Organizing Alteration

Hi blogland, hope you had an awesome weekend. Mine was over before I knew it but isn't that always the case? I believe there are too many Mondays in a year, let's petition to change that! LOL who would we even contact? Seriously though, nobody seems to like Mondays except young children who still, God forbid, look forward to waking up early and going to school. Well to shake out of my Monday melancholy I have a TGF project to put a smile on your face and make a lover of altered things swoon

Em TGF Twisted Kit

Isn't it just delish? I've been snatching up small journals, notepads, etc whenever I saw them for cheap for the last few months. Finally, inspiration hit to make myself an altered notebook in my favorite color scheme, pink and brown, I figure I may need something to keep me organized soon ;) I started off by sanding the entire outer cover (front, back, and spine) and wiping off the excess dust and fibers with a barely damp towel. Next I chose a few pieces of paper and cut them down to 6x4 to fit the front and back cover. I used a scrap of leftover woodgrain pattern paper about 2.5 inches wide and distressed the edges to cover the spine and add a rustic look to my notebook. I distressed the edges of each piece used by applying Tim Holtz walnut stain ink around the edges with a sponge. Finally I adhered everything to the mini notebook with my homemade mod podge. I decorated the front with a few dusty pink pearls, a pearl flourish and some assorted dies. The image I chose to adorn the front of my altered creation is a little lady named Em from The Greeting Farm's 8x10 Twisted Kit. Em was watercolored using my Tim Holtz distress markers and some diamond stickles to make her outfit sparkle. The sentiment is from another TGF 4x6 set, Picture Perfect (available here). Not only will this cute little notebook stay close by to jot down ideas, it will also be entered in the FFF challenge Make it Sparkle and the Retro Sketches Challenge #142. Pop over and lets see whatcha got!

-Krys

De-stress with Distress

Hi there bloggers, still dealing with chilly weather and to be honest the snow is kind of growing on me. We got about 2 feet in one day and my girls are loving it! My oldest has had snow days back to back and today is a half day so I'm preparing for more fun in the snow. Rather than shoveling snow from my driveway, I sneaked away to my craft room and made one more quick card for this week's FFF challenge Holiday Cards over at The Greeting Farm, using Miko from the Roll Call Kit

Miko (Roll Call Kit)

Once again I used my Tim Holtz distress markers to watercolor the image (LOVE those things!) because practice makes perfect, right? I tend to focus so hard on getting my watercoloring so much that my stress seems to melt away, or at least fade them into the background. It truly is my newest form of stress relief and The Greeting Farm's images are perfect for practice because they are beautiful without adding too many tiny details and they have large faces and lots of hair. I stamped Miko in Timber Brown Stayzon ink on canson cold press watercolor paper. All the papers used for this card are from my stash. I confess to being a bit of a pack rat and a hoarder when it comes to my scrapbook supplies. When I have small scrap pieces left over I tend to store them in a ziplock baggie by color or them, that way when I need to layer or add accent, I can reach for one of the left over scraps rather than cut up another full piece. I paired together these three different papers (all originally from my LCS' open stock) and layered them onto a piece of Bazzill heavy weight card shoppe cardstock. The sentiment from The Greeting Farm's OA Lovey Dovey 4x6 set was stamped in Memento Rich Cocoa. The image took up quite a bit of room so I kept the embellishment simple, adding only a few enamel dots and a little ribbon. I adore Valentine's day so I absolutely could not pass up an opportunity to pull out my V day papers for a card challenge! Its actually super late here and I have a busy day today so I'll call it a night after I head over to sneak one more card in for the Farm Fresh Friday, See you guys tomorrow!

