Inkspiration for Stamping and Scrapbooking

Tree Adornments

While I really admire the lovely decorator trees with all the colour co-ordinated ornaments and ribbons that go on display in magazines and stores every year, my tree never looks like that. Instead, it is decorated with ornaments collected and given to us over the years. Almost nothing on it is plastic, however. That has been my one stipulation. So lots of glass, ceramic and hand-crafted ornaments adorn our tree. Here are a few of the hand-made ornaments given to me by my papercrafting friends.

 I made this one using a clear ornament (easily found at Michaels). I stamped on piece of transparency cut in a circle about the same diameter as the glass ball, using StazOn ink. The image was then coloured with permanent markers. Roll the acetate up to get it into the ball and then use tweezers to "tweak" the positioning. Add some artificial snow and replace the cap.

This one's a little painful to make - it requires shoving a lot of pins through folded paper into the styrofoam ball base, but the effect is well worth it! I love this little pinecone! Next time I'll use a thimble.

If you want to make one, the directions are here.

This lovely ornament started out as a CD. Paper was layered on it and a stamped image was coloured in. Glitter and liquid applique for the snow add to the wintery look. The hole was punched and oversized eyelet set with a cropodile.

The tutorial to make this spectacular star/poinsettia/snowflake (kind of depends on the colours used) can be found here

Here's how that same item looks mounted on a card. Isn't it beautiful?  

Gift for the Teacher

Oh so frustrating - I had this post done and went to save it and it disappeared, so here we go again!

Last minute Annie here spent the evening making this stationary ensemble as a thank you gift for Sarah's teacher.

This is a box with a pull-out folio, and the genius behind the design is Andrea Walford. She's brilliant when it comes to boxes and packages!

Without a template, I thought I'd give it a go.

I started with Elegant Eggplant cardstock, because Sarah said Miss Jackson loves purple. Do you realize we don't have any designer paper with purple in it? Well, we have one, but I don't own it. Not even in my stash of retired paper. So I went with the paper from Crew Cut Girls because it has a bit of gray in it that I thought would work with the Eggplant, and then the pinks and greens would brighten it up.

The set used is new - like out of the yet to be released new catalogue - new! It's called Fresh Cuts. All colouring was done with a blender pen and the Elegant Eggplant, Regal Rose, Pretty in Pink and Wild Wasabi inks.

When you tug on the ribbon handle at the right, this slides out of the box...

... well it's this when you flip it open once.

I thought the greeting was appropriate for a teacher:

May happiness touch your life today as you have so often touched the lives of others.

That sentiment comes from a set in the Occasions mini called For Father. See, it's not just for fathers. :-)

When you flip these pieces out, you get...

... this.

Each pocket holds 2 thank you cards and envelopes.

Unfortunately I don't have photos of the cards - they got lost in uploading. The joys of technology - it's only as good as the operator!

In addition to this boxed set, Sarah made a cardstock basket onto which she wrote all kinds of sentiments and memories of grade 3. She used some eggplant grosgrain to tie in a bag of Steeped Cherry Rose Sencha. We also added some Geronimo Stilton and Magic Treehouse books. I added my Tart & Tangy card using the chalkboard technique - you can see it here. So she's receiving something for herself and something for her classroom - I hope she likes it!

Scrapped Wall Art

Look at what I made!

This was a class at Scrapfest in nearby Kitchener, and I finished it up this week by finally putting my photo in it.

This is an artist's canvas frame that's been painted and inked.

The paper is new 12 x 12 printed watercolour paper(non SU!, but we can hope something like this is in the works...). I watercoloured the pre-printed images using my Aquapainter. You could using SU!'s watercolour crayons, pencil crayons or markers to do the watercolouring, but since the instructor - the fabulous  (and Canadian!) Trisha Ladouceur had watercolour paints by Tsuskinko, I think, there and I hadn't tried them before, I used those. We watercoloured the frame and cut the centre out. On a second different watercolour paper, we watercoloured the flower and word and cut those out. They are placed on the square frame with lots of Stampin' Dimensionals. Lots and lots of primas adorn this frame  - Trisha is a PrimaDonna (code for on the Prima design team) afterall! Some Crystal Effects offers some clear sparkle too.

My wedding was a late August date and our colour was a grape-y plum. But I wanted my piece of art to go in my stampin' area which is in these yellow, orange, green-y shades (striped curtains set the tone), so I changed the photo to sepia to better suit the colour scheme. I love this piece and I love have a photo of us in my workspace!

I've got more not quite done projects, so I'll be back soon, I hope, with more to show you (but I also have lots of writing to do for my day job, so stampin' time is a rare commodity these days)  ... Stay tuned!

Happy stampin' and blessings - Ann

Let me know what you think - I love hearing from you!

Rub On fun

Just having more fun decorating items with the rub-ons.

These ones are from the Sale-A-Bration brochure, which means they are free with a $70 order. There are 4 sheets in this package, not 2 as in the catalogue. The sheets vary in colour, Chocolate, Olive, White and Black.

