Friday, December 17, 2010

12 Sale Days of Christmas: Day 7

Another day of sale prices. And other quick post. I have a card to post as well, but that may not happen until tomorrow.


A set of Tim Holtz embossing folders. These are December Calendar & Holiday Words. Sale price: $9 (regular price $11).


I also have some sticky stuff embossing powder. I love this stuff for adding glitter and stuff to embellishments. I will cut out letters or flowers or something using my dies or Cricut and then use Versamark and this Sticky Stuff powder to add glitter for a custom embellishment. Sale price: $4 (regular price $6.50).

12 Sale Days of Christmas: Day 6

I missed yesterday. It was such a crazy day, so I will do 2 sale days today.

I have a bottle of Silver Mica Gloss. It's like a metallic ink that you can use to create backgrounds or to stamp. Sale price: $5 (regular $7).



I also have baby pin embellishments. These would be perfect on a baby card. I have pink ones too. Sale price: $2 (regular price $3).

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

12 Sale Days of Christmas: Day 5

OK, so it's the second post of the day and I will be all caught up!!!

For tonight, it's just a quick post as I have a desk full of paper and a ton to do.

I have one Winter Wonderland Cuttlebug folder set. It includes 6 folders (3 - 5x7". and 3 - 4.25x5.75"). Sale price: $24 (regular price $28).

12 Sale Days of Christmas: Day 4

It was so crazy around here that I didn't get Day 4 posted, so I'll do two today. I did create a bit yesterday though. I'll share it in a few days as it needs to be a surprise for a few days.


I love the Tim Holtz Fragments. Really, I love any of his stuff. These are especially cool though. They're just little squares & rectangles (they also make circle/ovals and tags) of clear plastic. You can do so much with them. You can glue them (I like the Glossy or Matte Accents as they work great) onto patterned paper and give the patterned paper a new dimensional look. You can ink them with alcohol inks or the Adirondack Pigment Inks and then stamp on them. Or you can just stamp on them with Permanent Ink or the Adirondack Pigment Inks (they're water based, so will dry on surfaces on which normal pigment inks wouldn't dry). I have a couple layouts done with these which I can share soon. Sale price: $8 (regular price $10).


These are little foliage embellishments, also by Tim Holtz. You can decorate them or just use them as is. They come with little brads for attaching them. Sale price: $5 (regular price $6).


Lastly, I have some Tim Holtz numerals. They each have holes and are attached with brads. I saw him cover one with patterned paper on his blog once and thought it was very cool. I just haven't had time to play with them yet. Anyway, sale price $5 (regular price $6).

Monday, December 13, 2010

12 Sale Days of Christmas: Day 3

Today it's all about stamps. I have three sets on sale today.


This great bird set from Hot of the Press is full of images. You can use then alone or create a collage with them. I love getting sets of stamps where the images aren't necessarily ones I'd normally buy since they go together and are great with collages. I was never a big collage person, and I still can't glue a ton of stuff together and make it look good, but I like creating a background then stamping a bunch of images on it to create a collage. And when I'm really motivated, I'll use some of them as a resist under the background to create more depth. Sale price: $15 (regular $19)


This set by Pink Paislee would also be great for collages. It's very Antique like and is called Parisian Anthology. Sale price: $5 (regular price $8).


This last set is a bunch of Christmas stamps which would be great for gift tags or on the inside of cards. Sale price $9 (regular price: $13.50)

So, some great deals on stamps!! Email me or post if you are interested.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

12 Sale Days of Christmas: Day 2

Today is Pen day. I have four sets of Sakura pens on sale.

First up are Glaze Pens. They work fantastic on coated surfaces such as acetate, glass, metal. You need to let them dry completely, but they you get a shiny glaze type look. Regular price for this set of 10 is $22.50. Sale Price is $19.00.


