Today I was delighted to receive a surprise birthday card RAK (Random Act of Kindness) from Ardelle McFarland, a member of my online stamping group, Canadian Stamp Talk.

I’m not entirely sure how this card was made, so I’ll give my best guess.

The pink background is definitely embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder, possibly the Diamond Plate one.

The word “hello” I am almost certain is cut with the Cricut Expression Personal Electronic Cutting Machine.

From now on, it gets a little tricky. I’m not sure how this talented lady created the flower and leaf. Her  workmanship is so good that I can’t tell whether this is a stamped, cut and layered shape or whether its a die cut made with any number of possible dies and die cutting tools.

The white component on the flower is dimensional and soft. I saw this product in a craft store recently, but do not recall the name. I believe it is Fun Flock,  but that’s a guess.

I love this card and receiving it in the mail was a pleasant surprise.  Thanks to the sender. I have posted her name with permission.

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This Holiday craft project is a candy holder made with card stock, acrylic and a ribbon. It couldn’t be simpler, but of course, you could decorate it any way you choose.

The inspiration came from a make and take at Clipper Street Scrapbook Company, a craft store in Langley, BC. It was one of the make and takes at their annual Christmas open house.

In the video demonstration below, I used a Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Scalloped Circles Die Template to cut the shape in the middle. At Clipper Street, we used the Spellbinders S4-220 Nested Pine Trees Die Template. That’s the one shown in the picture above.

One tip: if you’re going to do this using a die cut machine (I used the Sizzix 655268 Big Shot Cutting-and-Embossing Roller-Style Machine
), its a good idea to tape your die in place before cutting. Otherwise, it can slip a bit during the cutting and that destroys the symmetry of the candy holder.

Here is the video demonstration:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YJHQpbQ5ko

Although this little 3-D candy holder is made as a holiday or Christmas craft project, you could adapt it easily to make wedding favors, or to make a holder for Valentines Day, birthday parties, Easter, Halloween or any other holiday or special occasion.

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Sharon Reinhart, a Canadian gal who I know from my email group, Canadian Stamp Talk, has just had her newest craft book published, Iris Folding for Christmas.

It’s not yet available from stores, but one can pre-order it from Amazon.

Sharon says her book has recently been released by Annie’s Attic (DRG Network – edited by Tanya Fox, Cardmaker Magazines editor).
It is presently available for preorder through Amazon and hopefully in the near future it will appear at local paper craft and scrapbook stores.

In  an email message, Sharon reported that the book contains traditional and non traditional designs as well as rubber stamped accents.

She writes: “I live in Calgary and have been designing, demonstrating, teaching and writing for the craft industry since 2002. My first book The Card Gallery was published in 2003 Unfortunately the publisher Grace Publications is no longer in business. A lot of my designing teaching and demo work was done in the US for Fiskars and other manufacturer’s. I’m trying to promote things here in Canada a little better. ”
I’ve seen pictures of Sharon’s work and its excellent. I can hardly wait to get my hands on a copy of this one.

If you don’t know how to do iris folding, here’s a video demonstrating the technique:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFv-KrwDqjo

Iris folding is a technique for creating beautiful embellishments for scrapbooks, mini albums, hand made cards and any other paper craft project that you may be working on.

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These Christmas cards (0r Holiday) cards are easy to make, eco-friendly and economical. They can be quite attractive too, depending of course on your choice of papers and embellishments. They can also be considered “altered art” since essentially I altered an existing object to make them.

I used a box of Christmas cards from the Dollar Store, but recycled cards from last year would work well. Naturally, you can make from scratch if you want to cut card stock and fold it in half.

The papers I used are scraps from my stash, left over gift wrapping paper from last year and scraps of attractive paper that arrived in the mail.

Embellishments are stamped images, ribbon (gift wrap ribbon from last year), stickers, bits of lace and rick rack, buttons, paper flowers cut with a craft punch, hand journaling and pretty much anything else you want to use.

Here are seven cards made from the same design:

Here is a video demonstrating how to make the card. If you’re an experienced paper crafter, I doubt if you will find anything new in it, but if you are new to card making and crafting, perhaps you’ll be interested.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TImIP242n-8

This season,  I plan on saving my Christmas cards that I receive and recycling them next year, as well as any salvageable gift wrap, stickers and ribbons that come into my home over the holiday season.

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Be Inspired is a new, online craft publication from a UK publisher, Trimcraft. It’s 100% free to subscribe. They send you a notice by email when each new edition goes up.

I love the UK and Australian craft magazines. Their projects seem to appeal to me.

If you like them as much as I do, you’ll like Be Inspired. The first edition came out a few days ago. The feature project is a Smirk-inspired Advent Calendar.

Here’s the link: Be Inspired craft magazine.

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This hand made birthday journal was inspired by a project I saw on a crafting community called Life on the Scrap Beach.

The journal is called My Year, and its a gift for a friend’s birthday.

