Waltzingmouse October 2014 PJ Party - Challenge #3: Old Pajamas

Hello Friends,
I am here today to join in with the "Old Pajamas" challenge #3 at Waltzingmouse Stamps October Pajama Party.  I have been working on some Christmas tags over the past few weeks and I created some using the "Very Vintage Christmas Stamp Set" as well as a sentiment from the "Compliments of the Season" Stamp set. The plaid bows on the vintage-style tags are made from fabric that I tore and frayed the edges of.   

 Thanks for taking a look!  Enjoy the pajama party!
:) Jill

Have A Very Merry Christmas in almost July...

 Here with a little Victorian Country Christmas spirit in almost July.  For the first time ever I am trying to make Christmas cards all year around so that I will have less to do come December and can relax and enjoy family and friends more during the season.  To this end I have a card this week for the Festive Friday Challenge #11.  It is an element challenge and here is the inspiration photo:

I have a ton of ideas for using tree elements bouncing around in my head tonight.   But I have to say that this card took me a while to pull together as several of my ideas did not pan out (yet!). Needless to say my spare parts box has lots of extra diecuts tonight for future Christmas cards! LOL!  The one thing that did work perfectly was the gorgeous sentiment from Verve that I wanted to use:

I finally settled on using a pine cone stamp and 3 small Magnolia tree diecuts in cardboard and cardstock for my tree elements.  Here is a close-up:

The heart dies are from both Cheery Lynn Designs and PTI.  The ribbon is from Really Reasonable Ribbon.

Thanks for taking a look at my card!
Happy Weekend!
Jill

Frame by Frame...feeling a little trigger happy today...

Hello Everyone,
Well I finally made a card for a Tuesday Trigger over at Moxie Fab World.  I think this may be my first ever entry into a challenge in the lovely Moxie-Land!!!  Or my second???  I have watched for a long time, watched and hopefully learned a little bit of something....still learning all the time and having fun doing it.

Here is the trigger photo:

Image Credit

I love to crochet and how I would enjoy making these frames! They are so very sweet!!  For some reason when I looked at them I thought of snowflakes falling..unique shapes each...drifting down.  And soft texture....so I thought FELT!!!

Anyway...here is what I came up with...a birthday card for a very dear friend.  It is a dark, rainy, cold and ugly Seattle day so this is the best picture I could come up with - I apologize for the color and lighting in advance!!!:

 

The sentiment says:  "Wishing you a cozy Winter Birthday" and is from the Papertrey Ink set: On ice.

Buttons, Felt, Sweet Blush Cardstock - Papertrey Ink.  Teal Dot Cardstock - Bazzill I believe - from my stash of 12 x 12 cardstock.  Sew Mini machine from Janome.  The sewing is supposed to symbolize the wind tossing the snowflakes around....either that or you can chalk it up to sewing with a badly bruised finger....more on that later...

 

Thanks for taking a look at my card. 

Here is one other card I made today - for Christmas:

 

This card uses a new Christmas stamp set called  "Stitched Stockings" designed by Lisa Johnson of Poppie Paperie for MFT Stamps.  I am loving this set!!! So fun for very quick Christmas cards with lots of style!

 

That is it for me tonight.  I am in the process of re-covering my dining room chairs and I hit my pointer finger with the hammer a couple days ago so card making (and sewing on my machine) is a wee bit on the painful side right now...as is typing...

so...

nighty-night...

see you in blog land soon...

:) Jill

 

Thinking of you....

Hello,
I made a card for this week's Make it Monday #93 - Splitting Die Cuts.  I had this idea, as soon as I saw the video, of creating a frame with the straight die cut piece from the new Shape Up Series -sweater die collection. 

Well I must say I had somewhat a comedy of errors while making this card.  I was able to create the frame pieces from the die cut quite easily having cut lots of trim pieces for my house when I first purchased it back in the early 1990's.  However - when I went to glue the frame pieces onto my card I didn't have it centered correctly and had to move it around which left some glue marks on my card.  After some creative trimming and layering, as well as some strategic glitter glue placement, I hope that you cannot tell?  (Why do I have such hard time just throwing the card away and starting over?  It is just paper after all???)  It is the whole "waste not, want not" from my childhood and the recycle/reuse thing also.

Alas....my card:

The coloring was done with colored pencils and as always I will preface by saying coloring is not my strong suit - AT ALL!!  The jute bow tied through the card was due to a hole that I created by accident....I told you - comedy of errors while making this one!!! I just added a second hole and tied the jute through the card and made the long bow.

Thanks for taking a look at my card!  I just love this Winter Hills stamp set!
:) Jill

How much liberty can I take with a sketch?....