I LOVE these Metallic pens. They are great for colouring with a shimmer, but without a glittery mess. You can also blend them with water as they are a water based pen. Even my 7 year old daughter does a superb job colouring with them (if they don't sell, I might just give her her own set so she stops using mine!). Sale price is $10.00 (regular $14.00).




When I was in junior high, they had these metallic pens which had colour in the middle and a silver outline as you wrote. They were all the rage. I had a few (of course), but you had to shake them to get them to work and were more of a paint pen. Very cool, but kind of a pain to use at times. Now, Sakura has a gel pen equivalent. They have gold and silver outline variety (each pack has 5 colours). They write with the colour and either a gold or silver shadow/outline. Sale price $6.00 (regular $8.50).

Let me know via post or email if you are interested in any of these deals.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

It's the 12 Sale Days of Christmas: Day 1

The end of the year is approaching and I'm starting to think about having to count all this inventory. I hate counting it and dread it each year, but unfortunately, the accountant requires it, so count I will.

But I want to make it easier for me, so I'm proposing a win-win situation. I'm going to post 12 Days of Sales. Each day, I'll pick a few things and post them on sale. They will stay on sale until the 12 Days are up or they are sold. The sale prices will only be valid for in stock items and while you don't have to pick up your product right away, I need to be paid before December 30, so I can count the items as sold. Otherwise, I still need to count them.

If you are interested, just email me or post a comment and I'll pull it for you.


These 12x12" adhesive sheets are awesome! You can use them in your punches or die cut them and they won't gum anything up. I've cut the sheets on my paper cutter without a problem. When I'm cutting a bunch of stuff out on my Cricut, I will often adhere a sheet to a 12x12" piece of cardstock or patterned paper and then do all my cutting. That way all my items already have adhesive. The Cricut cuts fine through it. Regular price is $10.00, but I have a bunch in stock, so sale price is $7.00.


The other item in today's sale is rolls of foil by Spellbinders. I have 2 gold, 1 blue and 1 copper. I haven't done much with foil, although it is on my list of things to play with. I have done some embossing on it and then sanded off the colour to reveal the silver below. It does a great background! Regular price is $8 and sale is $6.

Look for more deals tomorrow!

Another Order

I got another order yesterday afternoon around 1:30 pm. Nothing like almost the last minute!! It had the new Sizzix/Basic Grey Embossing Folder Sets. I brought in 4 of the different sets and they're all gone already. It's funny because I can't ever seem to predict what people will love and what they won't. Sometimes, I have tons of a specific product left over and sometimes, I don't. Anyway, I can order more of these if anyone is interested ($12).


Christmas & Thin Ice

Plaid & Snowflakes

I actually think the plaid is pretty cool. I'm imagining it on Core'dinations paper and then sanded for an awesome background.



Powdered Sugar & Snow Globe

Sugar & Starry Night

I also have a Scor-Buddy available ($20). It's a card sized version of the Scor-Pal. I had one client want one, and I have to bring in two, so I have another one.

I also reordered some of these foam dots. They are awesome. I've been using them quite a bit lately. I used to buy foam tape, but I like these better as they're thicker and I don't have to cut them. There are several sheets in a package and each sheet has various sizes of circle foam dots.



I also have a couple packages of these cool pins. They have a crystal on one end and are quite sparkly.



I meant to post this yesterday, but time got away from me (again). Watch for another post shortly and one a day for the next little while with tons of sales.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

More New Stuff

I got a new order the other day (and there is another one which should arrive today or tomorrow). While there isn't a ton of new to the market product, I have some new to me stuff and some old goodies.



Claudine Hellmuth has designed these stamp sets. There is a foam set which has the "base" for the stamp and then another coordinating set which just contains the matching outlines. I never used to use foam sets because they didn't stamp well, but I took an awesome class a few years ago where we stamped on canvas bags using acrylic paint and the foam stamps work so great with that. So, I wanted to try a couple sets and see how they work with Claudine's acrylic paint (which is incredible) and the Sticky Back Canvas (which I also love). Hopefully, I will have some samples to show. Eventually.


