2018 Secret Santa Stamps

Secret Santa Stamp by christmaspickle

My Secret Santa Stamp arrived earlier this week.  It was carved by christmaspickle.  I thought it was cool that I was put with another Christmas person.

They sent this "InSight MARS" stamp.  A card included says, "This carve is in honor of NASA's recent Mars exploration mission: Insight.  This is a modification of the mission logo."

My Secret Santa Stamp to Celcilia57

I sent my stamp on to Cecilia57.  In the interview part of her profile page on Atlas Quest, she says that when she grew up she wanted to be a Marine Biologist and her favorite animal is a sea otter.  I was very nervous about carving the bubbles on the otter stamp but they turned out pretty well.

This is my 7th year to participate in the Secret Santa stamp swap.  Last year I planted my stamp on New Years Day and as long as the weather is decent, I plan to do that again this time.  Merry Christmas :)

Dandelion LTCs

Bleeding Tissue Paper on Watercolor Paper

 This is my card for AdventurousAcorn's "Silly Holidays 2019" LTC swap.  I joined and went to see if there were an silly holidays on my birthday.  My birthday is April 5th and according to www.holidayinsights.com that day is "Go for Broke Day", "National Dandelion Day", and "National Walk to Work Day" (first Friday in April).

As you can see, I picked National Dandelion Day.  I thought it would be fun to plant this as a traditional box on my birthday. 

This is the second time that I have used this background technique but you won't see the first blog post until the end of the year.  I did it a little different this go round.  I cut the cards to size, cut bleeding tissue paper in one inch squares, "paint" water on the card, lay the bleeding tissue paper down, and put some more water on top. 

Silly Holidays 2019: National Dandelion Day

 Let the cards dry for 15-20 minutes, peel the tissue paper away, and let the cards dry completely.  I punched the corners, stamp my stamp, mounted to yellow textured scrapbook paper, and added some text. 

I'm happy with how the cards turned out.  I mention in my future blog post about this background that you can not use plain tissue paper.  I tried it and it just barley left some color on the paper.  I really like this technique; it is fun and easy to do. 

Christmas Ornaments 2018 Part 2

I recently got my Letterboxing Christmas Ornaments and I love them.  People are so creative! 

One person burned all the participants signature stamp on a wood slice.  At first I thought it was just a coincidence that the ornament had the same snowman as my sig stamp.  But in the clue for the ornament they put a pic of all the ones they made. 

Parody LTC

Parody: (Weight's Goin) Up Down, Up Down

This is my card for ebda's "Parody" tracker, it is called, "(Weight's Goin) Up Down, Up Down."

I like the Morgan Wallen/Florida Georgia Line song, Up Down.  A few months ago, I heard a radio DJ talking about a parody of the song.  As soon as I got home I looked for it on YouTube.  The song is (Weight's Goin) Up Down, Up Down by Cledus T Judd and I loved it.  I can't tell you how many times I have watched the video.

I carved the stamps, stamped them, colored them with colored pencils, cut them out, glued down the tea, and attached the chicken and donuts with foam squares.  My card looked better in my head.  I should have used a different color on the chicken but I was too lazy to stamp new ones.  I also should have made a border for the cards.  Oh well.

Christmas Ornaments 2018

"Cozy Flannel Wreath" 

I'm participating in Moose on the Loose's 9th Annual Christmas Ornament swap.  This is my 3rd year do it.  The past two years the main focus of my ornament was the stamp but not this year.  I made these wreathes with plastic shower curtain hooks, flannel fabric, and ribbon.  They were quick and easy :)

National Take a Hike Day

Happy National Take a Hike Day!  I planted a box to celebrate last month when we camped at Spring Mill State Park, but just listed it today.  I have 2 boxes at the park and was able to look for 3 more while we were there.

I carved my stamp and liked it so much I had to make a set of cards.  These are about the same as the last time I used Distress Oxides but I did change it up a little bit.

This time around I rubbed the oxides on my craft mat, sprayed them with water,  I rubbed my card thru one color, dried it, rubbed thru another color, dried the card, etc.  It definitely took longer this way but I was able to get white spots on the card that I would not have gotten had I rubbed the card thru all the colors at once. 

I stamped my stamp and embossed it with brown embossing powder, punched the corners, and glued it to brown scrapbook paper.  Because these were just for fun, I only made ten cards.  I am very happy with how they turned out :)

Autumn LTC Swap

I have joined aMAZEing adventure frog's "Autumn Craft & Swap".  My card is called, "Hello Fall".  I like these swaps because they have no theme.  But I usually make something to go with the season of the swap.

It took me a while to make these cards.  I carved both the stamps right away.  Initially I was going to stamp the leaf on brown paper, cut it out, and glue it to fall scrapbook paper.  I didn't like the look of that.  I decided to do a resist technique with my Distress Inks.

I stamped the leaf stamp on white paper and embossed it with white embossing powder.  Then I rubbed the ink on my craft mat and then rubbed the ink on the cards using small pieces of felt.  My husband saw me working on these cards and he asked if he could make one.  I showed him what I do and left the room.  The card in bottom middle, is the one he made.  He was quite proud of himself.

For some reason, I really wanted to work some burlap into this card.  I bought a roll of burlap at Michael's and it had a slick backing on it.  Maybe to keep it from fraying when used on craft projects?  I had issues getting the burlap to stay attached to the card.  I hope it stays :)