Emboss Everything! @ Little Red Wagon

 This week at

it's my turn to choose the challenge and I'm saying, "Emboss Everything!" which just means I would like to see some embossing on your project.  Just some, everything is not necessary.

This is what I did.....

As you can see, I've used an embossing folder, as well as a sentiment embossed with silver embossing powder.  What's that?  All those little dots of embossing powder around the sentiment?  I don't know what you're talking about.  Perhaps it's your screen.  *slides bottle of screen cleaner in your direction*

Ha, kidding of course!  While this is my favourite sentiment for sympathy cards (from MFT), I never have much luck getting a clean embossing of it.  This was my third attempt, so I just decided to go with it.  I was thinking about doing a light splatter of grey on the whole card to make it look that it was done purposely, but given what happened yesterday (more on that below), I decided to just leave it as is.

So, I had a bit of an.....issue.....here yesterday.  On the weekend I brought all my craft stuff up from where it was stored in the basement so I could get my craft area all back together again.  But, I had something come up.....nothing major at all, just something that needed my attention so I didn't have the opportunity to get everything put away on the new furniture.  Yesterday, while I was working, both my cats were kinda laying/playing around where my craft stuff was piled, which I didn't have a problem with until Ollie started chewing on some paper.  When I went over to take it from him, I noticed that a bottle of spray ink, which I had carelessly left on the carpet, was leaking.  Like, huge.  And, of course, Ollie had stepped in that ink and there were little smudges of cat prints all over the carpet in that area.  Now, luckily, the ink is very water soluble, so the little smudges cleaned up easily.  The big blot is another issue though.  The amount of ink that soaked into the carpet is A LOT.  The only way to clean it up seems to be to wet the area, and then use a paper towel to soak up the water/ink.  It's time consuming, to say the least.  My daughter spotted a plastic bag stuffed full of inky paper towels and asked if I had killed someone.  So, that's where my spare time has been going these last couple days.  Blotting at an ink spot on the carpet.  'Coz that's what counts as fun around here these days.  lol

So, why not give our challenge a go this week and join us?  And, if you'd like more inspiration, be sure to check out what the Girlfriends have made. 

Also for:

Retro Rubber:  anything goes using stamps older than 1 year - I'm not quite sure how long I've had this stamp set for....definitely at least a year...but probably more like four years.

Can You Handle the Pressure:  anything with embossing goes

Sweet Stampin':  KISS

Try Stamping on Tuesday:  sketch

Double Trouble:  cas + white + 1 colour

Use Your Stuff:  white + one other colour

613 Avenue Create:  anything goes

Crafty Catz:  anything goes

Incy Wincy:  nature  

The Sisterhood of Crafters:  sentiment only

Goodbye @ Little Red Wagon

This week at

it's Imke's turn to choose the challenge and she's saying, "Goodbye" (but don't worry, she's not going anywhere!) which means she wants to see those projects in a farewell theme....it could be a retirement or moving or graduation or......

....in sympathy. I tend to keep my sympathy cards simple, this one's a little more....more....than usual. Image was a freebie from Artherapie, but I noticed afterward I could have just used patterned paper and could have achieved the same look....though I don't think I have any paper that's this classy & pretty.  Sentiment stamp is from MFT.  And, that little felt bird is from a pack of embellishments that I picked up from Michaels eons ago.  Like, back when I used to buy embellishments because I thought I'd use 'em.  Now I just internally pterodactyl scream at myself if I even look at a pack of embellishments while I think of the clogged drawer in my crafting area that is bulging with packages of pretties I don't really even have any intention of ever using.  Well, unless it's buttons or bling.  But those get stored in a different spot so it's okay to still buy them.  Paper flowers also go in a different spot but it's NOT OKAY to still buy them.  Just making sure I get that out there so myself doesn't try to find a loophole with that.

Why don't you give our challenge a go this week and head on over to Little Red Wagon and link up?  And, while you're there, be sure to check out the fabulous projects the other Girlfriends have created.

Also for:

Aud Sentiments:  anything goes + sentiment
Through the Purple Haze:  anything goes
Crafty Creations:  anything goes
Ellibelle's Crafty Wednesday:  something that begins with B - blooms, bird
Simon Says:  midsummer blues
Arty Divas:  anything goes
613 Avenue Create:  anything goes
Dragonfly Dreams:  anything goes

Flowers! @ Little Red Wagon

This week at

it's Doni's turn to choose the challenge and she's saying, "Flowers" which means, she wants to see makes about how we perceive reality, that answer the question: Can our minds correctly interpret reality or is reality subjective?

I'm just kidding....she wants to see projects with flowers on them. (: Just one, or as many as you can fit on!

This is what I did.....