The blending cardstock for the Copic Markers. I will bring in the full packs (125 sheets for $60), but I'm also going to break open a package and sell the sheets for $0.55 each.



More of the bulk Mini Misters ($1.75 each) and I wanted to try these Craft Scrubbies ($5.00). I haven't heard of them before, but I saw them on the Ranger site when I was looking at projects. They are supposed to help get ink off your hands. I'll give them a try and let you know if they work, but I've found most Ranger products do exactly what they say they will do!


A couple Tim Holtz dies which fit in to the Ornament dies ($10)

I have a few Tim Holtz Snowflakes/Snowmen folders ($11.00).


The set of Copic Multiliners. These are such great black markers in a variety of thicknesses. ($21)

If there is something you would like, just post or email me and I'll put it aside for you and not sell it. Hopefully, I'll have some more cool stuff in a day or two!

Thursday, December 2, 2010

It's been awhile

How does it get to be so long in between posts?? I haven't been stamping much lately. I've done some scrapbooking, but not this week, so I guess I figured I didn't have as much to say. I'll try to fix that. I have tons of card scans, so I'll try to post some of those.

Here is a really quick layout I did of Eric (have I mentioned that I'm almost caught up to his 5th birthday??? Just a few more layouts and I can put his book away and sigh a bit of relief). Eric is very dramatic and I joke that he's my little Drama Queen. I can't imagine him as a teenager. I took this photo and it reminded me of his nature, so I wanted to try to capture that.


It's a pretty basic layout. I matted my photo and then just stamped a little frame with a Magenta stamp. To figure out where I wanted the frame, I just marked the four corners of the photo and then removed it and stamped my frame. I cut out a couple pieces of matching paper using Spellbinders Labels 8, but they seemed to get lost, so I inked the edges in a dark navy ink. I wanted to journal on my one label, so I just measured it and typed it out on the computer and printed it on bond paper. Then, using repositional adhesive, I stuck it over where it had printed on the bond paper and ran it through the printer again and it printed perfectly on my label which I then adhered to my layout.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Happy Hallowe'en


I know it's long past, but I did a quick Hallowe'en page for Eric's album and wanted to share.

It was another really quick page. I just took this Hallowe'en patterned paper and matted my three photos in black. I cut out a Bat in a Circle using my Pumpkin Carving Cricut cartridge and then cut out 2009 and stuck it all down. I didn't bother journaling since really, the pictures say it all.

I haven't stamped or scrapbooked lately and I'm itching to create again. Luckily, my sister is coming over tomorrow for a scrapbook day. I've been frantically cleaning the house and catching up on other work so that I can have a play day tomorrow. I have a bunch of ideas in my head and I'm hoping that I can get them onto paper without too much frustration. So many times, I have ideas in my head, but they can't seam to make it onto the paper without major issue. I have confidence that tomorrow is going to be great though.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

This one's for Heather ...

Last June, I took a class from Els Van de Burgt owner of Elizabeth Craft Designs which was fabulous. It involved a lot of glitter, which isn't normally my thing, since, well, it's messy and takes a long time. She did this one demo, though, that completely sucked me in.

We took a peel off (her designs are gorgeous) and placed it on a piece of Sookwang Tape (also known as Scor-Tape or Be Creative Tape) which was on cardstock. We poured the warm or cool highlites glitter all over and it stuck to the background. Then we coloured with Bic Permanent Markers and an Alcohol Ink Pen filled with Blender Solution. The results were so gorgeous and what I loved is you could have all sorts of different colours of glitter without messing around (and needing) all sorts of colours.

I don't have a lot of peel offs, but I was thinking I might be able to make it work with cut outs from my Cricut. I used the Picturesque cartridge which Jackie Smith (check out her gorgeous blog) thankfully convinced me to order. The lines are thicker, but I still think the result is gorgeous. And what is really cool is I can cut them out to be whatever size I want which is very appealing.

