Blog Updates and White Christmas Card

Since I didn't post anything in 2017 I considered closing the blog, but I still want to be able to participate in the blog hops and challenges from time to time or share favorite projects. So the blog will stay open for occasional posts, but I will put most of my projects on Instagram since it's a lot quicker and allows me to share more. I still really enjoy blogging, but I enjoy creating even more and with the limited time I have to craft, I want to maximize that time.

It feels incomplete to have a post without a project though, so sharing one of my favorite cards from 2017 - the White Christmas card. It's a shaker card with the sparkling snow filling, light sponging to create the scene and adorable die cuts from Mama Elephant and MFT. It was a little time consuming to mass produce, but I love how it turned out.

Thanks for checking out my blog and please connect with me on Instagram for more regular updates. Thanks!

Supplies:

• Stamps: Mama Elephant Winter Wonderland
• Tools: MFT Birch Trees, Inside & Out Diagonal Stitched Rectangle STAX Die-namics

~Olga

Merry Christmas 2016

I took another long break from posting. I've been working on my Christmas cards over the last couple of months, but with travel and other obligations didn't get a chance to actually post any of them. I made a few different designs and now that they're all mailed, it's a good time to share some of them before New Year. 

The first design was various combinations with the PTI Spruce and Springs set. I had green and red base cards and made lots of different variations where cards had similar layouts, but the winter bouquet compositions were all a bit different. 

Here's another card from the set. I liked the time savings of being able to pre-cut and stamp a bunch of the same images, yet have all the cards be a little bit unique.  Thanks for looking.

Do you have time saving tips for "mass" producing cards?

Supplies:

• Stamps: Papertray Ink Spruce & Springs stamps and die 
• Accessories: Washi tape

~Olga

MFT Frosty

This weekend was unseasonably warm here - sunny with temperature in the mid 80's. It was the perfect weather to be outside and I enjoyed every bit of it, but for some reason when I sat down to make a card for the MFT Sketch Challenge #265, the first stamp I reached for was the Frosty & Fabulous.  Maybe it's just to remind myself that it's still winter.

Supplies:

• Stamps: MFT Frosty Fabulous
• Tools: MFT Stitched Fishtail Flag STAX Die, Mama Elephant Femme Frames, MFT Stitched Rectangle, Wink of Stella clear pen.

~Olga

Riley Post Christmas

Now I know you're probably tired of seeing Christmas cards, but I like to continue making them in the winter. That way I don't have to rush to make as many next year and I'm more inspired to use my winter stamps now when it's cold out rather than in October when it's often still in the 80's or 90's here in Austin.

On that note, this is a gift tag and a card combo using Riley Carrying Tree set from the clear stamp collection.

I also made a tri-fold card with the same image. The snow on the card is flower soft. It looks cute, but I'm a little worried about how it would do in transit.

Supplies

• Stamps: Carrying Tree Riley, PTI To You From Me, SU Warm Words
• Paper: GinaK white, SU Real Red, Garden Green, Cool Caribbean, Kraft
• Ink:Memento Black, SU Wild Wasabi, Copics (E37, E57, E44, E74, E49), Twinkling H2Os
• Accessories: MFT Twine, button, Ivory Flower Soft, Hobby Lobby ribbon
• Tools: MFT Tag You're It die, SU oval punches, Nestabilities

~Olga

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! It's been  a while. In summer and fall any free time I had was preoccupied by triathlon training. I finished the full Texas Tri series this year including my 2nd Half Iron. For Thanksgiving I was traveling and finishing up my Christmas cards. Now I finally have some time off to create and actually post.

Kicking off with the holiday card recap. Here are few from this year.

Of course I had to get the PTI bike stamp and die cut combo and most of my tri and cycling friends got some variation of the bike card.

The second is the snowflake using SU glitter paper. My snowflake punch had a hard time punching through this paper, but I managed to make a few.

Finally, I made a few more variations of the penguin card, like I do every year. These little guys are so cute I can't pass up using the stamp.

