Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Tops of 2013 Part Two

Happy New Year Friends! Here is round two of my favourite creations of 2013 - before we start a brand new year of creativity in 2014!  Thanks for stopping by to share them with me!

JULY





I just cannot pass up a yummy piece of chocolate Birthday cake


A fun CardMaker Hop with Maggie Holmes products from Crate Paper.  



AUGUST


Autumn Blessings abound in this pretty little scene from Marcella Hawley at Flourishes.  


Framed artwork I created for my sister-in-law’s apple themed kitchen. 


Some masculine pointillism with this gorgeous set Mountain View



SEPTEMBER


A special tag I was commissioned to create for a brand new baby boy!







OCTOBER


Cozy with The Cat’s Pajamas


My World Card Making Day creation about My Corner of the World


Some pretty embossed Winter Berries



NOVEMBER


My own version of a Snow Buddies Snow Globe


Lots of dimenion in this So Distressed creation


In Flanders Field, in honour of Remembrance Day in Canada



DECEMBER


Soaring with There She Goes


Be Strong, I love the sentiments in this gorgeous set combined with lots of inky watercoloring


And this  most recent card is one of my favourites of the year Country Birthday…I spent a lot of time on that Prismacolouring and really loved how it turned out.  For me, that’s what it’s all about, creating something that expresses me and is something I’m proud of, and being able to give a little piece of myself to someone special.  

Wishing each of you friends the most hopeful New Year yet.  May it be a year of growth, satisfaction and purpose! 

Monday, December 30, 2013

Tops of 2013

Here’s the first installment of my favourite designs I created in 2013.  Enjoy!

JANUARY


a 10 Minute Design for Flourishes.  


I adore these Inside and Out You sets from Flourishes.  This sunny one makes me smile.  


Playing with Melanie’s SD Pasque Flower from Gina K 

FEBRUARY



Tweet shows how much I love to colour with Prismacolor pencils on Kraft cardstock.



I loved using embossing over top of all this pretty Copic colouring.  


MARCH


Hello Honey! showcases all that’s great about hexagons and honey.  



Garden Gate is a stunning set from Flourishes with these gorgeous roses.



The Lawn Fawn Blog Hop was a fun one to play in! 



APRIL


Photography Inspires Me - inspired by a picture I took in Cancun. 


OH Snap! is one of Torico’s Birdie Brown images.


A Zoo-Per Day was fun to play with the curvy lines.  

MAY


Party Cat with another of Torico’s Birdie Brown images.  


Playing with rich colours, hexagons and over embossing in this vintage phone design.  


A loose watercolouring style makes this Old Tea Rose design special.  


JUNE


I wanted to re-create the feeling of my blog design with stamps.   


Light it Up with this vintage camping lantern.  


And one of my favourite fruits to round of the first half of 2013.  

Thanks so much for stopping by!  

Christmas Candy Winner!

Here’s who Random.org picked to win the new Flourishes Lots of Thoughts Set in my Christmas Blog Candy:

#24 who was:

Cindi said...
Love your cards. Favorite memory is the entire family helping my MOM cook Christmas Day Dinner. Everyone had assigned jobs. This year I made new memories by staying up late talking with my two nieces. Thank you for all that you share throughout the year.
December 26, 2013 at 6:33 AM
Cindi contact me with your snail mail address in the next 48 hours and I’ll get this great set out to you!
Thanks everyone for sharing such great memories with me of your Christmas' past or present!  It was delightful to read!  

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Country Birthday


Today is my Dad’s birthday.  I always thought he would have loved to have stayed a farmer.  When he was 18 he left the family farm to work in a city two provinces away.  At the time that was the way of progress and bettering yourself, but I know in his heart there is still a man that loved the farm and that way of life.  So this country card is for him.  I used Flourishes Country Time Christmas and stamped it with Memento Tuxedo Black onto Flourishes Classic Kraft cardstock.  Then I pulled out my Prismacolor Pencils and coloured away.  I loved creating a night sky in the background, and then matched the depth of the night sky to Flourishes Color Made Easy - True Blue card stock.  Over top of the colouring I stamped the stars from the set in White Craft ink.  I love making curvy edges with my Spellbinders A2 Curved Borderabilities.  


The sentiment is from Flourishes  - Inside and Out Just Because set.  I finished off the design with some blue seam binding, burnt rust seam binding and simple twill that I inked with some Ranger Distress inks to give it more of match to the design.  Just a simple brad finishes it off in a masculine way.  

Don’t forget - there’s one last day to enter for my Blog Candy HERE.  I’ll be announcing a winner later on the 30th.  :)  

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Photography 52 - 52

It was a very Merry Christmas in our household.   My husband and I made a concerted effort to dial down the gift-giving, to stay in a small budget and concentrate more on the time we spent together with our family.  So many times I get this hangover feeling after Christmas, when I am reminded once again, it’s really not about the “stuff” we get; it’s about recognizing and being grateful for the ultimate gift of Jesus.  I think we had a more wonderful time being grateful for what we already have, not what we think we need.


