2019 Happy Holidays Card Series | Day 10 | Of Christmas Past

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Today is the final day in this year's card series, and I chose to keep this card for last, because it was really this stamp that started it all.

Six years ago, when I started making cards and had no idea where to start, what was I to do? It was Pinterest. I scrolled and scrolled looking in wonder at the beauty people were creating and adding to the world, not just for Christmas, but for everything! Birthdays, Easter, Sympathy, Divorce, Babies, New Pets - I cannot remember wanting to be a part of anything more than I wanted to be a part of this.

And then there it was. The sweet little fox that started it all. His big bushy tail wrapped around him as he sat in the corner of the card. I fell in love with that little fox and that was the beginning for me. I haven't stopped since.

I have taken breaks, I have been frustrated, angry and sad. I've used card making to pull me out of dark moments of despair. When my Father passed away, I would sit for hours just surrounded by my colours, letting their beauty guide me back.

Each birthday, funeral, wedding and anniversary has been marked in some way with my cards, that little something more that I could do.

I discovered more brands, I soaked up YouTube videos like a dry sponge wanting to absorb it all; but I still come back to that little fox when I just need something to make me smile.

So for today's card, my ghost of Christmas past, I hope he brings a smile to your face as well.

I stamped the fox from "Into the Woods" with Simon Says Stamp Intense Black Ink, I masked him off and stamped the log from "Critters in the Forest" and masked that as well.

I used Tumbled Glass and Shaded Lilac Distress Oxide Inks and my dollarstore blending brushes to create my sky. Once that was dry, I masked off the bottom and used Moonstone Glimmer Paste by Nuvo through the Simon Says Stamp Falling Snow stencil to finish off my background.

I removed all my masks and coloured the images with Copic markers. I mounted my panel to a coordinating piece of purple cardstock then adhered the whole lot to the front of a standard A2 sized card base.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar, over on Facebook and on YouTube. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

2019 Happy Holidays Card Series | Day 9 | Clean and Simple

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

In our world of rush rush rush, it is really hard to enjoy the little things. Especially this time of year. Is it me, or does the news seem more depressing than usual? I'm not going to get all political here, with everything that is going on, I'm sure we've all got other ways than a crafty-blog to get Presidential opinions.

I'm just talking about what people do to each other. There seems to be more fires right before Christmas, and there seems to be more home invasions right before Christmas, and there seems to be more killing right before Christmas. Are there actually more? Or are we just more sensitive to it, because we so desperately want to hear that there is good out there this time of year?

Perhaps if more people took a moment to appreciate something beautiful around them, they'd be less inclined to set their neighbor's house on fire? I can appreciate the beauty of falling snow, despite the crippling sense of sadness that winter brings me.

Today's card is super simple, clean and one of my favourite go-tos when I need a quick card in a hurry. Not for me, but to make someone else's day a little bit brighter.

I used a snowflake embossing folder to create the dry embossed design on my background panel. I then used Lawn Fawn's "Joy" die and the Mini Stitched Snowflake dies to cut my pieces of blue glitter cardstock.

The rest of the greeting is from the "Let's Bokeh" stamp set, it is stamped with VersaMark ink and then heat embossed with Lawn Fawn's white embossing powder.

This card would be ridiculously easy to mass produce and could be done in any colour palette.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar, over on Facebook and on YouTube. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

2019 Happy Holidays Card Series | Day 8 | Silent Night (of Reflection)

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

We're down to the crunch. Are you ready? I mean, really ready? Not just ready with the shopping, is anyone ever really done shopping? The answer is no. If the answer were yes, we wouldn't have Boxing Day Sales; or Boxing Week Blowouts; or New Year's Door Crashers. We're never done.

Then there's the decorating, maybe we're done. I'm about a third of what I normally do, and I'm pretty done for this year. Every year, my husband and I argue about the placement of the tree and the arrangement of the furniture. Then every year he finally moves stuff around, and I find a time when there is no one in the house and I decorate the tree, and usually the entire upper floor common areas (living room, dining room and kitchen), then every year he comes after it is all done and tells me how "cold and soulless it looks" and I respond with "No, honey. It's perfect." and the rest of the family ooooos and ahhhhhs and that's that. That's our fun tradition. This year, I decorated the tree and the front entry way. That's it, because this year, I don't feel like doing the rest.