Supplies (All supplies are Stampin'Up! unless otherwise noted) :

• Stamps: PTI Pedal Pusher, Sincere Solutations, Whipper Snapper Pile of Penguins
• Paper: Baja Breeze, Certainly Celery, Soft Sky, Wild Wasabi, Basic Grey DP, SU DP
• Ink: Sahara Sand, Certainly Celery Real Red, Wild Wasabi, Copics
• Accessories: Michael's and SU ribbon, rhinestones, brads, SIE buttons
• Tools: PTI Pedal Pusher die cut, Martha Stewart punches

~Olgy

CAS Christmas Candy

Popping in for another quick post. I had a chance to play along in the SCS Featured Stamper challenge today and case a cute CAS Christmas card from Allee's gallery. I know, its a little late... or early to be posting Christmas cards, but you could easily change it into a valentines day or birthday card.

The chanages I made from the original were to pop up the candies and wrap them up into clear packaging to look like real hard candies. I repurposed plastic cover from a paper stack, but you can also use the clear envelopes or other gift packaging. I also added silver chord and punched the bottom of the card.

Supplies :

• Stamps: Craftsmart candy stamp from Michaels, SU Best Yet
• Paper: GinaK white, chipboard
• Ink: SU Real Red, Versamark and silver EP
• Accessories: SU silver chord,  plastic packaging
• Tools: Martha Stewart scallop with 2 dots punch

~Olgy

Winter Blues

I've come down with something. Not really sure what it is, its a flu or some sort of bug, but I spent the last weekend either in bed or on the couch and had no strength or motivation to do anything else. Even stamp [gasp]! I grabbed my box of Copics and some pre-stamped images and spent 6 hrs laying in bed and coloring. It was soothing and fun at the same time and I felt like a little kid. I also came to the conclusion that I really really need to practice my coloring technique (or lack thereof). I also convinced myself that getting more markers is the key :) All in all I colored 5 images (2 of which are usable) and I bought  30+ markers - seems reasonable, doesn't it? Copics are wonderful, but most of the time I can't dedicate enough time to color and perfect an image like I see so many talented artists do so we'll see how much use my markers will actually get. Hopefully I'll be posting improved cards here over time. 

For now here's a quick clean and simple card for for CASology winter challenge with some simple Copic shading. Love the GinaK 120lbs cardstock because the Copics don't show through the single layer. And I just can't resist adding Stickles or glitter to this image. Thanks for stopping by. 

Supplies :

• Stamps: Pile of Pinguins by Whipper Snapper, SU Warm Words
• Paper: GinaK white cardstock, SU Bashful blue
• Ink: Memento tuxedo black, Copics: B93, B97, B32, G02
• Accessories:Backer's twine, Stickles
• Tools:Oval punches

~Olgy

Martha Stewart Microbeads

I've had a few jars of Martha Stewart microbeads for a couple of years now. They looked so cute in the bottle I just couldn't resist buying them. However, a few times I've tried them on projects in the past, I've had trouble with them staying put after some time and didn't look like they could make it intact in the mail. 

This time I was determined to find ways to adhere the microbeads and ensure they stay put. Here are a few fun results.

1. Shaker card filling. Since I originally had trouble with the adhesives I tried, the first thing that came to mind was something that didn't require adhesive at all. I wanted to make a shaker card with these for a while and it was perfect for a FS308 SCS challenge card.

You have tto flip the card on the side to uncover the 3rd pinguin. Its a fun little Christmas card. I think microbeads worked really well here, but the only plastic packaging I had was pretty thick so I'm not sure if I can send this card in a regular envelope.

2. Securing microbeads with Crystal Effects or Glossy Accents. This seemed to be the most popular method when I searched online. Definitely works better than regular glue, but I still found that some beads continued to fall off when the project was dry. Gently pressing the beads into the glue helped.

3. I didn't make a project for the 3rd example yet, but this is a Glue Dot covered in microbeads. I'd expect similar results with sticky tapes. They actually seem to stay on pretty well. 

Shaker Card Supplies:

• Stamps: Pile of Pinguins by Whipper Snapper
• Paper: Kraft, Snowfall Ice Blue by Basic Grey
• Ink: White embossing powder
• Accessories: Martha Stewart blue topaz microbeads, rhinestones, clear plastic from packaging
• Tools: EK Success snowflake punch

Bella Card Supplies:

• Stamps: Stamping Bella Pheobe Ketto
• Paper: Very vanilla, Me & My Big Ideas DP, SU Bali Breeze DP, shimmery pink cardstock from stationary store
• Ink: Memento tuxedo black, SU Sahara Sand (for sponging)
• Accessories: Stickles, liquid pearls, Glossy Accents, metal tag (sorry forgot the brand), lace
• Tools: Nestabilities

~Olgy

Secret Santa Swap

Jennie organized a really fun Designer Secret Santa Swap this year to make a chipboard album, a card, an ornament and a tag in time for Christmas. I used a lot of Basic Grey papers on my album, tag and ornament and the card was featured in an earlier post .

