Crafty Elves' Countdown to Christmas - January 2020

A New Year has begun and the Crafty Elves are back for more .. Last year. my amazingly talented friend Lisa Reynolds Bzibziak and I created a Christmas card each week and blogged about it on the 25th of each month.  We kept each other inspired and when the holidays rolled around, we had a nice stash of cards ready !! I had many friends comment that they were going to try to do the same this year along with us . And for 2020, Lisa and I have each added a Crafty Elf to our Christmas Countdown. Michael Trent is joining me from Brasil with his blog- World of Michael Trent and Lisa has asked Jessica Pickeral from Polka Dot Orchard. We are thrilled to have them for our 2020 posts !!

I learned a few things over the course of 2019. This year I will be addressing my envelopes as I make my cards.Even though I had many cards made, it still took quite a bit of time to address envelopes, stamp the insides of the cards and put my "Made By" stamp on the backs of the cards. I send many cards to the same people every year so I will be ahead on that for 2020.  Another tip I have for our Countdown is to choose your stamps, supplies at Week 1 for the entire month. I have MANY Christmas/holiday sets and I had a hard time choosing each week, especially when I was trying to work quickly on my deadline to finish a card each week. So this month, I chose 4 stamps/sets and put them in my dedicated Countdown to Christmas box, along with other supplies I thought I would use. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has plans to make a card and then when you sit down to finally get started, you can't find that 1 supply you had your heart set on !!

For  January, I gathered some holiday washi, twine, my Versafine Clair Nocturne ink pad and my favorite 3.5  x 5 watercolor Visual Journal by Strathmore. I also placed 4 stamp sets in the box and these were my main supplies for the month. Another tip is to stamp extra images and keep those in your stash so you have some ready to color or embellish for more cards . I'm starting 2020 off with one of my favorite new images from Unity Stamp Company.

• Unity Stamp Company's Pure and Simple is a favorite of mine. She was stamped on watercolor paper with Nocturne ink.
• I colored portions of the image with Red & Green and trimmed the image to fit my card base.
• A strip of red plaid washi was placed along the left side of the watercolor image, next to the torn edge.
• I popped the image up on a black A2 card base with foam tabs.

For my next 3 cards, I chose stamp sets by Flora & Fauna .I used Mini Holiday Van, Mini Reindeer Love and Mini Aviary. I love these little stamp sets and used several others last year for the Countdown. All images were stamped on Strathmore watercolor paper.

• The van was stamped with Nocturne Ink on the watercolor paper and I colored each of them with my Faber-Castell PITT Artist pens.
• I stamped the tree on top of the vans with Memento Dew Drop ink in Bamboo Leaves and the sentiment below the vans in Lady Bug.
• A strip of red glitter washi was placed below the red van and a thin strip of gold marbled washi below the blue van.
• I matted the blue van with a piece of metallic green paper.
• A piece of tree washi was placed down the side of the torn edge of the blue van . It matched the card base perfectly even though from 2 different companies !!
• I tied a piece of holiday twine along the torn edge of the red van and a piece of natural twine along the edge of the blue van.
• I used a red card base for the red van and a tree-patterned card base for the blue van.
• These stamps were so cute that I couldn't resist making 2 cards !!

• The reindeer was stamped in Nocturne ink  towards the bottom of a page of my watercolor paper.
• The sentiment was stamped with a Memento Dew Drop in Lady Bug  and the holly with Bamboo Leaves. 
• I colored the reindeer with a Tombow Dual Brush marker.
• At the top of the watercolor paper, I adhered a border made with a scrap of red snowflake patterned paper,
• Across the top of the border, I adhered a piece of red glitter washi and a piece of holly washi.
• Red rhinestones were placed on the holly leaves for berries.
• A gold glitter heart was adhered  next to the sentiment.

• The bird/branch image was stamped with Nocturne ink.
• I stamped the sentiment with a Bamboo Leaves Dew Drop by Memento.
• I colored the bird with my Faber-Castell PITT Artist pens.
• A strip of gold glitter washi was placed under the branch and a strip of pinecone washi beneat that.
• Red rhinestones were added to the branches.
• I adhered the completed watercolor panel to a piece of metallic pink paper.
• The entire completed panel was adhered to a patterned card base . 

I hope that you are inspired by my January cards !! Are you working on your stash already ?? Please take a moment to look at the other Crafty Elves' creations -

Lisa Reynolds Bzibziak @   Life of a BZScrapper

Michael Trent @ World of Michael Trent

Jessica Pickeral @ Polka Dot Orchard

Lisa and I are so glad that Michael and Jessica have joined us as Crafty Elves !! We are a veritable Santa's workshop of holiday card-making. Looking forward to seeing you next month with our February projects !!

Debra Davison/ Meticulosity

January Cookies/ 2020 - 2

The latest Challenge - # 134 - at If You Give a Crafter a Cookie takes us back to the 80's !!  It's all about MTV, retro, Pac Man, boom boxes, mixed tapes etc.. I wasn't sure at first what direction I wanted to go in with this card but finally mixed up the theme of the 80's with the colors of the inspiration pic and came up with something a little bit Sassy !!

