HIMCR #127 - Holiday Colors

Hi, all my crafty friends and family!!!!

Is everyone staying warm enough this past few days?  I know, it's been challenging here trying to stay warm with the temperatures being in the teens during the day and low single digits (and sometimes below 0) at night . . . in fact, I had to put two (2) more quilts on my bed last night because the temp dropped so low.  I pray that those of you who are in the path of the ice storm that is hitting our nation are staying inside where it's safe and, hopefully, warm.  Okay, enough about the weather. :)

Here it is the 1st Saturday of the month and do you know what that means?  It means it's time for another Hiding In My Craft Room challenge and since it's the 1st Saturday of the month, it means the challenge it a "Color" challenge . . . so this time we challenge you to use your Holiday Colors!    

And this time, HIMCR is giving away this A-W-E-S-O-M-E Christmas package ---

I got the idea for the card I did for this challenge from a card my mother-in-law gave me for my birthday . . . it was actually kinda funny because as she handed me the envelope with the card, she said "Happy Birthday . . . and I'm sorry."  When I opened it, I was like "Sorry for what?  I LOVE this!!!" So after searching the internet, I found a SVG file to make one  from App.box.com (https://app.box.com/shared/5a7tp4rhaj). Here's how it turned out:

I used scraps for this card and printed "A friend is like a good bra" sentiment on the inside:

"A Friend is Like A Good Bra . . .

Hard to find

Supportive

Comfortable

Always lifts you up

Makes you look better

Always Close to Your Heart!!"

And the back is a thong with a little S.W.A.K. (lips) tattoo . . . but since I didn't want to hurt anyone's sensibilities, I decided not to show the picture of it. :)

Remember, you have one week to get your "Holiday Color" project in to be eligible for the Christmas package.   Have a GREAT (and warm) weekend!!!

Till the next time I'm up in the night. Kathy

Clear It Out Challenge - Christmastime!

Does anyone know what time it is?

That's right . . . 

It's CHALLENGE time!!! 

Hi, all my crafty friends and family!!!  Has everyone recovered from Thanksgiving yet?  I hope so because once again, it's challenge time over at Clear It Out Challenge.  Time to clear away the dishes, clear away any remaining Thanksgiving "stuff", and clear away anything else that has stockpiled in your crafty space this past week or so . . .   and get your crafty on.  And usual, our A-W-E-S-O-M-E-L-Y, A-M-A-Z-I-N-G leader, Laura,  has come up with another great challenge for us . . . it's so easy, peasy!!!  So get out your paper, scissors, glue  and . . . 

 Are you ready???

I didn't hear you . . . 

Are you ready???

Okay, it's challenge time!!!

Theme:  Christmas time (anything goes)

Stash:  Make room for your new Christmas presents 

(basically, anything goes or you can add a present) 

You have 2 weeks to play (till Dec. 16th)

Our sponsors this challenge are:

When I saw this week's challenge theme and stash item, I thought to myself "I wonder about making tags for Christmas presents?"  So off I went and I found a cute tag from Bugaboo called "Christmas presents-Tags".  How perfect is that?  Here's what I came up with:

As you may notice, I don't have names on these tags yet . . . that is because every year I like to have a dozen or so "generic" little gifts ready just in case an extra guest comes by or I just want to do a little extra for someone or help a friend or family struggling to make ends meet or just to brighten their day. Whatever the reason, I always try to make sure I have them and these tags work PERFECT to help make my "generic" gifts more personable, too.

But the BEST thing about this tag digi stamp is not only can I make it any size I want, BUT I can color or decorate it to coordinate with my gift or wrapping paper.  I am kinda funny that way . . . I like to have my tags match . . . at least somewhat.  So this time round I inserted the digi into a Word doc and make it 3-inches high.  Then I copy and pasted it until I had a whole page of tags  and I ended up with 9 tags on one sheet . . . it's a start for now.

Till the next time I'm up in the night.  Kathy

HIMCR #126 - Freestyle

Hi, all my crafty friends and family!!!

I hope and pray everyone is having a Happy Thanksgiving and having safe travels if you are out-of-town.