I used the Chocolate ones on this candle set that has been sitting around for awhile. The tags are also incorporating rub-ons. The funky ribbon actually came with the candle jar but it matches the chocolate perfectly.

Remember this is the last week of Sale-A-Bration, so if you haven't taken advantage of this offer yet, you still have time. If you don't have a demonstrator of your own, and you are in Canada, I would be happy to help you out.

Happy stampin' and blessings! - Ann

Silk Scarves in Pretty Boxes

Aren't these beautiful???

These are gifts I made for family and friends:

These two were both tea-stained before I stamped. I used the Garden Whimsy and Priceless sets for the scarf on the left. The scarf on the right uses LOTS of stamps from these sets - Enjoy Life, Priceless, Big Pieces, Little Pieces...

These two scarves are stamped on the white silk:

The scarf on the left uses Blossoms Abound. The scarf on the right (inspired by on eI saw on SCS by Diane) uses LOTS of stamps and colours from these sets: Wild Rose, Blossoms Abound, Heartfelt Thanks.

Well I could not just fold these up and put them in a re-usable Christmas bag, like we usually do for gifts - they'd slide around and become a crumpled mess. So I visited Mirkwood Designs and found a template. In retrospect, I wish I had chosen a slightly bigger box yet, or tried to size up this design, but aren't these so cute?

This design is two parts, the lid and the bottom. I prettied up the boxes with ribbon and the stick pins and beads from the Pretties kit and enjoyed using up more of my stash of Dashing patterned paper.

Here's a picture of all of the boxes together - each is a little different:

I'll be back on January 1st or 2nd with some scrapbook pages I gave as gifts. Then on to the new catalogue!

Happy stampin', Happy New Year, and BLESSINGS! - Ann

 

Our last advent package

Cathy Soeher's four sided triangle box is cute and so adaptable for any occasion. She used wheels to add colour quickly.

A cute tag hangs from the hemp that ties that box closed.

There is probably a template out there for these. If I come across it, I'll let you know!

Happy stampin' and Blessings! - Ann

December 23rd - Almost there!

Now this one looks like a lot of work!

This is a Party Cracker, hand-made!

Pat Duggan printed a pattern directly onto the patterned paper. Some very careful cutting was undertaken to make these.

There is even a real "cracker" piece - the part that goes snap when you open a typical party cracker in here!

I see these getting incorporated into a Christmas class next year... Remind me!

Happy stampin' and Blessings, Ann

December 22 in the Advent Countdown

Night of Navy cardstock covers this little brown notions bag.

It looks as though Debbie b punched out the scallops, but she actually accented each loop with a marker.

Tone on tone stamping give this packet a very subtle look.

Happy Stampin' and Blessings, Ann

Advent Countdown - only 4 days to go!

Laurie Markham's is the most unique design I've seen yet for hot chocolate!

She machine stitched this one, so once it's open, there will be no container to keep for inkspiration - good thing I've got a picture of it! The Real Red poofy part is a folded flap with a little zippy bag of mini marshmallows inside. How cute is that snowman from It's Snow Time, layered onto the scallop punch. It's SNow Time, is a big favourite, and it's on the retirement list, so if you love snowmen, you may want to check it out in the catalogue and give me a call.

Happy stampin' and blessings, Ann

Yikes, I fell behind!

It's been a busy week with Christmas plans, team meeting, and a honker of a sinus infection on top of it. The blogging slipped there, right in the midst of our Christmas advent package countdown -so sorry!

Well there's lots to look at today, isn't there? So let's get started!

This pretty packet by Lisa MacTaggart is so clever. The piece that ribbon is adhered to slides out of the cover. It's kept in by a clever use of the slot punch to keep it from sliding right on out the other side.

She used Peaceful Wishes, a Christmas favourite of mine, and combined River Rock, Always Artichoke and Blush Blossom. Yes Blush Blossom. She pulled that colour from the contents of the zippy bag thats stapled to the Blush piece. Can you tell what's inside?

It's course salt - at first glance I thought it was bath salts, but on reading the info that is attached to the bag, I think it's edible. This is pink salt. Here's what it says:

The gift of salt is an ancient custom to wish someone prosperity.

This is pink salt that was harvested at 3000 meters above sea level in the heart of the Andes Mountains. The unique colour comes form the minerals and trace elements found in the pure ancient sea salt deposits.

After the last year or two we've had, we could use a little prosperity - thanks, Lisa for your good wishes!

Isn't this just a classic look? The white notions bag is neatly folded down once, and then she attached this tidy front that makes the bag look gift-wrapped. Snowflake Joy is the featured stamp set and Real Red and Always Artichoke are the featured colours.   

This pretty matchbook style packet is quite tiny compared to the others you've seen.

It contained a cute set of beaded earrings. So not only can Carole Moore stamp, but she makes jewellry, or knows someone who does! Very pretty use of the holiday patterned paper.

I'll be back tomorrow with another great packaging idea for you!

Happy stampin' and blessings! - Ann