Happy New Year!

I hope everyone has a safe and amazing new year!  As for myself, I'm here at home with the hubby and our doggie, Gracie.  We just returned from San Diego and had a great time and now we're resting for the New Year.  All the kiddos are out but will be staying the night where they are except for Kevin.  Shortly after midnight, he'll be proposing to his girlfriend while celebrating the New Year with hundreds of others in San Francisco.

I can't wait to hear all about it!

Here's to a fantastic, creative and artful 2016!

Wooden Tree

Yay!  I was a top pick for this challenge.  I'm so excited since I won a stencil of my choice.  

Woo Hoo!!

Another Christmas Tree decoration completed.  My friend Dawn purchased this tree from Hobby Lobby for 50% off.  I only asked for one since I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to do with it.

I took some music scrapbook paper and mix-media'd it.  I used a mixture of acrylic paint, various inks, glitter mist, charcoal pencil, stencils (Tim Holtz alphabet and a circle stencil from Stampin Up!) also some random supplies like bottle lids, toilet tissue rolls, stamps, etc.  I wish I took a before picture, but of course I didn't.  Here's the paper after I worked on it.

Then I cut these sheets into strips of 1 1/2" and adhered to the painted wood planks.

I used a scrap piece of paper and cut out some stars using my Cricut machine and theJoys of the Season cartridge.  Added some sequins and viola!

I'm entering this in the STAMPloration Blog's challenge for Stencil Sunday #23.  Click HERE to go directly to the challenge.

Thanks for looking!

Holiday Blocks

Holiday blocks (approximate size 2 1/2" X 1").  These wooden blocks were given to me by someone who "knew I could do something with them".  They were in a box full of assorted sized children's building blocks.

I'm entering these in the Happy Little Stampers: Mixed Media Challenge.  Find their site HERE

I made these little mixed-media blocks in one day.  I had these blocks on my work desk for awhile and knew what I wanted to do with them, but not exactly what.  I finally just started adding paper and paint, ink, etc and came up with these four.

The first layer of each of these are scanned copies of a design I made in my Art Journal.

Supplies vary from:  scrap paper, white sigma pen, black ink, script stamp, white acrylic paint, watercolor pens, charcoal pencil, stamps, markers, modge podge, glitter glue and gesso.

Redneck Wine Glasses

I'm the crafty one at my work and every so often, I'll host "Craft Time" with my coworkers.  Usually I try to find something that everyone can do.  We've made our own chalkboard paint and did some painting; cookie mix in a jar; rosette wreaths; Valentine's crafts; and peppermint bark on a stick.  This year, we made Redneck Wine Glasses.  What are these, you ask??  Take a look at the finished project:

Basically, it's a mason jar on a glass candlestick holder.  They are so cute!  We made a total of 24 of these!  I took home eight of them, but don't worry about that.  LOL

To make these glasses, apply a thin line of E6000 glue to the rim of the candlestick top edge and place on the bottom of the jar - center it.  That's it!!  The glue needs to sit for 24 hours.

I always have to add a little paper crafting so these little Christmas bulb tags were added.  I cut them out using my Creat a Critter Cricut cartridge.  Punched two holes on top of the black base (as an after thought, I should have used gray versus black) and tied the string to it and around the jar.

Here's a photo of more of them together:

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE these!!  I hope they are not peeking, but I plan on giving these to my sister and brother-in-law since they regularly use jars as cups AND they are wine drinkers so they are perfect.  I am planning on also wrapping a pair with some wine for a White Elephant gift for my son's Ugly Sweater Party tomorrow evening.

These "glasses" cost $2.00 + tax to make.  The stems were purchased from the Dollar Tree for umm...a dollar and a dozen mason jars were $11.97.  I already had the E6000 glue so SCORE!

Some of my coworkers were saying they would fill theirs up with candy and give them that way...me?  I want to fill with a mini-bottle of wine/champagne or some kind of booze.  Oh well, 'Tis the Season!

I have not tried to purchase these, but I heard they sell in the range of $10 to $15 each...crazy!

Merry Christmas!

Thank You Tags

Now that the boutique season is over for me, I get to spend time in the Command Center doing my own thing.  Christmas is always so fun and every year, I find more and more items I want to make.  I still need to come up with my annual handmade ornament.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do.  I think I'm going to try to make a 3-D star or two.  They look super easy...we'll see.

Wow, that took a different turn.  I meant to talk about these adorable tags I made for the two IT guys at work.  Every year I like to give them and the custodian a little something.  I purchased two caramel apples from one of the school's fundraiser and decided to gift them to the two IT guys.  Of course I have to pretty the package up.

I grabbed scraps from my desktop to make the tags.  The Art philosophy cricut cartridge for the leaves and berries.  I hand drew the border and stamped "Thank you"   I love using tickets for projects and the red goes perfectly with the rest of the tag.  I also added clear Wink of Stella for a little sparkle.  I don't have the apples here but will tie these to the stems.

