Review of 2018

With just over an hour to go until the end of the year...  I thought I'd pick out a favourite post from each month, and post it here.  It's been a quieter year on my blog, with only 116 posts, but life has become busier, and I'm happy that I still get as much crafty time as I do.  Without further delay:

January:

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

Happy New Year everyone!  Thanks for your time & your comments.  Looking forward to crafting more in the New Year :o)

Dashing Through the Snow

I came across a Christmas card that I haven't blogged, so thought I would sneak it in before the big day.  This is using Eskimo Kisses from Sugar Pea Designs:

The papers are Echo Park, and the snowy tree die is from Dee's Distinctively.  I am also entering this into the December Mix It Up Challenge #50 on the Sugar Pea Designs blog.

Last minute Christmas cards

I had the need for one last card to give out, and managed to sneak in a quick second one.  One of my goals is to make use of the stickers and accessories that come in a lot of paper packs, so here are my efforts at doing just that with Photoplay's Mad 4 Plaid papers:

 This one is a larger size: 5" x 6.5", to accommodate the car sticker.  I cut a rectangle out of the base, and mounted it on some metallic gold cardstock, then popped the whole piece up with adhesive pop dots.

 And an even quicker card!  Stickers, snowflake die cuts and a little stamped tag.  Done.

This will be my last post before the holidays - wishing a very Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it.  Hoping to see you with some new creations in a few days!

Tags for gifts

It seems like it's been a slow month here on my blog... but I've been creating up a storm.  For years I've wanted to give sets of gift tags as gifts to friends, and have finally managed to make it happen!  So what you see below, has been made x8, along with about 60 others that I've worked on this month.  I love the kraft paper and rustic colours:

For co-worker gifts... I've painted up 30 bookmarks this week, but have already shared the designs here a few weeks ago.  I look forward to getting back on track with crafting in the New Year and playing with a few of my favourite challenges.  The Christmas crafting crunch is almost over!
**Oh - and on a fun side-note... shortly after posting this, I should hit 1 million page views here on my blog.  Wow!  Thanks for looking at what I've been up to here for the past 8 1/2 years.

I am playing along with the current Inspired By Challenge:

A 50th Birthday card

A work friend is turning 50 on Christmas Eve, so we had an early celebration for him tonight, and I made him a very fun card.  Here is Norm from Art Impressions:

I coloured Norm with Copic markers, and used some Making Memories papers that work well for masculine cards, along with a few star die cuts.  The inside sentiment is "Old Guys Rule".

2018 Holiday Coffee Lover's Blog Hop

*Two posts in one day!  Please scroll down for my Colourific design team post*

It's back!!  The 2018 Holiday Coffee Lover's Blog Hop kicks off today, so I hustled home from work and put a little something together.  I'm using some of my much-loved Verve stamps today... and I'd like to give a huge shout out to Julee Tilman who's been a big supporter of the hop for years, and made the best coffee lover's stamps around.  Here's my first effort for the hop:

I pulled out some Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid Christmas papers from a couple of years ago, and used Laurel Seabrook's Sketchy Saturday sketch.

Colourific Christmas Cards

I have four projects on the Colourific blog today - all Christmas cards.  When I first saw this gorgeous tree made of stars in the Mr & Mrs Snow stamp set... I knew that it was wanting to be foiled!  I am so happy that I did... I love the end result:

 After running it through my machine, I cut it out and mounted on a simple triangle of dark green cardstock, adding a little brown base - then created a square card with my patterned tree paper.  I added a snowflake die cut, and cut the word "joy" out of some gold cardstock.  A few gold sequins added to the glimmer.

It's always hard to photograph anything shiny!  It's got quite a lovely shimmer in real life.

A few weeks back, I did some butterfly cards using the A4 Alphabet & Numbers stamp set, and wanted to try using it for some Christmas cards:

I'm sure you've seen variations on this idea before, but I wanted to give it a try with Colourific's fabulous font!

I stamped the words, leaving spaces where the O's should be... then I photocopied them onto some white cardstock (the foil only sticks to toner), and then ran them all through my Minc machine with gold foil to make my shimmery letters.

 I die cut two snowflakes from gold cardstock, and layered them onto each sentiment.

 All of the words are adhered to the base with pop dots for a little dimension.

And of course, I couldn't resist using my sewing machine to sew around the panels.  *So if you don't have Christmas stamp sets on hand, but want to put some holiday cards together - this is a quick & easy idea, and a great way to use a font.  

*There are brand new stamp sets being released by Colourific on December 1st!  Be sure to check out the blog in the coming weeks to see all of the new ideas from the Design Team.