Party Time at The Squirrel & The Fox

Hello everyone...hope your Christmas was wonderful. This will be my last post for the year...WHERE has it gone??!!  Time seems to fly by faster each year...it's getting a bit scary!

We have a new challenge starting today at The Squirrel & The Fox...the theme this fortnight is Party Time...very appropriate with New Year around the corner :) We hope you'll come and play along with us. We had lots of fantastic entries for our Christmas challenge. I think I'm still in Christmas mode as I'm still thinking of ideas for Christmas projects lol  Maybe I'll get a head start on the next one. At the speed they're coming around, it will be here before I know it!!!!!!

For this challenge I made a bottle tag...inspired by my lovely blog buddy Mary J's tag HERE. And Mary's tag was inspired by Shannon's tag HERE. They are both brilliant! I'm going to make some of these for next Christmas but I might put them on homemade sauce instead of wine :)

My tag is to go to one of my nieces for her birthday. I'm thinking of sending a bottle of Tasmanian wine as part of her pressie, so this will dress it up a bit.

Ummmm....I could only find an empty bottle to use as a prop. I don't drink much, so don't have full bottles sitting around :) The card base is SU Concord Crush. I cut the fancy shape with my KNK Maxx from SU Old Olive for the mat and X-Press It blending card for the image. The image is a freebie I picked up from Bugaboo quite a while ago and the wording is computer generated. The image has been coloured with Copics and Prismacolor Pencils. Little rhinestones have been added for a bit of bling qnd the panel has been popped up on foam dots.

Thanks for looking........have a wonderful day :)

I'm so excited!! And Merry Christmas everyone :)

I probably won't be posting again before Christmas so I'd like to wish everyone a wonderful, peaceful Christmas and a very happy new year. I hope 2013 is a better year for all of us! I'd particularly like to thank my lovely cyber friends for taking the time to come and visit...and leave comments on my projects. It means so much to me that you take the time to do this...big hugs to you xx

Well, I finally bit the bullet and put my mind to doing a print & cut with a graphic. Probably doesn't sound like much of an achievement for those of you that have been doing them, but I kept putting it off, thinking it would be tedious & frustrating to learn! Nothing could be further from the truth...it was sooo easy once I went through it. I learnt a lot while conquering this...so another learning curve to add to the never ending list lol

Thanks to the lovely Brianna from the MTC forum for all her help...made the process a lot less stressful...waving to you Brianna :) Working with MTC makes cutting soooooo much easier than it was when I first started and was using the software that came with my cutter. MTC is so user friendly and has so many fabulous features. I'm so pleased I found it! LOVE it :)

I made a couple of 3D ornaments as my learning exercise. The file is a Lettering Delights print & cut file...from the new Swell Noel collection. I imported the graphic file into MTC by pixel tracing. When I cut the first lot of ornament pieces I discovered that I needed to re-calibrate Maxx to MTC for this function. I'd done this originally in the KNK program but the settings weren't quite right with MTC. There were white edges showing in some places. After sorting out the offset, the second ornament files cut perfectly :) Thanks also to Sandy McCauley for a brilliant user guide for using Maxx with MTC.

Here's what I'm so excited about lol

And a close up:

The ornament on the left was my first attempt. I coloured the white edges with a marker so it's hard to see where the problem is now. I got a bit carried away with the second ornament...I used fine jewellery wire for the hanger and broke out my little stash of beads to hang on the bottom. There is a tiny silver bell to finish off :)

I love this set of files and will be making more ornaments, in the different shapes, for next Christmas. I'm going to try and start very early so I can get everything made that I want to. The only thing this is missing is a bit of bling lol  I'm waiting for some Glitter Dust to arrive, then everything I lay my hands on will be sprayed :)  Apparently the glitter dust doesn't wet the paper, so it doesn't warp. That's my only complaint with the shimmer mists, so I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Thanks for looking.........have a wonderful day :)

Elf on the Shelf...my version :)

I'm back with a little elf I whipped up today. Saw this on the Make-The-Cut forum. One of the clever ladies, Darlene, made a file for him and I just had to give him a go...he's so cute :) I had to wait for my SU order to arrive so I had the skinny cello bags for the legs. They had to be shortened for this little guy but other than that, they're perfect.

