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Friday 27 December 2013

stampotique birthday boy

Stampotique Twinkie is hanging onto the banner for my coworker's birthday card.  Is it any surprise that Stampotique is on my short-list of very much loved stamps.  I adore the intricacy of Daniel Torrents' designs and the whimsy of Jill Penney, Kira Nichols and Jo Capper-Sandon.


I fashioned a little birthday hat out of washi tape for Twinkie and coloured him in with markers.  The background is weathered wood and vintage photo distress inks.  Recognize my much loved brick stencil?  It definitely has gotten its fair share of use lately.


The banner:


The card has some nice dimension.  It was fun adding a little free-hand and I love the birthday hat. 


We're right in the middle of the holiday season and I have to admit the past week has been on the craft-slow side.  I have two winter layouts floating around in my head and I have to break the seal on my newly received Gelli plate gift.  My hesitation is mainly due to time commitment and partly due to perfectionism.  Silly.

Alex and I have been spending a lot of time in the science world.  He received the Smithsonian series for Chanukah and I bought a science kit from Scholastic.  Hours of incredible fun.  Does the baking soda/vinegar reaction (both in test tube and on a four-year old's face) ever get old?  Seriously.  We did that experiment three days ago and he's still talking about it.  Now we're trying to grow navy beans, we excavated a T-Rex and Alex built a 100 piece puzzle all on his own.  The excavation layout will come eventually - watch for it.  I have a crazy idea using a live photo from our Royal Tyrell Museum trip.  It will be something similar to the graffiti tag I made in June 2013.

Thanks for stopping in and I hope that your holiday season is filled with joy, laughter and lots of wonder.

Saturday 14 December 2013

snowman tag swap

Mr. snowman is a Stampotique favourite of mine.  His long branch-y arms allow for some really fun additions like carrying presents.  The everythingshetouches family celebrates both Chanukah and Christmas in our home; like Ben Stiller says, "any holiday where we get presents is celebrated" and I would add food .. any holiday that offers great holiday dishes is worth celebrating.  Turkey, cranberry sauce and potato latkes are pretty decadent and divine.  Mr. snowman is not as jolly as Santa but he's got a really great toque. 


The complete set:


And the back:


I had a great time entering the tag swap.  There is something relaxing and cathartic in generating the same tag and tag elements over and over again.  Very relaxing.  This was a 10-tag swap.  I just found out yesterday that I have upward of 40 cards/tags to get done for St. Valentine's Day.  Ouch.  I was scolded with affection to get them done and so I will.  Eager to beat the last minute rush I went shopping today for some inspiration and product.  Yes, I realise that we haven't even finished up with Christmas and New Year's yet but I thought I might at least come up with some of the 5 templates (I'm going with 5 different tag templates) if not any of the product.  If you have an idea that you would like to share I would be more than happy to, um, borrow it. 

And now that the temperature has really dropped and the forecast promises a week full of snow (not exaggerating) I'm starting to feel the need to cozy up with a cuppa chai latte, a good book and turn on the holiday lights.  It's time to hunker down for the winter, snuggle up with mr. everythingshetouches (you were right dear, it does sound naughty) and start on some winter layouts.  I have the elements of a great layout.  I can't wait to put it together and show it to you.

Stay warm and happy crafting.

Thursday 5 December 2013

indoor meets outdoor .. a birthday wish

I designed my coworker's birthday card around the birdcage stencil and Tim Holtz/Ranger distress glitter.  If you haven't yet used the Tim Holtz distress glitter, and you're a fan of glitter and glittery things, you must give it a try.  It has a remarkable quality and finish.

I fell in love with the birdcage stencil the moment I saw it.  It has such a delicate and versatile presence.  I am already making plans to use it in more projects.  The only issue: time.  Between now and the end of the year (can you believe saying that in a sentence with any legitimate meaning?  Seriously.  Where did the year go?) there are so many other projects to finish up.  My more realistic goal: Finish up all of the projects which I have started or require some reparation and move them to the done category.

I found that as the card started to develop the outside world of branches and flowers started to take shape with the elegance of the inside world of glittery dress forms, chandeliers and bow-tied keys.  Somehow the two worlds work together in delicate balance.


The dress form is a Memory box die cut and the ribbon was dyed and set with distress ink (tea dye and weathered wood).


I faintly removed sections of the background inking (distress inks: antique linen and weathered wood) by wetting one of my favourite stencils.  You can only just see the script on the bottom left-hand corner in the photo below.  I have said it before, and I will again, working with distress inks is so incredibly versatile.  There is a phenomenal number of techniques possible just from a few ink boxes.  I'm trying to convert the converted I'm sure.  Just sharing my enthusiasm.


Stay tuned for my version of a winter tag swap. 

Happy crafting everyone and thank you for visiting.  And thank you to the anonymous friend who sent me an owl pendant.  I truly love it!