Cuppie Calendar

WoooHOOO! It's time for another Taylored Expressions release and I am SO excited! Taylor has really outdone herself this time! Not only has she created THE most adorable stamp sets in her Stamp a Sweet Impression (SASI) line, and put together fabulous papers and bellies in her Key Ingredient kits, but now she is adding calendars to the mix!

Here is a sneak peak at the new perpetual calendar. I decorated *January* with this adorable snow cuppie from the new A Year of Sweets I set. She's all glittered and sparkled!


I paper pieced the cupcake paper, added some liquid applique to her earmuffs, gave her some pink frosting with Copic markers, and lots of sparkle with Starfire glitter! (the papers and glitter are part of the Key Ingredients). I cut a couple of "balloons" using the smallest oval Nestability and added strings with a .05 Copic multiliner pen to add some festivness by our daughter's birthday. A strip of matching paper on the botton and the word *celebrate* finished everything off nicely.



I can't wait to show you how I've decorated the rest of the calendar! The new sets and calendars are available January 2nd at the Taylored Expressions store

Be sure and check out all the girls on the Baker's Dozen Design Team! They are gonna knock your socks off with their creations! You can find links to everyone's blog over on the side ====>

HB


Supplies
Stamps: A Year of Sweets I, A Year of Sweet Sentiments (Taylored Expressions), Liquid Applique, pearl (Hero Arts),
Paper, cardstock, glitter (Taylored Expressions Key Ingredient kit)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento), Versamark, Copic markers,
Misc: large eyelet (Making Memories), snowflake punch (Martha Stewart), Copic Airbrush System

Mushroom Forest

Our Craft Lounge (OCL) recently released this new set called Love Bug. As soon as I saw it I knew I had to have it because it has THE most adorable mushrooms!

I did a bit of masking for this card to create the "forest" and the family of bugs and then colored them with Copic markers. I added some sparkle to the hearts with a red Spica glitter pen.

The papers, from the Just Dreamy 2 collection (My Minds Eye) are just so gorgeous and they really make card making easy.

The sentiment is stamped on white cardstock, cut out with a circle punch, edged in red ink and then attached to a metal edge tag (from an office supply). I used my Crop-a-Dile to punch the hole (how did I ever live without that thing?) and attached the wire ring to the ribbon (SU!)

If you haven't checked out the adorable stamps at OCL, you just have to go look! Plus, they have all kinds of samples by some seriously talented stampers!

Thanks for visiting!

HB

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

It was a beautiful, low key Christmas at our house! I love when the true meaning of this season outshines massive amounts of stress and spending.

I have a couple of Christmasy items to show you before the holiday is officially over. The first is an altered BEANO card. My friend Lisa Zappa had some of these cards (she tells me they were called BEANO cards back in the day before they were BINGO cards 'cuz people used beans to mark their numbers!) and she's been giving them to her friends asking if they would decorate it for her BEANO Christmas tree.

Now, if you know Lisa, you know she is the Queen of Shabby so I knew I needed to do something special. I found this delicious paper (Wassail by Basic Grey) and made a little chipboard house. The trees are cut from the Tree Lot paper. It has little triangles of different patterns all over it. I found the adorable cat charm at JoAnn Fabrics and since her cats are good friends of mine :o) I knew it would be perfect. I added a bling swirl for chimney smoke and a lace border and then held my breath in the hopes she would like it. She did! whew!

My other project comes in the form of holiday tags. The other managers and I at the bank I work at decided to host a Christmas pizza lunch for the staff instead of buying little gifts for everyone. I volunteered to make a little *something* for each place setting. Everyone uses sticky notes, but the bank does not supply them, so they are always in demand, and I thought they would be the perfect little gift. I made these round tags using the JustRite Christmas Ensemble for the borders (snowflakes on blue and holly on white).


