Crafty Elves' Countdown to Christmas / April 2024

Lisa and I are bringing you our holiday cards for April so we can stay ahead of the Christmas rush this year .. Each month on the 25th, we have new inspiration for everyone. I also try to start addressing my envelopes, placing address labels etc .. Have you started on your holiday cards yet ???

My card  was made with the DEC 25 Bird by Stampendous . I bought this stamp with a few other Stampendous holiday images last year and forgot I had them .. Sound familiar ?!?!

• I stamped most of the Dec 25 Bird image on white cardstock with Tuxedo Black Memento ink . The sentiment was stamped with Catherine Pooler Skylight ink .
• The image was colored with my COPICS.
• I used a Clear Wink of Stella marker to highlight the 25, hat and red breast.
• The completed stamped image was trimmed with the Tim Holtz Tonic Deckle Torn Edge Trimmer.
• Rhinestones were placed on the hat pom-pom and the bird's eye.
• I adhered the panel to a black card base.

You can see what Lisa made over at her blog - 

Life of a BZscrapper 

Thank you for stopping by to see our latest holiday creations . 

We will see you next month .

Debra Davison / Meticulosity

April Cookies - Take 1

The Inspiration photo for Challenge # 113 from If You Give a Crafter a Cookie is so much fun. There are so many elements to choose when designing your project. Bees, flowers, hexagons, amazing colors -  endless creative possibilities !! We hope that you will be inspired to link up a project before April 18.

I wanted to use the hexagons in my project because I have a cute punch and it was perfect for this Challenge. I only had 1 small bee stamp ( I know !! Can you believe it ?!?!?! ) so searched for a digi stamp and found this cute  Bee Mine Honeybee Girl from Just Me Digital Stamps on Etsy.  I really enjoyed this Inspiration picture !!

Believe in Yourself

• I began with a pre-made watercolor -look card base.
• I chose the My Mind's Eye "Howdy Doody" paper pad because it had the wonderful colors from the Inspiration photo in it . Using my hexagon paper punch,  I punched enough hexagons out of 4 coordinating paper patterns for several cards. 
• The Honeybee Girl was printed on Neenah Stardust White cardstock and colored with Brea Reese & Faber-Castell Markers. The image was then fussy-cut.
• I arranged the hexagons in 2 rows on the left side of the card - 6 on the far left and 5 for the other.  They were adhered with 1/2 inch Glue Dots.
• A piece of natural teine was tied around the left side of the card between the hexagon rows.
• The Honeybee Girl was adhered to the lower right of the card with Tombow MONO Aqua Liquid Glue. 
• A Wink of Stella Clear Glitter Brush marker was applied to the the girl's shoes and wings for some added shimmer. 
• Golden rhinestones were added to he ends of the antennae,
• Believe in Yourself is from Tim Holtz "Quotations" Metallic Stickers. 

Be sure to look at my teammates' projects over at If You Give a Crafter a Cookie , We would love for you to follow us and leave us comments. This Challenge runs from April 4-17 so get started on a card or tag or  other project to link up. We also choose our favorite projects from those linked up. I hope that Spring weather is reaching you wherever you live. After a few dreary, rainy, chilly day here, we are supposed to have temperatures in the 60's and 70's for the next week. 

Thank you for stopping by and taking a look at my card. I hope that you will leave a comment.

And thank you for visiting Meticulosity !!

Debra Davison

Crafty Elves' Countdown to Christmas - March

I can't believe that March is already almost over . Lisa and I have been busy making sure we keep up with our weekly Christmas card commitment. We hope that you all have been enjoying our creations and that we are inspiring you to start on your holiday cards with us !!

For my first 2 cards, I again used the Oh What Fun stamp set from Unity Stamp Company. I colored the girls with a variety of my favorite markers -  Brea Reese, Faber-Castell and Staedtler. I stamped approximately 20 of these girls last month so I would have them ready for a quick card. I placed the background papers on cranberry card bases. 

For my next card, I used another Unity Stamp Company set - Noel  . I stamped the tag image on watercolor paper and then colored in the holly leaves, berries and postmarks. I added a touch of shimmer to the postmarks with a Clear Wink of Stella Glitter Brush Pen. After fussy-cutting the tag, I wrapped some holiday twine around the bottom . I made a mat of scrap paper on the cranberry card base and then added a strip of pink plaid paper across the card. Several rhinestones were added to the top left side of the card as a finishing touch. 

My last card uses 1 of my favorite supplies - tags !! I found  a stack of holiday tags at Tuesday Morning and thought they would make fabulous holiday cards. I added another favorite element - coffee cups, so how could I go wrong !?!?!? 

Pebbles "Cozy & Bright" tags were perfect for some quick cards. The tags came in a pad with 6 different designs. I paired them with some fun coffee cup images - Coffee Petites from Stamplorations.  It's hard to see but I added some Wink of Stella Clear Glitter  Brush Pen  to the coffee. I made 7 of these tag cards. I used my Pink Scotch ATG Gun to adhere all elements on all of the cards I made this month..

