January 28th

 It's almost time for dinner! I think it is a soup & grilled cheese kind of night! Probably just get this started and have to stop, eat and return. Lets just see how far I get! We are still featuring the postal collage cards. These feature a little variation in the collage die. It is from The Ton Stamps.' Here comes the Sun'. stencil. 

               I was saving the next one for Valentines, but it is so cute for any occasion. It is called 'Hugs & Kisses', another layering stencil.

 

So that is all for tonight! 

Thanks for looking!

 

Mary

                                                 

Monday

 This will be the second 'postal collage' series. We used the 'saved' waffle flower die cut base image. Remember I put two on one page? Again, you can do one at a time. This time I used a series of winter inages.  This is how the two die cut pieces look on the scanner.

Back to the winter images. Please check copyrights.  For the next cards I used pre-colored images from

high resolution watercolor clip art. I went to the Etsy site and there are tons of choices! Have fun. Here are the ones I put together. 

             Love the water buffalo and the moose. I couldn't find them, but there are so many more. The tree came from another set. 

                                              

    Check out how I improved the characters sizes. The bear was small and the snowman was hidden behind the tree. Remember if you do this you SAVE SAVE SAVE. One click can destroy, and you get to start over. Yup I know these times............

                                                               

                                                               Hope you enjoyed & stay tuned for more!!

                                                                           Mary

                                              

Monday Jan. 27

 Good morning! Pretty cold here, so a good day to stay inside and blog, or craft, and maybe even read a book! I usually try to share cards appropriate to the season. So, I try to do halloween in October, Christmas in July or November, December. I've got tons of cards that have gotten lost in the 'big wait' for the right moment. So today we change all that! This is going to be either two posts or a very long one. I got so excited about doing 'digital, photoshop' again. These are images from Esty from Veralane studio. I love the big eyes and just the plain 'goofiness' of these images. 

How I started the process. I scanned two of the waffle flower postal die cut outs. I laid them on the scanner vertically. Then I started adding and resizing the images. It took a couple pages of plain paper to get the sizes where I wanted them. I didn't want them too small or too large. I did not resize the postal collage. Usually when you print, you scale to fit media. Don't do that. You are going to SAVE your printed page to your computer. Then you are ready to print, then you will cut the images with your waffle flower postal die on your die cutting machine. The same die that you scanned. You can do one on the scanner at a time. I just liked having the two on one page. You still have to cut some masks for the images and do some ink blending. Then color in the images. Actually I thought it was fun. The masking and ink blending took the longest. Don't forget to mask off all the borders too. 

I finally decided, this is the first of three. Stay tuned!

Thanks for looking!

 Mary

 

Saturday Jan. 18th

 Good morning! Just scrolling through these camera discs and found this series of cards that were made last summer. I really liked them. Just that I had one that the shaker 'stuff' kept falling out, and it sat around for a long time before I fixed it! These are stickers from scrapbook.com. They do have a bundle and the rub-ons. 

Obviously, not in order!! 

                                      These are rub-ons.

                 Aren't these fun? They were about $5.99 & I made 3 cards and could make more. Worth it!

                                       Thanks for looking!

                                               Mary

Thursday

 Good grief! I am so far behind. Let's get started. The disc that is in my computer has a lot of previously made cards. These were the Dreamweaver stencils used and then finished with ultra thick embossing powder. Yes, I'm surprised I still had any.

                          Another brass stencil, done with pigment ink.       

          I did the one on the left & I got the other as a gift card. Been awhile, but they are still pretty cards.

              Below is a Creative Expression die. Easy             

Outlines (miss this company) birthday stamp.

Pinkfresh Studio beautiful oval frame & a bouquet.

           Made these today. Simple. Studio 1 Blossom dies                                Okay that is my mishy mash-up for the day. Just something different. Getting another box ready for Bring Smiles to Seniors. 

                                       Thanks for looking!

                                             Mary

January 1st. 2025

 WOW! What a year, and what a blessing that we are still living life! Thank the Lord for our health, our family and our home! We were pretty busy with the holidays. We hosted both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Our Christmas celebration was Christmas eve with 11 family members, and lots of yummy food. 

I am celebrating New Years Day making more Christmas cards. It never ends! I do have one to share for today that I made inbetween the holiday cards. This Spellbinders die set. 'Shine'! It is a celebration set, so very appropriate for today!

         All the same hologram paper! Loved it and just had to use it!!

                         Have a great News Years Day and beyond!

                                        Thanks for looking,

                                                Mary

Saturday December 28th

 Wow, time is passing quickly. I have more cards to share today. I took a break from blogging the Advent calendar. I made it to day #20, then Christmas became the priority. I will get back to the calendar. For today I want to share 'Snowcapped Holidays', a die set from Spellbinders. 

Lets take a look at another favorite!

The layered tree and Santa are Tim Holtz from 2023. I just got around to playing with Santa!

The St. Nick is Spellbinders. 

Pretty cute guy! 

There is more but dinner is here!!

Thanks for looking!

 Mary