Tag: a blog called wanda

Happy December – Mad about Plaid!

Happy December! OMG how did that happen?! The year is practically over…we are on the slide now… Christmas is coming! There is so much to love about the holidays – and crafting is so much fun this time of year. I love vintage inspired Christmas items, and the look of 50's and 60's Christmas things especially. I am also totally obsessed with plaid right now. I have a few plaid scarves, a plaid vest, a plaid tote bag….and now I've gone and made a plaid card! Yay! Mad about Plaid!

I sat down to craft last week to make my Flip Frame project for the Simon Says Stamp Blog, (I hope you will check it out!) and I had all my Tim Holtz Christmas stuff laid out on my desk… Well, then the idea for this card came to me! I really like how it came out. I wish I had thought to make about a dozen more to have on hand. I'm thinking it might look pretty with a bright cobalt blue or kelly green background too… Hmmmmm…

To make my red and black plaid background I simply too bright red card stock and stamped the plaid background stamp in crisp deep black ink! BAM! That's all there was to it! I LOOOOVE this so much! Next I took some silver glitter paper and adhered it to some chipboard to make it thicker. I ran that through my Big Shot and cut out the pretty Noel word with the Vintage Noel Die. Next I took some green Core-dinations Kraft Core cardstock and cut out the pine leaves with the Holiday Greens Die. I gently sanded the edges to let the kraft paper show through. Lastly, I added a few enamel dots and some black and white twine to finish it!

This might be one of my favorite Christmas cards I've ever made…and it's not complicated!

The pine leaves are glued right to the paper. The Noel die is raised up with some foam tape for some dimension. I added a small border of black cardstock to ground all that red. Just the right amount of sparkle. This would be a great masculine card too!

Thanks for stopping by! Happy Holidays! Happy Christmas! Happy December! Hope you are having fun and out doing whatever makes you happy this time of year. You guys are a blessing to me and I'm glad to be sharing another holiday season with you! Take care until we meet again! XOXO

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December 1, 2015
It’s my birthday! And I’m so thankful!

Wooooot wooooooot! It's my birthday today! Gonna party, like it's my birthday…. Yep, I'm a November baby! (A Scorpio! EEK!) It's my favorite month of the year! What is better than November? Um, nothing! There is my birthday (of course), and Football, and Leaves, and Thanksgiving, and sweaters, and Pumpkin Spice Lattes! It's all wonderful! It is the month when we try the most to be thankful and grateful and that is foremost in my mind as we start this new month. How sweet Autumn truly is. I'm so blessed…and so thankful for everything that has happened this year so far. Right now the hubs and I are on a mini getaway to the ocean – my favorite place. I've been looking forward to it for months. It's such a great time of year to travel – hotels are empty and inexpensive and it's more quiet everywhere. As you read this, I hope there is fog in my hair and that I'm wearing a big ole sweater at the beach! I'll be back soon!

In honor of the start of November, I made a card using some of my very favorite leaf dies – from Lawn Fawn. Now there are two sizes, regular stitched leaves and mini stitched leaves. Yay! They are the perfect sizes for cards. (Supply links below). I used a pretty sentiment stamp and let the leaves be the star of the card….

I die cut the leaves out of Papertrey Ink Confetti White cardstock. Then I inked them up with many shades of Mini Distress Inks using a sponge dauber. Here you can see that I ended up edging all of the leaves with Barn Door ink. That was a mistake! I meant to grab the Corduroy ink! But, you know what? I reallllly like it with the red! A happy accident!

I tacked my sentiment strip down with glue on either end and left the center open to tuck my leaves in. The background paper is from Stampin' Up from a few years ago. Presently hoarding a roll of that stuff. Delicious! The pretty twine is from Lawn Fawn. The sentiment is from Impression Obsession.

Now, you did not think I was going to make a card without any enamel dots did you???!!! The leaves are all mounted onto the card using foam squares for a bit of dimension.

SO….one of my birthday presents was a TATTOO!!!! Yes! Me! It's very small, and kinda cool, and it is 100% me. ***CLICK*** So, here's my 51st birthday portrait! (Taken on Halloween!)

Oh, sweet Autumn indeed! Where every leaf is a flower!

Happy November everyone. Best wishes for an awesome week. XOXO

November 3, 2015
Halloween Medallion with Brenda Walton Dies!

Hello creative friends! I have such a fun project to share today! It's my first official Halloween project for 2015! Yay! My super sweet, amazing and talented friend, Brenda Walton, has asked me to create some projects to showcase her awesome craft dies! So I'll be creating some Fall and Winter projects over the next couple of months and I could not be more happy about this! I'll be using the Brenda Walton dies from Sizzix and we are going to have big fun! The Brenda Walton style is pretty and whimsical and nostalgic in all the right ways, and it's a style I have long admired and used in my own crafting.

I love anything that is retro/old fashioned Halloween! Glitter and pom poms and rosettes and cute figurines. Love it all. My goal with today's project was to create a new piece that has that retro feeling. My finished item is a wall hanging that you can hang on the front door or use as interior decor for the holiday. Here it is on my front door!

For the base of the piece I used the Brenda Walton Large Medallion Die and cut eight pieces out. Then I folded each one along the creases. There are diamond shaped cut outs in the folds and I like it when the diamonds are at the top of the creases. I used some cool Halloween paper with cool script and big spiders on it! Here are my pieces ready to assemble.

After I glued the eight pieces together I made my medallion and secured it with a scallop circle on the top and the bottom (made with a craft punch). For this step I use hot glue and put a lot of it on both the bottom and the top. The scalloped circles hide the glue, and give you a nice smooth base to attache your other goodies.

After I made my main piece….I thought hmmmm…how can we add some orange!? So I cut out six medallion dies with orange harlequin paper (From an old Brenda Walton paper pad!) I cut 2 and a half inches off the bottom of each of the pieces and that made a smaller medallion. I glued it onto the first one as you see here.

I die cut several of the Brenda Walton Celestial Stars Dies out of black paper and then covered them in dream black sparkly glitter. Spooky and pretty at the same time! This was the best part! (But there is currently black glitter everywhere in our house! LOL) I made some of the smaller size star and then one of the medium sized star which. If you glue two of the medium stars together it will make a 3-D star. The die set has three sizes.

To attach my stars to my project I first glued them onto some long straight pins. I used glossy accents for this step. Then you can attach the stars and they look like they're floating on the project.

In my stash I found an awesome spider web doily (I think from Michael's) and some pretty silver paper. The Happy Halloween stamp is from a Hero Arts clear stamp set. The banner is hand cut. In this photo you can see that I gently sponged the edges of my medallion pieces with jet black ink. I added some hanging paper flags on the bottom.

I cut a scalloped circle from silver paper and mounted it over the spider web doily. Then I used the center label piece from the Brenda Walton Trophy Die set. It comes with an embossing folder for this very awesome effect! The numbers are from the Brenda Walton Numbers and Dies Thinlits set. Of course I made them from black paper!

Please click here to see the entire Brenda Walton die collection from Sizzix!

There are new dies about to be released next month and you can see those too!

Thank you for spending some time with me today. I hope you'll make a fun Halloween medallion too! Or a Christmas one… Hmmm, the ideas are flowing! See you soon! XO

September 8, 2015