Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween/Samhain!!!!!

Just a quick post to wish everyone a very safe & Happy Halloween/ Samhain.  This is one of my favorite times of year.  I love the fall season, the colors, the crisp air, Thanksgiving and Halloween/Samhain.

 Samhain means roughly "summer's end", it is the final harvest and is said to be the Celtic New Year.  The night when  the veil between this world and the spirit world is said to be the thinnest,  allowing the spirits of the departed to return and mingle with the living. 

I usually find this is the time of year when I like to start new projects for the winter (which makes sense if you look at it from a New Year point of view).  I spend more time at home and usually this is when I start baking and redecorating my house (you know, moving furniture, changing the curtains, painting etc)

I got a chance to walk through one of the community gardens yesterday that was decorated for Halloween.  I had my camera with me so I took a bunch of pictures.  This is one of them and I had some fun with it in photoshop.  I'm still learning how to use this program but I'm making progress (I think, LOL)

I do have a couple more class samples to post and hope to be able to do that tomorrow.
Until then, happy crafting & thanks for stopping by.
Dee
 

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

One down only 3 to go

I finally finished this card yesterday.  It took me awhile to figure out what to do with the front and the presents under the tree.  The present on the front is from the cricut cartridge Stretch Your Imagination.  I cut the main part out using french vanilla card stock and stamped a simple swirl using aged mahogany distress ink.
The presents under the tree were stamped on french vanilla as well and then colored with water color pencils.  I then colored over the main parts of the presents with a stardust glitter pen.  You can't really tell in the picture but I also cover them with versa mark ink and used fine detail clear embossing powder to give it a nice shine and then popped the whole thing up with 3d dots.


So one card is done, I'm off to finish the others.  I hope to get them done today, I get to spend today in my craft room so we shall see.  I'll post what I get finished tomorrow, until then happy crafting and have a great day.

Dee

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Halloween Card Class

Last week a taught a Halloween card class and I found the easiest way to teach it was to demonstrate the techniques I used to create the Spooky card from this post and the gate fold card from this post.  Well when I was finished I had a couple of half completed cards.  So the other night I finished them off, they came out a bit different then the originals.  I also wanted to sell these ones so they had to be completed inside as well.












For the first card I created an insert that coordinates with the outside (I do this for all the cards I sell).




For the gate fold I made a piece to go on the back of one of the panels so you have a place to sign it that doesn't ruin the picture on the front.



Well back to work, thanks for stopping by.
Dee

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Work in progress

I am currently working on a Christmas card class using a new set of stamps I got at Scrap Arts.  The set is called All Wrapped Up by Flourishes.  I have lots of ideas and been testing different techniques.

I'm planning to do a side step card, a gate fold and a couple of basic cards.  Here are a couple of pictures of the gate fold in progress.  The tree is stamped with Tim Holtz distress ink peeled paint.  The garland have been colored with stardust pen and I used red watercolor pencil and glaze pen on the ornaments. I haven't decided about the presents under the tree.  The ones in the picture are on there with temporary adhesive, I think I'll emboss them and pop them up with 3d dots.  I'm still not sure about the card front and what sort of decor I'll use on it.  My biggest challenge right now is deciding all the colors I want to use in this class.


Kit has a new name, I have decide she will now be know as Kit the Great Paper Protector,  she decided this was her paper to guard.  When I tried to take some off the desk she attacked me LOL. 
Well I guess I'm not going to get much accomplished sitting here at my computer, better get to my craft desk and see what I can come up with.  As soon as I finish something I will post it.  Until then happy crafting everyone and thanks for visiting my blog.

Dee

Friday, October 22, 2010

Where to begin....

…hmm let me think, I have so much I want to post that I just don't know where to start.  I've had a busy week doing lots of work and teaching.  Have you ever had those days when you sit in your craft room and everything you try seems to be horribly, horribly, wrong?  I have, on Tuesday I sat in my craft room for the better part of the day attempting to make some stuff for classes and by the end of the day I wanted to pull my hair out I was so frustrated.  Nothing seemed to be working for me at all.  On Wednesday I didn’t do much better so I went out for a little retail therapy, and here is what I bought.