As you can see, I've got some lovely sunflowers on there from A Day for Daisies, and......wait for it.....the shop is back open!  Yay!!  It always makes me sad when I see one of my favourites close down...I'm thrilled to be able to say that these wonderful images are available again.  Sentiment is from MFT.

My mojo has been lacking lately, I haven't been doing much creating.....and now's the time I have extra time to do it!  I think a lot of us are feeling uninspired these days.  Still, I was happy with how this turned out.  Quality over quantity is always the way to go.  Now, if I could just convince the part of me that's been shovelling crap junk food down my gullet (my go-to way to combat stress) since the whole pandemic began that the aforementioned sentence would be the better way to go.....

Why don't you give our challenge a go this week and head on over to Little Red Wagon and link up?  And, while you're there, be sure to check out the fabulous projects the other Girlfriends have created.

Also for:

A Vintage Journey:  beautiful blooms
Colour Crazy:  anything goes
Crafty Catz:  sending hugs
Creative Fingers:  anything goes
QKR:  anything goes
Ellibelle's Crafty Wednesday:  make it feminine
Always Fun:  female cards
Make My Monday:  use a digital stamp
613 Avenue Create:  anything goes
Stamping Sensations:  say it with flowers
Arty Divas:  anything goes
Crafty Sentiments:  anything goes

In Memorium @ Little Red Wagon

This week at

it's Brenda's turn to choose the challenge and she's wants to see those projects made for those who have lost loved ones (sympathy cards/creations) or even a creation in memory of someone special in your life. A very fitting challenge theme to commemorate the tragedy that happened in the U.S. on this day in 2001.

This is what I did...

I've made similar cards to this in the past.  I find make sympathy cards difficult so once I hit on a design that I liked I decided to just stick with it.  Flower is from AJ's Digi Shop (sorry, couldn't find it to link to it ): ) and the sentiment is from MFT.

Why don't you give our challenge a go this week and head on over to Little Red Wagon and link up.  And, while you're there, be sure to check out the fitting projects the other Girlfriends have created.

Also for:

Southern Girls:  anything goes
Stamping Sensations:  flowers

Old MacDonald Had a Farm @ EIEIO!!!, ahem....I mean @ Little Red Wagon

This week at

it's Kate's turn to choose the challenge and she's singing that nursery rhyme (which was an absolute favourite around here) "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" which just means she wants to see projects with farm animals. Yee-haw!

This is what I did....

Stamps are from Your Next Stamp as is the grass die.  Fence dies are from MFT.  I really wish I would have taken the photo with the card laying flat though, even though I generally don't like the way that looks.  But, if I had done that I could have made those googly eyes point every which way, which is kinda the whole point of googly eyes.  In this photo they do appear to be earnestly wishing the Birthday Person a happy day, so that's pretty good too, I guess.

I love these bold, cartoony farm animals.  Well, maybe not that cartoony really.  I do believe I might have found the real life inspiration for these animals so maybe I shouldn't be calling them cartoony....

Yep, pretty sure that's it right there.  I'm not even sure if that's a donkey or a horse or cow.....just a minute, I'll ask my resident (17 year old son) farm expert.....he thinks it's a miniature horse.  Whatever it is, it's a happy looking thing, that's for sure.

Why not give our challenge a go this week and head on over to Little Red Wagon and link up?  And, while you're there, be sure to check out the wonderful projects the other Girlfriends have created.

Also for:

2 Crafty Critter Crazies:  feature a critter
Dream Valley:  dry embossing
Get Creative:  no patterned paper
Always Fun:  happy birthday
Craftaholics R Us:  birthday cards
Simon Says:  happy birthday

Bundle Up! @ Little Red Wagon

This week at

it's Kate's turn to choose the challenge and she's saying, "Bundle Up!" which just means that she wants to see those projects that have clothing to brave the winter weather like toques, mittens, heavy coats etc.

Our weather here in midwestern Ontario has been all over the place this winter. We had enough snow at the beginning of January for my kids to snowmobile though it was bitterly cold, in the -20s. (And remember, this is Canada we're talking about so all temps are in Celsius.) Then it warmed up and rained, and now we've got just a dusting of the white stuff. Temps have been bouncing all over the place too....Sunday it was up to 7ºC and today it's -12º, feels like -19º. All that so I can set up how fitting my card is....

...coz if we're gonna have winter temperatures, we might as well have snow.

I swear my photo didn't look that drab earlier.  Oh well, there's no coloured image so I don't think a retake is necessary.   I'm going to make more of a effort to get brighter photos for my makes....it's just that, as you all know, with less daylight hours, photo taking time is pretty limited.  Tried a homemade lightbox awhile back but found it to be too much effort....and my cat stuck her paw through the tissue paper on the one side (which my kids thought was hilarious) so that ended that.  (You know, because putting on new piece of tissue paper was just waaaaaay too difficult.)

