Unwrapped...

Happy Monday Everyone! Wow, the weekend sure blew by! We spent all day Saturday winterizing the exterior of the house. The pool was closed up last week and we had to get all of the 'pool stuff' put away. It looks so bare out there now! I already miss seeing the beautiful shimmering pool water from my kitchen window. It's such a peaceful view all summer long. I also spent a couple hours trimming and pruning all of the rose bushes that I've planted everywhere. I just love roses, but the maintenance is brutal. I can't tell you how many times I got hooked by thorns. We also had the windows cleaned inside and out and it makes a HUGE difference.

So, I've really been in the mood lately to make some Christmas cards. We had some really hot days last week and I'm sooooooooo enjoying the cooler weather we got this weekend. It makes me realize how close we are to Christmas already. I can't believe how time flies! Anyway, I was asked about some Christmas cards the other day and had so much fun when I sat down to make them. Here's the first of them...

Unwrapped...

This little cutie is Unwrapped Tilda by Magnolia. Looks like we caught her in the act! She's sitting in front of Christmas Tree. I also created my own dp with Silent Night Background.

The gorgeous dp's are from BG's new 'Jovial' collection and I just love them! All cs is by Bazzill. The beautiful green velvet ribbon is from my stash. I bought a bunch of bty velvet ribbon in Christmas colors from Archiver's and I'm so excited about using them. I think they're stunning! The extra warmth they add is really beautiful. I found the little green gems in my jewelry bead drawer. I keep an assortment of jewelry beads handy "just in case" and they really came in handy. In case you're wondering, I stamped the Silent Night Background with Ranger Distress Ink - Fired Brick and then distressed it with Walnut Stain and Vintage Photo. I think it looks perfect with the dp's.

Here's a closeup of Tilda. I was in such a hurry when making this card that I was just grabbing Copics and dabbing into inks and didn't write down what I was using. I cleaned up really quickly and took the photos without a thought about the details. Sorry!

That's all I have for today.  Thank you so much for stopping by today.

Ciao,

Angie

Party Time!!!

Hello Everyone!  It's party time at the Magnolia Shop in Boras, Sweden!!!  As you may already know, Diana Crick and I will be visiting Sweden in less than two weeks and I couldn't possibly be more excited! 

While we're there, Magnolia has planned a PARTY on October 9th in celebration of the Grand Opening of their newly expanded warehouse.  They're going to showcase the new Merry Little Christmas Collection 2010 and the Magnolia Ink Magazine Christmas Edition!!!!!  Yay, I can't wait to get my copy!!!

The first 50 guests at the shop will receive a special gift bag filled with goodies.  We will be doing demonstrations all day.  Diana will be showing the Scor-Pal, I will be painting with distress inks, and my Magnolia DT sisters - Lillemor, Malin and Camilla will be showcasing their superb talents as well.  It promises to be an exciting day!

If you're in town on the 9th of October, please stop by the Magnolia Shop to see what going on.  I would love to meet you!!!!  We'll be there from 10 a.m. til 5 p.m.

Til then,

Angie

A New Subscription Link

Hey There Everyone and Happy Wednesday Ya'll! In the past few months, several people have asked me if I have an email subscription link on my blog. To be honest, I tried but couldn't get it to work properly. At last, it is up and running and ready for you to use. You'll find it in the upper right corner of my blog below my photo. Just type in your email address, click 'Subscribe', and follow the simple instructions from there. You should then receive an email update every time I post something new.

I hope you'll find this useful. Have a great evening :-)

Ciao,

Angie

Ooh, Ooh, Witchy Woman...

Happy Monday Everyone!!! As I'm writing this, I'm sitting in front of the television watching a decorating show and eating a granola bar that tastes like bird seed. Except for the flavor of the granola bar, I'M IN HEAVEN! Hubby took our son to the running track for some excercise so I have a little more alone time. I spent the better part of the day working on sales tax reports for multiple states before getting really burned out. I needed a mental break, so late in the afternoon I locked myself in my craft room. My brain was so fried that I couldn't possibly assemble a coherent sentence, but maybe I could assemble a card.

As I sat at my craft desk, I remembered that I had colored two images of Witch Tilda a couple months ago when I was working on projects for Magnolia Ink. I used one for a paper bag Halloween invitation, but there was still another somewhere on my desk. I dug her out and away I went.

So...here's my card. I hope you like it!

Ooh, Ooh, Witchy Woman

I had so much fun putting this card together. This little Witch Tilda is my favorite Magnolia Halloween image. I paired her with African Sun and Bat, also from Magnolia. I just loved turning the African sun into a spooky Halloween moon. I'm so pleased with how it came out.

