Christmas Art Journal

Hello friends and happy holidays! After a very long silence on my beloved blog, I'm actually back with a project! And I even turned it into a short photo tutorial...shocking! LOL!

Our family is finally settled in CT, and while I can't say that I feel 100% "at home," we're comfortable in our new house and enjoyed the Christmas holiday with family. (We even packed in a day trip to NH last weekend to celebrate with our church friends)

The new house is fully decorated and we just need to hang a few more curtains before calling it quits. The unpacking seems to go on forever... My new craft area is actually part of a huge loft that also contains our guest bed, the boys Legos and toys, and our school area. I have one large enclosed cabinet and one bookshelf for my supplies. And because we're in a rental, I opted to only unpack supplies I felt that I'd use on a regular basis. (Everything else is in bins that I can easily access, if needed) 

Because the loft area is multi-functional, I don't have the freedom to leave all of my supplies out on a table like I did when I had my own space. While this initially had me feeling like I never wanted to create art again (translation - I've been feeling very down about our move), I realized it actually helped me be more purposeful when I create. Rather than being overwhelmed by everything sitting on my desk and around me, I now need to think through what I want to make and what supplies I'll need...reminding myself that if I want anything that is still packed, I'll need to go searching through bins. The need to be mindful led me to really sit and think through what I wanted to create yesterday. I knew that I wanted a holiday theme, and I wanted to use Christmas tree ornaments. Creating a mental list of supplies before I started meant that my art journal spread came together pretty effortlessly. It felt really great to begin and finish a project, after doing nothing for so many weeks. I even commented to my husband that I felt the desire to be back on a design team...maybe this is a good sign for my emotional state. :-)

Without further delay...here are more photos of my project, along with the link to the video. The supply list is at the end of the post. Enjoy and thanks for hanging in there!

One thing I didn't mention in my video is that I used the Brushed Pewter paint to add silver to the edges of each ornament.

Supply List:

1. Wendy Vecchi white embossing paste
2. Distress Paint - Spun Sugar, Brushed Pewter, and Seedless Preserves
3. Tim Holtz Stencils - Flourish
4. Jet Black Archival Ink
5. Faber Castell Big Brush Markers - Cool Gray
6. Ranger Matte Medium

Christmas in July Blog Hop

Well...I'm not sure how I feel about thinking of Christmas and snow in the middle of July but I do know that I am super excited to share the news of Sweet 'n Sassy's mid-July holiday party and release!!  Wait until you see what fun sets Korin has to share!  And all of the beautiful work by our super talented design team and friends...love it!!

Let's start with my card, which features the Snowflake Silhouettes stamp set.  This great set comes with a number of beautiful snowflake images and a variety of winter-themed sentiments.  I opted to start by stamping one of the smaller snowflakes on a piece of blue cardstock.  I used white ink for that true wintery feel. Then I stamped one of the larger snowflakes on white cardstock and cut it out.  I also added just a hint of glitter to the snowflake for a tiny bit of shine.  The edge of my card was cut using a Spellbinders die abd my designer paper is from Authentique.  Oh, my rosette is from The Cat's Pajamas and the scalloped circle is another Spellbinders die (I did some serious die cutting with this card!)

How about the details on prizes during the hop and links to the other creations?  Keep reading!

• Lots of great things are happening at Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps during these pre-holiday festivities!  ALL Christmas clear stamps are 20% off through Wednesday, July 25.  Three new holiday sets are in stock early, for a fun pre-release, and they you can get them before they are released in September and October... if you buy them now, you can take advantage of the sale price!
• Every order of $25 in Christmas clear stamps will receive Gingerbread Man, a darling new 2" x 2" mini clear set.  And as always, all clear stamp orders of $50 or more get this month's free w/ stamp set, Christmas Candle (while supplies last).

Ready to see what the Design Divas and a few special friends have been up to with their Christmas stamps?  Take a look (and be sure to read on, for information about how you can join in on this hop  and win some prizes):

Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps blog

Kim Singdahlsen

Bridget Finlay

Jennifer Ingle

Taylor Usry

Monika Davis

Cathy McCauley

Mary Faus

Ceal Pritchett

Giovana Smith

Lee Murphy

Jennie Harper

Kim Schofield - You're Here!

Julie Ranae
Jessica Fick

Korin Sutherland 

And what's the best part about Christmas in July?  We want YOU to play along with us!  Just link up your Christmas project using Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps below and join in our Customer blog hop.  You have until Sunday, July 22 at 11:59 PM EST to play along.  One randomly selected participant will receive their choice of one Christmas clear stamp set!

Happy Holidays

I just posted a note on a forum that I coudn't believe Christmas was only six months away...egads, the time goes by quickly, doesn't it?  So I thought I'd share a CAS Christmas card, featuring stamps by PSA Essentials.

I created this card by stamping with various holiday images on to a piece of cardstock that matched my card base.  I used the same color ink (as the cardstock), which creates a nice watermark look on the paper.  Then I just punched out a scalloped circle and plain circle as a base for my tiny Happy Holidays envelope.  I popped up the piece of stamped cardstock with foam tape so it's not laying flat against the card base.  Three little rhinestones finished off today's card!

Enjoy and try not to think about Christmas yet...

Christmas Angel

Is it too late to share another Christmas project? I mean this could spur you on to get those homemade ornaments done early, right? :-) The reality is that I'm painfully behind on my blogging this week, even though I have a ton of projects in the works. Is anyone else like that out there? One week I have a ton of projects lined up to share and then the next I'm busy working on projects but nothing ready to share! It's feast or famine!!

So on to this precious angel! Isn't it the cutest!! This is an idea I found on Splitcoast, a project found here (in her posting there is also a link with directions). I used a circle cutter to create the circles to form the body. The arms were created by using half a circle for each arm. Once the circles were cut out I stamped all over them with snowflakes from the fabulous Snowflake Flourish stamp set from Sweet 'n Sassy. I then added just a thin line of glitter around the bottom edges of the dress and arms. (Oh, the "arms" were hot glued onto the body) The head is made from a small ornament. I drew the wings (a template is available from the SCS link, noted above) and the completely covered them with silver glitter...oh the bling! The finishing touches were tiny beads for a hallo and a few pieces of ribbon.

This was a super easy project and there are so many options for decorating! I gave this as a present to someone that I work with but I thought that this would be a great gift for a few friends next year as well. Who wouldn't love handmade ornaments!

Enjoy and be sure to check out the tutorial on SCS!

Sweet 'n Sassy Digi Release Day!

Hey guess what? Today is a big digi release day for Sweet 'n Sassy! Yippee!!! We've been so excited about the new SNSS acrylic stamp sets (I hope you've all been trying them out...they rock!) that it's been awhile since we've had a good 'ol digi release...just wait until you see these wonderful new holiday-inspired images!! I'm in love.... For my card, I used the super lovely Holly Wreath image. I think it's no secret that I have a thing for flowers and give me a wreath that's all decked out for the holidays and...well...hello baby!! I colored the wreath with my Copic markers and then used two circle Nestibilities to cut it out. The layout is one from last month's Mojo Monday and the paper is a new line from Imaginsce. Oh, and I added some Stickles to the berries...The sentiment is from the SNSS Christmas Wonder set. Hop on over to the Sweet 'n Sassy web site (hey, it's a new site and it's fabulous) to check out all of the new digis and enjoy!