Happy Birthday

Hello,

Happy last day of November. I hope everyone, in the US, had a very nice Thanksgiving holiday and weekend. I'm at my mom's in northern California hanging out. I didn't bring any crafting supplies with me  because I intended to stay only until yesterday. However, my mom's refrigerator decided to die on Saturday night. Great timing with all kinds of left overs in it, not that any time is ideal for your refrigerator to die. We went shopping for a new one on Monday, but it won't be delivered until around Dec. 8! We have 5 ice chests in the garage and I'm fetching ice every morning from the gas station down the street. Because I don't want to leave my 86 yr old mom to deal with all that on her own, I'm staying until the new refrigerator arrives to get the ice chests unloaded.

On my way up I stopped in Sacramento to visit my best friend, and then she came to mom's on Wednesday evening to spend Thanksgiving weekend with us, which also happens to be her birthday weekend. We played lots of cards, went to a couple of holiday craft fairs and watched some Christmas movies. 

I made this card for her birthday a few weeks ago, but didn't want to post it because she does read my blog. This is a shaker card made with Gina K Designs stamps, stencils and dies. The monthly mix challenge for November is shaker cards.

This is a side to side shaker and I recycled some stamp set packaging to make it. The background is the Daisies Forever stencil and I used the layering Lilac and Orchid ink pads for the flowers and Jelly Bean Green and Fresh Asparagus inks for the leaves. The sentiments are sentiment strips and wishes die.

Here's the inside of the card.

One of the fun things we did the weekend in Sacramento was take a cookie decorating class. This is the second time I've taken one, and from the same teacher. This is her website and here is a picture of my decorated cookies. The cookie in the bag on the right I won. Jodie, the instructor, made it. All of mine look pretty good, except the door is a bit wonky, but okay for a second try and 12 months apart.

Have a great week and thanks for checking in.

Colleen

Supplies

All Gina K Designs except the sequin.

Daisies Forever layering stencil, Lilac and Orchid Layering inks, Jelly Bean Green and Fresh Asparagus inks, Sentiment strips, Wishes die, Layering Weight and Heavy Weight white card stock, Black Onyx card stock, Connect glue

Peace - Love - Joy

 Hi and TGIF to all,

If you're reading this Friday morning, I'm currently on the road driving most of the length of California to spend Thanksgiving week with my mom and my bestie. It's become a tradition over the last 4 years. We talk, play a lot of cards. A LOT! and eat good food. It's a 645 mile trip for me, so it takes pretty much all day. I'm planning on leaving my house here in Encinitas (San Diego) by 6:00 am in order to get through Los Angeles before the morning commute traffic gets horrible.

I have my card for Jaydee's color challenge for this week's Paper Players challenge. I may have gone overboard, but I was having so much fun with foiling. These cards all have foiling, but instead of using my Spellbinders Glimmer hot foil system, I used Deco foil, Deco paste, toner paper and a laminator machine. I ended up with four very shinny cards to add to my Holiday card stash. 

These first two use Gina K Designs stencils, dies, embossing folder, and sentiments. The card on the left started by ink blending three blue shades of Distress Oxide inks on a white panel. Following this inking technique by Jennifer McGuire I brushed some Pearl Ex Silver powder over the inked panel to give it a shimmery effect. Once the ink was dry, I used the Gina K Designs Snowflake embossing folder on it. Next I die cut the GKD Triple Snowflake dies from toner paper and used some silver Deco foil and a laminator to hot foil them. The toner paper is from Brutus Monroe and has a "hashtag" finish, so there are foiled and then white spaces on the snowflakes. It's pretty IRL. The sentiment is heat embossed with silver embossing powder on black card stock and I added some turquoise sequins for even more sparkle.

For the card on the right, I used the new GKD Graceful Snowflake stencil with Deco Blanco paste on black heavy weight card stock, and once dried, it was foiled with silver Deco foil using the laminator. I cut it down with the GKD ML 2 dies and added some silver pearls as embellishments.

Cards three and four use the Simon Says Stamp Rustic Snowflake stencil and Blanco Deco paste, one with white card stock and one with black card stock. On the white panel, I ink blended six shades of Distress Oxide blue inks over each star point. The card base is stamped with four of the same inks using the Concord & 9th Snowflake Turnabout stamp. The sentiment is heat embossed with black embossing powder on vellum.

For the snowflake on the black card stock, I did a similar color scheme but using foil instead of ink, although there are two shades of blue foil and silver foil. The greeting on this card is from a new Simon Says Stamp Holiday greeting and die set. It's heat embossed with white powder on turquoise card stock.

I decided I'd use this card for my PP Challenge entry.