Here's an artsy view of the card :-)

The dp's are from BG's 'Eerie' collection and they're just awesome. Some of my favorite Halloween patterns to date. The purple and black cs is Bazzill. Both the web-like ribbon and totally cool button are from my stash. The button kinda reminds me of a crystal ball. The center is like a marble with black and white swirls. The metal frame around it looks so perfect with this card. The bat was cut out and then covered with crystal lacquer. Both the American Greetings sentiment and the Jolee's spiders are from my scrapbooking materials that I haven't used in ages. The sentiment is a clear, puffy sticker like thingy that I backed with white cs and trimmed with an x-acto knife. Both Tilda and the bat are raised up on dimensionals.

I colored the images with a combination of Copic markers and watercolors with Ranger Distress Inks. Unfortunately, I no longer have the color details. Sorry :-(

I want to thank you all for your lovely comments.  I read each and every one and they always put a smile on my face.  Thank you so much for taking the time.

Well, that's all I have for today.  Thanks so much for stopping by :-)

Ciao,

Angie

On The Road Again...

Hello Everybody!!! What a great week it has been here in Michigan! A little overcast at times, but nice and hot. My son is loving school and I'm loving my schedule. I've gotten a lot of work done and still found time to play. We've got a long holiday weekend starting tomorrow and we have absolutely no plans. I'm all partied out and we're looking forward to a quiet weekend. Maybe I'll get my hubby to take me to a movie! Alan...If you're reading this...how about a Saturday night date night???

Well, the real reason I'm here today is for the Magnolia-licious Highlites Challenge!!!!!! This month it's a really cute challenge from Becca. She asked us to make a project using one of two tutorials for a suitcase or a backpack - and we had to use an image from the new Magnolia Bon Voyage collection. I chose to make the suitcase and it was SO MUCH FUN! The images are so adorable and the possibilities are endless.

Here's what I came up with! I hope you like it :-)

On The Road Again!

I used a total of four Magnolia images on the project and they all go together so perfectly. First, there's Tilda on the Loose from the Bon Voyage collection and I paired her with Eiffel Tower. I wanted her to appear as though she was in a hurry to leave Paris for her next adventure. I think she's heading to Sweden, hehe. Notice the top right corner of the map on the suitcase reads 'Sweden'! Did I plan that? YES! In case you're wondering, the other two Magnolia stamps are the sentiment See You Later and Ticket 13563 - both from the Bon Voyage collection.

Because of the size of the Eiffel Tower image, I made a 6x6 card this time so I would still have enough real estate for embellies. I really LOVE how this card turned out. I think it's one of my favorites to date. The gorgeous dp's are from The Girls Paperie. The map print actually has a white background, but I distressed the heck out of everything with tons of walnut stain. I crumbled all of the dp's into tiny balls, unfolded them, and then rubbed them with walnut stain so it would pick up all of the wrinkles and folds in the papers. They aged perfectly. I also used a Tim Holtz distressing tool on the edges. All cs is from Bazzill. I stamped the sentiment and then punched it out with an EK Success 1 1/4" circle punch. I dabbed star dust stickles on the Eiffel Tower, sentiment, tickets, and flower on Tilda's hat.

All of the other embellies...post card, twine, and flower, stamp, ribbon, and buckle on the suitcase...are from my stash.

I colored the images with a combination of Copic markers and watercolor with Ranger Distress Inks. Here are the details:

Copics - E00, 02, 42, 43, 44, 50, RV11, 21, W1, 5

DI's - weathered wood, black soot, tattered rose, tumbled glass, bundled sage, walnut stain

I'm so glad that you took the time to stop by today. Thanks so much for visiting. I hope you find some time to color!

Ciao,

Angie

Farewell...

Happy Monday Everyone!!!!!  Today is my son's first day back to school. Yay me!!! We had a wonderful summer together, but I'm ready to have my days back. At the beginning of the summer, we didn't have any trips planned. We were going to have a summer by the pool at home. As it turned out, we were leaving for a mini vacation every time I turned around and now I'm over it and ready for things to get back to our normal schedule. Unfortunately, I have mounds of accounting waiting for me to tackle. It'll probably take me a month to get caught up, but it has to be done. Fortunately, I am my own boss and I work from home, so I can set my own schedule and catch up at my own pace. That will still leave me with plenty of time in my craft room! Yay!

Anyway! Back in July, I entered my Little Mermaid Tilda card into the My Partner In Crafting Crime challenge and won. They invited me to be featured in a guest spot today and I'm very excited about it. I was asked to make a card with a 'Vintage' theme about it.

