die-cutting

Fresh Air Friday | 100DayProject Day 13 | Card 7

Spellbinders Advent Calendar

I finally got around to organizing the stamps, dies and stencils that I got in the calendar. I’m hoping I also have a chance to write up a post summarizing all of the cards that I made using the products. It was so fun to share the project with Shelli. Now that we’ve finished the project I finally searched on the internet for some other ideas. I’ll include those links in the post so that I can easily find them for future reference.

I have almost finished organizing my Spellbinders Advent Calendar supplies. A few of the die cut sets are hiding with some other supplies.
These aren’t my projects but I crealted the collage from the Spellbinders set to store with my supplies from this Advent Calendar to use as inspiration for future projects with these supplies. I hope to create a similar collage of the 24 projects that I made using the supplies. It is inspiration for creating a collage eventually for my 100DayProject cards.

I will add some links to a few sites with great examples including the Spellbinders site.

https://ca.pinterest.com/josemnard/spellbinder-advent-calendar-2024/?invite_code=47e84e4b39904565bce5b1a9ae62b7ab&sender=28569916294562470

https://kristiemarcotte.com/spellbinders-2024-advent-calendar-card-inspiration/

https://spellbindersblog.com/2024/12/01/spellbinders-2024-crafty-advent-calendar-inspiration-round-up/

Fresh Air Friday

This morning I got up later and walked with Luna and Roland. The sunshine was gorgeous and we were sheltered from the wind in the woods. Such a beautiful day with the fresh snow glistening under the shining sun with the brilliant blue sky. The fresh snow helped to provide pretty good grip on the previously slippery surfaces. The recent rain and warm temperatures had delivered lots of ice on the roads, sidewalks and even on the trails in the woods. There is nothing better than being out in the fresh air on a gorgeous Friday morning, walking in the conservation area along the river with Roland and Luna.

So many thoughts for what my theme for this Friday could/should be:

Fresh Air: The temperature was perfect this morning. It is so much easier to enjoy being out in the fresh air when it is not too cold and not too hot, not too humid and not too dry.

Finish It: I definitly have lots I would love to finish today. My goal is to finish getting my kits together and maybe even delivered. It would be so nice to have them all done before the last minute. I usually am delivering them on the Monday and sometimes even the Tuesday morning before my 10:30 online class.

Fresh Snow: There is so much to love about fresh snow. Luna’s snow angels, the glistening of the snow, the fresh animal tracks for Luna to investigate.

Finances: I do have quite a bit of work to tackle soon to settle mom’s estate, but that will wait for another Friday.

Further: It was nice to have some extra time for walking this morning so we could go further along the river and up into a wooded area. The mornings when we can walk further are the best!

Forms: We do need to get on with filling in some forms for a fall cruise in the Northwest Passage. So looking forward to the trip, but the forms will wait for another day. No doubt you have lots of paper work to catch up on too.

Flavours: What are your favourite flavours. This morning I enjoyed a licorice spice tea along with the blackberry almond scones that Vicki gave me yesterday. I have no shortage of favourite flavours to enjoy.

Five: That is actually more than 5 things. But that’s a good prompt or theme for another Friday.

100Day Project Day 13 – Thank You – Card 7

I created a card based on the design from All About Layering 4 – Lesson 1 using a layering stencil and the outline stamp from the Cherry Blossom Bunch set. I used Grayy Field, Maple Yellow, Water Hyacinth and Alpine Aster inks. I am very happy with how the card came out. I stamped the image three times and die cut it then used up almost all of the main images and the bits that I cut off to form the flower clusters at the top and the bottom of the card. I added a sentiment from the set into the middle of the card, slightly offset to the right and a bit above the middle of the card. It might have been nicer with a larger sentiment. I also stamped and ink blended the images for the front and flap of the envelope, the back of the card as well as for an inner layer on the inside of the card. Most of my friends think I am crazy for adding the extra details, but I really like having the extra details on my card projects. I love how easy it is to add colour to outline stamps using stencils and how relaxing the process of ink blending is.

Trim on Tuesday | 100DayProject Day 10 | Card 6 | Spellbinders Door 24

Card 6: Thanks

Card for Altenew All About Layering 3 – Lesson 6 // 100DayProject Card 6
I made my background by blending Pink Sand Altenew ink with stencils from Concord & 9th and another company. I used the Altenew Zero Waste die from Lush Garden Crafty your Life Project kit to cut out lots of flowers and leaves from white-backed pattern paper. I thought I could use the white sides on a later project by colour blending them with ink. The thank you die is Pink Fresh Studio.
I adhered some leaves and assembled some flowers but only ended up using the three large flowers on this card.
I didn’t like how there was too much space up at the top. Perhaps a sentiment may have fit there but it seems off balance. So I trimmed it down from 4-1/4 x 5-1/2 to 3-14 x 4-1/2, inked the edges, put some foam behind it and put it onto the card front. My end result would have been more similar to the sample card design if I had taken a bit more time to figure out the whole layout instead of adhering the leaved down before I had figured out the whole design including how many flowers and the size of my sentiment.
This is the inspiration card from All About Layering 3 Lesson 5

Happy Brrr-thday

These are the cards that I made today during the online class I gave for the Dementia Society. Such a fun set of penguins from a Simon Hurley kit in a Scrapbook and Today Crop and Create kit. The oval was blended using a Gina K stencil. The snowy background is a Taylored Expressions embossing foler.