Enjoy your Friday and weekend, and thanks for lookin in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Gina K Designs, Simon Says Stamp, Concord  & 9th

Card Stock: Gina K Designs

Ink: Gina K Designs Black Onyx and Embossing Ink

Other: Gina K Designs and Simon Says Stamp stencils, Gina K Designs dies, Deco Foil, Deco paste, Laminator machine, Gina K Designs embossing powder, WOW embossing powder, Deco foil, Brutus Munroe toner sheets, Gina K Designs sequins, Trinity silver pearls, Connect glue, heat tool, Misti, Big Shot Switch 

OCC Holiday Workshop 2022 Day 9 Cards

 Hi again,

OCC Holiday Workshop 2022 day nine cards here. This day is all about snowflakes. Kristina showed how to make a card with stacked snowflakes. I gave that technique a try using two Gina K Designs snowflake stamp sets and dies with an ink blended background, as well and making a card with a large Gina K Designs snowflake stencil and glitter paste, and a mini-slimline card using a Gina K Designs silhouette stamp and ink blending. 

Here they are.

I believe all of the supplies for these three cards, with the exception of the gems on cards 1 and 2, are from Gina K Designs.

This is as far as I've gotten in making card examples for this two week class.  Not to say I won't go back and do Day 3 and Day 10 projects later, but for now, I'm busy making a quilt for a late November birthday present. 

This is the third On Line Card Class that I've taken and I highly recommend them. The format for the classes is great with two instructors each day. Thanks to all of the instructors for making the time to put this awesome class together and teach each technique.

Colleen

OCC Holiday Workshop 2022 Day 8 Cards

 Hello,

Day eight of the workshop was all about hot foiling. Hot foiling is very addicting to me. It seems when I pull out my Spellbinders Glimmer machine, I just cant stop and end up with many pieces. If you have not tried it, fair warning, but you really should. 

I actually made 20 Holiday cards this year with variations of my four examples in this post. (I really do have a hard time stoping.)

Yana Smakula was the instructor for the Glimmer hot foiling section and she had two tips for us that I absolutely found very helpful. They have to do with foiling the negative foil and oh my gosh, perfect results where before I was getting good foiling only sometimes.

Here are my four card examples. Each pair is made with the positive foiled image and the negative foiled image.

Foiling plates and products from Spellbinders and Pink Fresh Studio. Card stock from Gina K Designs and I used Stampin' Up Glossy white card stock for foiling the negative pieces. Worked perfectly and I have tons of it that I bought years ago. I'm happy to have another use for it. Other background dies and embossing folders from Gina K Designs and Simon Says Stamp. Colored images done with Copic markers.

Thanks all,

Colleen

OCC Holiday 2022 Day 7 Cards

 Hi and here's my Day 7 cards for the OCC Holiday Cards Workshop 2022. 

Day 7 lesson is using embossing folders.

Details for card one. I die cut two sizes of circle dies in mylar to use as a stencil to ink blend several overlapping circles. Inks are several shades of greens, reds, and blues of Distress Oxide. After the panel dried, I ran it through an older SU Quatrefoil Tile embossing folder. The stamped and die cut images are from a recent Holiday stamp set by Simon Says Stamp. It's totally sweet! The images are colored with Copics.

Details for card 2. The large snowflake is a stencil from Gina K Designs. The inks are three shades of blue from Simon Says Stamp. When this panel dried, I ran it through the 3D Layered Snowflake embossing folder from Altenew. This is a very large image, so I cut it down to make an A2 size card.

Thanks,

Colleen

OCC Holiday 2022 Day 6 Cards

 Hi and I'm back with my "homework" cards for Day 6 of the OCC Holiday Workshop 2022. This class is all about using tiny stamps to make cards. Finding the stamps was very easy for me as I have a bunch of old Stampin' Up sets with tiny stamps. I think the most recent date on the three sets I used is 2004. 

Card one is tone on tone. The green panel is SU Shaded Spruce and so is is the ink.This stamp set has 3 images each of a star, a tree and a light. After stamping the panel is die cut with a SSS Arched die. The mat is cut with the next size in the set of dies. It's stamped with a long retired SU Lace background stamp.

The images in card 2 are all stamped in black ink and colored with Copics. The set for card 3 are solid images of candies stamped in various bright shades of ink.

All of the sentiments are Concord and 9th dies. I used some C&9th Sparkly Glossy Accents over the sentiment in card 3.

Supplies today: Papers and inks from Gina K Designs, stamps from Stampin' Up, dies from Gina K Designs, Simon Says Stamp, and Concord & 9th.

Thanks,

Colleen

OCC Holiday 2022 Day 5 Cards

 Hello,

Day 5 "homework" cards. Today's lesson, using saved scraps of card stock or paper. Jennifer McGuire was the instructor today and I totally CASE'd her projects, but I don't think she'll mind. I made four cards for this class, they were just too much fun to stop, LOL.

I actually did use scraps of card stocks. I don't save everything, but if there is enough to stamp a sentiment or cut out a die, I'll save it. If you look closely at the cards, you notice there are images on the card stock pieces. Prior to cutting out the circles and squares, I put pieces together on a sticky mat and used  snowflake and holiday foliage turnabout stamps to add the stamped images.

Again, many products from many companies. Background stamps and arched die are from Simon Says Stamp, embossing folders are Gina K Designs, inks and card stock are GKD and SU, holiday sentiments strips from GKD, wooden snowflakes are SU and the wooden moose are from Paper Source. I've had both of the wooden embellishments in my stash for years and thought they added a little somthin' somthin' to the folk art feel of these cards.

Thanks all,

Colleen