Lens

Plaid Christmas cards

Inspired by Merry Monday Christmas Challenge #187, I made two cards with plaid backgrounds. I don't use plaid often, so it was nice to use this Pink Paislee paper from my stash. The next layer is a shimmery cream cardstock on which I stamped and gold-embossed the focal point image and sentiment (both Hero Arts stamps.) Clean and simple all the way! [Well, apparently the link up closed, so I can't participate on their blog this week, but I'm still glad I made the cards. :-) ]

December Daily 2015

This year I decided to make a 4 x 4 album. I also decided not to try to make it day by day during December -- the very thought stressed me out (although I've done it that way other years.) But I gathered supplies and took pictures, obviously. On Monday this week I edited pictures like a fiend, ordered the prints locally, and picked them up in the evening. Tuesday I spent a good chunk of the day putting it all together, writing the journaling, embellishing, etc. 

Here are a few pictures that show what it looks like: 

WOYWW 343: The Last One of 2015

Dear WOYWW friends and any other visitors who venture here,

I hope 2015 has been a happy fruitful year for you and that 2016 brings peace and joy and good health.

[WOYWW = What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday, a fun once-weekly blog hop]

Here's my desk yesterday afternoon before I began putting together my December Daily album (which I only do through 12/25):

And here is the completed album, approximately nine hours later:

It's one of those little 4x4 albums and I did my journaling on tags (hence all the twine). It might be a tad overstuffed? :-)

And finally, today, the messy aftermath:

WOYWW 341: A week before Christmas and all through the house . . .

Here is a picture of my table taken this morning before I left for work. I'm making some cards and have painted some inexpensive wooden ornaments from the craft store that I'm going to add to a few packages. I ordered photo cards for the majority of our list, but always end up making ten or so. This way I can have the fun of making some without the grind of making them all. Next year I should be super organized and make four dozen cards in the summer or something -- I'm sure there are people who do -- and then have them all ready when the holidays roll around. 

Here is a large close-up of the vintage sheet music I've stamped & embossed in gold. This Tim Holtz set is perfect for music teacher Christmas cards! 

And here is a cute little elf tag. He is so adorable that I think he needs to go on a package for my Mom. 

Happy WOYWW (What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday) to all, and to all a good night! 

~ Laura 

December Daily

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, I'm going to do December Daily this year! But I've decided that I will wait to work on it when I am off of work at the end of the month. Between shopping, wrapping, Christmas cards and just the daily life things that must be done, I decided not to add DD to that mix. But I have my little 4 x 4 album and page protectors, plus some papers cut down to size and embellishments and will be trying to write down ideas for the stories. I may or may not have ordered some more embellishments from Scrapbook.com. 

If anyone visits, are you doing DD? What are your plans?

~ Laura 

WOYWW 290: The Christmas Eve edition

Like many others, I'm sure, the tables where I've been creating have not been crafty tables. I've been wrapping and baking and hope to have a little time to work on December Daily either this evening or tomorrow afternoon. My actual craft table probably looks almost exactly the way it was the last time I linked up with WOYWW.

Happy WOYWW, everybody!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

December Daily: Days 1 - 4

I am going very simple with my December Daily this year. While I had the 6x6 papers in the page protectors in the album prior to December, that's all I had done until last night when I finally began to stick in pictures and write some journaling.

I'm using Pink Paislee Noel paper from last year -- some of the papers have glitter accents, which I adore for Christmas scrapbooking. I'm adding very simple gold, silver, or white embellishments & stamping.

Here is the front page of the album:

Here is Day 1:

On this page spread I've used gold glitter paper and stamping. The journaling card is from Project Life and I've stamped the date. Another year I want to buy enough stickers or Thickers to be able to number the pages more attractively.

This spread has small bits of silver foil paper and silver stamping. I've also got a stars & snowflakes thing going on. The textured side of the journaling card is beginning to make me nuts. And I'm trying not to be bothered by using a bright white card on cream-based paper. I'm just going with it.

Day 3:

I adore that tiny little bow stamp -- so cute!

Day 4:

Gold washi tape on the left, gold stamping on the right. Three guesses as to whether I've kept up with reading the Advent devotional book? (Hint: I'll be trying to catch up this week.)

Thanks for looking!

~ Laura

 

About to begin 6th December Daily!

I'm going to do December Daily again this year and I realized that it will be my sixth year of doing it, in one shape or another. The first two years -- 2009 and 2010 -- I did it as a 12x12 project. Clearly I was off my rocker. 2009 was traditional paper layouts and 2010 I did all digital pages (nothing fancy, just something new to try.) In 2011, it was still 12x12, but I used divided page protectors, 12x12 that held 4x6s. In 2012 I did a 6x6 mini album, which I really love and last year I chose to add extra 12x12 pages and divided page protectors to my Project Life album. It's interesting to see where my tastes have changed with regard to product and which things I regularly go to, such as Ali Edwards journaling cards and Cosmo Cricket phrase stickers.

Here are a few pictures, in chronological order:

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

WOYWW 235 & 12 Tags of 2013: December Tag

Good morning to the U.S visitors, good afternoon to the U.K. crowd, good evening to everyone Down Under! It's bright outside and a bit dim in my den, since I forgot to put on a light. (A metaphor for how awake I am this morning? Perhaps!) I'm showing you my work table so I can join in with WOYWW, an every-Wednesday blog hop around the world, beginning (if you click that link) with Mrs. Dunnit's virtual abode. 

Here is the secondary work table where I played with tags last night.

Here's what I made: a theme and variations on Tim Holtz's December tag. Like many folks, I didn't have the exact materials to make the frosted poinsettias, so I improvised with clear packaging, sanding block, and the tattered florals die instead for the tag on the far left. Glimmery cardstock and felt for the middle tag, and dictionary paper for the one on the right. 

This shot shows the coloring better -- the embossing is silver. 

Hope everyone is having a happy, healthy Wednesday with some time to "play" at some point in the day. 

~ Laura 

WOYWW 231 | Christmas Cards, baby!

Happy WOYWW! I see that Julia has posted tomorrow's post, so I'll go ahead and publish & link up tonight (forgive the "cheating!) What's on my very boring workdesk is the stuff I need to clean up after mass producing a bunch of Christmas cards: gold embossing powder, stamps, and the Versamark ink pad. I decided I wanted to make our cards this year. We tend to send/give about 40, give or take. I knew I wanted to go simple. 

This is one design -- Hero Arts nativity clear stamps on a cream card base and then sprayed with gold mist. These now just need the sentiment stamped on the inside and a night spent under a heavy reference book to flatten them out a bit. :)

Here's a close-up.

This is the other design -- using a rubber stamp from October Afternoon that I just had to have when I saw it online. These took longer because there was so much more surface area to heat, but I like how they came out. These aren't misted -- I didn't think they needed it.

So you can see how simple I went! 

Hope you are having a happy, healthy, crafty week!

~ Laura