Singing Snowmen Cards

I bought this die set sometime last year, thinking it would be great for Christmas cards.  And then I lost it in my house. Par for the course for me.

I found it after Christmas cards were made, and I decided it would be good New Year's cards. I made three of these cards, with the scarf colors mixed on them. I made a fourth one with just two snowmen for Steve.

I really like this die set, and would definitely use it again - maybe for Christmas cards for new year.  My few criticisms:

• The trio as pictured on the packaging material (and as I made them) has six snowmen arms.  Two of them are the same - just out straight.  I guess that is way the die set cuts FIVE arms at a time.  To get the sixth one, you have to cut the die a second time.  Annoying.  I had arms galore when I was finished.
• The cut buttons and open singing mouths are not all the same.  I didn't realize that when I cut the snowmen.  I popped out the buttons and set them aside in a dish. I then colored them black.  I added tape behind the open tiny holes on the snowmen where the buttons go and then I realized that the nine buttons are not the same.  I had to figure out which of the buttons went where. And I was making 11 snowmen - 33 tiny buttons.  The same problem happened with the mouths - except there were only 11 of them - not 33, thank goodness. And they are larger than the tiny little buttons.

Otherwise, a great set of dies.  Recommend.

One Painting (sort of) and four cards

 I had an idea from a graphic I found online. It was mountains and trees - wide and not tall.  I thought I could paint that idea and then cut it into four panels for four cards.  That's what is above.  

I used watercolor and watercolor paper, but I had to do two panels and two panels (my paper wasn't wide enough to do them as one piece.  You can see where I measured a little wrong between panels two and three. 

Anyway, I made four cards and gave them to Steve - one a day - as we traveled over Memorial Day Weekend.  

Valentine's Day Card

I made two of these cards - one for each of our boys.  The heart is hand-drawn on black watercolor paper and painted with Finetek watercolor paint on black watercolor paper.  I don't know the brand of paper - it came in a HeroArts monthly kit.

Gelprint cards

All eight of the following cards were made using gelprint. it was my first attempt - very fun. The ink was Distress Oxide; the paper was Neennah Solar white.

St. Patrick's Day Cards

 I love St. Patrick's Day.  I'm not sure why - except that it means spring, daffodils, and relief from winter.  Plus, we have some Irish heritage, so it seems fitting.  And because of all of that, I like to make St. Patrick's Day cards - not many - just a total of five.  

Two of this one...

Two of this one...

And one of this one, similar to the first one, but with a different sentiment.

The stamp set used was this one.  It's by Colorado Craft Company, called 4 Leaf Clover.  The illustrator is Anita Jeram.  She's a children's book illustrator.  It's the second set like this I've purchased, and I'm loving the cards I make with them.  I used Neenah Solar White paper, and colored the images with copic markers.  A couple of elements were stamped a second time, fussy cut, and attached with foam squares for some interest.  Credit for that idea goes to Yana Smakula.

Christmas Tags

For many Christmases, we have been using hand-made tags on our gifts.  Steve, the boys, and my mom always return their tags to me, and I use them again and again.  Still, I do run out of them eventually, so every few years, I make more.  This year I added 22 more to our tin of tags (the image is missing one)  I'll be happy about it next Christmas.

Foiling on Cards

 

For the past month, I've been using a laminator to do foiling on cards.  For these, I used pieces of acetate printed with toner along with foil.  I like the way they look.

Watercolor Christmas Cards

At the end of last year, I participated in an Online Card Class called Simply Watercolor Christmas.  It was lead by Kristina Werner, and it was great.  Many of our cards this year were projects I made from this class. Here are five of my favorites.  The pictures aren't great - I took them at night right before we addresses and signed cards to send them out.  Maybe next year, the images will be better!

 

System for sending Birthday and Anniversary cards

So, this is a boring bullet journal spread, but it is the key to how I remember and plan to send out birthday and anniversary cards.  This is my process:

• I have a one-page spread in my journal for each month.  On those spreads, I list each person who has a birthday or anniversary in the month in chronological order.  So, if a person was born on the 10th of January, I list 10-person's name.
• I try to work at least a month ahead (sometimes two).  As I plan the cards I will send, I match cards to each person on the list.
• Working in month blocks, I sign the cards, address the envelope, and seal the card in the envelope.  I add a sticky note to the envelope with the birthdate / anniversary date.
• I then grab the stack of cards for the month and a calendar. I add the "mail date" to each sticky note, estimating how much time it will take for the card to arrive at the recipient. I add the stamp to the card.
• I leave this stack of cards on my desk at work.  I mark in my work planner on each day I need to mail a card.
• As I plan my day, I pull the cards that need mailed.  All I have to do is rip off the sticky note and drop the card in the mail.