Spellbinders Door 24 | Adventure Awaits

This was created using the suitcase die from Spellbinder Advent Calendar door 24. Yes, I have finished my final card from that project. But I do look forward to incorporating all the products in future projects. The cat die is from door 23. The patterned paper is from Stampin Up! as is the Adventure Awaits stamp (from a Paper Pumpkin kit).
I had two cats already die cut so made two cards. I made the suitcases opposites. I think I prefer the Kraft accents on a black suitcase base rather than the other way around adn think it would be better with a Kraft rather than black handle.

Trim on Tuesday

It’s now 9:30 p.m. and I haven’t written anything since about 9:30 a.m. when I wrote the theme for today. This morning as I was putting a favourite short sleeved shirt into the laundry I was reflecting on how I have a lot of shirts in my closest that I don’t wear that often. And pants. And sweaters. And my drawers are a bit hard to close when I am all caught up on laundry. And it can be hard to find what I actually want to wear. My wardrobe could do with a trim. The theme actually came together as I was walking and going through the things I have to do today: teach 10:30 online cardmaking class for the Dementia Society, hair cut at 1:30, walking at 7:00. My hair appointment was for a trim, I have no plans for a radically different hair cut any time soon. Which led me to think about how there are so many more things in life that need a regular trim than just our hair. Which led me to trim back a few things from my dresser drawers after my walk when I was putting away laundry. Which will hopefully make them easier to close and easier for me to find my favourite clothes. I didn’t yet commit to getting rid of anything. For now I’ve moved them into another dresser drawer that I don’t usually use. Some of them are off season, and some I should get rid of.

And while I was getting my hair cut I realized that there are actually a few steps in the whole process. First you need to book an appointment. Then you need to go to the appointment and have your hair trimmed. But the job is not completely done then. In the case of a hair cut, someone else takes care of the rest. Sweeping up the bits of hair that are no longer needed, putting them into the garbage, taking the garbage out on garbage day, someone hauling the garbage away and bringing it to the dump. It’s no wonder my house has so much clutter.

But I am going to try to book some time for Trim on Tuesday activities on a weekly basis.

Maintenance on Monday | 100DayProject Day 9 | Card 5

AECP Card 5: Sending Hugs

AECP Card 5 – Altenew All About Layering 3 Lesson 5

I used an Altenew zero waste die with ink blending stencils to colour and die cut the flowers. The background die is a Concord & 9th set from an SCT Crop and Create workshop. I opted to leave most of the leaf and heart stitched shapes showing and covered up the balloon portion because I didn’t think it went with the floral theme. I made an extra background using the coordinating die cuts which I’ll use for a future card.

I thought the ink blending went fairly well, although I didn’t love the centres of some of the flowers, but fortuntely there were some bright yellow starbursts / tiny flowers to go into the centres. I wasn’t quite sure how to place the sentiment. I liked it lower but didn’t love a bit of open white under the big flower in the centre so I opted to move the sentiment higher and to add in some half pearl embellishments.

I would have liked to have had a bit more greenery so I could have added more near the bottom of the card; I find the current greenery arrangement a bit top heavy.

The card example from All About Layering 3 course – Lesson 5 from which I took the inspiration for using a background die. The die I used just had stitching with no cutouts. It will be nice to try a white diecut image on a white background as well, particularly a soft, curvy, lace-like pattern like the one in this sample card; most if not all of my coverplate dies are more graphic in design. Given the coverplate I used I opted for a centred single floral spray rather than having two sprays with the sentiment in the middle which is quite a nice look in this example card. The rounded coverplate die helps seems ground the floral sprays very well. I may try to create two floral sprays on the other background I made.

Maintenance on Monday

I was awoken this morning to the intermittent beeping of the smoke detector. Luckily the battery lasted through to today so it just disturbed my sleep rather than the sleep of 5 more people who were staying up at the cottage with me on Friday or Saturday night for our ladies weekend.

It was definitely a very chilly morning. Thankfully there was no wind. A preview of how I’ll look when my hair and eyelashes turn grey!

And so, on this morning’s walk I reflected on the need for regular maintenance of the things around us. And, like the beeping to signify the low battery, that there are warning signs for many of those things when maintenance is required; that the batteries need to be charged or replaced. Or if there is not a warning sign, there are maintenance schedules that we follow. We bring our cars in for oil changes and scheduled maintenance. The little stickers that they put up on our windshields with the approximate date and kilometres of your next maintenance are very helpful. Sometimes we need to get a new car battery so that it will start on frosty mornings because the routine recharging as we drive isn’t quite enough to get the battery to turn over on those really cold days even if we plug the car’s block heater in overnight. We change our furnace filters and have them inspected. I try to book our dog Luna’s next mani-pedi while her nails are being clipped and dremelled.

