Easy Around the Holidays card kit - Card Four

The last card in the Around the Holiday's card kit is very pretty, love blue being used for Christmas cards. Apply the ornaments stickease to the center.

Add the circle sticker at the top. Put the snowflake circle in the middle. You can distress all of these too.

Stick on the big white and brown snowflake.

Add the Happy Holidays and pop it up with some pop dots. Did you remember how to add powder to the underside to keep only the pop dots sticky? Check back to the other tutorials on this card set if you didn't.

Now add the ribbon and you have the simple version of the card.

For a different look pop up the ornament stickease.

Add and pop up your snowflake.

Add the Happy Holidays stickease in the middle.

Add the bow, put a sparkle in the center of the snowflake and use liquid glass on the Happy Holidays sticker. It dries clear, I took this picture too early so it's still a big milky.

Another way to go is to add glitter wherever you want to. Remember to let it dry well before you knock it all off and it will be a lot prettier.

Here's the glittery result.

So here are the three versions of each card. The kit is $14.95 plus the shipping and tax so much, much less than the cards you bought in the store and so much more special.

Easy Around the Holidays card kit - Card Three

The third card out of the Around the Holidays card kit is put together as easily as the first two. Apply the ornament shaped stickease first.

Add the Joyous Noel sticker and then use pop dots to put the reindeer on. Make sure you powder to remove the stickiness from the back (see Card One for how to do this).

Add a ribbon tied in the center and applied with a glue dot and you're done, or.....

Instead you could pop up the ornament stickease, powder everything but the pop dots, look how cool this is.

Now add the Noel, reindeer and ribbon. Sparkle it up with some glitter for a new look.

Another option is to pop up the ornament again but this time use liquid applique on the snowflakes on the card (see Card Two for how to do this).

Look at how those snowflakes pop out on this card, it makes it so special! It doesn't take much to make this kit into some wonderful cards.

Twitter - Interested in your opinion

I've started my research on Twitter and would like to know your opinion out there in cyberland. I feel that the reason I would like to go on Twitter is as a quicker extension of what I do in my blog. I was thinking that I'd like to use it to give a scrapbooking or stamping tip of the day. I have been looking at a lot of people's Tweets and many seem to be sending followers to other websites. To me, that would be okay if that's what you're looking for but I'd like to do a little more and actually offer something helpful up to my followers in a more direct way. What do you think? If you are interested in Twitter, would you subscribe to a person's feed if they were giving you a tip each day? Or, if not, what are you looking for on Twitter that would be of interest to you, make you want to subscribe? Everyone who leaves a comment telling me there opinion will be put into a drawing for some blog candy. I'll draw next Monday. Thanks!

Easy Around the Holidays card kit - Card Two

Here's the second card from the Around the Holidays workshop I'm doing. Don't you just love the circular cards? This time I remembered the center ornament stickease. Attach that after distressing all edges. Stick on the "May you find Peace" and snowflake stickease. Remember, this is the easy version first. Attach the dove but use the technique from yesterday, apply pop dots, then powder the rest of the sticker so only the pop dots are sticky. Tie a knot it a two inch ribbon and use glue dot to attach to the top. This is the the simple card made from the kit. On this one, you can add Liquid Applique. It comes in a pen applicator and you squirt it on where you want to then heat with a heat gun. Apply it to the white design at the top of the card. Here's how it looks after heating. I tried to do a video but it just won't upload, sorry. Add a brad that matches your card to the middle of the snowflake before attaching it. Put down the Peace sentiment and dove as before but add a little Stickles blue glitter glue to the design on and around the dove. Another option is to Prisma glitter up everything. Attach a sparkle to the middle of the snowflake, put glue on everything you want glittered. Let dry thoroughly before shaking off for best results. Here's the third look. With glitter and sparkles it's another good way to make the card pretty. See how simple it is to just dress these up a little? More tomorrow.

Easy Around the Holidays card kit - Card One

This weekend I have a workshop in Niles, Michigan and we're going to be making and jazzing up the My Originals' Around the Holidays card kit. My sister in law, Jill, loves these kits. She's not a stamper at all but she enjoys making cards so when she saw these she got all excited because they were easy but pretty and she could embellish to her heart's delight. I know how she feels after playing with this set today. Wow, was it fun to create these cards. To show you, I made the card the way the instructions showed but then did two other cards with a little extra.

This kit comes with 12 card bases, 12 envelopes, 3 sets of stickease to make all the cards, ribbon and pop dots. The instructions are on the back of the stickease.

If you like to distress go ahead and do it with a sponge tool and a cocoa ink pad.

You can also distress the stickers which I did before attaching it to the card. Now if you know this card kit at all you can see that right away I made a mistake and forgot to put the ornament sticker that's supposed to be in the middle of this card base, whoops. I didn't realize it until I finished all the cards and had the three stickers left! That's okay though, mistakes are just opportunities for embellishment! Following the directions in the kit, put the present sticker down first.

Next apply the Christmas tree sticker, letting it overlap the present.

Here's a trick you might not have heard about. Put two pop dots on the back of the Season's Greetings title. Take some powder, I used scented talcum powder but any powder will do, and apply it everywhere on the back of the sticker except on the pop dots. You can use your finger or a paintbrush or q-tip. This will remove the stickiness from the sticker which will make it look much more professional, noone wants to feel stickiness on their card.

Remove the paper from the pop dots and apply on the front letting it overlap the tree. This card would look a little more filled in if I'd added the large sticker at the beginning but, oh well!

Take the ribbon and tie a knot in about a 2 inch piece. Use a glue dot to attach. Roll the dot up so it fits just behind the knot on the ribbon. Here's the basic card, cute!

To add a little sparkle you can use prisma glitter. Our glitter shows the color underneath so no need to buy every glitter color in the world. Take a thin glue pen and apply glue wherever you want the glitter to go. It's like being back in kindergarten, isn't it?

I like to let my glitter really dry well before dumping it off, it prevents it from running if you used too much glue. Once dry, dump it off in the craft tray. This tray has a little hole in the end which makes it really easy to put it back in the glitter jar.

Here's a more sparkly look for the card. You might have to click on it to see the detail.

Here's one more version. This time add liquid glass to the Season's Greeting sticker. Liquid glass dries clear and makes your sticker look like an epoxy embellishment (just one of the cool things liquid glass can do). Instead of glitter, add sparkles instead, one to the top of the tree and four on the right hand side of the card to balance out the "heavy" left side. Now when you make this card, make sure you add the big ornament sticker that I forgot. Tomorrow I'll show you the next card from this kit.

Happy Birthday Sam!

Twelve years old today!

All Sorts Album

This weekend I have a workshop with my good friend, Kim, and we'll be making All Sorts albums. This one uses Twitterpated paper, my new favorite. This is my first try at a slide show, hope you enjoy it! By the way, we have some openings in this area if you live near Holt/Lansing. Party's on Sunday!

All Sorts album in stills