This is my family on Christmas Eve.  After Church we head over to my parent’s house and have our family gathering, open our presents (yep we’re a Christmas Eve family), and then have a wonderful appetizer and dessert meal later that my mom always prepares.  Isn’t my little niece’s dress adorable?  And my Dad never knows when the picture is coming so he forgets to smile :)  


One gift you can almost always find on the list for the boys is Lego, so Christmas morning is spent building.  


Then on Christmas Day my parents come to our house and we cook a big dinner for them.  My older two kids above were SO THRILLED to have to wash all the extra dishes.  Can you tell?   :)  


The little guy’s sweet face.  

My daughter and I both got a few art supplies for Christmas, so we sat down one day and sharpened Prismacolor Pencils together.  I thought all the shavings together looked so pretty in their various colours, and the bokeh of the Christmas Tree is a lovely backdrop.  

Here’s to more beauty and colour in the year ahead!  

Thursday, December 26, 2013

All is Calm. All is Bright

Since it’s Friday and I love to play with my Flourishes goodies and show them off to you on Fridays, I thought I’d continue that tradition today - even though we Flourishes girls have the day off.  I have a pretty and peaceful card to show you that I created for one of our Flourishes Catalogues earlier this year.  It’s with one of my favourite Christmas sets from Flourishes, Snow Wonderful.


Isn’t this scene just beautiful?  I love colouring this design to have the feeling of a winter night sky.  I stamped the image on Flourishes Classic White cardstock with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and then cut it with the coordinating die Flourishes Classic Keyhole die.  Colouring is done with Copics and I paired it with Color Made Easy Cool Neutrals and Color Made Easy True Blue cardstock.  I love using this Spellbinders die to create the curved design on the edges too.  I think it pairs well with the curves of the die.  


I embossed the sentiment onto vellum.  My favourite way to use this part of the die set, because it still shows off the colouring underneath.  A little slate grey trim, and silver metallic string accents the edges.  

We’ve had a great couple of days as a family enjoying some calm and brightness to the Christmas season.  I am so blessed by the celebration of the birth of my Saviour and the family God has given me.  Blessings to each of you friends!  Talk again soon!  

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Lemons and Sales!

Happy Christmas Season everyone!  I hope this finds you well!  In Canada the day after Christmas is called Boxing Day and it’s the “biggest shopping day of the year”.  So, if you’re willing to fight crowds and look for great deals, it’s a day to be shopping.  I’m not a huge shopper, so outside of going to my local scrapbook store to maybe spend a little of my Christmas Gift Certificate, you won’t see me out.  I’m happier to enjoy hanging out with my family :)    

At our office Christmas party each year we always do a white elephant gift exchange.  I hate the thought of regifting something or giving a gag gift (I don’t know - it’s just not me), so I always make something.  This time I made a set of two cards with matching tags ane envelopes for the gift.  


I think this set Life Love and Lemons is one of my all time favourite sets from Flourishes.  I love the freshness to it and all of the elements in the set that you can combine.  I began by stamping on Flourishes Classic White card stock with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, colouring up with Copics in two collections, Evergreen and Daffodil.  


Here’s a close-up of the colouring and the pretty Flourishes Perfectly Pierced Classic Window Die, I use this shape a lot because I love it so much!  Color Made Easy - Evergreen and Sunflower cardstock and Echo Park Style Essentials Designer Paper.  

Here’s the tags below.  I stamped a number of the other elements from the set in the background, then cut out the lemon tree carefully and popped it up over the pretty paper and ribbon strips.  





Here’s the box I placed all the pieces in.  Just a simple A2 box to hold it all together.  

Don’t forget my Blog Candy HERE.  

And now so you don’t have to get out of your cozy jammies….a SALE NOTE from Flourishes!

We hope you had a blessed holiday – however you celebrate! It was wonderful time to rest, relax and reflect on the beauty of the season surrounded by friends and family! We know some of you probably have some Christmas money that you’d love to spend and guess what? Flourishes needs to reduce what is on their shelves before our year-end inventory count. So, a sale is in order!

It’s Time For Their…..

AfterChristmasSale-copy copy 

Simply use the code MERRY13 in the coupon code box and you'll get 25% off your entire order -- even the Sale Page -- which already offers a discount on items listed there! All codes are case sensitive, so please use all caps, just like shown above. You have to act fast, this sale runs through December 30th. Another note to shoppers, Flourishes will be closing down the store for a few hours on the 31st in order to do inventory. For about a 4 hour period, folks will not be able to take or process orders. They promise they will try to be as quick as possible! Enjoy the rest of your holiday season -- 2014 will be here before you know it!