A new shipment of goodies arrived at Scrap Arts while I was there and of course I had to get some new paper and a Tim Holtz die, I have been wanting the Fence die for awhile now but I had to figure out a  project it would be used for before I would allow myself to buy it. I’m happy to say I have come up with an idea.  You’ll have to wait until I’ve finished the project to see it.  I also got this great paper pack from Cosmo Cricket called “Wanted” I love the paper in this assortment.  It is a 6”x6” paper pad and great for cards, this paper will be wonderful for more masculine themed cards. 
Also we received another new shipment at Scrap Arts yesterday and I was thrilled because my brand new paper trimmer was in this order, as well as my glue refills. I broke my making memories paper trimmer awhile back and decided to try a different trimmer this time.  I looked around and did a lot of reading and lots of people love the Tonic paper trimmers, so I decided to give this one a try.  I’ll let you know what I think of it once I’ve tried it out for a bit.
You may have noticed (or not, LOL) that I keep changing my background on my blog.  I just like to keep playing with new looks.  This is really the only time of the year you can put up the scary Halloween type backgrounds and not scare people away lol.
I have been surfing quite a bit looking for ideas and inspiration and I have found quite a few new blogs that I love.  I have added them to my Craft Sites I like to visit tab on the side bar; you should check some of them out. 
Also, just so you know Kit has not been shirking her responsibilities as my assistant.  She had decided that being a lap cat isn’t such a bad thing after all.  Especially if it involves being able to swat at things on my desk.
Well I guess that is enough for this post.  Oh, my new challenge will be not to ignore my blog so much.  I'm going to try posting at least 4 times a week over the next 2 months.  Could be kind of hard to do with the Holidays coming up and so many classes scheduled but I'll give it a try.
Until next time, happy crafting everyone.
Dee

Friday, October 15, 2010

A New Look for Halloween!

I found this great new site with free blog backgrounds "Cute & Cool" Blog Stuff.  There are so many cute backgrounds on there I may have to change my blog once a week.  I thought this one was good for Halloween my favorite time of year.

Here is a card I made last week, another dragon card.  I love this stamp and it makes a great card.  I colored the image with my prisma color markers.  I added shimmer to the wings with a stardust pen.  The shimmer doesn't show up very well in the picture but it looks better in person. 

Until next time, happy crafting everyone.
Dee

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Time to get to work...

Where does the time go, I can’t believe we are almost to the middle of October. I am now busy working on my classes for November & December. I have at least 3 new classes planned and will be running a couple of my September & October classes again. I haven’t had much time for crafting recently but I have been busy teaching. Eventually I will even get a chance to use my new birthday presents that I got  a few weeks ago.

The first of my new classes will be a redo my mini album from last year. This album from last year measured 6”x6” and was a version of one I found on Splitcoast stampers (Scrapbook Wallet). I wanted to do a similar album but a different size, the original one I found on Splitcoast stampers was great but the measurements for the side panels were to large for what I wanted to do, the 6"x6" one worked better for me as you could the 4 side panels out of one 12" x 12" piece of card stock. Of course you don't end up with that as the size of your side panels as you need to use some of that as the spines of the book. The new one measures 6.5” x 4.5” and that allows you to use one long piece for the outside middle cover (green in this sample).  In the one I made last year you had to piece two pieces of card stock together to do that part. I made this book so that all the fold out panels will fit a 4"x6" photo. This base of this book only takes  pieces of card stock with some left over. In total I used 6 pieces of card stock and  2 pieces of patterned paper. with lots left over for decorating and embellishing. The patterned paper is from the Basic Grey Jovial line. I'm going to add some pictures and some embellishments tomorrow.


Well time to get back to work. I have lots to get done in this week. I’m also teaching a couple more times this week. My “Blue Christmas” card class is sold out for Thursday but it is available later this month at Scrap Arts. I really do hope to have some more to post tomorrow, until then happy crafting everyone.

Deanna

Monday, October 4, 2010

Birthdays are Fun!!!

My birthday was a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t get a chance to post because of how busy I was during my vacation . My husband spoiled me as usual a new jacket, a spa gift certificate, dinner at my favorite Greek restaurant but the biggest surprise this year was this painting.
He had it painted for me by local artist Jaime Gervais. For those of you not familiar with the TV Show True Blood, it is of my favorite characters from that show Sookie & Eric. I had no idea he was having this done for me. I have the best husband in the world. He manages to surprise me with something totally unexpected but absolutely perfect every Birthday and Christmas.


I was supposed to have something else to post tonight as well but our staff crop became a bit of a birthday party for me as well and I didn’t get as much accomplished as I wanted. I do want to send a huge Thank You out Shelley, Naomi, Kelly, Marie & Brenda for all the lovely presents they gave me. I have the best friends!!! We had so much fun Friday night.


I’m off to prep my class that I’m teaching tomorrow night but I hope to have more to post on Wednesday. I’ve also been trying to come up with a new challenge for myself. Until next time, happy crafting and thanks for stopping by.



Deanna

Friday, October 1, 2010

Happy Blogaversary to me

I really can’t believe it has already been 2 years since I started this blog. Where does the time go? I wanted to do something special for my blogaversary which is technically today but I haven’t been in my craft room for over 2 weeks. I had family visiting for a couple of weeks and I didn’t have time to plan anything.


I did get to play tourist for the past couple of weeks and had lots of fun taking pictures while we were out.  We went to many beautiful spots, so here are some pictures from my adventures.  These pictures are from Yale, Harrison, Lake of the Woods, Stanley Park, Vancouver Aquarium, Vandusen Gardens.









Well that's it for now, I'm sure that I will have something more to post by Sunday.  We are having a staff crop tomorrow night and I hope to get at least one project finished lol.  Until next time, happy crafting everyone!
Dee