Then there's the cooking and the baking. If people know you're a baker, there's never an end in sight. There's always one more person who could use one more loaf of something, and if you do it for a couple close friends or coworkers you have to do if for everyone, because it's the season of giving, right? RIGHT?? So yeah, I don't bake - unless I'm sad.

Finally, the cards (I know there's more, but this is getting long). Are you done the cards? I am. Most of my Christmas supplies are packed right up and put away. I've found that the more cards I send out the fewer I receive in return. I can't be the only crafter to have experienced this. Perhaps this is just a side effect of the additional beauty we put out in world; who knows?

For today's card I created a Silent Night Shaker, featuring stamps from Lawn Fawn's Winter village, along with the Say Cheese Again die and some snowflakes from the Mini Stitched Snowflakes dies.

I stamped the images with Simon Says Stamp Intense Black Ink and coloured them with Copic Markers. I used double-sided adhesive from Darice (this is that really thin stuff) to create my shaker window, which is filled with various snow-looking stuff from my stash (it's older, so there are no labels, but if I had to guess I would say I got it at Michael's crafts).

I adhered the shaker to piece of dark blue patterned paper, then mounted the lot to the front of a standard A2 sized card base.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar, over on Facebook and on YouTube. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

(Also, the point of my super long story above, was to take it easy. Christmas is only a day. One little day in the whole year and you are only human.)

2019 Happy Holidays Card Series | Day 7 | Sea-Sons Greetings

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

So you know that moment when something bad happens? That moment when you're like "Well, "crap", did that just happen?" Not something catastrophic, that's not what I'm talking about here, but something that wasn't in the plan for that day. That was my yesterday.

After I got finished with Day 6, I loaded up my video games (because as cool as I make myself sound here, I'm actually a giant nerd), and everything was totally fine, I was going from one zone to the next and waiting on the loading screen, and waiting, and waiting.

And. Waiting.

After more than 5 minutes, and the game not booting me from the server (which is generally what happens when you get caught in the loading screen), I hit the windows key so I could manually shut down the game to restart. And my screen looked like something from the Matrix. Well "crap". It still brought up the start menu, so I shut down the computer, waited a bit and restarted.

Restart went fine, there was nothing delayed or anything like that, then my background went back to the Matrix. It allowed me to log in, and it all looked okay. It said I have some drivers to update, so I went to do that, download went fine. Then the install. That's when the site told me that these weren't even valid for my computer. The same site that scanned my computer and said I needed these drivers.

So ultimately, I ended up having to get a new computer. I'm still blogging on my old one, because nothing else has happened and all my programs are here, but gaming is now happening on a different computer.

The point to my very long story, is that sometimes things happen that are not according to plan.

When I saw the stamp set I used in today's card, my whole plan was a complete underwater Christmas series. The whole Christmas was going to be ocean themed. This set was just absolutely adorable, but as you can see from the previous cards in this year's series - that didn't actually happen, and if you could look into the future, you'd find that this was the only underwater card I created. It was the first card I made this year, but then stuff that I didn't plan on happened and it was the only ocean card.

I stamped the images from Christmas Fishes with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock, masking them off as I went. I wanted to create a one layer card, but still have a lot of depth.

Once all the images were stamped, I masked the bottom, what will become my sandy area and used my dollarstore blending brushes to add some Tumbled Glass Distress Ink. I then used the wavy stencil and added more Distress Ink, trying to keep it darker around the edges.

Once that was dry, I masked off the upper portion and applied some Scattered Straw Distress Ink to the bottom, adding a very light touch of Gathered Twigs to darken it up.

I removed all the masks and coloured my images with Copic markers. I also used some of my brown Copics to add dots to the sand area, giving it more texture.