Here's the same picture showing the back of the ornament. It's the fist time I've ever made one and I was a bit at a loss so kept it simple and decorated the Basic Grey ornament template with rhinestones on one side and cut out some some Christmas DP and rub ons for the other.

My Secret Santa was Novell and I got an absolutely stunning album and gifts from her! Check them out on her blog.

~Olgy

Christmas Cards

In the past years I came up with Christmas card design and then made the same set for that year. It streamlined the process and I didn't have to think who gets which card. This year, however, I just couldn't make up my mind on what I wanted and continued to make cards until I had about a dozen different ones. I finally gave up on the idea of a single design. I just hope that everyone likes the card they end up with. Here's a sneak peak.

This first one is a cute penguin by Whipper Snapper. The layout was for a clean and simple SCS challenge, so it's pretty basic, but I flocked and added glitter to the little guy for some dimension. Both the tan (ok, I know penguins aren't tan, but he was willing to make the sacrifice for the sake of color coordination) and white parts are covered in fun flock which I had to apply it in two steps. If you want to know more about using flocking see my earlier Fun Flock Tutorial post.

Supplies: (All supplies are Stampin'Up! unless otherwise noted)

• Stamps: Whipper Snapper Ice Cream Penguin
  
• Paper: Very vanilla, My Minds Eye DP
  
• Ink: Momento Black, chocolate chip, close to cocoa, certainly celery, real red, rose royal, pumpkin pie
• Accessories:  RibbonFx, Fun Flock, Stickles

Next is a quick poinsettia card using Basic Grey paper. I just added some chunky glitter for a frosted effect and ribbon with sentiment. Each card is just a little different since it was cut from a 12x12 sheet.

Supplies (All supplies are Stampin'Up! unless otherwise noted) :

• Stamps: Cute and Curly
  
• Paper: Whisper white, Basic Grey Dasher DP collection
  
• Ink: Cranberry crisp
• Accessories: Ribbon, chunky glitter

For these next few cards I was trying to use up my Vintage Violet paper stash, which was one of the first "in colors" offered by Stampin'Up!. The first few are the fun Christmas tree Fluffles images and the last is a more traditional design. It didn't show up on the picture at all, but in person the card looks a lot prettier because there's glitter mixed in with the white embossing powder, so the card sparkles.

Supplies (All supplies are Stampin'Up! unless otherwise noted) :

• Stamps: Fluffles Tree by Stampendeous, Best Yet, Snowflake spot, Cute and Curly
• Paper: Vintage violet, whisper white
  
• Ink: Vintage violet, Versamark, sage shadow
• Accessories: Silver Stickles, Diamonds EP
  
• Tools: Cuttlebug, punches

~Olgy

CAS Winter Design

I have a few more CAS cards for you that I made for the winter design challenge. Both take just 5 minutes and even though the lighting on my photos wasn't great, they look cute in hand. The first one is an engagement card based on the fantastic grid sketch from Susan, who has a very inspiring blog called Simplicity, dedicated to clean and simple cards. I had few ideas for this card, but finally settled on using Prima flowers instead of stamped images. To make the flowers stand out more against grey background, I set them on punched out 1" white circles. In the center of each flower is a small rhinestone. The sentiment is embossed with white diamonds EP. Corners are rounded for a softer look.

Supplies (All supplies are Stampin'Up! unless otherwise noted):

• Stamps: Wonderful words
  
• Paper: Basic grey, whisper white
  
• Ink: Versamark and white diamond EP
• Accessories: Prima flowers, rhinestones
  
• Tools: 1" circle punch

This one is my winter wonderland card. It's a no layers card unless you count a thin strip of wrapping paper on the inside of the card that shows through under the punched border. The snowflakes are glittery rub-ons I had from last year and my new favorite ribbon with shimmering white on one side and shimmering brown on the other.

Supplies:

• Stamps: None
  
• Paper: Light blue Bazzil, wrapping paper from SU!
  