I cut the tags out using the large scallop circle die (Nestabilities) and then added the centers. The snowflake tag uses a snowflake from Pine's Snowfall Additions set (Papertrey) stamped in light blue with a glittered snowflake (Martha Stewart punch) over the top. The holly tag uses a Christmas tree from a little set I found at Michael's.

I used the JustRite Brayton Font for the words on the back. I LOVE how I can create just what I want to say, without having to use the computer!



I tied the tags to a stack of sticky notes with white and red curling ribbon. They looked like little packages sitting on the tables and the staff LOVED them! As I walked the floor later that day I saw a lot of them had hung the tags on the walls of their cubes!

Well... the family is wanting to play cards so I better run! I hope your holiday was filled with peace and your new year is filled with abundant blessings!

HB

Holly Cuppies

Oh how I love to make holiday cards! The ideas just flow when surrounded with all the adorable stamps and luscious papers and bellies!

I recently got the Christmas Ensemble from JustRite Stamps and man, I am IN LOVE with these stamps! I used the holly circle for this card as the perfect frame for the holly cuppie from Taylored Expressions Season's Sweetings set.

I stamped the holly circle with black ink, colored the leaves with Copic markers and then glitzed up the berries with a Stardust glittering gel pen in ruby. The cuppies are stamped and their wrappers are paper pieced. I colored the cuppie holly leaves and glitzed the berries the same way.


Everything is edged with a liquid gold paint pen and attached using foam tape.


I wish you could see the sparkle and shine!

I don't know as I've ever shown you how I store my Taylored Expressions stamps. Taylor has these waaay cool storage boxes that the stamp sets fit right into. The stamp sets come on a hard plastic base with holes already punch in them, so all I have to do is open the storage box and put them in (kind of like a 3 ring binder).

The picture on the left shows how the sets are stored. The one on the right gives you an idea of the size (it's next to a CD case). I love that my sets sit nice and protected on my shelf. Pure Genius!

The coolest part? The stamps (both Taylor's and JustRite), the storage and lots of other things can be found in Taylors store. Don't you just LOVE one stop shopping! :o)

Supplies

Stamps: Season's Sweetings (Taylored Expressions), Christmas Ensemble (JustRight Stampers

Paper: Neenah, Making Memories, Bazzil

Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento), Copic markers, Stardust glittering gel ink (Sakura)

Misc: Nestabilities, ribbon (Martha Stewart), scallop edge (Marvy paper cutter), liquid gold paint pen, foam tape

From our house...

I was looking through the sketch challenges over on SCS the other day (they are awesome) and this one struck my fancy (SC204). I loved how the center strip was cut short on the left, but went all the way to the end on the right.

I had my Taylored Expressions stamps out and as I looked through the sets I pondered how the Halloween stamps are so stinkin CUTE, but they are so under-used. Halloween just doesn't last long enough. Anyway... I decided to use the haunted house in the Frightful Night set as a cute little house in a winter scene.

I stamped the house on cream cardstock, colored it with Copic markers and cut it out. I created the snow with Liquid Pearls and sprinkled fine glitter over it. It's attached with foam tape to a cream rectangle that I airbrushed with pink (hey... sky can be pink you know!)


The adorable paper (October Afternoon) has pink polka dots on the reverse side and I put a pink crystal (Zva Creative) on each dot. You just GOTTA love pink bling!

The sentiment is from the Home Sweet Home Set and is stamped on cream with Pink Petunia (Versa Magic chalk ink). I cut out one of the little snowflakes on the paper and added a pearl.

I think I'll find another sketch to play with. It sure jump started my mojo!

HB

Supplies

Stamps: Frightful Night, Home Sweet Home (Taylored Expressions)

Paper: Classic Cream (Neenah), October Afternoon

Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento), Pink Petunia (Versa Magic chalk ink), Copic markers

Misc: Liquid Pearls (Ranger), glitter (Stampendous), pink crystals (Zva Creative.com), Nestabilites, Copic Air Brush system

Christmas ATCs

A dear friend of mine hosts an ATC swap every few months and the girls who participate are just amazing talents. This time around is a Christmas swap and I was so excited because the ATC is the perfect size to showcase this new Inkadinkado stamp I found. My mom loved cardinals and whenever I see one such wonderful memories come flooding into my head.