Darlene made her elves with lolly arms as well as legs but I didn't want to do that so used pipe cleaners for his arms...that idea came from another forum member. The MTC forum is a great place to get inspiration and everyone there is friendly, supportive and encouraging. It's my favourite forum!

All the elf parts were cut with my KNK Maxx. SU Very Vanilla was used for the body, Choc Chip for the hair, Handsome Hunter (retired) for the shoes and Basic Black for the mittens. The tunic, collar & hat were cut from scraps of retired Kaiser DP. I made trims for his hat and shoes in white CS and covered with Kindy Glitz...the pom pom has the same treatment. The legs are filled with Christmas M&Ms. The face is hand drawn, with a little chalk added to his cheeks. To finish I added little gold jingle bells to his shoes.

And to think that I'm giving this to a toddler who will probably destroy him to get at the lollies lol  Oh well, I know she'll like him :)

I'm entering him into the following challenges:

Tuesday Alchemy - Anything But a Card
Anything Goes Challenge - Traditional Christmas Colours
Tip Top Tuesday - Anything Christmas

Thanks for looking.........have a wonderful day :)

Star Ornaments

YAY...I'm getting to the end of my Christmas projects! When I saw the ornament on the cover of the SU mini catalogue I just HAD to make one lol So, I lashed out and bought the set of dies and stamps. Now I have to make LOTS of these to justify the outlay!! Having only received my order last week, I didn't think I could manage to get any done in between all the other things that  needed doing...but...a few (very!) late nights later, I have 3 done! I'll have to work on some more after Christmas and get them ready to send for Christmas next year. I'm aiming to make one of these for each of my best friends :)

This is my first effort...red & green:

And the back...

Then I made a purple & green one :)

Then a green & red one:

I wanted to make a box to store this one and was going to use a template I found online but then had the bright idea of using the empty Lindt boxes that were left from the Lindt treat boxes I filled. They are the perfect size. I created the top panel in MMS and printed extra coordinating papers to make side, bottom & inside liner panels. All the elements used for this are from a digi kit by Summer Driggs called Believe...love this kit!

Here's the ornament snuggled into its box...

Cardstock is all SU...Whisper White, Very Vanilla, Gumball Green, Riding Hood Red, Real Red. Matching ink pads were used. The last ornament was stamped with green Ranger Archival ink. Centres are Kaiser Sparklets and a rhinestone circlet. Tulle & organza were sourced from Spotlight. The Christmas sentiment on the back is a freebie from Bizzy Bec's. I spritzed the last ornament liberally with  Irridescent Gold Glimmer Mist...looks lovely IRL.

If you'd been watching me with the glue gun, you'd probably have been rolling around the floor laughing...I had the stuff EVERYWHERE!!!!!!  Little strings all over the place lol  I got better as I went along but I don't think the glue gun & I will ever become the very best of friends :)

I'm entering these in the following challenges:

Anything But a Card - Challenge #8
Crafting For All Seasons - Green & Red + Glitter/Sparkle
Divas by Design - Use Some Red

Thanks for looking........have a wonderful day :)

A Special Request - Another Bugaboo Santa :)

I had a request recently from my niece in Queensland, for a Christmas card with a bike on it!! Rona is a breast cancer survivor and last year decided to enter the (Brisbane) Ride to Conquer Cancer. The ride covers 200km over 2 days! I admire her so much for doing this and was very proud of her when she completed the course. She entered again this year and is intending to do the ride again next year. Her lovely hubby supported and helped train her but this year he hurt his shoulder and couldn't ride with her. She asked if I could make the card for a woman that helped her out with her training, etc...that's why she wanted a bike theme.

I mulled this over for some days and was stumped...just couldn't work out how I was going to incorporate a bike into Christmas for an adult woman...if it had been a child it would have been much easier :) Anyhow, eventually I came up with an idea...but then I had to work out how to execute it. I thought I'd put a Santa on a bike with a Chrissy tree in  the basket...good start I'm thinking...BUT where to find a Santa and bike to put together?? In the end I used my KNK Maxx to cut a bike file from SVG Cuts and went back to my (this year) much loved Bugaboo Santas.

