Christmas Card Party 2014

 My friend Karen had her annual christmas card extravaganza this past weekend.  It had a theme (of course!) of Christmas Red and Winter White.  Here we are beside her two hand made trees.

Here is the adorable invitation she sent up for the party - yes an altered Altoids tin!  

She encouraged us to dress in the theme colours.

   One tree was made with miles of red velvet ribbon and the other a dripping willow tree with white lights and red balls.There were even MORE decorations around the house.  Check out last year's party HERE.

 Here are the little presents i brought for the ladies.  I wrapped them simply in white deli paper with red velvet ribbon and a glass candy cane.

 Inside the tins i placed some bling - sticky gemstones and pearls. Here's how i made them.

 Here are just SOME of the supplies Karen put out to share with us.  If we brought nothing, she had us covered.

 Of course there was coffee, pastries, fruit and yogurt when we arrived.  But in addition she served a delicious luncheon - including this tasty and beautiful citrus salad with pomegranates.

 She made us individual chicken pot pies and an arugula salad with dried cherries and goat's cheese. 

For my cards this year - i decided to make the base from pretty scrapbook paper - the heavier weight card stock.  I made good use of Karen's generosity with her supplies!  I designed a simple pattern of trees in a landscape format.

 I cut down the scrapbook paper from 12" x 12" to 9" by 7 1/2" to fit perfectly into a standard business envelope when folded in half.  this was to avoid having to fold up my annual christmas letter to fit.  A simple tri-fold and i'll be done.

 I usually like to do a simple design that i can crank out pretty fast.  But i still want it to be nice.  I cut 100's of "trees" - in triangle shapes from coordinating papers.  Sticking mainly with a blues and greens palette. a splash of red thrown in here and there.

 Here they are work in progress all stacked up.

 After a few more hours of play, it was time for tea!  karen made this impressive layer cake with a white chocolate frosting.

 Inside was even prettier!  and theme appropriate - of course!  Red velvet cake and cheesecake.  luckily we all got a second piece to take home!

During "tea time" Karen gave us all a little gift bag.

 Inside were three festive napkins which had been coated with resin - which transforms them into a mica like material, suitable for collage.  there was also some rose soaps, a little calendar, a notebook, a music rubber stamp and some chocolates.

My friend Z gave us each a vintage christmas card and a little vintage photograph, prettily packaged in a vellum envelope with lace trim.  The colours were perfect with the theme of the day!

My friend D gave us each a pretty scented soap.  I wonder how she knew i like birds so much?  (snigger)

Our friend M owns a bead store and brought some of her "bead soup" - a box filled with assorted bead for us to choose from.  Sunday (after the party on Saturday) i made this necklace with the beads i had selected. I used waxed linen thread and simply knotted the thread between the assorted green and amber beads to create separation.  it turned out long enough to wrap two or three times. 

Since i got out my bead things - i went ahead and made this one as well!

I didn't get any pictures of the Christmas cards the other ladies made (just so much going on!)  But my friend D made these eclectic new year's postcards and offered us each one.  They look just like one of D's quilts all laid out together.

 She has such a talent for collage and mixing patterns and themes.

 I, on the other hand, stick to pretty and predictable!  Here are the 44 cards i made all lined up on my dining room table.  A veritable forest of christmas tree shapes.

Oh - must confess.  there is ONE card that was upside down when i glued on the trees!  OOPSIE!  so i just added a few more triangles, some sticker balls - and now it is a festive holiday banner!

It goes without saying that our friend Karen is UNBELIEVABLY talented at throwing these parties.  her hostess skills, her cooking and her decorating are over the top.  We are truly blessed to have her as our crafty buddy.  She knows just how exactly make us feel special.  Including giving us SHOES!  well, ok, just one shoe - this pretty sparkly red one.

Thanks Karen!

Crafty Vacation

I spent a glorious week at my sister's lakefront cottage and among all the fun and sun managed to find some time to do some craft projects.  This is the view on from the dock.  Yeah - pretty awesome.