• I chose the Vera Lane Studio digi stamp set Sassy for my card.The girl and the definition were printed onto Neenah Stardust White cardstock . I fussy-cut the girl and trimmed the definition to fit onto an A2 card base.
• The washi tape was found in an Etsy shop and I just bought samples of each that were perfect for the theme !! I put strips of the boom box and headphones across the top panel of the definition and the sneakers across the bottom.
• The girl was colored with a variety of my favorite markers.
• The definition was adhered to a green A2 card base with my Pink ATG gun and then I popped the  girl up on the right side of the definition using foam tabs.
• The patterned paper that my card was photographed on was sent to me from Brasil by my crafty friend, Michael Trent. It was exactly the paper for this card !! Michael is also on the If You Give a Crafter a Cookie Design Team and you can find his amazing creativeness at  World of Michael Trent .

This Challenge will run through Feb. 5 and we'd love it if you would post a project of your own . Take a look at the other team member's cards over at the Challenge Blog for more inspiration. 

Thank you for visiting Meticulosity !!

Until next time, Stay Creative ..

And a little bit Sassy !!!

Debra Davison

Coffee & Cards with Deb & Celeste / January 2020

Celeste and I are back for another year of our blog collaboration . We met through our love of coffee and have fun each month with a card theme, inspiration photo or sketch . We also post what coffee we are currently drinking and sometimes have a fun new cup to show you . I hope that you are as excited as we are to welcome 2020 with our first theme - Winter !!

When I close my eyes and think of winter, I see cold weather, warm scarves AND of course, hot coffee !! This Pure and Simple stamp set from Unity Stamp Company has been on my mind to get inky with and this blog post was the perfect opportunity. 

• On a scrap piece of Winter floral paper, I stamped the woman from Pure and Simple with Versafine Clair Nocturne Ink . The floral paper had been cut to fit an A2 card base. 
• I also stamped the woman on a piece of watercolor paper, colored in some red highlights with a Tombow Dual Brush marker and then fussy-cut the image.
• HAPPINESS was stamped with Memento Dew Drop ink in Lady Bug, then cut.
• The floral base was adhered to a red A2 card and Happiness was then adhered on the upper right corner, using my Pink ATG Gun.
• I popped up the fussy-cut watercolor paper image on top of the matching card base image using foam tabs for a bit of dimension.

RED is my favorite color and I must admit that I do love this card !! Celeste, over at Crafting Junky has also created a Winter card that I'm sure is as fabulous as ever !! We hope that you will comment on both our creations and also follow our blogs if you don't already .  While making this card, I was drinking Columbian coffee with Caramel Vanilla creamer in my new Rae Dunn coffee mug. I had never even heard of these mugs until I started seeing them on the  Coffee Loving Papercrafters page on Facebook !! I was telling my coffee bestie about them and she surprised me with one for Christmas !! I think she chose the best one of all !! Thanks, Michelle - I truly love it !!

Thank you for stopping by for our first post of the New Year !!

Until next time, stay Creative ...

Debra Davison / Meticulosity

January Cookies / 2020 - 1

Hard to believe that another year has begun !! 2020 -Time to get re-organized, clean up the clutter and have a wonderfully creative year.. And what better way to start than with our first Cookie Challenge of the new decade  with If You Give a Crafter a Cookie ?!?! Our inspiration photo is all about snowflakes and as beautiful as they are, I do not want to see anything but a flurry here in Virginia Beach..

I knew immediately that I wanted to use the Catching the Snow stamp set by Lisa Glanz  for Unity Stamp Company. I had the set out for Christmas cards but never used it so this Challenge was my perfect opportunity!!

• I stamped multiple elements from the stamp set onto watercolor paper using Versafine Clair Nocturne Ink  , Tumbled Glass Distress Ink  and Memento Lady Bug.
• I created the scene with my stamps then cut the watercolor panel to fit a turquoise card base.
• The girl was colored with my Faber-Castell PITT Artist pens.
• I left space at the top of the watercolor panel for a strip of snowflake washi.
• At the bottom of the panel, I added a strip of silver washi to look like a snowy ground.
• To be perfectly honest here, I had ink from the edge of one of the snowflake stamps transfer to the panel when I stamped 2 of the flakes !! I was finished with everything else and did not want to start over, so I stamped the flakes more carefully onto a scrap of watercolor paper and punched them out. I popped them up over the boo-boos with foam tabs for a bit of added dimension.
• A rhinestone was added to the center of each snowflake.

I know that you will want to see what the other Design Team members have created for this  Challenge, so head over to If You Give a Crafter a Cookie for some snowflake inspiration !! We'd love for you to link up a project too - this Challenge is open through January 22 .

Until next time- Stay Creative !!

Debra Davison / Meticulosity