Here's what I came up with:

  What a job...there's a LOT of surgery here!! :)  I took the Santa sitting on a bauble and cut away his bauble...then I had to cut away his legs as they were going the wrong way and were too short! I used the legs from one of the other Santas in the set to place under this Santa's suit...so I guess you could say he has transplanted legs lol Poor Santas, they're probably feeling not very happy with me at present :)

I made the bike pink...for breast cancer awareness...thought that would be fairly appropriate.

The card base is SU Cherry Cobbler (my fave SU red), the mat is SU Old Olive and the DP is from a 6" MME paper pad that was a freebie with a magazine. Santa was a bit lost on the DP background so I created a white panel with red mat to make him pop. He's been printed onto X-Press It blending card, coloured with Copics and fussy cut. His trims are Frosted Lace Stickles and his beard is puff paint. Gold glitter pen was used on the star. The base layer of the bike is cut from CM silver CS, the grey and pink layers are Grant textured CS, as is the basket. Little rhinestones have been used for the caps on the wheels. The tree was made from basic shapes and cut with Maxx, then decorated with Kindy Glitz and glitter pen. The white panel has been adhered to the front with foam dots.

I'm not sure if I'm entirely happy with the end result...I'm sort of wishing I'd embossed the white panel before adding the image...oh well, too late now! I hope the recipient likes it and appreciates Rona's thoughtfulness in ordering it for her.

I'm entering this into the following challenges:

Crafting for All Seasons - Green & Red + Glitter/Sparkle
Divas By Design - Use Some Red
Little Miss Muffet Challenge - A Lot Like Christmas

Thanks for looking......have a wonderful day :)

Bugaboo Christmas Tin

Hello...it's starting to look a lot like Christmas in our house now! It's getting very close...Santa will soon be on his merry way lol

Today I have my DT project for our new challenge at The Squirrel & The Fox...our theme this fortnight is CHRISTMAS. A really easy one for this time of year, so no excuse not to play along :)

My project is a repurposed tin! I've been wanting to do one of these for such a long time but just never seemed to get around to it. Not sure what the fascination with repurposing tins is all about lol but I think I've satisfied the urge now.

The tin started out looking like this:

Here's a view from the top of the finished project:

I really wanted to add something dimensional to the lid but couldn't come up with anything I was happy with. Maybe I'll turn up something suitable before I either give it away or find a use for it. I just feel it's a bit blah on top.

I used a Bugaboo Santa from the Stocking Santas set. I've made great use of these this year :) He's been printed onto X-Press It blending card,  coloured with Copics and highlighted with glitter pens. His beard is puff paint and his trims are Stickles. He has been fussy cut and popped up on foam dots. These Santas are soooo cute, I'm loving colouring them up.

These are the other little cupcake boxes I made with the other Santas in the set...following on from my post HERE. I'm really happy with how these turned out.

Please go and check out the beautiful projects by the rest of the DT...links are all on my sidebar.

I'm entering this into the following challenges:
Anything But a Card - Challenge #8
The Cutie Pie Challenge - Cute Christmas 

Thanks for looking..........have a wonderful day :)

CAS Christmas Bauble Card

Boy, am I on a roll...three!! posts in one day...wonders will never cease lol

I found a new challenge blog today and thought I'd play along with a card I made last week but hadn't yet posted. You can find the challenge site HERE ... it's called Addicted to CAS. As it turns out, there's a card by one of the DT that's very similar...wonder if we both found our inspiration in the same place? :)  My card was inspired by a card I saw and pinned on Pinterest. I only had one stamp that was suitable so I set about having a go at the design. I created cut files in MTC to make this card and used my SU ornament stamp for the bauble.

I started with a base card of SU Whisper White. The front panel is SU Shimmer White and was cut with Maxx, including the window opening. Then I created a cut file to make an embossing diffuser, so I could selectively emboss the panel around the opening...and to leave a blank panel for the Merry Christmas stamp on the bottom right hand side. I cut the diffuser from 2 pieces of cardboard and glued them together. This was then used as a replacement for the top acrylic plate when I put the embossing sandwich through my Big Shot.