-Krys

Happy Birthday Doll-ie

Happy Hump Day blogland! Its friggin cold here and I'm still getting used to the fluffy white stuff all over the place, especially having to stand in it while I wait for my oldest daughter to get on/off the school bus. You have no idea how grateful I am for those blessed days when hubby gets a late work call and gets the "privilege" of walking our little princess to the bus in the morning snow :D Today to contrast the monotone landscape outside, I have a fun birthday card using one of my favorite TGF cuties alongside one of my fave DCWV stacks for the Holiday Cards Challenge over at The Greeting Farm

Dollie With Cupcake

I won this cutie pie, or should I say cupcake, during a blog hop from TGF and hadn't found the inspiration to ink her up until the FFF challenge for holiday cards (birthdays count as holidays right???). I tried coloring her up with my copics but was not loving the way she turned out so I put this cutie away till I could find a special enough occasion or a paper that inspired me. While sorting through my paper stash I came across a stack that I absolutely had to have...and then barely used because it turned out I was only crazy about 1/4 of the papers in the whole pack -__-. Anywho, I knew this pad would be perfect for Ms Dollie so I made a quick simple card based on this week's Retro Sketch Challenge and watercolored Dollie with my Tim Holtz distress markers. To make sure Dollie was the center of attention I kept the embellishments simple, sticking to a few pearl flourishes, individual pearls and a piece of ribbon from my stash. I also added a bit of stickles to the pink areas of dollie's outfit and cupcake frosting to give it a little bling. I hope you guys are following my progress with the Tim Holtz markers and maybe even be a little inspired to try a few out for yourselves! Well I gotta dash, see you guys again soon, and keep looking out for that Valentine's card I promised. My image is colored, my papers are picked, I'm just not sure what fold I want to use...? If you have suggestions or requests leave them in the comments below. Thanks for stopping by!

-Krys

A 3D Cheeky X-mas

Hi guys back again today with another Christmas cutie pie from TGF from the (now retired) Cheeky Xmas 4x6 set for this week's FFF Holiday Cards challenge

One of my favorite crafty ladies makes all of her cards with these little 3D paper pieced images. Using a technique that involves coloring several images, cutting out each little piece individually, embossing each piece, and gluing them down to a shaded in base image she forms a 3D puffy looking image with visible depth. You can see her beautiful creations here. I adore how her cards and projects come out so I decided to give it a try myself with Ms Cheeky Xmas, what do you guys think? I like the look but I certainly need more practice! The candy cane striped papers are from my LCS, the flourish is a memory box die and the snowflakes are sizzix. The flower, rhinestone, and pearls are from my stash. The playful sentiment is from The Greeting Farm's Dolly With Cupcake 4x6 set, stamped in versamark and heat embossed in white embossing powder. Cheeky was colored up with my trusty copics and embossed the image using the McGill paper blossom molding kit. I used Helmar's scrapdots 3D glue to add dimension to my paper pieced image. Not bad for a first attempt huh? Well I'll keep working on it and you guys stay tuned, in the mean time, enjoy your day!

-Krys

Holiday Cheer

Hi guys, its getting close to that time of year where children (and adults!) get the gimmy gimmies for everything they see on TV and my two divas are no exception! With all the "I want" and "I need" we tend to get caught up and forget what this season is truly about; Giving, not receiving and spreading holiday cheer. Often, while looking at other blogs for inspiration, I get bummed out about a lot of things I don't have or that I could use, that I never stopped to think about all the things I DO have so today's card is full of sparkly holiday cheer and making what you have look good!

Card Front: Holiday Anya 4 

Card Center: OA Surprise (Amelia)

Isn't this fold adorable? I found the tutorial on the Splitcoast Stampers Youtube channel here. It's called a pop up book card and I LOVE it! The dimensions on the tutorial were for a 6x6 square card but follow the link below the video and the splitcoast stampers website gives you the measurements to make an A2 pop up book card, which is what I used. It came out pretty cute for my first attempt and I think I'll use this fold more often. I watercolored both images with my Tim Holtz distress markers and added sparkle with diamond stickles. I love my distress markers they truly are awesome and the colors blend and react with water effortlessly. They're so much fun to play with but they can be temperamental. My only complaint would be that the browns tend to have a greenish hue, so I may try out a few reinkers for my brown shades since I hear people have had better results without the green. The sentiment on the front is from the DCWV card sentiment rub-on stack and the one on the inside is from The Greeting Farm's Cheeky Xmas 4x6 set. TGF is spreading holiday cheer with the FFF challenge Holiday Cards. The best part? It's not even a Christmas exclusive holiday challenge, its whatever holiday you feel like making a card for, so expect a few lovey dovey and oh-so-out-of-season V-day cards this week out of me. What will you guys come up with?

-Krys