All that said, I was late sending out my first card of the year. Oh, well. It works most of the time.

Doggie Birthday Card

The top picture is of a friend's dog.  The second one is my attempt to create a birthday card for said friend, featuring said dog.

Two birthday cards

The two cards above were made for a friend's birthday.  The top one is all dogs - all from different stamp sets.  She is a volunteers with animals and is an advocate of rescue, so the dogs are all wishing her a happy birthday

The second card is hand-drawn and painted. No stamps. 

Both fun to make.

Snowshoe Retreat

We spent a weekend at Snowshoe Resort this month.  The Resort is closed during November (although they do rent rooms and keep the condo buildings open.  We planned meals and packed food.  We spent the weekend doing absolutely nothing, and aboslutely enjoying it.  I spent much time coloring.  The images below are of the common area in the condo building, showing my copics and the fireplace as we enjoyed the view and the room.  The second picture is of the card fronts I colored while we were there.

Simply Watercolor

I'm working my way through the Online Card Class called Simply Watercoloring.  Below are three of my animal pieces.  Fun to do - and it stretches my ability because none of the images are stamped.

Two Logos

My son graduated from Marshall University last May.  This August, he started at the University of Alabama.  He asked me to create a thank you card he could give to the professor at Marshall who recommended UA to him (and who went to graduate school at UA himself).  This is the beginning of it - hand drawn and watercolored logos from both schools.

One Image, Five Ways

At the end of May, we spent the weekend at Snowshoe Resort.  Go look at that link - great place to go. Absolutely beautiful mountain top resort.

While I was there, I colored the flower images from the Simon Says Stamp June kit five times (images on right of line of art).  I used different paper, different media, and different colors.  Fun.

Here are the cards:

On Graytoned paper with Gray polychromos pencils

On watercolor paper (Tim Holtz) with watercolor

On either bristol or Neenah Solar White with Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers

On Nennah Solar White with Polychromos pencils

On Desert Storm paper with polychromos pencils

Father's Day Cards

This is what I did for Father's Day Cards.  I actually made four the blue one; one of the green one. 

All are painted on Tim Holtz watercolor paper.  I started with a blue water, and then did increasingly darker washes of color for each mountain as it came closer to the viewer.  In this way, the front mountain has several washes of color and is the darkest. 

The green one might be my favorite (it went to Steve), but some of the other blue ones (not pictured) were good, too.  Fun to make.

Colored Pencil debate (with myself)

I'm continuing my study of Prismacolor versus Polychromos colored pencils.  I purchased three red polychromos pencils so that I could do a good comparison between the blending of them against the prismacolor.

One of these was colored with Prismacolored pencils (the bottom one); the other with Polychromos.  A few differences:

• You might be able to see (in the terrible picture) that the prismacolor leaves a waxy finish. That isn't present with the polychromos - you're able to add more color layers with the polychromos.
• The prismacolored pencils are softer, and may be better for larger areas.  The polychromos are harder, and might be better for more detailed images.
• The prismacolored pencils, when you add too much color, shed onto the paper around the image. This I Really Don't Like.
• The polychromos don't break like the prismacolored pencils do. I can sharpen them to a better point, and they hold the point.  Also, there is less breakage inside the wood of the pencil - that drives me crazy with the prismacolored pencils, and results in wasted pencils.  

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do, but at this point I'm thinking I could use the difference kinds of pencils for different projects.  Also, the shedding of color outside the image and the breakage are really turning my heart away from Prismacolor.

Colored Pencil Details

This card is made with Altenew's Carnation Build-a-flower layering set.  I used four Lawn Fawn inks - Wild Rose, Guava, Lobster Red and Chili Pepper.  The problem is that there isn't enough contrast between those four inks for the flower to have any depth. I didn't realize that until I had stamped six of the carnations and made three cards.

I try to fix it, I added some detail work with colored pencils. I did help. The flower on the top has colored pencil work; the one of the bottom doesn't.  It's easier to see in person.

Next time - more contrast. Nice stamp set, though.

Thank you

I took this stamped image with me to Chicago in October.  It's a Penny Black stamp (Poppy Time).  I colored it with prismacolor markers (while in Chicago) and added highlights and splashes of gold water color paint.

I then left it in the room (as is) with my tip for housekeeping.

World Cardmaking Day

A couple of Saturdays ago was World CardMaking day. I would love to have had a long period of time to make several cards, but I didn't have that kind of time that day. I did sneak in one card, though.

This one is influened by Lisa Spangler (https://sideoatsandscribbles.wumple.com/) from Texas. The state outline is from Studio Calico. The mountains in the state are made from curved lines drawn with zig clean color real brush markers with the color spread out using a waterbrush. 

I like the look of the card and have already sent it off to remind someone far away that he is thought about.