The next step was to stamp the bauble under the opening, directly onto the card base. I used a template of the front panel that I cut in CS, so it all lined-up properly :)  I inked the bauble with Versamark then SU Riding Hood Red, covered in clear embossing powder and heated. The Merry Christmas was stamped in the same colour on the blank panel. The panel is popped up on foam dots and the bauble finished with some little pearls. Last but not least I added a bow in some Christmas ribbon from my stash.

Here's a side view...the embossing shows better in this photo:

I'm not really very good at CAS but I love the look and am going to persevere until I get the hang of it. Now that I've found this new challenge site maybe I'll find some time to play along occasionally :)

I'm entering this in Challenge #2 at Addicted to CAS - Code word BAUBLE

Thanks for looking....have a wonderful day :)

Miss Anya Summer PINH

Hello and happy Sunday to you...hope you're having a relaxing weekend, although with Christmas getting closer by the minute, I don't know how anyone can be relaxed lol

We have a new challenge starting today at The Squirrel & The Fox. The theme this fortnight is SUMMER OR WINTER. I chose to do a summer project and have made a gift for a friend...another post-it note holder but this time I've made one for the larger sized pads.

This little cutie is Miss Anya Summer from The Greeting Farm. It's actually a REAL stamp lol  The poor thing has been sitting in the dark in my stamp drawer, with her sisters, waiting to see the light of day...I'm sure she's very happy to have come out to play :) I love these Anya stamps but wish they were available in digi. I miss not being able to adjust the size, etc, which is why I love the digis so much. I had to make a project to fit the stamp instead of the other way around!

The holder base is SU Rose Red (one of my fave SU colours, which is quite strange as I'm not really a "pink" person!) and the stripe DP is from one of the Kaiser 6" paper pads. Miss Anya was coloured with Copics, fussy cut and popped up on foam dots. Glitter pens were used to highlight and her sunnies have a coat of SU Crystal Effects. The shaped label & mat were cut with my KNK Maxx and the sentiment stamp (yes, another real stamp lol) is from the Sugar Plums Sentiments set from All That Scraps, stamped with SU Old Olive. The little flowers are from my stash and they have Kaiser rhinestones as the centres. This holder takes a full size gel pen.

Please hop on over to my teamies' blogs and check out their fabulous projects....links are in my sidebar.

Thanks for looking.....have a wonderful day :)

Swirly Christmas Tree Tags

Hello...today I'm here with a Christmas post. It's getting very close and I'm running out of time to get all the projects done that I'd like to! Seems to be the same story each year...Christmas sneaks up on me and is here before I know it.

This year I decided to send these tags instead of cards to the people on my card list, hoping that these will be used as ornaments to hang on the recipient's Christmas tree...more practical than a card that will likely end up in the recycle bin! These have been cut with my trusty KNK Maxx from a free file by Bird's Cards...you can find them HERE. While you're there have a look around. Bird has some fabulous cutting files & digi stamps and shares all her files for free.

The file is for the swirly tree...I made the base for the tree by using the shadow function in MTC and added a donut ring to the top for hanging. I wanted to cut the swirly part in JAC paper so I could glitter it, without lots of mess...JAC paper is great for that :) I broke out my stash of AED glitter to decorate them...this one is Golden Sunset and has flecks of red in it.

I used SU Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive & Whisper White as the base colours. Popped a silver eyelet into the hole for hanging to reinforce and coloured them with Copics to match the card colour. I then made a file to cut a patterned back panel from DP so that if the tag swings around on the tree, it doesn't have a blank back. I cut 2 back panels from one sheet of 6 x 6 DP...used up a little of some free paper pads that came with magazines last year. Then a little rhinestone was added to the top of the tree in lieu of a star. All that was left to do was add the gold cord for hanging :) They were fairly quick & easy to make...I hope everyone likes them!

Here's what I've made so far...and a close-up photo of a couple of the backs:

I'm entering these into the following challenges:

Anything But a Card - Challenge #7

Divas by Design - Glitter & Sparkle

Party Time Tuesdays - Anything Goes

Thanks for looking..........have a wonderful day :)