Why not give our challenge a go this week and head on over to Little Red Wagon and link up?  And, while you're there, be sure to check out the wonderful projects the other Girlfriends have created.

Also for:

The Cutie Pie:  January blues + cute
Merry Monday:  snow + Christmas
Crazy Challenge:  use a button
As You Like It:  favourite dies - I love the stitched shape dies.  So much easier than using a sewing machine!  The snowflake is been a long favourite of mine too, it's the perfect size.
Aud Sentiments:  anything goes + sentiment
Craft Rocket:  winter
Simon Says:  layer it up
Crafty Addicts:  winter blues
My Time to Craft:  something new - Both the Let It Snow die and mittens die are new
Cardz 4 Guyz:  January blues
Deep Ocean:  let it snow
Die Cuttin' Divas:  snowflakes
Tuesday Throwdown:  anything goes
That's Crafty:  feeling blue

I Want To Be A 2017 Card Design Superstar! @ MFT

Did you guys hear about this contest?  To be honest, I want to be a really bad bloggy-friend and not even tell you about it.  Coz I know you all rock the making of the cards and why would I want to give myself more competition?  I mean...there are five GRAND PRIZES OF A $250 SHOPPING SPREE in each of the three categories.  That's a serious shopping spree, right there.  Makes a person want to be a little cut-throaty, kwim?

But, I can't be that mean to you, Dear Readers, coz you're all too awesome.  So, you can check out the contest here.

When I saw this contest was going on, I ran straight to my craft desk.  (Okay, ran might be a little strong...my computer is three steps from my craft desk so running would have put me into my desk before I could get stopped.)  I don't have much time to devote to crafting anymore, as you can tell by the fact that my blog posts are strictly for my Little Red Wagon and Tiddly Inks duties.  (Which I love doing and would not give up even if I had to start swapping sleeping & eating......hahahahahahahahahahaha.....got a little carried away there.  I would never trade anything for eating.  I'm pretty sure I could get my craft on with one hand while shoveling Doritos in my mouth with the other.)  But I was sure going to make some time for this.

I got busy pulling out all my MFT products.  Dies, stamps, paper pads....just spread 'em all out on my desk (which then left me with a 1' square area for creating) and just scanned them over, pretty much inhaling inspiration from them.  A plan started forming.....I decided I was going to do something for the Clean & Simple category.....and got busy.

So, this is what I did......

I genuinely had intended to showcase more MFT products, but, and this almost always happens when I do cas cards, I went super-duper cas.  Still, I did use a sentiment from the Deepest Sympathy stamp set as well as the Die-Namics Roses in Bloom, so s'all good.

Welp, there's my entry.  I guess I'm done here.  (Though, I am seriously considering going back through my post and inserting "please pick me" subliminally throughout, but that would be exceedingly juvenile, even for me.)  So, I'll just wish everyone a Happy Sunday.  Laterz, all.  :-)

Go Hybrid @ Little Red Wagon

This week at

it's my turn to choose the challenge and I thought I'd do something a little fun. The challenge is "Go Hybrid" (not to be confused with "Go Hybird" which would have us all waving at our feathered friends). So, I want to see both digital and physical (clear, rubber) stamping on your project. That's not too hard, right?

This is what I did.....

The flower is a digi stamp from AJ's Digi Shop and the sentiment is from the Deepest Sympathy set from MFT.

I used my MISTI to get the sentiment on there just right.  I must say, even as an almost exclusive digi user, I do very much see the value of the MISTI.  As you can see, I've used textured cardstock.  No way you get a good stamping on that with just one go.  I'll also say that those MISTI magnets....my gawd....I'd be concerned if someone with a pacemaker ever walked into my house, that's for sure.  Those suckers are POWERFUL, aren't they?  I know, I know, they tell you to keep them away from each other coz they're brittle and can break.  Really though, without holding one in each hand, arms extended completely outward from your body, how are you all keeping them from slapping together??  I had set one on my fingertips and one on the heel of my hand and was just going to move a few thing about when WHAM they snapped together catching a piece of my thumb on the way by and breaking the one in the process.  Hey, I'm not complaining....I knew the warnings.  I just wonder if they need to be quite THAT strong.  I'm thinking of taking mine to the beach and just going for a walk and waving them over the sand to see what treasures I can find.  I'll look when I start sucking boats into the shore, won't I?

Why not give our challenge a go this week and head on over to Little Red Wagon and link up? And, while you're there, be sure to check out the wonderful projects the other Girlfriends have created.