I made the project 100% from my stash, since I’m trying to use up the supplies I already have before I buy yet more. The downside of stash-using  is that not all pages coordinate well. The upside is that in addition to saving me some money and reducing the piles of craft supplies in my home, it also forces me to use more hand made embellishments and to strive for more creativity in design.

Each page in this little book  has a title and contains tags for journaling.  The book has a wire binding, made with the ZUTTER BIND IT ALL SCRAPBOOK & PAPER CRAFT TOOL. The titles and a die cut on the front and back covers are made with the Cricut Expression 24-Inch Personal Electronic Cutting Machine.

I’ve never been a huge fan of the Cricut because for quite some time I could not get it assembled correctly. Now that its working the way it should, I am warming up to it.

Here is my video demo of my hand made birthday journal:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8aLpKrNY1o

I have used a number of techniques that I have demonstrated in other videos.   People new to crafting or people unfamiliar with the tools and techniques  might want to check them out:

1. Video Demo of the Zutter Bind-It-All
2. Video Demo of the Sizzix Big Shot Universal Die Cutting and Embossing Machine
3. Video Demo of the Burnished Velvet Glitter Technique
4. Video Demo of Basic Rubber Stamping, Masking and Coloring
5. Video Demo of Heat Embossing

This hand made birthday journal is in the mail now. I hope it arrives in time for the birthday.

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The burnished velvet glitter technique is a way of  creating beautiful embellishments using glitter and double sided sticky tape. Two local British Columbia women, Haroldine Wingfield (of Be Creative craft store in Pitt Meadows) and Deanna Pannell developed this technique. Vancouver area crafters fell in love with burnished velvet and use it with much enthusiasm. It shows up on greeting cards, scrapbook pages, altered books and probably in any place that paper crafts are done.

Haroldine and Deanna sell their own glitter and tape that work wonderfully well together. However, if their special products aren’t available to you, you can get reasonably good results using other glitters and tapes.

A while ago, I did a video demonstrating the burnished velvet technique using transparent glitter over a picture.

Today’s video demo illustrates how to use this technique to create burnished velvet glitter designs of multiple colors.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmiNbN9hVoQ

Supplies:

• Ultrafine glitter in two or more colors. For best results, use ultrafine, opaque glitter.

• Double sided sticky tape in various widths. (OR cut desired widths from a wider sheet).

• Resist paper. (The “slippery” paper that stickers and tape is adhered to. Save the resist paper from your packages of stickers or sticky tape.)

• A brush for removing stray glitter

• Craft punches or die cuts

For additional tips for creating burnished velvet designs, please refer to I’m Impressed Paper Arts. This Vancouver craft store has a tip sheet linked to the front page of their web site.

The designs you can make with this burnished velvet glitter technique are truly beautiful. Be as creative as you wish. You are limited only by your imagination.

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I made a posting a couple of days ago about the Halloween House project that I made.

Today I took a notion to make a little video of the house. It’s a good way to show the four sides in a way that a still image cannot.

Here’s the spooky little video now:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rAlzWGTouw

I have a video demonstration showing how I made the Halloween house. It was for St. Patrick’s Day, and I also made one for Easter.

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This Halloween House is a cute Halloween craft project, at least in my opinion. I made it using the same pattern that I demoed in an earlier video, St. Patrick’s Day House Craft Project

I cut the pattern pieces out of a light cardboard box and covered with the pieces of Halloween scrapbook paper left over from the Halloween cards that I made a few days ago.

I embossed the roof and the pathway with a Cuttlebug folder (Elegant Swirls) used with  the Sizzix Big Shot Cutting-and-Embossing Roller-Style Machine.

Many of the embellishments are store bought Halloween stickers, but I made the larger items myself.

The “ghost” in the doorway is fashioned from a flexible, lacy paper with “eyes” glued in the appropriate location.

As for the tombstone in front, reading  RIP, I cut that from card stock and wrote the letters with a glaze pen.  After I took the picture, I removed the RIP tombstone and put it at the bag, along with a second stone reading “Izzy Dedyet.”  I decided the tombstone in front gave a cluttered look to the project.

The jack o’ lantern pumpkin is done with paper piercing, drawn freehand. I used an orange glaze pen to mark the pumpkin’s veins and draw the facial features. I applied 3-D dimensional glue (yellow) to the eyes, nose and mouth.

The Halloween House was an economical project. Other than the stickers, I made it entirely from items in my stash.

I plan on donating this Halloween craft project to the community center where I take my Tai Chi classes. They have a lot of children passing through and I expect the kids will like it.

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This birthday card uses yellow card stock and two patterns of scrapbook paper.

I dry embossed the yellow polka dot background with the Birthday Cuttlebug Embossing Folder

The three circles are cut with the Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Scalloped Circles Die Template. I colored the outer scalloped circle with pink chalk ink along the edges. In the inner scallop, I fit a purchased pink paper flower with  a pink and white dotted sticker for the center.

Lastly, I added a few pink rhinestones for trim.

I did the embossing and the die cutting with my Sizzix Big Shot Cutting-and-Embossing Roller-Style Machine
. If you haven’t used this wonderful tool, please check out my video tutorial of the Big Shot.

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