I'm excited to see Lisa's cards and know that you will love them as much as I do !! Take a look at her cards on her blog - Life of a BZScrapper . We would love for you to follow us and also leave us a comment to tell us what you think of our crazy idea to make a Christmas Card a week throughout 2019. Are you working on yours too ??? 

Thank you for joining me at Meticulosity !!

Debra Davison

Let Your Dreams Bloom

Another installment of our blog collaboration is here and I guess you could say that we have gone International. Our March guest is my friend, Liz McGuire from Glasgow,Scotland. She is amazingly talented and has been on many Design Teams as well as being published in numerous paper-crafting magazines. We wanted Liz to choose our theme for this month's posts and she came up with this Inspiration Board. Don't you just love these colors, especially with Spring right around the corner ?!?!

As soon as I saw this, I immediately thought of a stamp set that I have had for awhile but have not gotten inky yet. I'm sure you have some of those in your stash,don't you ? I had fun paper-piecing on this card - one of the techniques that I love using, It allows me to combine 2 of my loves - stamps & patterned paper !!

• I started off with a patterned card base by My Mind's Eye that was a perfect color for this challenge. I kind of have a "thing" for boxes of patterned cards. 
• I stamped the succulents and sentiment from the Unity Stamp Company stamp kit Succulent Salutations, which was their June 2016 sentiment kit. It is an amazing kit with the main image, 14 sentiments, a flower and 2 cute birds. My ink pad was  Memories Black India Ink.
• The images/sentiment were stamped on Stardust cardstock and several pieces of scrap patterned paper that were luckily in the colors from this month's Inspiration Board. See, it helps to keep those scraps !! At least, that is what I have been telling myself all these years ...
• A yellow doily was folded and placed in the upper L corner. The sentiment was stamped, then punched out with my ever-faithful square paper-punch. I then stapled it to a contrasting square of patterned paper and attached it to the doily with a Pop-Up Glue Dot.
• On the main image of succulents, I paper-pieced the R and L vases and the middle succulent. I then colored the remaining areas with my Tim Holtz Distres Markers. For some shimmer, I used a Wink of Stella Clear Glitter Brush Pen. 
• A strip of glitter washi was placed at the bottom of the image as a shelf for the succulents. Tombow Adhesive was used to adhere the stamped images, paper-pieces and doily onto the card.

This month's card has been brought to you by an amazing cup of Jamaica Me Crazy coffee in my wonderfully colorful mag. I hope that you are inspired by our Inspiration Board chosen by Liz and that you liked the card I created. Now it's time for you to head over to  Crafting Junky to see what Celeste came up with. I hope you will also take a look at Liz's blog  Buttons for Brains - I am sure that she has outdone herself !! We welcome your comments on each of our blogs and also invite you to follow each of us. Thank you SO much to Liz for helping us broaden our horizons and taking this collaboration to another level !!

This is where I blog ....

Succulent Salutations

Debra Davison

Meticulosity.blogspot.com

#fallclh Winner

What an amazing 2015 Fall Coffee Lovers Blog Hop !! Thank you to everyone who visited Meticulosity and commented on my 5 cards.. It is always so much fun for me to join in on this Hop and I was so happy to be able to help Amy Tsuruta ( our Coffee Queen )  when she needed an extra pair of hands.. Congrats to all of the Flash and Super Sponsor winners and also to all of the Superstar Commenters !! Here is a link to all of them.. I also offered some coffee goodies as Blog candy and out of my 178 comments, the winner chosen randomly was  #96, commenting on my Top 5 card ---

Hetty October 3, 2015 at 6:11 PM

Haha,love your top 5!! And that signature stamp is the greatest (have it too).

Of course, I couldn't just post the winner without making another card.... How simple is this one ?!?! A Starbucks coffee info card, the free Verve digis and a bit of background paper from a very old GCD Studios paper pad is all it took..  Plus a bit of a Clear Glitter Wink of Stella brush. And of course, a kraft card base... Don't you just love Kraft, especially this time of year ???

Again, congrats to Hetty !!!

Contact me with your snail mail info please...

GIU Day 3 - Sense of Wonder

Welcome to my Wednesday post for Day 3 of my week as the Unity Stamp Company's GIU gal. I am also being featured on the Unity blog today. I chose a stamp designed by Phyllis Harris that I have had awhile and had never inked up. I absolutely love her designs and am in awe of what everyone does with the stamped images, but was a bit hesitant to create one of my own. I knew it would have to be a bit more than just a bit of coloring to do it justice.. So I got out my new favorite craft supply--whipped spackle !! And of course, glitter ... The beautiful stamp I used is Sense of Wonder designed by Phyllis Harris. Her amazingly sweet images are brought to life with your supplies and imagination. The sky's the limit !!

I started out by using a stencil and adding embossing paste to the L side of a tag. I wanted to use a paper with a background and thought of a vintage French textbook that I found on the Volunteer cart at the hospital I work at. My friend Benedicte'  lives in La Muraz, France and always sends me amazing photos that she takes of her garden, house etc... This tag makes me think of her...