The greeting is Stamped with VersaFine Onyx ink and then heat embossed with clear embossing powder.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar, over on Facebook and on YouTube. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

2019 Happy Holidays Card Series | Day 6 | Wild Wonder

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Wasn't it day 6 last year where I started talking about the colds my kids bring home just before the holidays? I'm too lazy to check, but we can probably just assume I'm close to right. It happens every year. We get right close to Winter Break and bang, all the kids are sick, all the co-workers are sick so Trina gets sick. Yep. Like clockwork, or to put a more positive spin on it, like tradition.

Because traditions are important. Structure, familiarity and whatnot. This particular "tradition" sucks, but at least it is predictable.

Today's card is probably my favourite of this year's collection, and with a few tweaks, I can probably make it for other seasons as well. So, stay tuned for that in the coming months.

All the images from Lawn Fawn's "Joy to the Woods" are stamped with Simon Says Stamp Intense Black Ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock and cut with the coordinating dies (clearly I got this set and its dies before I got the SNC, so why not use them if you have them, right?)

Again I wanted the whole scene to appear very cold, I find there is an elegant beauty in a frozen scene and for me, this one captures it perfectly.

I created the background with Shaded Lilac and Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide ink and my dollarstore blending brushes. I then used the SSS Falling Snow stencil along with some Nuvo Glimmer paste in Moonstone to get the glitter of falling snow.

I played around with the placement of the trees quite a bit. As this card is relatively flat, I wanted to create the illusion of depth by having some elements come outside my focus window.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar, over on Facebook and on YouTube. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

2019 Happy Holidays Card Series | Day 5 | Winter's Beauty

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Hindsight is one of those super fun things where you consider what you would do differently if you could go back to a certain point, knowing what you know now.

For example, if I could go back to when I created this year's collection, knowing what I know now, I probably would include at least one Holiday Get Well Card. Because 'Tis the Season, right?

My co-workers are sick, my daughter is sick and shockingly, I'm feeling rather stuffed up. So if I had the opportunity to go back, today's card would be a festive get well card. Sorry about your Yuletide illnesses.

But that's the thing about hindsight. We can't go back. We just keep moving forward and work with what we've got; shoulda, woulda, coulda.

Today's card features the Sketched Flowers from Simon Says Stamp. I stamped this image with VersaMark ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock, then heat embossed it with Lawn Fawn's Gold embossing powder.

The greeting, stamped the same way, is from CTMH "To You and Yours, Seasons and Nature".

I then coloured all the images with Copic markers. I wanted to keep all the colours on the very cool side of the spectrum to create a beautiful winter bouquet.

I know that there have been many people saying that using Copic markers with a heat embossed image will ruin your nibs. Maybe. Perhaps it *might* ruin your nibs. I have personally never had a problem and I love the way the image looks afterwards. I won't tell you to do it, but I don't think you should let someone else tell you not to do it either. You need to do what you are comfortable with. Just be careful.

I created a splatter using the "Perfect Gold" Perfect Pearls, and trimmed about a half an inch off the top to add the golden strip and the black piece.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar, over on Facebook and on YouTube. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Think this card looks familiar? That's because I did a blog and a video of this design last year for a YouTube tutorial using Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers. You can check out that video here!

2019 Happy Holidays Card Series | Day 4 | Take the Ho-Ho-Holidays

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

You ever have that moment? That split second, when you when you want to throw your hands up in the air and just - not? Just toss in the towel? Quit? As a mom I experience those moments a whole lot. As someone with a full time job, I experience those moments a whole lot. As a crafter, I experience those moments a whole lot.

The entire month of December is like one of those moments. As a crafter, aside from posting here and if I ever actually get time, to YouTube, I've already moved passed Christmas. You know what I'm talking about. For me, I'm mostly done Valentine's Day and I'm well on my way to planning out Easter. It makes it incredibly difficult to stay in the Christmas Cheer moment when all you want is a really good Spring Sentiment set.

Anyway, my point is - take some time for yourself this week, today, after you read this and realize "Wow, she is SO right", if you have vacation time and you're able to take some, even just a day. Do it. Take a day. A day with no plans and no chores and no work, and dare I say it? A day when the kids are still in school? Take that time for yourself, because as I've learned I'm generally not the only one who feels this way, and if one person will say it, a hundred more are thinking it. So just go on, take a day.

