a great weekend.

Theresa in Kitimat

CST challenge

Hi Everybody,  Hope your week is going well.

Just 10 short days left until Christmas.  I am almost done.  The house is decorated.  The cards are sent. The shopping for grandkids is done.  Only have to get a few gift cards for my kids.

Since we had a Christmas in July, our Christmas this year will be scaled down a bit.  One of my sons and his family are in Switzerland this year so we celebrated before they left during the summer.

I added a couple cards to the CST challenge this week which was to feature snowmen.

This first card is one I sent to an online friend who has supplied me with scads of card fronts to remake and sell to raise money for our local Relay for Life.  Thanks Sue.

The card measures 4 1/4 X 5 1/2.  I started out by stamping the background snowflakes randomly in different shades of blue. Some of these snowflakes are from Stampin up and the rest are from Inkadinkadoo. I put a wide piece of Scor-tape over this and added clear Glitter Ritz glitter and burnished well.  I did the same thing for the little snowman tag and sorry, I don't know who made this stamp.  I then matted everything, added the ribbon and adhered everything together.  And it was done.

The next card is a very simple easel card. 

I put some kraft paper through the Cuttlebug and sponged it with white craft ink from Stampin Up.  I really like the look of this.  The image is one of my all time favorite Christmas stamps.  It is from Penny Black and I have had it forever.

The sentiment was cuttlebugged with a Sizzix embossing folder.  The inside of the card says "Peace" and "Joy".  It is also done in blue and matted with kraft paper.  This card seems a little plain to me, but I was making it for someone who is not the "blingy" type.

I hope you liked my cards today.
Bye for now and have a great weekend.
Theresa in Kitimat

CST challenge and SAS4K

Hi everybody,

This is a card I made for our CST challenge this week (make a round card).  This card was fun to make and is pretty straight forward.  I used Nestabilities to cut the base out of white cs. Cut two, scored one at the top for the back and sealed together so it would open.  I then used my Fiscars circle cutter to cut out 2 yellow circles and sandwiched the ribbon between them.  The ribbon is equal all the way around even if it doesn't show up like that in the photo.  I think it was the angle I took the photo at that makes it look so uneven.  This was then adhered to the card base.

I then cut another smaller Nestabilitie scallop circle and embossed it and added that on top.  All that was left to do was add the little elfin girl image (digi stamp that was colored with prisma colors, sorry I could not find where I got the digi from, I am usually good about noting where I get digis, just not this time, my bad.) and add the sentiment (Inkadinkadoo) using nestabilities, once again.  The image is popped up and I inked the edges of all the white cs with yellow ink.

This card will be added to a bunch I will be sending to "Send a Smile 4 Kids".  This seems like a very worthy cause that donates cards to Sick Kids in Vancouver and Stollery in Edmonton so that families and staff can give cards to children that are in need of care.  If you would like to know more about this cause, here is the link.

I was told about this organization by Gail, a new blogging friend.  Gail has to be one of the busiest people I know.  She gets more done in a day than I do in two weeks.  And she is a great crafter.  You really should check out her blog.  It really is an inspiration.

I know I live in BC and Sick Kids is a wonderful hospital, but I thinkI will send cards to Alberta for Stollery. I have a close connection to that hospital.  . I spent countless hours there a few

years ago when my young niece was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  Right after the diagnosis, I went to Alberta to help anyway I could.  I thought I would be caring for my sister's other children while she and my niece stayed in Edmonton for treatments.
Found out treatments were 15 minute bouts of radiation, 5 days a week.  So we decided to travel back and forth for 6 weeks of treatments.  They live a little over an hour out of Edmonton.  I became the designated driver.  My sis was not comfortable driving in the city, especially with so much on her mind.  Many of the trips included visits to Stollery for checkups and support.

Long story, short...sadly, my niece lost her fight at only 13 years old.  But I remember how much she enjoyed receiving hand crafted cards from some of my online friends.  And I remember how much support and caring she and the family received from Stollery.  I would like to pay some of that back and this is one way I can do that.

So that is about it for today.
I hope everyone is having a great weekend and keeping warm.  It is cold here.

Take care.
Theresa in Kitimat

CCAYR November Challenge

The challenge for November at Christmas Cards all Year Round is to make 5 cards following a sketch.  I finally got mine done this afternoon.  Sorry, the picture is not the best.

This is a pretty straight forward card without a lot of special techniques, except for the emboss resist of the medallion.  I used mainly Stampin Up images, ink and paper except for the sentiment which is one I have had forever made by Penny Black.

