Christmas Angels

Well, I haven't gotten to more Christmas cards yet this weekend, but I did make some little angels for our church pews.  The pastor asked me to come up with something different this year with the greenery and bows, and the theme for the March to the Manger is about angels this year.  First, I had been looking high and low for some trumpeting angels proclaiming the good news, and I have not been very productive in finding many that were all the same (need 24 or 26).  So, I decided to make some.  I was thinking of using some fabric that is light and fluffy yet held it's shape and tulle came to mind.  I grabbed a few things at Michaels, and here's what I came up with.

They are made with ivory tulle, silk-like shimmery leaves lined with Stickles and gold glass glitter, a white pipe cleaner through the wooden bead head to create the halo top and partial body to attach everything in one place.

They are fairly simple to make, but I hope they meet everyone's approval as well.  Here are few more lined up and almost complete.  I just need to add them to the greenery and ribbon piece.

  

Piece of Quiet

Although I have seen a few elegant tissue box holders (click for a terrific video by GinaK), my creations tend to lean towards the cute side. With the pretty swirls, I probably could have used a more elegant stamp, but this sweet little boy stamp from Penny Black was just itching to be inked. :)

I thought I had more pomegranate DP, so that I could stick with just the pom and the kiwi kiss colors, but alas I did not, so a little groovy guava was added to the design. I think the colors really work well together, but I was actually planning on pom and kiwi to match my parent's decor so that I could give my mom a little something to put her cards in.

Card details:

Stamp: Piece of Quiet

CS/DP: SU pomegranate and kiwi kiss, DP groovy guava

Ink: Tuxedo Black Momento

Tools: Nestabilities, cuttlebug birds and swirls folder, white gel pen, Copic markers

Embellishments: Rose red double stitched ribbon and tiny buttons from Rhonna Christmas collection

Well, practice, practice . . . I guess the next one will be for her. I have a couple more tissue boxes saved up. I will have to see if I can come up with a more elegant design. :)

Happy Stampin N Scrappin, Everyone! Don't miss out on the KL SNS challenge. You have until Friday night.

Hugs,

Been a while since I posted . . .

but it was a great Christmas! We didn't have a lot of money to spend, but we still had a little something for everyone. We also had a GREAT time with family and friends this year. My parents totally loved the sign we made for them. I couldn't get a decent picture of it, but here is one from the kitchen table. It is about 3 feet long, so hard to get a picture by myself of it. I have to get a copy of the pic from Mom that I took of them holding it. (btw, they loved the coasters too). I had lots of help with this. I printed the letters on my computer in a long banner form, then used an Exact-O knife to cut them out, taped it on the wood after my husband measured to get it perfectly centered and we both traced the letters on. Then all 3 of us tried our hand at the Wizard dremel tool on a scrap piece of wood, and DH was the best, so he got the job of etching most of the letters. I finished up a few when his hand got too tired. Then I painted and lacquered during the week prior to Christmas with a little help from my guys. The final touches were the crosses on the corners, again etched by DH and actually used Stickles in the groove then clear lacquer over that. The top was sponged in white to make it look like clouds. Oh, did I say they LOVED it?! They both got a "little teary" as did we after wards. I was (and still am) thrilled that they enjoyed it so much! I can't wait to see it up on the barn--maybe when we go up again! I will be sure and take a picture to show you. Can you believe I forgot my camera when we went up. So I have to wait for Mom to email me her pictures. We all took turns with the camera on Saturday, and I know she has LOTS!

My hubby got me a Cricut (big surprise, because we were not going to get each other anything this year), and I feel so guilty having it, but he got a pretty good package deal on this one with 2 cartridges, cutting mat, 2 replacement blades and a spatula . . . well, I won't go on and on.

I just wanted to show you some really simplistic looking cards I made with it this past week. They are not my best work mind you, but it was fun to play around with it. I am having some trouble with it cutting all the way through SU cs though. Guess we really get our money's worth with that stuff, because it is tough! lol The "Miss You" card is an exact duplicate (well, okay with different dp and cs) from the example in the booklet that came with the samples cartridge, but the other is all my own. The images are from the Paper Pups cartridge. The "Love" card needs a ribbon/brad still, but I haven't decided what yet.

Too old for Teddy Bears?

What do you think? Are we ever too old for teddy bears? I don't think so. I think my old pink teddy bear was my first love, and I still collect them to this day--okay, usually the more expensive ones like my Boyds' bears, but I still LOVE bears.