I stamped the image on Neenah white cardstock and colored it with Copic markers. I couldn't find just the right sentiment that fit the small size of an ATC, so I reached for my JustRite Brayton Font set (50pt) and stamped {25} in Fired Brick Distress ink. (oh I hope they get that it means Dec 25th. Do ya think?) After I punched the date with a 1 inch circle punch, I ran a glue pen around the edge and dipped it into Fire Engine Red glitter.

The upper portion of the base of the ATC is a beautiful Christmas paper by KaiserCraft. I bought one sheet a month or so ago and had just enough to make 15 of these! (whew) The bottom strip is BoBunny. In between is a peice of red velvet ribbon over crochet lace.

So, now I have all the pieces and realize that the image is just to bright white for the Christmas paper. What to do? Easy... Tim Holtz to the rescue!

Using the sponge applicator, I smooged (technical word) Antique Linen ink around the edges. You can see what a difference it makes ===>

It's one of my very favorite, and most used tools! It does more than just leave a darker *edge* to your image. If you lay the image flat on a piece of paper or mat, and rub the sponge applicator in a circular motion towards the center of the image, you get a lovely shading that goes from darker on the outside edge, to softer/lighter in the center.

Well, that's all for tonight. Thanks for coming by!

HB

Supplies

Stamps: Inkadinkado, Brayton Font (JustRite Stamper)

Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento), Antique Linen, Fired Brick, Aged Mahogany (Distress Inks by Ranger), Copic markers, Copic Red Spica pen

Paper: Neenah, KaiserCraft, BoBunny

Misc: red velvet ribbon, lace (local craft store), glitter (Taylored Expressions), Old Lace Glimmer Mist (Tattered Angels), Tim Holtz sponge applicator (StarLitStudio), circle punch (EK Success), scallop blade (Marvy cutter)

Beate's sketches

My mojo has all but dried up lately. I sit at my work table and just stare into space. Does that ever happen to you?

Last week I sat there looking at this adorable new Hero Arts mini set, the one that I've been searching everywhere for, and nothing sparked. Nothing. Nada. Zip. I knew if I could just come up with a layout, everything would start to flow (ok. I didn't really *know*, but I was sure hoping hard!)

I finally turned to the amazing Beate and her fabulous layout challenges. And it worked!

This one is her Friday sketch # WSC64. I LOVE this layout and I know I'll come back to it often. I stamped the cute little critter angel on PTI Kraft in black, filled in the wings with white craft ink using a mini sponge applicator and then covered them with glitter.


I used a round Nestability to cut out the circle and edged it with white craft in. The polka dot strip is PTI Kraft embossed with the CB Swiss Dots folder and I then ran the white craft ink pad lightly over the top.

The next started out as a Christmas ATC for a swap, but it just didn't look right. Again, I reached out to Beate's fabulous blog for an idea as to how to use a 2.5 x 3.5 image on a card.

So, now that the holiday is over... and a tiny bit of mojo has returned, I may have some more things to share with you! ;o)

Thanks for stopping by! I sure do enjoy it when you visit!

HB

Supplies

Critter Angel - Stamps: Magic Holiday (Hero Arts) Paper: Kraft, Pure Poppy, White (Paper Trey Ink), Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento), White Craft (SU!), Copic Spica pens Misc: Nestabilites, Cuttlebug, glitter (Stampendous), corner rounder punch

Puppy Angel - Stamps: Magic Holiday (Hero Arts), Rustic Snowflakes (Paper Trey Ink) Paper: Heidi Grace Designs, PTI, SU! Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento), chalk inks (Versa Magic), Distress Inks (Ranger) Misc: glitter (Sampendous), ribbon (May Arts), tracing wheel