The supplies I used are as follows :

1. Prima Marketing Inc. Julie Nutting Tag Pad ( Hancock Park )
2. Tim Holtz Layering Stencil ( Harlequin )
3. Faber Castell Whipped Spackle ( this stuff is Dreamy !! )
4. Donna Salazar Fairy Dust Glitter  ( Sugar Shimmer )
5. Heidi Swapp Acrylic Butterflies
6. Tim Holtz Tiny Stapler & staples
7. Yasutomo Pearlescent Watercolors
8. Tim Holtz Distress Markers
9, First Year French textbook by O'Brien & Lafrance  1958

As I mentioned above, I am love with spackle, embossing paste etc..  I layered  some spackle onto the L side of a tag and then glittered it up and let it dry overnight..  I colored the image with my Distress Markers and used the Yasutomo watercolors for the grass... Its hard to see but it is very shimmery. For the polka dots on the dress, I used a pencil eraser that I inked up from my stamp pads.The butterflies were stapled on and bent to look like they were flying. I used a Spectrum Noir turquoise marker to color the staples to match the butterflies. A few colored rhinestones were also added to the girl's hair bow and dress. Wink of Stella Glitter Clear added some sparkle to the bottom of the dress and the butterfly..

I had such fun designing and making this tag !! I hope that you like it.. Thank you again for all of your kind comments on my previous projects.. I will not be replying to any comments ( unless there is a question ) in order to make choosing my 2 winners a bit easier.. Remember to comment each day on my blog post for a chance at a Grab Bag of 25 Unity stamps.. Thank you so much for visiting Meticulosity and taking part in my week as the GIU gal..

Love this book !!

GIU Day 2 - Heart with Joy

Today for Day 2 as the GIU gal, I chose a stamp designed by Lisa Arana. I especially LOVE her flower stamps that look like doodles. I decided to use a wooden embroidery hoop because I have seen such cute projects using these and also because I have tons of them left over from my days of doing counted cross-stitch !! My neighbor Bev's crepe myrtle tree was the perfect place to hang the finished project.. It was a beautiful, sunny day. 

The supplies I used are as follows :

1. Memento ink in Tuxedo Black

2. Distress Markers

3. Stabilo Pens

4. Colored Rhinestsones

5. Tombow Mono Adhesive-Permanent

6.Tim Holtz "Script" Embossing folder -  heart made with embossed paper

7. Clear Glitter Wink of Stella brush

Thank you for visiting today. Comment each day for a chance to win a grab bag full of 25 Unity stamps... I appreciate all of the wonderful comments that I received for my first GIU day. Thank you to all who commented.. Looking forward to tomorrow when my project will also be featured on the Unity Stamp Company blog..

Color Your Stress Away

The gals at Mountain Plains Crafters never need a reason to color but with National Coloring Book Day being celebrated on August 2, we decided to share our ceations with you. Check out our blog HERE to see all of our projects.

There has been much in the news lately about the benefits of coloring.. I think that creative people have known this all along !! I have been coloring since childhood and still to this day, you can find me coloring at a local coffee shop or on my lunch break at work..

For these coloring projects , I used Adornit's Hello & Love You ArtPlay Paintables. These are fun designs by Lindsay Waltman-Ostrom, printed on amazing watercolor paper that can be used with your favorite markers, colored pencils etc..

Supplies for these 2 Art Play projects were : Faber Castell PITT Artist pens, Tim Holtz Ranger Distress markers, Wink of Stella Brush in Clear Glitter, Stabilo pens & We R Memory Keepers Sequin Stickers. I also used some Yasutomo metallic watercolors for the green on the shirt.. It is SO shimmery !!!

Image from "HELLO" Paintables

Image from "LOVE YOU" Paintable

And last, I have been coloring my Starbucks cup... The design was the winning entry in their White Cup contest.. They are on sale at Starbucks ans I could not help adding some color to the all black/white design ... I suggest you get one today along with a coloring book or 2 and start coloring !!!

Coffee, Tea or ......... COCOA

This card is for all you cocoa lovers.. I am sure there are many of you out there sipping your hot cocoa and hoping for Spring or at least a little bit of a thaw !!  The stamp is Marshmallow Friends by Inky Antics. I paper-pieced the mug using the Basic Grey "Out of Print" collection..Bright spring colors completed the card using some Stampin' Up ribbon, a Making Memories glittered flower and a Queen & Company turquoise Goosebump. The marshmallows were highlighted using my Wink of Stella Clear Glitter brush..

Thanks to everyone who visited the Spring Coffee Lovers Bloghop !! And especially to all of you  who came here to see my cards. I'm excited that I made coffee, tea AND cocoa cards this time around !! And the Spring theme got me out of my winter/snow/ice frame of mind.. Leave a comment here for a chance at some Spring goodies.. And thanks again for supporting me and my creativity !!

Coffee, Tea or ...........COCOA

What an amazing Blog Hop so far !! We are nearing 350 entries and they are all fantastic !! If you haven't already been to their page, check it out here .