Recycle and reuse!

I found a scrapping website, Artz de Scrap which focuses on altering items. Since I recently overdosed on making an abundance of Christmas cards and my craft room is now filled with an avalanche of scraps I am happy to jump into using a few of the leftovers for an altered matchbox challenge. Although I felt a little past the Christmas theme an idea to make a container for storing some recycled scraps for next season pulled my thoughts together. While pondering the matchbox I recalled wanting to save some of the snowflakes from the holiday Coke cans. Yes, a little can cutting and punching of metal and I have a stash of embellishments as well as some larger snowflakes like the one behind the bird.

Merry Christmas

One of my favorite things about the holidays is making merry for
others. Even as a child I can remember staying up into the wee hours to have enough time to finish a special surprise. Some things don't change much. I still do not get enough sleep when I am excited about making a special project to surprise my friends.

One of this year's highlights was sharing in a couple handmade ornaments swaps. Oh my, what fun I had! Most of the ornaments are fairly small since I am swapping internationally. I decide to place them on some frosted branches on a shelf which I can see when using my computer. Here's a few close-ups but click on the pictures to get an enlarged view.

Every one is a beauty! I received a knitted beaded tree from Sarah in Australia. Dymphie from the Netherlands made with copper embossed covered book and shares lots of photos of her process on her blog. Saddly she has waited over a month and not all her ornaments have just arrive . Other ornaments include a felted tree with beads, Daria made a mini canvas covered with embossed copper and inset picture, a paper block ornament, Christmas art under glass with a soldered frame, a memory framed ornament and Annie created the 3-D shadow box at the bottom.

Here are also a few of the cards I didn't have time to share while I was making merry.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is Coming

Yes, Viriginia, Christmas is coming. How do I know, you ask. Well it is another year of 12 Days of Christmas Tags from Tim Holtz. This is a special gift that comes to papercrafters each December. Tim makes tags with incredible details and share lots of tips and new techniques for using Ranger products and his own. The first year I got to make many of the tags. Unfortunately this will be another light season of playing but I was extremely happy to work on inspiration from the first 2 tags.

O-o La-La Love the Rock Candy Stickles and Rock Candy Crackle Paint! This was my first time using them...lots of fun. The penquin is heated embossed with black embossing powder on grungeboard. Thanks Tim for a very fun technique!

For tag #2-Of course inspiration can result in items other than tags and take on looks very different than original work. For the 2nd tag Tim shared how to cut and bend his metal flower embellishments and create a rose. I just had to give it a try. After putting it on the card I felt it need to have a softer look so I added some frosted lace stickles as well as some green and gold stickles on the leaves.