Flowers, rainbows & unicorns!

 

Using a couple more inked backgrounds, here are Whittle Unicorns from Poppy Stamps, and Be Bold Blooms from Spellbinders.

And, here are the Be Bold Blooms again, this time with an embossed background, also from Spellbinders.

Spellbinders' Card Kit of the Month went on a reducing diet for the new year.

 So, Spellbinders reconfigured their card kit of the month with no dies or stamps, and a reduced amout of patterned paper. They also trimmed down the cardstock into A2 size peices.  According to the YouTube influencers, they were trying to reduce the price of the kit.

I'm still not crazy about the so-called sentiments that came with the kit, but I used some of them anyway.  I don't know anyone who is a "proud plant parent".  No really, I don't.

Ok, I think haveing less patterened paper to "use up" is a good idea, and I did smack out 11 cards in one afternoon just using the kit contents.  Now I'm mentally done with it.  Really? Not something I'm super proud of, that's for sure.

Little Whittles

I'm playing with my little Whittle dies from Poppy Stamps. I'm also making envelopes with old 12 x 12 paper I'll never use otherwise.  

I'm using the hearts embossing folder that was last year's folder of the month from Spellbinders.  This may be the closest I come to making Valentines, but we have a few weeks to see about that.

As I'm typing this, I'm getting my new AC unit installed. It's been an expensive month for me so far: new washer, dryer, microwave and AC unit.  Oh well, at least I have plenty of craft supplies.

 

Happy New Year to me and my house, I think.

 You know, I'm of the opinion that once I replace something it should stay replaced. But I guess living a long time in the same house negates that all together.

It's early in 2023 and my washer/dryer must be replaced again (only the dryer is broken but who replaces a red dryer only?).  I got them in 2010.  I got my AC in 2009, so I guess it's due now too.

My microwave was replaced in 2013, but it went up in flames on New Year's Eve while trying to make popcorn.

So Friday is a big day for me. I get the new washer, dryer and microwave installed, and the AC guy is coming by with an estimate for the new AC system.  The AC is sort of working now, but the heat part isn't.  Lucky I live in south Florida, right?

I hope this is the end of major appliances dying for a while. 

More Christmas cards

 So, I pulled stuff from all the places for these.  What can I say, I put off taking pictures for as long as I could on these.

Here I've used Spellbinders' "Chill Bear" with a border die from Gina Marie Designs.  The blue background is made with Distress Mica sprays.  The "Fa La La" diecut is from scrapbook.com. What do you think, scarf or no scarf? Also I'm STILL using up card bases from my mom, 22 years later.  Who knew it would go on so long?

Another 5 x 7 card from the Michael's paper pad from last year.

Here I used parts from the Santa Lane mega kit from Spellbinders, with an embossing folder also from Spellbinders.  I used some gilding polish to bring up the design.

Here is a mix of Spellbinder dies and embossing folder, with a "Joy" die from My Favorite Things.  I used gilding polish on the background again to bring up the design.

There were several cards made with the moose from Gina Marie Designs, using this diagonal layout.

I used the cute little Whittle Deer from Poppy Stamps on this one.

Another 5 x 7 cards. They turned out to be quite popular with my freind that I gave them to.  I guess size does matter.

And, my last card (this year) with the Santa from the mega Santa Lane kit.

Santa Lane mega big cardkit

Spellbinders' mega big holiday card kit this year is called "Santa Lane".  It's a box chock full of crafty goodness to play with.  Here's just the start of mine:

 

Santa's arms are complicated

 

Spellbinders special edition card kit this year is "Santa Lane". It features a die set with a somewhat complicated Santa.  I managed to put together 4 incorrect arms before I cracked the code.

There are a lot of little pieces that create 3 different arms, 2 bent and one straight.  I went to several different videos to get the combination of arm/cuff/glove that works correctly.

I made this little cheat sheet from a picture of the dies I found on the Spellbinders website.  In the picture below, arm 1 is labeled "A" in the drawing above, and includes A, B, C and D.  The Arm 2 combo is numbered 1, 2 and 3 and circled in yellow.

 

The third arm, the straight one, is pretty easy to guess. 

I really hope these photos help someone else get these put together with less perspiration than I did.