Today I wanted to share an interactive card with you featuring some of Lawn Fawn's Winter release. I stamped the images from Ho-Ho-Holidays with Simon Says Stamp Intense Black Ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock, coloured them with Copic markers and fussy cut them out.

The roof and chimney were made using the Roof-Top Border die set, then I used Fired Brick and Gathered Twigs Distress Ink to shade them. I also cut a snowy border from some glitter cardstock, but that was an afterthought and so only made it to one layer of my roof. If I were to remake this card, I would add it to all the layers.

I used a piece of patterned paper from my stash for the background and used the "Lets Toast" Pull tab die set to make Santa pop out of the chimney.

The greeting was heat embossed with clear embossing powder over VersaFine Onyx Black ink.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar, over on Facebook and on YouTube. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

2019 Happy Holidays Card Series | Day 3 | Holly Jelly Days

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Every year there is something that all the kids want. Something that's all the rage. Something they'll just "die" without. This card is inspired by books that my daughter and her cousins are just "all about"; you'll forgive me if my lingo isn't down with the generation LOL. The things we do for our kids, right?

The images from Lawn Fawn are stamped with Simon Says Stamp Intense Black Ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock and coloured with Copic markers.

I masked off the images and used Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide ink along with my Dollar Store blending brush, to create a soft aura around the images. Once the background was completely dry, I used the Lawn Fawndamentals Liquid Stardust to create some shiny splatter.

I removed the masks and then heat embossed the greeting from the same same narwhal stamp set with clear embossing powder over VersaFine Onyx Black ink.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar, over on Facebook and on YouTube. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

2019 Happy Holidays Card Series | Day 2 | Frosty Merry Christmas

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

It's no surprise that I don't like winter. This is, what, our sixth? no, our fifth winter season together; and every year we discuss how much I hate winter and how I don't like the snow, or the cold or the grey or the anything that has to do with anything winter related.

But let's be real for a minute. Hating winter and being cold is one thing, SAD or Seasonal Affective Disorder is a real thing and it's scary. It's waking up to see a grey sky with a little bit of snow on the ground and staring out the window and crying for an hour. It's struggling to do anything because the blanket of snow on the ground literally feels as though it is smothering you, or in this case, me. It's your partner worrying about you because the forecast looks bad. It's more than some seasonal blues, it's a crushing weight that is incredibly lonely.

Find something that you love. Find help, it's a real thing and it's a terrible thing to go through alone.

Now that that's out of the way, lets get back to the card. The thing that I love, the thing helps me get through the winter.

The images from Lawn Fawn's Frosty Fairy Friends are stamped with Simon Says Stamp Intense Black Ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock and coloured with Copic markers.

I then masked the images and used Shaded Lilac and Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide ink for the background sky. I didn't intend for these to be this year's winter colours, but as I worked through this year's series it turned out that purple and blue were where it's at.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar, over on Facebook and on YouTube. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

2019 Happy Holidays Card Series | Day 1 | Warmest Wishes

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by, I hope you're having a great day.

Welcome to the 2019 Happy Holiday Card series! While this may be shocking for a few of you, I am certain that most of you will not be surprised to learn that the vast majority of these cards will be featuring Lawn Fawn. Not all of them. There are a couple that feature other brands, but lets all be real here, I'm a Lawn Fawn kinda gal. I'm not affiliated, I just love them.

So lets dive right in!

This card was the result of playing around with some new paints. I recently picked up the 48 pan set of Meeden watercolours (there will be more about these in a later post, I haven't decided where I stand on them yet).

I used a snowflake background stamp on a piece of Canson XL 140lb cold press watercolour paper and heat embossed with pearl embossing powder.

As always, the images are stamped with Simon Says Stamp Intense Black ink on 110lb Copic-friendly paper then coloured with Copic markers.

I wanted to convey the warmth of a peppermint hot chocolate on a cold wintery day.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar, over on Facebook and on YouTube! Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.