• Accessories: Me & My Big Ideas snowflake glitter rub-ons, ribbonFX
  
• Tools: Martha Stewart border punch

~Olgy

Featured Stamper and Sketch Challenges

Despite going to bed at 3am last night I woke up at 8:30 and couldn't fall asleep. I figured I might as well make use of the time and create a few cards for SCS challenges and get more inspiration for Christmas cards.

Supplies (All supplies are Stampin'Up! unless otherwise noted):

• Stamps: Snowbunnybella by Stamping Bella, The Snowflake Spot
• Paper: Cranberry crisp, Pointsetta by Basic Grey, white
• Ink: Ruby red, creamy caramel, Versamark
• Accessories: Pom-poms
• Tools: Scalloped and snowflake punches

I still had two Snowbunnybella images that I got from my first DSS sister. I've been trying to save them, but since winter is right around the corner, it felt it was an appropriate time to let go and use them. I did run into a little mishap when stitching the card; I accidentally started stitching through the back layer... that's what happens when I don't get enough sleep. At first I was thinking of staring from scratch, but I was able to re-stitch the first portion and put snowflake "tabs" around the inside and the back of the card (matching the front) to hide the holes. The cardstock is retired SU! in color Cranberry Crisp. Since there's no matching marker for this cardstock, I colored the coat with Ruby Red and went over it with creamy caramel, which produced a close match. It's a little hard to see from the photo, but the snowflakes and the fur on Bella's coat are embossed with white sparkling EP. I wasn't sure if glue alone would hold the pom-poms (snowballs), so I stitched them to the border of the card for a stronger hold.

Supplies (All supplies are Stampin'Up! unless otherwise noted) :

• Stamps: Oh So Lovely, Little Shapes
• Paper:Whispre white, vintage violet, acetate
• Ink: Stazon Black
• Accessories: Liquid applique, Hodgepodge Hardware, ribbon
• Tools: Cuttlebug embossing folder

I managed to stay on track with the holiday theme on the first card, but it didn't last long. For the featured stamper challenge I picked these cards from Chrisations.ink! (first and second) as base for the design. I bought the Little Shapes set a long time ago specifically for background effects, but haven't used the in ages until today. I love rediscovering supplies I forgot I had. The card is pretty simple except the flower image is stamped on acetate and held in place with the metal embelishments. The frost on the flowers is done with liquid applique.

Supplies (All supplies are Stampin'Up! unless otherwise noted) :

• Stamps: Spring Solitude, Lots of Thoughts
  
• Paper: Kraft, Basic Grey Lilykate collection, certainly celery, cool carribian
  
• Ink:Close to cocoa, certainly celery
  
• Tools: Punches, sewing machine

The last card is really quick and simple. The liked the earthy/green feel of the original but changed around some elements.
~Olgy

Card Blues: Gift Set and Snowbunnybella

I've grown very dependent on technology over the years. I never had a land-line (just a cell) and I think I go through withdraws if I spend a day without checking email. Well, I had quite a shock this weekend. First, I got locked out of my AIM account because my password was reset and a reminder was sent to an email account from 15 years ago that no longer exists. Ironically, to get any help from AOL you need to log into the account to post a question. Then my cell gave out and I lost all my contacts. I felt so detached from the world... The one good thing that came out of all of this is that I got a new phone - Google's own G1. I'm still a little angry having lost a lot of numbers I'm not sure I'll get back, but the new "toy" is softening the blow. This is the first phone I own with a data plan and now I can get email and browse the web right on my cell! Talk about feeding my technology addiction.

I do take occasional breaks from my PC and since my last post I made a few things I wanted to share. The first is the SnowBunnyBella card for SCS FS98 Challenge last weekend.
The card that inspired me was Christmas Cats by Paula Tracy and I recreated the same sparkling background look with Stickles, but the layout just didn't seem to come together. This is one of those cards when the time it takes to make the card greatly exceeds the outcome. I did, however, have fun with this Bella image, which I got form my DSS sister last year. The “fur” on the coat is flocked. I used flocking for the first time this summer and love it for animal and Bella images. I also want to try it on some alphabet stamps and chipboard. That may be a good tutorial for me to do in the upcoming week - I'll show some flocking basics and then experiment with different materials. Stay tuned.