There were a lot of steps to go through to make this card.  All of the white edges were lightly inked and then I used a glue pen and added glitter. Gotta have bling, you know :-).

The most finicky part was punching out the snowflakes and snowballs, glittering them and then attaching with teeny weeny pieces of foam tape.  I think it was worth it though, to have them stand out.

I have been trying hard to make cards that don't have a lot of bulky embellishments so that they mail for regular postage.  This is hard for me because I love to use ribbon and paper flowers and charms etc.

These cards work because they go through the dreaded slot.  In Canada, the post office has a plastic template which has an opening that is 5mm (just shy of 1/4").  If your mail fits through the slot (and not too heavy), it can be mailed for regular postage.  I bought one of these templates so that I can be sure how much postage I need to use.

I hope you like my cards today.

I enjoy playing along with these challenges.  It is such a great way to get Christmas cards done early.  Maybe this year I will have them in the mail before December 20. 

Wishing you all great week.

Theresa in Kitimat

Christmas cards all year round challenge

This month I decided to make some Christmas cards and enter them in the Christmas all year 'round challenge blog.  You can find it here. If you follow the blog and make 5 cards a month, you will have 60 cards done by the time Christmas comes around.  Great idea.

For the August challenge we were to use 4 of the 9 items listed.  They were

C chip board

H hand stitching

R ribbon

I inking

S stamping

T textured paper

M metal embellishments

A alphabet stickers

S stripes.

I actually used 5 of the items-ribbon, inking, stamping, metallic embellishments and textured paper.

This is the chipboard shape I made to Cuttlebug the wreath shape. I cut out two layers of chipboard and glued them together. I used Stampin Up Petals a Plenty embossing folder.


I put the white layer in the folder and then carefully lined up the chipboard on top of the folder to emboss exactly where I wanted it.  Only the area under the chipboard embosses, giving the wreath shape.

I then inked the flowers and added Glitter Ritz to the centers in the same color I used for the accent layer and the little sentiment banner.  I also sponged the edges of the white layer.  It does not show up in the scan very well, but the gold on the purple card is Glitter Ritz.  Very nice and sparkly.
I added the ribbon and sentiment banner, adhered everything together and it was done.

I hope you like my cards today and thanks for stopping by.

Happy Day.

Theresa in Kitimat

I'm on pins and needles

Well, I was woken up in the middle of the night by my daughter who dropped her dogs off.  She and my sil were on their way to the hospital(45mins away).  At 36 weeks pregnant, she started leaking amniotic fluid.  It has been 7 hours and I have not heard any thing yet.  I hope everything is going ok.  I will keep you posted .

This is a card I made for a "Summer" challenge at Creative Accents Challenge blog.  It is a simple card that uses a 3-D sheet by Pixiedust.  I can no longer find her website so sorry, I can not give you a link.  Because this is 3-D, it does not scan very well, but the batteries in my camera are dead.  As I look at the scan now, I see I should have sponged the edges of the tag, and I still will do that.  To get the texture in the middle of the background paper, I inserted it into my crimper and only crimped part of the paper.  It gives a nice effect, I think.

I hope you like the card and I hope everyone's summer is going well.

Bye for now and Happy Day to you.

Theresa in Kitiamt

CST challenge #5

This is a simple card I made for the CST one layer card challenge.  I have trouble making one layer cards.  Something just seems missing.  But this large embossed flower fills up the space and looks ok without matting.  Still had to sponge the edges to give it a finished look.

For the sentiment I stamped the words and then used a reverse mask to sponge the defining oval.
Thanks for stopping by today.  Hope it is a good one for you.

Theresa in Kitimat

CST challenge

I got a new embossing folder, made by "Craft Concepts".  Love it.  It doesn't show up in the scan, but I embossed the tree on a piece of white textured paper that has a very light grey speckle.  Then sponged that with brown and sage green and brown around the outside.  Stamped the For You(Stampin Up) with sage ink and then mounted it on sage base card.  I punched the bird from orange cs sponged with brown and then added with pop dots. 

 I make my cards mainly to sell to raise money for our local "Relay for Life".  I have found that people are much more willing to spend $1.00 for a card that takes 10 minutes to make than $3.00 for a card that takes an hour.  So my cards are becoming simpler and simpler.

This next card is the one I made for a CST (Canadian Stamp Talk) color challenge.  The colors to use were
Wild Wasabi, Early Espresso, Tempting Turquoise, and Regal Rose.  The card is basically the same as the last one except I used the required colors and added the die cut tag and ribbon.

That is it for today.  Hope you are all having a good one.
Theresa in Kitimat