And we should be doing regular maintenance on ourselves. What self-care habits to you currently have? Might it be time to add a few more into your repretoire? Might it be time to block some time off on your calendar to maintain your own body, mind or spirit. I am so glad that I’m really focusing on reestablishing some regular maintenance habits like swimming, morning walks, one&done workouts. I consider this recent weekend with some girlfriends a wonderful way to recharge my batteries. And, I am already working on scheduling another short getaway with some girlfriends.

Shovelling on Sunday | 100DayProject Day 8 | Card 4

AECP Card 4:You Have Been on My Mind

AECP Card 4: Altenew All About Layering 3 Lesson 4

I was very happy with how this card came out. I had done the ink blending over the embossed image a few days ago. Then fussy cut it out another day as well as pondered how I would like to lay it out. So, all I had to do tonight was to actually trim and glue the flowers onto the card front and add a sentiment. And, of course, I like to add an inner layer with a stamped image to the inside of the card, to stamp the back of the card and to decorate the envelope. The stamping involved creating masks for the flower and leaf images. I opted to use some removable doublesided tape on the back of the masking paper rather than to peel off the backing. It seems to mask well and I think makes the masked image more sturdy and reusable.

The first placement on the card front. Then I trimmed off the extra to be used on the other side of the card.
I tried the sentiment on the right side, but opted for the left side to enable some of the flowers trimmed off from the top to be added to the side.
I preferred the sentiment on the right-hand side because it allowed me to add move flowers down the left-hand side of the card.
I had to create some masks to make it easier to add leaves to the stamped images on the back of the card as well as the inside of the card and onto the front and the back of the envelope.
I ‘cheated’ and just stamped one image on the envelope. It’s big enough that some of it was on the front of the envelope and the rest of it was on the back.
The inspiration card from All About Layering 3 Lesson 4. I do like the bigger, bolder sentiment as well as the black outline on the staamped images. It definitely looks different than the card that I made. It has a different type of dimension created by layering die cut leaves behind the die cut flowers whereas the card I made gets its dimension from the 3D embossing folder.

Shovelling on Sunday

Many hands make light work. Although it may have seemed like it was a lot of work to shovel out one of the non-4WD cars that had parked out by the mailboxes on the municipal road, it actually went very quickly and didn’t really feel like work with all of us chipping in. A few of us walked the few kilometres out on the cottage road while 2 drove out with the shovels. And, before we knew it the car was cleared and all evidence of the snowplow snowbanks that had surrounded the car had been tossed into the snowbanks and it looked as if we hadn’t even parked a car there.

The beautiful snow is definitely worth the effort it takes to clear off vehicles, shovel off driveways and dig out from around cars when necessary; especially when working as a team together. In addition to some walking, shovelling and snowshoeing we also did a bit of yoga and made a bit of progress on the jigsaw puzzle. And had a delicious breakfast and a late lunch before everyone except me heading home. I opted to stay up at the cottage and did a bit of cardmaking and will soon to heading straight to bed.

Many hands makes light work!
I didn’t get into the photo with enough time to get into the right position. It was fun to do a class YouTube yoga class together.
Of course there were flowers to celebrate our friends’ recent retirement!

Streak Freeze Friday | 100DayProject Day 6

Altenew: Sending Warm Hugs Dear Friend

This was a card I made about a month ago for a friend whose husband passed away quite after a very short illness. Her daughter is a good friend of my daughter. So Heidi and I did a bit of baking and I made this card for them. I don’t quite remember the techniques that I used. But I do like the stamp set and I will definitely be making more cards with it as I work my way through the AECP program during this years 100dayproject. I believe I used black versafine ink for the outline image which I heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I think it was a layering stencil rather than a layering stamp. Before making that card I had experimented using some watercolour markers to colour in the outline stamped image.

Streak Freeze Friday

I decided pretty early this morning that DuoLingo’s streak freeze idea was a good one. Rather than throw a streak totally out the window when you miss a day or two, give yourself some grace and just use a streak freeze to carry you through until you can pick it up again.

I had opted for a 7:30 swim before heading up to the cottage. So no morning walk with Luna, no no chance to write any words in my 750words website account in the morning, no time to draft a blog post, no time for crafting in the day. But plenty of time for grocery shopping and a few other errands on the way up. And some time for some basic cottage cleaning before 5 friends started to arrive. Then it was time for a leisurely charcuterie dinner and to start a puzzle before heading to bed. I am so glad I declared it streak freeze Friday very early on. No 1 km run. No one&done. No card making (although I may do a wee bit of planning of which stamp sets, stencils and other supplies I will use for some of my upcoming projects). But, best of all, no fretting about trying to cram too much into my day, no fretting about missing a day or two of my ‘daily’ habits. Just lots of time to enjoy getting ready for the weekend and enjoying the weekend. And, most importantly of all, hopefully an easy resumption of those habits after my girls weekend. But I will do a quick DuoLingo lesson before turning off the lights, just so I don’t have to use a Streak Freeze for every habit streak today.