Here's the card that I made. It stars Farewell Tilda from Magnolia's Bon Voyage collection. I hope you like it!

FAREWELL

As I mentioned, I used Farewell Tilda and Farewell (sentiment) on this card. She is from Magnolia's Bon Voyage collection, which I absolutely LOVE!!! Isn't she just adorable??? The background flowers are an image from Tim Holtz's 'Spring Flowers' stamp set.

The dp's I chose are from Graphic 45 and cs is both Bazzill and Stampin' Up! If you haven't checked out the Graphic 45 papers before, then it's certainly time to do so. They now produce 8x8 paper packs in their gorgeous vintage collections and they are ABSOLUTELY STUNNING! The prints are smaller so they're perfect for card making. I spent a lot of time in their booth at CHA just studying their creations. Anyway, back to my card...The gorgeous peach flower and the lace are from Magnolia. The pearls, ribbon, ticket and corner piece are from my stash. I applied star dust Stickles to all of the lace on the image as well as to the flower petals.

I colored the image with both Copic markers and watercolors with Ranger Distress Inks. The details are as follows:

Copics - E00, 02, 42, 43, 50, RV21, R11, 20, W00, 1

DI's - black soot, walnut stain, forest moss, antique linen, tattered rose, tumbled glass, weathered wood

That's all I have for today. Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit! Did you check out the countdown to Sweden at the top of the page? I'm leaving in just over a month!!! OMGoodness! I can't wait!!!

Ciao,

Angie

What Time Is It?

Hi Everyone!!! This month we're celebrating a birthday! Yes, it is Diana Crick's birthday this month! This 'time' we were challenged to create a card and an altered item. Anything we wanted to do. I set off to check out local craft stores to see if I could find something that I hadn't done before. I just love what I found and I sure hope you like it too!

It's Time for a Birthday!!!

I had so much fun making this set! I didn't have a whole lot of 'time' this week, so I made my way into my craft room here and there whenever I could. I'm so glad that I finished it on 'time'!!! hehe. I'm sorry that the photos look a little fuzzy. I had to angle the clock so you could see the sparklies without catching an awful reflection on the cover. I haven't figured out how to get everything to focus when taking a photo of something on an angle.

I found this clock at Archiver's and thought it would be perfect! I instantly knew that I wanted to use 4 Tilda's for the 3-6-9-12 positions of the clock. I chose 4 images from the new Bon Voyage Collection: Traveling Tilda, Australian Tilda, Flight Attendant Tilda, and Tilda Goes Shopping. Aren't they adorable little faces!!! This is my favorite collection so far. I couldn't make up my mind about which ones to buy...so I bought them all! Anyway, I wish I could give you the coloring details of each one, but I failed to keep track since I was in and out of my craft room so much. I can tell you that the dp's are from K&Company. I cut the swirls from Bazzill cs using my Magnolia DooHickey cutting die (love them!!!). The ribbon and gems are from my stash. The purple flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and the blue and white ones are from my friend and fellow team member, Mindy. Thanks Mindy!!! All images and their backgrounds were cut using Nestabilities. Lastly, I applied stardust Stickles to all of the flowers.

And now for the card...I decided to use both Tilda Goes Shopping and Edwin's Town. My idea is that Tilda would look as though she were walking down the street carrying some bags of goodies that she just purchased for her friends birthday. I really like how it turned out :-) I painted Tilda with color so that she would be more lively and stand out. I painted the buildings very plainly in beige/brown so they would be more of a backdrop.

Here's an angled view so that you can see the dimension of the embellies. The gorgeous purple corduroy ribbon and lace are both from my own stash. I used the same flowers and dp's as on the clock. All cs is once again by Bazzill. The metal flower and round clock piece by the bow are both by Tim Holtz. Unfortunately, the photo doesn't show the clock piece well. It has an antique finish on it and it's beautiful. The jewelled pin and blue gems are also from Mindy. I applied stardust Stickles to the flowers.

As always, I combined Copic markers and watercolor with distress inks on the images. Here are the details:

Copics: E00, 02, 43, 33, 50, 53, RV21, Y23

Ranger DI's: worn lipstick, broken china, black soot, walnut stain, spun sugar, tea dye, antique linen

I'm sending this card to a special someone, so I finished the inside. The doily is from my collection.

Here you can better see the sentiment, which is from Stampin' Up! Can a girl have too many sentiment stamps??? Don't think so! In fact, I think I need more!!!!!!

Well, that's all I have for today. I sure hope you enjoyed my projects. Be sure to continue on to Linda's blog for her awesome creations! Don't forget to start thinking about what you'll make to join in on the challenge!!!

Ciao,

Angie