I took the stuff out to the PMS (Pretty Mean Stampers) retreat and played. They turned out gorgeous!! I was colouring them and cutting them out while chatting with Heather Kuchma who convinced me to take it one step further and instead of adhering the butterfly right onto the cardstock or background, she had me adhere it to a transparency so I could curl the wings and make it 3D. It turned out fabulous and I was sold.

I do think that next time, I'll adhere the whole sheet to the transparency first and then cut everything out to save time and hopefully make them a bit easier to cut.

The background was done with the Distress Ink/Cuttlebug technique from a few posts ago. Check out Technique Junkies for a detailed tutorial on that and tons of other great techniques.


Sunday, November 21, 2010

Colour Wheel

I have to start by saying thank you to all the people who have mentioned to me that they enjoy reading my blog. I was at stamping (PMS - Pretty Mean Stampers) on Friday and was floored by the number of people who mentioned that they liked reading what I wrote and seeing what I posted. I know it gets mundane to post comments and such which I totally understand, so it was nice to hear in person that people are enjoying this venture of mine.

It's funny, though, as I've been talking quite a bit lately about the scrapbook kits. And while not a traditional kit in that the layout isn't already set out, these kits are still great because as I've mentioned before, everything matches and goes together. I've been ordering them for awhile as they are making my scrapbook life easier and quicker (which I definitely need!). I need to order in twos though, so I have been trying to sell off the other set. Well, I took all my extra sets to PMS and they were all gone. So, I guess people are reading! There will be definitely more coming in the future though as I have decided this is the way to go for the next little while until I can get more caught up.

Here is a really quick layout I did a week or so ago. I am getting a bit tired of the same old dark "boy" colours as I'm working on Eric's book. I had these two pictures and choose olive green and navy blue (I know - big surprise, huh?). I need a small dash of a third colour and had no idea what to add. I checked out my colour wheel (I actually have a bit of a different one and it shows me the colour options next to each other rather than having to look all around the colour wheel on a traditional one, but more about that later). Well, it showed me a blue, green, purple combination which I would have never pulled out of my head. I did it and loved it.


It's a very simple layout on white cardstock. I cut 3 medium squares and 3 small ones and ran them through different Cuttlebug folders (Navy - Argyle, Green - Seeing Spots, Purple - Clockworks) and added them as filler. The rest was pretty straight forward. But when I finished it, I loved how it turned out. Of course, the picture doesn't really show the purple very well, but I challenge you to try that combination - green, blue & purple.

As for the book. I bought this a few years ago, but I found it on Amazon.ca. It's by Memory Makers and it goes through and explains all the different types of colour relationships (monochromatic, diad, triad etc). It's fabulous as each relationship is a new chapter and they have a ton of examples of layouts done with these type of relationships. And it included a colour wheel. You choose a colour (let's say green), and it shows you all the different colour relationships in little squares. It's hard to explain, but fabulous! The one I found on Amazon has a different cover than my book, but I think it's the same book as it's the same publisher and same title.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

The Orders Have Arrived

I have two new orders that have arrived this week. I've unpacked them and drooled over some of the new and cool stuff. I wanted to post a few pictures of the new product.


Here are a few of the new Tim Holtz Dies and Texture Fades. I also ordered a set of the Copic Multiliners. It's a great set of black pens from extremely fine (0.03) to thick (1.0). While I didn't really like the extremely fine ones (0.03 & 0.05), I loved the thicker ones. But I still think it's worthwhile to have a set of nice black pens. I don't like extra fine pens, though, which contributes to my bias. This set would be great for even doodling and then Zentangle craze!

I love all these mini jewels. I had ordered a set or two with my last order and loved them so much, I ordered a few more colours. They're hard to see in the photo, but they're gorgeous.

A couple more Embossing Folder Sets. Sizzix has some gorgeous Christmas sets out, which I ordered, but they were backordered.