Supplies (All supplies are Stampin'Up! unless otherwise noted) :

• Stamps: Snowbunnybella by Stamping Bella, Warm Wards
  
• Paper: Bashful blue, chocolate chip, bashful blue DP
  
• Ink: Chocolate chip, bashful blue, Versamark
  
• Accessories: Stickles, embossing powder, Holiday House plastic winter snowflakes by American Crafts, brads, white flocking
  
• Tools: punch, Priceless embossing template, paper piercer
  

The second thing I wanted to share with you was a card gift set I made for my mom. (Mom, if you're reading then I guess you know what you'll be getting in the mail next week. If you want it to be a surprise don't read any further). I saw blue gift boxes on sale at Borders and couldn't pass them up. When I got home and realized the color matched to the “t” to the Baja Breeze paper, I was thrilled and just had to make this set.

As beautiful as elaborate cards can be, most of the time I still love clean and simple designs the most. They're also easier to make for gift sets. For this set I have two designs, 5 of each card. Both use a white base and one color. I used Cuttlebug swiss dot folder to add depth to the paper. The white card is decorated with paper bow (you can use ribbon too), Prima flower and rhinestone. The blue card is stamped and embossed with thick embossing powder. You can also use Crystal Effects, but in this case I wanted some more randomness and droplet effect so i used the powder and let some of it fly off the image when embossing.

For the top of the box I just cut out same size circles for the top and bottom of the "tag", embossed one side in white EP and carefully glued them back to back with the ribbon in between. Let me know if you're interested in a complete tutorial and I can post one next time.

Supplies (All supplies are Stampin'Up! unless otherwise noted) :

• Stamps: Oh So Lovely
  
• Paper: Baja breeze, whisper white, Startburst Translucent DP by Paper Company
  
• Ink: Baja breeze, Versmark
  
• Accessories: Prima flowers, rhinestones, thick clear embossing powder, white embossing power, ribbon
  
• Tools: Cuttlebug, Nestabilities
  

~Olgy

Christmas Fluffles Tree and Card Giveaway

How's your Christmas morning? Did you get new craft goodies? I'd love to hear about them. I have another fun winter card to share with you this morning. It's my entry for SC207 Challenge. I opened a new pack of Baja Breeze and used embossed background paper sent to me by SusieQ4417 from SCS WishRAK.



To thank you for tuning into my new blog, I'll send this RAK to the first person to link my blog from theirs. Email me or leave me a comment with your blog and snail mail address. I'm also going to pick one person at random from everyone who leaves a comment (you don't have to have a blog to leave a comment) on any post on my blog by January 10th. Can't wait to hear from you and happy holidays!

~Olgy

Supplies (All supplies are Stampin'Up! unless otherwise noted) :

• Stamps: Fluffles Tree by Stampendous
  
• Paper: baja breeze, whisper white
  
• Ink: basic black, baja breeze, sage shadow, creamy caramel
  
• Accessories: stickles, button, baja breeze ribbon, silver cord
  
• Tools: Cuttlebug embossing folder, snowflake die, scalloped edge punch
  

Merry Christmas!

It's officially Christmas! Usually I would be opening presents right about now, but this year my husband and I are having a nice and quiet holiday at home. No traveling, no visitors - just us, which leaves me time to do some scrapping and update the blog. If you have a blog you probably remember how anxious you were to post when you first set it up. Well, that's exactly how I feel right now, so get ready for some more posts.

In the spirit of the holidays, what would be better than to post my Christmas card from this year. I've been waiting to use this little guy from Merry & Bright set for almost a year.

It's not very elaborate, but you know that when it comes to making large quantities of the same card some things need to get simplified and streamlined. This version of the card is a 4.25x4.25, but I also made the same one in a traditional 4.25x5.5. The punches made layering easy, but I felt like I was going to get carpal tunnel from squeezing the Stickles bottle for hours at a time. The bling is worth the sacrifice though :)

~Olgy

Supplies (All supplies are Stampin'Up! unless otherwise noted) :

• Stamps: Merry & Bright
  
• Paper: sage shadow, real red and whisper white.
  
• Ink: Sage shadow, real red, basic black
• Accessories: Stickles, ribbon from Hobby Lobby
  
• Tools: 1 3/8 circle punch, 1 1/4 circle punch, scallop circle punch, scalloped edge punch