CHA Buzz

Has everyone been following all the pre-CHA posts and sneak peeks out there in blogland? CHA - Winter 2010 hasn't even started (next week) and we are already being bombarded with so many gorgeous new paper lines and products. The sneak peeks I've seen are fantastic! Just wish I was going to get to see them firsthand asap, but I'll have to wait with everyone else for a few more weeks.



Check out some of these new products I've found:



Tim Holtz - new dies, "texture fades" (embossing folders), 12 new Distress Ink colors, new stamp sets, Sizzix "on the edge" dies and more: http://www.timholtz.typepad.com/



Maya Road - lots of new embellishments, chipboard, canvas and acrylic albums, flowers: http://www.mayaroad.typepad.com/



Graphic 45 - more paper lines, as beautiful as their previous papers: http://www.g45.com/



Webster's Pages - yummy new papers: http://www.websterspages.com/



Melissa Frances - lots of new products as gorgeous as ever: http://www.melissafrances.typepad.com/



Creative Imaginations - a beautiful new paper line called Beloved by Iron Orchid Designs: http://www.creativeimaginations.typepad.com/

And so much more I can't remember everything!

Help for Haiti

As I continue to watch the news and images from the devastation in Haiti, I am overcome with grief. The artist community has always been a caring and supportive community so it did not surprise me when I came across this etsy site (www.etsy.com/shop/HeartsforHaiti). Many etsy artists have come together and donated their wares to benefit the Doctors without Borders organization. All proceeds will go to that organization to help the Haitian people. Please check it out and purchase some handmade art while helping in this very small way.

One last Christmas project

I promise this is the last Christmas class project I will post. These are the cards I taught. Each card was a class - students could make twelve cards of the design chosen. My favorite is the vintage Santa card. The image is a Bo Bunny stamp which I love. I stamped it on acetate and then filled in just his suit with fine red glitter. The top card uses a fairly new EK Success border punch - isn't it cute? And the card in the lower right is embossed, colored with markers and layered on a cuttlebugged background edged with a gold leafing pen. I also added red Liquid Pearls to some of the ornaments.

Altered Cigar Box

This project was my favorite of all my holiday classes. It uses many of my favorite products that arrived in the store - Webster's Pages "Winter Song" papers, Maya Road ruched pink velvet ribbon, Melissa Frances vintage crepe paper, Mica flakes and white bottle tree, white silk ribbon and the holiday mini-bingo cards from Jenni Bowlin. I combined them all in this Victorian/shabby chic altered cigar box assemblage and added lots of Diamond Dust, silver glitter and Snow Writer. I used what I call "poor man's crackle" on the outside of the box: first it was painted with a pretty sage acrylic paint; after that dried, a thin to medium coat of white glue (regular old Elmer's School Glue) was painted on with a bristle brush; when the glue was tacky (but not dry), cream acrylic paint was brushed over. As everything dries, the top coat of paint starts cracking and makes a beautiful crackled finish with the bottom layer's color peeking through.

Here's a close-up of the inside. "Magical" was already printed on the paper - I added Stickles to highlight it.

The back of the box shows the crackle finish.

More Christmas

Here's another class I taught during Christmas. The base is a canvas (using the back side as the front) and the folded tree is made with mostly Basic Grey papers. Old music pages, pearl art metal and ruched velvet ribbon were also used.

More gifties

One of my art group friends made each of us in the group (11!) these goodies for Christmas. She decorated paint cans and then filled them with the personalized apron and a little decorated notebook, perfect for your purse or in the car. Thank you so much Trisha!


And now that the Christmas classes are finished, I can show some of the ones I designed. This is a banner using Graphic 45 papers, text pages, coffee filters, glittered balls and lots of different-textured ribbons. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but the fireplace mantel (isn't it gorgeous?) was a garage sale find for store display. It was dark with a shiny lacquered finish. We all decided it should be "shabbier" looking, so I started sanding away. That helped, but it still needed something more. Can you guess what was used? Fired Brick Distress Ink!! It added some subtle highlights and looked great. Not sure if you can see it in these photos, but it's there!

Scrap Happy

It's a new year and I'm in the mood to organize and clean! So today I began to clean up my disaster of a studio, but I didn't get very far. People who know me know that I save scraps and just hate to throw away anything that's still useable. While sorting through a pile of scraps that needed to be "filed," I decided to use them up rather than put them away. Since I need several thank-you cards, this served two purposes!

I cut strips from assorted scraps and glued them to a cardstock base (also scrap). A glue stick works best for this as it adheres the entire surface which will be important in the next step. Here's a scan of my glued strips (you can see I almost forgot to scan it first - one strip has already been cut).

This piece is then cut into varying sizes of strips (perpendicular to the original strips) and the strips are then rearranged in rows and adhered to another base piece. Here is the card I made using this as the background layer and adding another scrap strip which I crimped. The oval punch and thank you stamp are from Stampin Up.

And here is another similar card made from other scraps.

I've also been playing with my new Cricut cartridge (Storybook) and had made a few accent cuts to see how they looked. Here is a thank you cut from patterned paper and added to a kraft card stamped with a background stamp and white ink. I added a strip of the same patterned paper punched with a "notebook" border punch.

And the last one is another diecut layered on scrap pieces of cardstock and matching patterned paper. Super simple and quick cards and I made a dent in at least one pile of scraps!

Now, back to sorting and picking up!