I ordered three new scrapbook sets. My sister is over today and she really likes the other two (Christmas/Snowman themed), as do I. I am not totally sold on this one, but I ordered it because these are not my colours and I thought it might push me a bit. I am working on Eric's album and am getting a bit tired of the same "boy" type colours. I thought I might just go a bit bright!

Friday, November 12, 2010

Out for Delivery

I have an order that is currently Out for Delivery which should mean I will get it today. I always get so excited when I get a new box!! Sometimes, I can't remember what I ordered and it's a little bit like Christmas to open it up and see all the new stuff. Lots of times, stuff looks so different on the internet and it's cool to pick it up and touch it. Of course, it means a mess on my craft room floor, but that's worth it!

So, I will be back later to post about whatever treasures are in that package. In the meantime, here is a card I made for one of the classes I taught.


I used the Time Holtz Tattered Flower die and cut it out of bond paper. I then used that as a reverse mask and coloured the flowers with a Stipple Brush and Worn Lipstick & Dusty Concord Distress Inks. I overstamped the script with Worn Lipstick, then stamped the sentiment with Dusty Concord.

I did cut a couple of flowers out of white cardstock and then coloured and stamped them with the same two colours; layered them and adhered a button in the middle.

I love how you can use a die for so much more than just creating a flower cut out.




Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Scrapbooking Kits

I've started ordering Scrapbook Kits as a means to help me scrapbook quicker. One of the challenges I face when I sit down to put together a layout is making different patterned papers and embellishments match. I can usually do colours, but them matching the hues and tones can sometimes be difficult. And I tend to stick with monochromatic colours because I know I can make them work. I find it more challenging to put completely different colours together. Sometimes, it's a mental block as I know that red and green are complementary, but whenever I think of them together, I think Christmas and so I don't do it. But I need to get past that because when I do manage to get it to work, I really like the result.

I was at the scrapbook store the other day buying some soccer paper and embellishments so that I could do Eric's soccer layout (which has a group photo, so I don't want to post it here) and I noticed these really pretty glitter chipboard Embellishments by My Mind's Eye. There was a display with matching paper, so I bought the chipboard embellishment sheet, and two each of two pretty double sided patterned papers. From that, I created 8 different pages with my Christmas photos from last year. They are all part of a larger theme, but yet each one is unique to its purpose. I was so happy when I was done and the pages came together really quickly. I think I did all of them in less than 2 days with my sister(while that sounds like a lot of time, that includes dealing with work and house stuff and 6 kids between us). I know I should probably split them up into several posts, but I just wanted to showcase what you can do with matching papers and embellishments. And again, a page/card/layout doesn't have to take hours for it still to be nice. I actually quite like most of these and they came together very quickly.










Sunday, November 7, 2010

New Embossing Folders from Sizzix & Revamped Colorwash from Ranger

I love Embossing Folders. They're so great for creating textured paper. I, like many others, have a ton of them. I recently went through and labeled all of them so that when I use them, I know the name. It also helps me see quickly which is the front of the folder. The Cuttlebug folders have their writing on the front, but a bunch of the Sizzix ones have the writing on the back, so it can get confusing.

I was going through my some new stuff and discovered four new Embossing Folder sets from Sizzix; all Christmas themed.
Christmas & Thin Iced

Plaid & Snowflakes


Powdered Sugar & Snow Globe

Sugar & Starry Night

I wish that Sizzix wouldn't do the sets of two and would let us just purchase them individually. It always seems that in each set, there is one I love and the other I end up getting because, well, I love the one. I'm thinking of maybe throwing it out there that if people are interested in just one folder, then I'd keep a list and if someone wanted the other one, I'd order it and split it for them.

As well, Ranger has recently revamped their Colorwash Sprays. They've gone to a smaller (and therefore easier to hold in your hand) bottle and made the mister much finer. They have a great video right here. Tim Holtz is doing the video and it's full of cool stuff. I have a few of the older sprays that I haven't used in awhile, and I'm motivated to get them down and see what I can do with them! They're very vivid and I can't wait to try them with the sticky backed canvas.