A Little of This and That

 These miniature Christmas scenes were inspired by a gift my Daughter gave to me a couple of years ago. It was a beautiful Christmas ornament that is now hanging on the tree.  So I looked to that ornament and Pinterest for some inspiration to do a few of my own.  Boy, there are so many beautiful ideas too.  These cut jars are plastic that I purchased from Jo-ann's. I did buy a few trees that were already decorated and a few that were plain.  I found some beads in the jewelry section at Jo-ann's to hot glue on to the trees.  The presents were also found at Jo-anns along with the snow.  The glass dome is a vase upside down.  I purchased that at the Dollar Tree store.  I used my die cut machine to cut out the circles for the base.  I used a hot glue gun to hold everything in place.  The tops of the jars I used white gesso and while it was wet, I added glitter.  The "Joy" sentiment is a sticker that I purchased at Hobby Lobby.  A Ball Jar was used also.

The inspiration came from my winged little friends that visited my garden this year. The sentiments were heat embossed in gold embossing powder by Ranger.  Pattern paper by DCWV called Mariposa (a very old paper collection). The card on the left,  I used a Hero Arts butterfly and a Penny Black sentiment.  The "Thank-You" stamp is a Papertrey Ink that was stamped on vellum paper and heat embossed in gold. I used a few die cut shapes to cut out my panels.

A few cards made using a cute pattern papers from Crate Paper 6 x 6 paper pad called "Style Board".  A very simple and quick card layout. I pulled out several sheets of paper from the paper pad and looked through my ribbon box and sticker/embellishment stash to see what would go well with the papers. These cute little bird in a bird cage stickers?  An oldie by Jolee's Boutique called "Vintage Bird Cages" #50-20363.   "Many thanks" sentiment is a sticker and not a stamp.  I have had this cute birthday die cut for a long while and I was happy to have finally used it. "Free Spirit" is a chipboard piece by an old K&Company called "Dear Olivia". Fussy cut out flowers from the collection  I also used some Tim Holtz idea-ology stickers from the "quotations" packet.

Using up the leftover scraps of this beautiful papers from Graphic 45, "On the Boardwalk". I wanted to use up every little bit of it. I cut out panels of paper and began to adhere my pieces of paper to make some fun collages (used a glue stick).  I used a rectangle die to cut out the panels and adhered them to card bases.

Using one of my favorite stamps by Hero Arts .   I was playing with my Prisma colored pencils (a very hard media for me to use, but I am working on it). I stamped out the hydrangea image onto Strathmore Bristol smooth surface paper.   The ink I used was Versafine "onyx black ". Using a Micron black pen to add a hand drawn border.  I added gold dots to the card and also to the flower centers, Uni-ball gel impact gold pen. The life is beautiful, by Papertrey Ink .  Butterfly sticker.

My card entry for TAKE TEN magazine "we challenge you".  The challenge is following a basic card layout but also making sure that the card can be recreated  in 10 minuets or less. I love Stampington & Company publications.  They have beautiful magazines full of inspiration and challenges for all kinds of creative individuals.   You can find most of their publications at  Barnes & Noble, Jo-ann's,  Micheal's and other craft stores.  My favorite publications are:  Take Ten Stampers' Sampler Willow & Sage Sommerset Life Art Journaling  The "we challenge you" is just one of several challenges found in every issue of Take Ten magazine. They also sell beautiful crafting supplies on their website too.   Stampington & Company

My challenge was to use this old Studio-G dollar stamp. I have this clear stamp for a very long time and I wanted to see how many ways to use it in my latest round of card making for masculine birthday cards. I had a little difficultly at first.  With some Pinterest and YouTube inspiration here is what I cam up with.  I went through my stamps to see what other sentiments and images that would go well with the hot air ballon stamp.   I did stamp out the hot air balloon on different papers along with ink colors to see what I thought look good. With some help from Pinterest for color combinations. All the stamped sentiments on the above cards came from different clear set by Papertrey Ink. I stamped the hot air ballon stamp in Versamark ink and heat embossed it using Rangers white embossing powder. I took a very old template by All Night Media to create the clouds using a blending tool.  Supplies used: Bazzill card-stock in "candy necklace), on

 Playing with some older Graphic 45 papers.  Using some other craft supplies from my stash to embellish the cards.  I had fun making theses.