 First up was to create a hand painted sign for the little cottage where we slept.  I purchased the painted tin bird last summer, but didn't get a chance to do the sign.  I bought a plain unfinished wood oval at the dollar store.  i painted it with blue acrylic paint and added the blossoms in creamy white.  I wrote out the name in script by hand then painted it in yellow.  i added the dots around the edge with the butt end of the paint brush.

I bought this canvas at the dollar store - i think it was $3.  Just a plain canvas with the outline of an image you can paint with the cheap pack of included acrylics.

WOW - so bright - this is how it turned out!  it was fun and mindless - like a paint by number - but with a little bit more freedom to do it your own way.

My sister asked me to paint something on this used wine bottle.  I used some borrowed glass paints to add a simple wildflower design.

My niece Erica started painting some sticks.  I did the blue one.  

She now has a whole bundle.

I had some fun with paper clay and made three little stylized birds.  I painted them blue(duh) and gave them a brown glaze - but forgot to take a picture!

Most fun of all was this project i did with my friend Z, my sister D, my niece E, her aunt T and cousin T2!  We took empty pendant bezels and filled them with papers and doodads then added two part Ice Resin.  the key is to let them sit out of harm's way for at least a day and resist the urge to touch them!

Here's how fantastic they looked with added ball chain.  

And finally as a special gift to my sister and brother in law, Z and I created this whimsical paper  origami boat and fish mobile for the little cottage.  Such a fun project and such a fabulous vacation.  

Big thanks to my sister's family (missing my nephew Evan from this pic) for hosting us at Lake Hughes, Quebec, Canada.  I'll be back next summer for certain....!

Altered Book - Flower Techniques

In the second round of our 2013 altered book round robin, i worked in Z's book - which is not so much a theme as a concept!  Her idea is to use flowers to illustrate collage and mixed media techniques.  These are the same mini spiral bound calendars we worked on last year.  You can see my book HERE.

Here is the "sign in page" - actually it is a sampler of paper colours and textures from a paper company, re-purposed here as a table of contents for the technique book. 

For her first "chapter" in the book, Z. showed us samples of embossed and debossed papier mache flowers - using rubber stamps, glue, napkins and tissue paper.  Her examples are intriguing and i cannot wait to try it myself!

For the second "chapter" i created three spreads using resin flowers.  This was based on a technique my pals learned from Kristen Robinson at the Create retreat last year.  Z and K attended the art filled event and brought me back a kit from Kristen's workshop - including an ICE Resin applicator. For this page i applied the ICE resin to some lacey pink paper, and then cut out two flower shapes.  Stacked with a button to create a pretty flower.  They are very pale, so i added some ink to the edges to try to make the layers show a little bit more.

For this spread I used the resin to coat thin tissue paper and napkins to create mica-like paper flowers.  I wanted to stretch it as far as i could - so i probably applied it too thinly.  It would be nice to try some with a thick coat.  Or several coats to build up the layers of resin.  There is a lovely vintage document for the background, and some resin coated floral tissue paper on top. I cut them both with scallop edge scissors. Then the resin flowers on top of that, with a few of my favorite aqua shell buttons.

For this spread i started with dictionary paper background and then applied several large roses from a napkin that had been coated with ICE Resin.  I let parts of the flowers extend over the pages so that you can see the stiff qualities of the delicate looking papers.  I added a few Paris addresses from the resin kit from Kristen.  and a pretty French perfume label sticker.

 For the instructions page - i glued a gold paper envelope into the book (trimming to fit).  I added a sheet of resin coated rose pattered tissue paper as an overleaf.  Then some additional resin coated poppies cut from a napkin.  A pink organza ribbon adds some prettiness.

 Inside the envelope are the instructions how to create your own resin flowers using ICE Resin.  In the workshop my friends took Kristen suggested using a large non-recycled black garbage bag as your protective surface to apply the resin to the tissue.  I used freezer paper and it worked great. I already ordered two giant vats of ICE Resin so i can try many more. (well, actually just 2-4 oz bottles - but that is enough to make many pretty flowers and other resin coated papers!!)