Well, it's Saturday once again and do you know what that means?  Since it's the weekend after Thanksgiving, it means that most of you are probably resting up from a day of Christmas shopping on Black Friday and fighting the crowds hoping to get some GREAT bargains while trying to steer clear of the "free-for-all" or "anything goes" mentality that some of the shoppers get when trying to get the last "hot" item.

But do you know what else it means?  That's right!!  It means it's time for another amazing challenge over at Hiding In My Craft Room. This week the theme is "Freestyle" (or meaning "anything goes") . . . and don't worry, there won't be any "fighting" mentality there.  Only some good old-fashioned competitiveness since it is a challenge after all. :) 

Since it was Thanksgiving week, I decided to do a simple project while adding more cards to my Christmas card "stash".  Here's how it turned out:

I call it my "Ribbon Tree" card because I used "ribbons" of paper . . . actually, it is 3/4-inch wide strips of paper.  I used "Yuletide" from the Festive paper collection by Authentique for the strips and "Merry" from the same collection for the background.  The "holiday CHEER" stamp is a miscellaneous one from my stamp collection and the star was punched with a star punch from glitter paper.  I alsu used Walnut Stain distress ink on the edges.  And "Voila!" I was done . . . pretty simple, don't you think?  It actually was once I got the widths of where I needed to fold or wrap my strips. :)

Hope everyone has or has had a Happy (and safe) Thanksgiving!

Till the next time I'm up in the night.  Kathy

Mid-challenge inspiration - Snowflakes

Hi, all my crafty friends and family!!!  

I am here today to to remind you that you still have one (1) weeka to complete a project for Clear It Out Challenge.  The theme is "Anything Goes" and the stash item is a snowflake.  Here's a little card I put together for you:

This darling image is from QKR Stampede.  And once again, I wanted to achieve an old fashioned look like I did with last week's card by printing on paper from the "Peaceful" paper collection by Authentique and using my watercolor pencils.   I also used dry glitter by Tim Holtz . . . I really need to figure out how to take better photos to show the glitter.  If anyone has some suggestions, I am all ears . . . well, eyes as it is in this case. lol

Remember, you still have a week to get your project(s) entered into Clear It Out Challenge.  (And hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving week and weekend!!!)

Till the next time I'm up in the night.  Kathy

HIMCR - Thanksgiving/Thankful

Hi, all my crafty friends and family!!!

It's Saturday once again and do you know what that means?  That's right!  It means it's time for another amazing challenge over at Hiding In My Craft Room. This week the theme is "Thanksgiving" or "Thankful" . . . it can be any project representing what you are thankful for either by the word(s) "Thanksgiving", "Thankful" or "Thanks" or even by a picture of what you are thankful for.l  So get out your paper and glue and let's see what you can come up with

When I think of what I am thankful, it is really hard to decide on just one because I have been blessed with so many things.  But after going through some pictures to scrap, I knew I had to do a layout representing what I am most thankful for . . . being ALIVE!  As many of you know, I had been diagnosed with cancer when my daughter was only 3 weeks old and was give a 0-5% chance of making it.  Let alone making it to the 5-year cure mark.  And here I am 17 years later . . . cancer-free!!!

So with my picture in hand, I headed to my crafty space and got to work.  Here's what I came up with:

This layout has several meanings to me.  The broken resin frame pieces and torn papers represent how I was broken from the chemo but then put back together into something even better though my faith.  The color green represents to me new beginnings because this picture is one of my dd and I about one (1) month after I got done with chemo . . . we were playing horsey to the music on her little cassette player, which is the meaning of using musical notes and paper in the layout. The cut out word "BEAUTIFUL" for how I felt life was at that moment and how my family members saw me even though I did not look like my former self. There are other subtle meanings, but I won't go into all of them right now. :)

The first thing I did for this LO was create the background using gesso and Faber Castell gelato (in green).  I put a small amount of the gelato in water to make a watercolor like paint . . . and then applied it over the gesso that I had already applied to my paper and allowed some drips here and there.  Then I took scraps of paper and glued them down in various spots . . . then applied a bit more gesso to the edges to blend them with the background and a little more of my watered gelato.