Simple and cute!

Recycled Trees Are Finished!!

OH EM GEE!  I love these trees!  They are so much cuter in person, but hopefully these photos show off how adorable these are.  AND totally free!  I recycled the trees using the cardboard pieces that come between 3-ring binder covers.  Everything else was taken from my own stash...Yes!  That's right!  I shopped my own stash!

I knew I was going to use the BINGO chips somehow and I was about to just adhere them to the tree until I glanced on my work area and saw the punched snowflakes.  I knew they would be THAT much cuter if they were included. 

The paper itself is so colorful and festive, but with the addition of the snowflakes, BINGO chips and bling, it's so much more festive.

The second tree, I created a fringe by sewing together three layers of crepe paper (I buy these all the time at yard sales for super duper cheap!) and then using my fringe scissors to cut the edges.  I sprayed glitter mist all over and then scrunched up.  I punched multi-color Christmas bulbs using a punch that was gifted from Rubber Paws. 

Each tree is sitting on top of wooden spools covered with a brown print paper and tied off with ribbon.

I can't wait to show these off on my mantel!

Check out this earlier post for more photos:  HERE

Snowdrops; Flower of the Month

January's Flower of the Month digi stamps from Lila Grey Stamps are snowdrops.  My color selection was inspired by the Tuesday Color Challenge on Splitcoaststampers.com.  Last weeks' color combination was Hello Honey, Rose Red and Garden Green (all colors by Stampin' Up).  The challenge does not require you to use Stampin' Up inks, but shades similar.  I did not have any of these inks colors from SU!, but I do have the CTMH Honey and I used Melon Mambo and an assortment of greens from my stash.

The digi image is from Lila Grey and part of the Flower of the Month series.  Click here to get to the link.

Mask the flowers with masking fluid
Watercolor pencil and water brush for stems and leaves
Alcohol marker to shade around the flowers
Darker green marker to shade around the stems and leaves
Direct from pad to page areas with Seafoam ink
Stencil Honey ink around the page (I used a homemade stencil)
Spritz two shades of green mist around the page
Draw circles with charcoal pencil in top right corner; smear the marks with wet finger
Drop some Melon Mambo reinker to craft sheet and water down.  Drip splotches around the page in random places; smear areas in the corners
Stamp script stamp with silver metallic ink around the page
Swipe black ink pad in random areas (to make lines)
Using a small circle stencil; add more silver metallic ink around the page.
Remove mask from flowers and touch up white with white sigma pen

Mixed Media Products:
watercolor pencil and markers; ink pads; reinker; charcoal pencil; alcohol marker; metallic ink

Tools:
Fingers; water brush; paint brush; masking fluid; stencils; script stamp

Photo with supplies used:

Photo of completed page:

Birthday Gift for a Sewing Friend

Look at these cute cards I made for my friend.

She's a quilter so I wanted to make notecards with a sewing theme.  I used the Nifty Fifties Cricut cartridge for all the cuts.  The paper pad was something I purchased on clearance years ago.

The set of six cards were all placed inside this bag.  And decorated with scraps of the paper:

Cute, right?

You all know I'm crazy, but the yarn used on this bag was something I found in the trash at the Holiday Boutique on Saturday.  I went to toss our garbage and there was a large amount of this tossed in the trash.  Um...No...Not when I'm around.  So I grabbed it (by the way, it was on top so no messy trash was on it) and brought it back to our table.  Carly was not surprised I found and rescued it from the trash can.  LOL

My friend loved the cards.  Perfect!

Boutique Goodies

Whew!  We're home!  Even thought the boutique was only 5 1/2 hours, we're tired.  The event was busy and there was a consistent flow of shoppers.  We exceeded our sales goal so that's always a good thing.

Photos:

We did a little shopping ourselves.  We saw some familiar faces and even one of our scrapbooking friends.
Good times!

2015 Christmas Boutique Items

Even though I feel like I'm not 100% back to myself, I still wanted to participate in the Tracy High School Holiday Boutique.  It really is a nice event and the organizers are so much fun.  So, we downsized a lot and concentrated on what I consider stocking stuffers and other "little somethings" for friends, co-workers, secret sisters, teachers, etc.

I changed up some oldies but goodies and really love the three paper mug designs.  I saw something similar to the Santas and that's where it started and then my head started churning with the "what if I did this".  My favs are the gingerbread boy and girl...adorable!!

I really used my cricut a lot this year.  It helped put things together quickly and not a whole lot of fussing.

Cricut cartridges used:  Doodlecharms, Art Philosophy, Create a Critter, Tags, Bag, Boxes, Sampler, Life's A Beach, Basic Shapes.