I just wanted to say hello to everyone and tell everyone that I've been staying very busy with Christmas card orders and life in general. I had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving with friends coming in from Wisconsin and lots of good food. Let's just say I ate more pumpkin pie than any one person should!! :)
Like I said above, I've been busy with with Christmas cards. I've been creating and creating and feel GREAT. I've been working on a lot of new designs and the one you see on the left has become a favorite of mine and of others. My stepmom just ordered 10 of the design on the right, the "Believe" stocking. I like the look of it, I don't know if you can tell on here, but it has kind of an old fashioned look to it. It's an easy design...just brown paper (mine was the packing in a package at work) I crumpled it up and than ironed it flat...that still left the wrinkles in the paper, then inked it with pigment ink and heat set it so it would dry. I did that with the red on the bottom as well as the white for the stocking top. You'll find that I love my pigment inks. After everything was dry I used a dye based pad to stamp over the red to show the wrinkles in the paper and then stamped the red and white snowflakes again in pigment ink. I also stamped the Believe in pigment ink. I've found that you can layer them so easily after heat setting.
This card (on the left) is made with a Micheal Strong tree stamp, and then I added some color, some gold pen and some glitter pen. The round ornaments on the left side are the small circle Michael Strong stamp, stamped on shrink plastic then colored with markers, punched out with a circle punch and the shrunk with my heat gun. I then made the "hangers" with gold wire.
Making a wide range of cards is a blast. I have some card orders that people ask for very specific designs that they have seen on my MySpace page (which is www.myspace.com/snipsoftime ) and other emails, and other just let me decide what to send them. I will admit, it's "easier" to complete an order that has strict specifications, as then I just get in there, do what I am supposed to do. When I have a lot of freedom, sometimes I get a little crazy designing the cards...that's just the designer in me LOL!!
This is the last card I'll show you today. (Mind you all three cards are from the same order...see I just can do plain if you let me do whatever I want!!) This one looks elegant, but is super easy to do...just two stamps, using the essential glue pad, and gold leaf. Actually, it's left over gold leaf from my husband's pin striping supplies. Anyway, you just load your stamp with the glue, press it to the paper for a good image, put the scraps of gold leaf on it, pressing the leaf down with your fingers, then brushing off the excess with a stiff brush. (Keep the little pieces you can pick up with your fingers, they can be used again.) Then I just added some black ribbon to match the matting on the card and I was all done. I think it looks a lot more difficult that it is and certainly looks elegant enough for a "fancy" Christmas card.
Well, that's all for this post. I've got cards to finish and ornaments for my tree to make. God bless to all, get crafting and yes, YOU are CREATIVE!!
Love,
LeighAnn