Also for:

CASology:  square
Simon Says:  anything goes
Try It On Tuesday:  stitching
Dream Valley:  use a stamp or a digi
Aud Sentiments:  thinking of you/sympathy sentiment
Watercooler Wednesday:  anything goes

The Great Christmas Round Up of 2015

Hey all.  I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas.  I must say, Christmas was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much less stressful for me this year as I was all done with my crafting and cardmaking about a week and a half before the big day.  In fact I was all done with everything, save baking, by that time.  And, let me tell you, it made Christmas so much better for me that I'm vowing to be that in control next year too, rather than my usual up really late every night from the 15th on, making and doing Christmas stuff right into Boxing Day.

I think one of the reasons it went so smoothly was that I made a number of Christmas cards earlier in the year, which I have already posted as I like to combine my dt cardmaking with cards I actually need to make.  But, I do still have some I haven't posted so I thought I'd show 'em all in one big round up post.  So, here we go.....

First up we have my card for my oldest, who has a barn full of sheep,....and is 14 years old going on grumpy-old-man 90.  Thought this file from SVG Cutting Files was fitting.

Next up is a clean and simple card that I knew had to be mailed and just this once I wanted to do so without having to pay extra postage so it's completely free of any embellishments.  It's not free of mistakes though since the first embosing go 'round I accidentally put the image in upside down so now there's both embossed and debossed snowflakes on there - whoops!  Digi is from From the Heart Stamps.

This one is using a fantastic digi from Dilly Beans Stamps.  I just love this penguin.  I also used some of this fabulous tinsel trim I should really use more often.

I made a shaped card again this year too.  This was my second try for this card as I made a very poor paper choice with my first, opting for a colourful tiny polka dot design.  Poor Frosty looked like he had a hideous case of the chicken pox and someone took their Copics to his spots!  Neutral colours were certainly a better choice....

(Inspiration for this card came from this card here.)  Cutting file was a freebie from Miss Kate's Cuttables.  If I made this one again I would take out the cut lines from the top of the hat seeing as they look a bit silly without the cardstock backing them.

I also made a few non-card crafts too.  I made some ornaments....

...which are basically wooden shapes with paper and some embellies added.  Funny story with these....I had my aforementioned 14 year old drill some small (although they were bigger than I wanted) holes in them so I could add the hanging wire.  Later on I said to him, "Wanna see what I did with those shapes you put the holes in?"  When I showed them to him he very seriously said, "But...but...but, you covered up my holes with paper.  No one can see them."  To make him feel better I had to promise I'd tell the recipients to flip the ornaments over to look at the holes he made.  I guess he didn't want his contribution to go unnoticed!

And finally....we come to the pièce de résistance.  Let me tell you, my friends, this project was so much a bigger undertaking then I thought it was going to be.  Like ridiculously so.  So, so, so, so ridiculously so.  I underestimated how long it would take so monumentally.  Not that I didn't enjoy making them, it was fun designing them and the cutting wasn't too big of a deal....but putting them together, omg, what a time suck!  All told, for the six of them I made, I bet it took....let's see.....24 to 30 hours of designing and making.  Now because of the colossal amount of time this took, and because I'm still sensitive about the time I spent on this project, I have come up with a number of prepared compliments you may use if you would like to comment on this make.  Only these comments will be accepted, all others will be ignored.  Feel free to either copy and paste them into the comment section, or for the sake of ease, simply quote which comment by its number.

1.  Wow, these are cool!  Your friends are so lucky to receive such a thoughtful gift. 
2.  Very neat!  Your friends are so lucky to receive such a thoughtful gift.
3.  Nice!  Your friends are so lucky to receive such a thoughtful gift.
4.  Your friends are so lucky to receive such a thoughtful gift!  And you are such a wonderful friend to spend hours and hours of your time to make something for them.  JanR, I wish I had a friend like you.  What lucky friends you have!  Lucky, lucky, lucky!

Now, after all that build up, here it is.....

As you can see, it's a desk calendar.  Now, this was my copy, 'coz I decided that I was gonna make one for myself too, so there's a special feature that I didn't photograph for the other calendars but should have.  I had also made a "Birthday Wishes" panel with a happy cupcake.  And I put that panel on the recipients' birthday month.  And, on my copy too, one of the mitt hearts went awol and I had to cut a new one.  Of course, I couldn't find the exact colour, and did I think to just cut two hearts out of the new colour?  No, of course not!  And that's going to bug me the whole month of November, guaranteed.

So that's my round up of Christmas makes.  I hope my Canadian, United Kingdom & Australian (and other readers who are living in former British colonies) are enjoying Boxing Day.  And to my American friends, a quick Google search let me know that some of you (depending on the state you live in.....meaning geographically, not philosophically) will be celebrating Day After Christmas Day....Day?  (I'm unsure of the second Day is necessary.)  I must say, original name, that is.  Well, whatever you're celebrating (or not celebrating) today, I hope you have a good one.