I put together a couple of bear cards I have had here that I made and a couple of card fronts from a swap I hosted a while back to give a set of 4 cards in this cute little folder for a white elephant gift. Every year our church group gets together and has a white elephant exchange. When your number is called, you choose a gift from the table, and then you open it in front of everyone. The next person's number is called, and they can either choose your gift already opened or another one from the table. It gets to be so fun, because people are trying to hide their gift or tell you that you don't want to take it from me *sad puppy dog eyes*--usually helps here. LOL Once the gift is taken twice, you cannot take it again, it is done (belongs to the 2nd person who takes it from someone). This usually works well if you have your husband help you then. (Hmm . . . now to come up with something for my husband and son to play along.)


So anyway, I am going on and on about what we do . . . would you like to see what I am giving away?

First the folder part with a little stuffed teddy bear:

• I stamped the Button Bear (retired stamp but new to me from Ebay) with Timber Brown StazOn and then colored with my prismacolor pencils and gamsoled. Then I stamped the honey jar on a piece of shimmery vanilla cs and colored the honey a golden brown (or close to it). The jar was then put on a piece of foam to pop it up. Bees were added around the bear and colored in with yellow pencils and a glitter sakura pen. The border piece was part of the stamp set too (difficult to keep straight). Lastly, I added 2 hole punches and tied with brown polka dot ribbon.
• I included a small stuffed bear after adding a piece of lace tied around her shoulders with ribbon to look like a shawl and a little straw hat with a flower on it). The bear stamp on the folder is my new Button Bear (retired but new set to me from Ebay).

These two cards are from Christine66 who participated in my swap. I only used these, because I have 2 of them. I have been hoarding my teddy bears (shhh).


This last one was my own creation, and I had a couple of these as well. the other one is slightly different with the flower basket instead of a cake and a few eyelets (don't seem to have a picture of it, and it is all packaged up now). I hope they go over well. My husband says, well, 'the girls will like them . . . ' Guess I need a guy gift then too.

Glass Christmas Tree Ornaments

I mentioned these on SCS, and I just thought I would share them with you all. These ones were made last year at a workshop at my SU Demo. These were old pictures of when my son was little. Mine did not require any stamping really. Some of the ideas I have seen this year on SCS were to stamp your image in black StazOn and then color the back of the image with markers--terrific idea too, but I have not taken the time to do those as of yet.

For these ornaments, we first cut a circle a little bit smaller than your glass ball (in my case using my Coluzzle), but leave a little stem at the top of your circle to keep it centered and keep it from turning inside the globe when finished. Then you cut your pictures of family or winter scene, etc with the coluzzle the same size and tape to each side of the acetate circle. You then curl up the picture and acetate in a small tube so it will go through the stem of your glass ball (careful if there are any rough edges, these will scrape your picture and cause white marks on them). Then take either a popsicle stick or wooden handle of a paint brush and uncurl the picture by pressing on one side then the other until it flattens back out most of the way. We used long handled tweezers, which works well too, but again you have to be careful you do not scratch your picture. Finish off with fake snow inside the glass ornament and on the outside add fluffy snow paint, glitter, a small tag telling who is in the picture, and gold cord to hang it from. These also make excellent ornaments for family. I gave my mother one last year with Cody and Mom on one side and her holding me shortly after coming home from the hospital on the other side (now that was an OLD picture) . AC Moore had pretty curly hangers in gold that you could sit on an end table to display, and she kept hers up all year long.

I just had to show this adorable card/ornament that was sent to me today. What a wonderful RAK (random act of kindness). This picture does NOT do it justice. The penguins are covered in glitter (I believe the dazzling diamonds technique). The circle is a card with a little slit to hold the green top, which I believe was made with the designer label punch, a couple of gold brads and a gold cord to top it off. I added a staple at the top to make sure that the gold ribbon did not pull through when hanging. It now hangs on my Christmas tree for friends and family to see. Thanks so much, Tina! I am so glad to have met you and your mom, and you are both very special to me! (Tina is one of the ladies of the Tackertwosome mother and daughter team on SCS)

Thanks for dropping by! It was a little difficult getting a good picture through the glass, but I hope you enjoyed seeing them. =) Kelly

Completed set

Hello, ladies! I hope you had a terrific weekend! I made some more gift sets for family. I did a few more tiles like I have shown you already, and I am working on a few gift card sets still, but I just had to show you one of the finished notebook/tablet sets that I am giving to my niece, Shannon. I modge podged the notebook, but the tablet I did not. I thought this way if she wanted to write on here, she could.