 

Hello and Happy Saturday!
I hope you are enjoying your weekend and if living in the USA I hope you also enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving Holiday!

I am here today with a card for the Waltzing Mouse Sketch Challenge #125

Here is the lovely sketch:

When I saw this sketch I wrote it down in my sketch notebook and then flipped it 180 degrees.
It then looked to me like two trees standing up in the forest...and my brain went...ahhh Christmas Trees.  I asked myself - just how much liberty are we allowed to take with a sketch before it is too much?  This may be too much!!!!  But as inspiration is such a wonderful thing and as as I am TOTALLY in Christmas Card and Tag making mode right now I quickly pulled out my Waltzing Mouse "Vintage Banners" stamp set and came up with this card:

The sentiment is from Seasons of Love tags and says "Hearts ALL come home for Christmas".  I love this sentiment - one of my all time favorites!

 

Anyway I am not sure if my card will count but there it is nevertheless!

And I still have all week to play with this sketch so you never know...maybe another card idea will pop into my head this week.

Thanks for taking a look!

:) Jill

 

 

Dashing through the snow in a one horse open sleigh....

Hello Friends,
I have another Christmas card to share tonight.  This one combines Waltzing Mouse stamps, Papertrey Ink's one horse open sleigh die, and a spellbinders rectangle die along with some buttons and floss and some Papertrey Ink papers.

Note:  Creating the reins (sp?) for the sleigh was a happy accident...I added the button to cover up a line on the die cut that was an error during die cutting.  I was thinking it could be the horses saddle or traces.  I then got the idea to put thread through it extra long to make the reins.  I added stickles silver glitter glue for the runners and the horses  harness.

Thanks for taking a look at my card!
:) Jill

A little snowman love...FMS62

Yesterday evening I went through a container of Holiday papers and picked out an adorable snowman paper to make a card with.  I saw this sketch from Freshly Made Sketches #62 and decided to play along...I ended up flipping the location of the shape to the left hand side and moving the sentiment down to make the card work with the paper I chose...I was trying not to completely cover up the adorable little snowmen.

Here is my card:

 I used a icicle border die to add borders to my piece of pattern paper and "iced" them up with some stickles diamond glitter glue.  I then made another border piece to layer over the diamond pattern paper to place my sentiment and embellishments on. 

 The die cut embellishments are a pine frond also edged in stickles and a snowflake from the new Taylored Expressions snowflake dies with a small gem added to the center.  The sentiment is from a Waltzing Mouse Stamp set called "Very Vintage Christmas".  The snowman paper is at least 1 or 2 or more years old and is from "Best Creations Inc" and is called Winter Wonderful Item#GP441.  www.bestcreation.us


Thanks for taking a look at my card. 
:) Jill

Believe in the MAGIC....

Hello Friends,
I made another card for this weeks Waltzing Mouse Sketch Challenge #122. I gained inspiration from the many wonderful cards made by the designers and from several Holiday based Waltzing Mouse stamp sets as well as a new Santa stamp that I recently purchased from Serendipity Stamps: HERE

Here again is this weeks sketch:

I had fun making this card and was inspired by Renee who made a card with a Santa silouhette and the colors black, red, and cream.  You can see her card on her blog "It's a Patchwork Life":   HERE.  I ended up using the colors black, red, white and silver on my card. 

 I love this sentiment "Believe in the magic..." and wanted to give a special card to my son who is being shall was say "challenged" in his Santa beliefs this year.  The picture doesn't show it well but the snowflakes stamped over the "Twas the night before Christmas" poem are done in silver while the poem was in white.

I added some glossy accents to Santa's glasses so they look more real and created a reindeer border with the sweetest little stamp from Waltzing Mouse's Holiday Ornaments set!  I think I might try to make this card again and emboss the snowflakes over the white ink next time. 

I also made a little tag to go with the package that I will be putting this card with.  I am trying to make things as special as I can for Tim this year as it will be a hard day for both of us - our first Christmas without our beloved Papa Stuart.  Just praying to make it through with grace and peace in our hearts.  Thank goodness for all of our wonderful family and friends and all of you out in blog land who have offered such wonderful and loving friendship and support these past months.  It means so much to me when I read your comments and emails!  You are a blessing to me! 

So thanks very much for taking a look at my creations and leaving such sweet comments on my blog.  They truly do brighten my days!

I was able to get my desktop computer that has my picture editing software on it up and running tonight so my picture quality is a bit better but as usual it was a very dark and grey day here in Seattle land which makes good picture taking difficult even with extra lighting.  It looks like a new computer is definitely in our future as even with 2 repair appointments it is hit or miss as far as the desktop booting up when I want to do some photo editing or other work.  Bummer! 

Happy Crafting friends!!!

:) Jill