clair087

As many of you. we've started receiving some Holiday happy mail and I couldn't be more thrilled to open my mailbox every morning. Can we please have Christmas mail surprises all year long?! In light of the increased mail action, I thought it would be fun to do a Delicate Series project that is a teensy bit related to this and will hopefully be helpful in your holiday crafting! First I need to ask...Does anyone else get a little squirm-ish when a card sheds glitter everywhere?! I loooove things that sparkle and shine, but if it makes your house look like Santa's workshop, and you're picking itty bitty twinkles off everything from your cat, to your hubby's work clothes (lol), you gut-wrenchingly know that card just might be going back into the envelope! Since I don't think that any card deserves such a harsh punishment, I'm sharing my favorite way to avoid this situation! (To be honest, that would never, ever happen around here. It just might reside on a high ...

Hello Friends! I mentioned I'd be back with the beautiful Altenew alphas. This time around with a sparkly, glittery take, that features a negative inlay and a fabulous way to stretch these fantastic dies! To start my card, I used the pretty Caps Bold alpha dies to create a negative cut-out of my focal point.  I've been loving the word 'joy' and I've chosen it as my go-to for this Season's cards. You'll see a few more cards with it yet to come. ______________________________________________________________________ TIP: FAUX INLAY LETTERING To accentuate the negative die-cuts, and create the look of inlay lettering, rather than actually embossing each letter, you can use a cardstock base covered with a sticky double-sided adhesive sheet . For a two-tone look, use a piece of cardstock to cover the lower portion of the now-sticky paper, as you apply the embossing powder.  Then simply add a mixture of gold, pink, white and glittered embossing powders to create ...

As much happiness as colorful holiday cards bring me, there is just something about this color combo. The connection to Christmas is as instant as hearing Christmas carols on the radio, or smelling gingerbread!  So today, I have two little shares using this traditional palette and a few tips on how to stretch your dies! ____________________________________________________________________ TIP: STITCHED DIES First up,  I have a snowflake tag, cut with PTI's Stitched Snowflake die . I love that the holes are already pre-cut! I usually add a little bit of string or thin wire (if using as an ornament) and it's all set to go! This makes your "stitched" dies double as a pretty fine base for tags or ornaments! ____________________________________________________________________ To decorate my tag, I used a vellum oval, embossing tiny 'snow' with Altenew's Floral Frame stamp .   I then added a die-cut sentiment and banner (both from my stash, but similar here and ...

Welcome to Tutorial Tuesday! A new series on my blog, where I'll be sharing quick, easy, and animated step-by-step instructions once a month! Today, I'm sharing these lacey, traditional tags, which are sure to dress up any gift!  This year, I'm using these sweet tags to tie brown paper packages of mulling spices for friends + family! What will you use yours for? STEPS 1. Start by die-cutting the floral cluster shape 2. Stamp the outline guide by using the large background stamp and lining it up with the die-cut shape 3. Stamp center of flower, buds, and berries 4. Stamp leaves 4. Die-cut a scalloped heart 5. Using a marker, color the scallops only (easiest to do with brush tip markers) 6. Die-cut sentiment 7. Adhere floral cluster, sentiment and pearls to heart base Once these are done, it's super easy to add sparkle, rhinestones, glitter, Nuvo drops, or any other little accents to dress them up even more!  It's also super easy to switch up the colors to more contem...

Hey everybody! Can you believe it's exactly one month until Christmas?! It's approaching quickly and I still have a heap of cards and oodles of ideas to share with you before then!  Today I'm sharing a little CAS duo - and a card that was inspired by  PTI's November Blog Hop . I've been working a lot on paring down the layers over the years. And while I'm not quite ready to give up the intricate cards just yet, I am trying to challenge myself to step outside the box a little. So far so good :)  For today's challenge, I wanted to focus on a single layer background. Plain cardstock seemed a little too vanilla, so I decided to make a dotted and festive one instead! I find this to be such a fun and relaxing technique. And the tools are so simple: just a stencil, an ink blender and some ink. I love the satisfaction I get when I peel back that stencil and reveal whats hiding beneath. It makes me smile every time! For this background, I used a polka dot stencil ( h...

Happy Saturday, Friends! I hope you've all had a wonderful Holiday thus far.  Today I'm sharing with you a very easy background that you can quickly add to your tags, cards, or other projects if you're in a hurry. ______________________________________________________________________ TIP: STENCILING WITH MARKERS By using stencils you have on hand, along with a few fun marker colors, it takes no time at all to add a little bit of extra fun to your projects! Using a lined stencil, such as the one here , is a quick and easy way to add color with markers. The openings are smaller, so there is less room for error, and coloring is a lot easier when you don't have to cover large surfaces! Just swipe your marker across a few times, and voila! Don't have a stencil? No problem! Simply use a ruler and draw the lines.  ______________________________________________________________________ Once I had my tag all stenciled up, I added some string through the top, and a couple of g...

Hi everyone! I hope you've all had a splendid Thanksgiving, enjoyed with family and friends, and all the turkey you can eat! Even though North of the border, our Thanksgiving tradition falls a lot earlier, we still partake in one of the biggest shopping days of the year, so I've compiled below a little list (it was hard , but I narrowed it down to ONLY 4 shoppes) of my favorite BFS happening through the weekend!  And I'm sure, just like me, after all the shopping frenzy, you might need some peace and quiet in your life, and what better than some alone time with Copics and this Beautiful Bouquet floral stamp!  I also thought it would be fun to start a new card series on the blog: Delicate.  I've been straying a little from this style. So this is my way of getting back to it and sharing a few soft + feminine cards with you all.  To start this card, I first stamped the beautiful floral and embossed it in silver. I knew I would eventually add silver glittered accents, s...

Gingerbread is one of our favorite cookie flavors. We love it so much around here, that it's a staple year-round! A few might say it's plain or boring, or only to be used for making delicious holiday decor. I say, gingerbread can be crazy flavorful, soft, and sooo yummy! While I still lived in Europe, we often enjoyed Lebkuchen, which is a gingerbread of sorts, but a much more complex and flavorful version (imho). I have tried, to no avail, to get the recipe right, so if any of you happen to have one kicking around...I beg you....Please, please share it with me!  For now, though, I'll just share this little tribute to my favorite cookie. Oh and a lovely textured background, inspired by Holiday icing.  To start my little card today, I used a circle stencil to ink up the focal background of my card, in colors of Aqua Mist and Spring Rain .  ______________________________________________________________________                  TI...

Happy hump-day! Today I'm back with the second post in my Stretch Your Stamps Series, focusing on how to use non-Holiday stamps for the Holidays! We all have a stamp or two we absolutely love, and kind of feel a little sad to put away when the season is upon us. But I'm here to say, you don't have to! With a few tweaks, most stamps transition pretty well into many seasons. My floral stamp is a perfect example! I picked up this sweet little stamp from PTI's Buy it Live event a little while back, and I've been wanting to use it for months! When I finally cracked it open, I realized, a little bit of tweaking might be in order to make it 'work' with the current season.  To start this card, I first eyeballed where my floral cluster would be, and then stamped the top sentiment, in Aqua Mist using Altenew's Modern Deer stamp set.   I then started working on my floral cluster. In order to make it seasonally appropriate I knew I would need to do a couple of thi...