I also have some mini calendars to make, but those did not get finished this weekend due to work and other responsibilities (mostly decorating here at home and making bows to decorate the church). I hope to post them in the next few days. Take care and keep crafting!! The Christmas holiday is fast approaching! :) Kelly


I notice now that the picture is a little blurry due to lighting or batteries needing charged. I will try and replace the pic tomorrow. Meanwhile, I guess you get the idea.

Notebooks and coasters

Here they are as promised . . .

I made these cute notebooks for my neices. I believe they are 8 and 14 years old. I do hope they like them, as they took a while to get them done. I jokingly told my husband, if they don't want them--I will "take them back!" I think they are so stinkin' cute!

I stamped the ww cs with TAC girlz and boyz stamp set, colored them in with prismacolor pencils and gamsoled them to blend the colors. Then I modge podged the $1 notebooks I got at the Dollar General and placed the paper on them with a little bit hanging over to curl around the front of the cover. I used different shades of purple on the binding and vanilla on the back. I stamped their names and a small accent stamp on the colored piece that covers the binding and wrote on the back--Created for you by Aunt Kelly (Dec 2007). This was then covered with modge podge, and I read somewhere if you spray the modge podge after it dries with clear coat spray they are not tacky, so I did that as well. They were right. I have laid the books on top of one another, and now they are not tacky or sticking at all. Terrific! (I had a little smudge on Elizabeths around the teddy bear, but I hope she still likes it. I tried to make it look like a picture frame around him). I found some terrific pens with stick figures on them to go with these, so I won't be making them, but I did make covers for matching small legal tablets for them to write in as well.

As for the tiles/coasters, they are stamped in StazOn black ink and then colored with markers. One was done with the Frosty SU set, and the reindeer singing coaster was done with a stamp set from Studio G clear stamps $1 Michaels' set. (I purchased mine on Ebay though, as there are no Michael's around me).

For some reason the swirls around Frosty ran a little bit (maybe too much clear coat all at once), but I think he will be okay too. I think the key is to lightly spray the first coat on these marble tiles and then spray another 2-3 coats of clear spray to cover well and protect them from drnk spills and condensation. I have been using one of these all week, and the only problem I seem to have is if a glass is nice and flat on the bottom, it sticks a little bit to the coaster. Other than that, I find them very useful, and I love mine on my desk :) I hope you enjoyed seeing them as well, and if I inspired you to make some coasters or notebooks, please comment and add a link so we may see them too!

More Christmas Gifts

It's top secret, I can't tell you who these are for, but I can show you a picture of them. I have been making coasters for Christmas gifts. Actually making quite a few homemade items this year, so stay tuned. Hopefully, I can get them all done before Christmas gets here. I really think these are very quick. Hmmm, maybe I should make these for everybody! :)



I purchased a couple boxes of tumbled marble 4 x4-inch tiles at Lowe's, stamped them with StazOn black ink using a flower from the In Full Bloom set, masked the flowers, then stamped again with StazOn timber brown using the French Script bg stamp (both of these stamps are from retired SU sets). I then colored in the flowers using my SU markers and chalked the background with light brown chalk to make it look more aged (an almost Tuscan look I think). The specific markers are Elegant Eggplant, Orchid Opulence, Bashful Blue and Ballet Blue, Regal Rose and Pink Passion, and Yo Yo Yellow for the centers. Then you lightly spray them with clear coat sealer for the first coat and then layer a heavier coat on afterwards. If you layer the first coat on too heavy the colors will run a bit, so beware of that first coat of sealer. I really think they turned out well, and I hope the recipient likes them as much as I did making them. I made one extra so I will keep that one for me. I guess this is a good idea too just in case they break one I will have a spare. So let me know what you think.

**NOTE: I still have not heard from one of the ladies in the post below. If you commented earlier but did not send me your address, please do so, or I cannot send your gift to you. If you are a blogger and would like to participate in a Pay It Forward, see the post and comments below. Thanks!

Makin' Christmas gifts

Hey, everyone!

I am trying to get some gifts made for Christmas. I have so many ideas and so little time! Eeek! I wanted to start on some coasters earlier today, but we had a dinner with my Pap today. Although we had turkey dinner last week with my whole side of the family, I was still hungry for turkey and left overs, so we had a turkey dinner with all the fixins . . . mmmm. :)

I started these last night and this morning before church. The first picture up top is the folder that will hold the 4-6 cards I will be giving as a gift, and the other two -- well, I just had a few touches to make to the birthday card. I am trying to keep them pretty much flat so the recipients don't have to worry about extra postage when they mail them.

These are all made with the In Full Bloom set from Stampin' Up. I used some dp and certainly celery card stock, ribbon, and of course my prisma colored pencils, white gel pen, and stickles.