Once everything was completely dry, I put the LO together by adhering my broken pieces of resin frame, putting flowers here and there, cutting one flower in half and putting part next to the photo, and adding some string (colored by the green gelato) to the flowers.  

I also added a rub-on "Treasure every day" above my photo and rhinestones in various places

I also  added a few more flowers that I colored with the gelatos and gesso.

When I was all done, I used Thickers for my title "Thankful". and splattered a bit more of of the watered gelato around the LO and then some black drawing ink. Voila!  I was done!

In a way this was a hard layout for me to do, but it was also a great one . . . both reasons is because it made/helped me remember a difficult, but happy time in my life.  One that I do't take for granted. 

Till the next time I'm up in the night.  Kathy

PS  Funny side-note --- Doing this layout also made me realize how when I love something, I keep it forever . . . can you believe I still have (and wear) those green PJs?   lol  What can I say? . . . they are so comfy!!!  Talk to you all later!!!

Clear It Out Challenge - Anything Goes

Does anyone know what time it is?

That's right . . . 

It's CHALLENGE time!!! 

Once again, it's challenge time over at Clear It Out Challenge.  Time to roll up those sleeves, get out your markers and get your crafty on.  And usual, our fearless leader, Laura,  has come up with a GREAT challenge this time . . . so easy, peasy!!! 

 Are you ready???

I didn't hear you . . . 

Are you ready???

Okay, it's challenge time!!!

Theme:  Anything Goes

Stash:  Snowflake

You have 2 weeks to play (till Dec. 2nd)

Our sponsors this challenge are:

For this week's challenge, I picked out a sweet "Winter Scene" from Digi Darla.  Since it reminded me of old days past, I wanted to give it an "old" feel.  So I printed my image on some paper from "Peaceful" paper collection by Authentique and used my watercolor pencils on it.  Applied a little glitter here and there on the snow.  And here's what I got:

I love how the cream and black sets off the touch of color I added to the image.  Though I really do need to figure out a better way to take pictures with glitter . . . you can't see it very well, but it's there.

Till the next time I'm up in the night.  Kathy

HIMCR #124 - Die Cuts

Hi, all my crafty friends and family!!!  

It's Saturday again . . . and do you know what that means?  

It means it is time for another fabulous challenge at Hiding In My Craft Room.  This week the them is "Die-Cuts".  You may use any type of die cut . . . pre-cut or homemade with your own die-cutting machine (CriCut, Cameo, Slice, etc.).  And you may create any type of project (card, layout, mixed media, altered arts, etc.) as long as there is a die-cut on it.  Remember you have one (1) week to submit your projects on HIMCR to be eligible for one (1) of the two (2) CriCut cartridges being given away . . . meaning, there will be TWO (2) winners this week!!! Pretty AWESOME prize(s), isn't it?  So let's get busy and see how many AMAZING entries we can get this week.  :)

I went back and forth trying to decide what type of project I would do for this week's challenge.  I finally decided to do another CAS (clean and simple) layout because even though I really do love my mixed media layouts . . . well, let's just say that with the number of photos I have, I would be busy for a few decades if I did every layout that way (not to mention, they do take up a bit more space).  Plus, I decided I would get a head start on my 2013 Christmas pictures by having a few layouts ready for pictures . . . which is why you will see just photo mats on my layout this time. 

So using scraps my sister gave me from a kit she did along with some solid cardstock from my stash, here's what I came up with:

I used a die-cutting machine (my CriCut, this time) to cut out my title "Merry & Bright" and the "25 days of December" title was a die-cut leftover from what my sister did.

I fussy-cut out some penguins and little trees . . . and I place three (3) of the penguins at the bottom corner to represent my family and the two (2) trees to represent my dd's two (2) birds. :)

I used a corner punch for photo corners and used scrap dots to adhere them to the layout . . . I do this so they will be up, off my photos and it makes it easier to put photos on a layout that I make ahead of time.

I also placed another penguin that I fussy-cut, by the "25 days of December" die-cut. Voila! I was done. 

Remember, you have one (1) week to get your projects entered at Hiding In My Craft Room for our "Die-Cut" challenge in order to be eligible for one (1) of two (2) CriCut cartridges being given away.  Good Luck!!!

Till the next time I'm up in the night.  Kathy