2017! Happy New Year!

Wow!  2017!  Where does the time go?!

I've got a good start on my 2017 handmade cards challenge.  January cards are done.

I was after a classy glitzy look for this New Year greeting.

The mail carriers did well delivering this envelope with the large bold year in their way of easily identifying the address.

I liked the subdued color scheme I used and it seemed a good fit for my Grandson's birthday card.  I also liked the big bold numbers on the envelope.  And I really love getting some extra mileage from a card idea.  

May 2017 be our best year ever for one and all!

xxx

Annie

Money Gift Wrapping

My most favorite gifts to wrap are money gifts. 

And I certainly had some fun with these!

It's all about the wrapping.

And the glitz!

Everything is ready.  It's now all about the coffee with Bailey's Irish Cream and enjoying the sights and sounds of this beautiful Christmas season.

Merry Christmas to everyone

xxx

Annie

Snowflake Christmas Card

I DID IT!  I made handmade greeting cards for the entire year for 2016!  Inspired by my daughter, who makes all her cards, I challenged myself to make the cards I would need all year, and I DID IT!

I wrote out a calendared list and kept to it.  It did get a little dicey from July on, but I managed somehow.  

This is my Christmas card.  I knew if I were going to mass produce, it had to be simple.  But I loved this simple elegant card as soon as I saw it on Pinterest here.  Having an Embosser/Die Cutting machine makes life much simpler and funner.  

I stamped, then heat embossed the phrase, then die cut the sentiment for the card inside.  That way I was free to mess up without ruining the card.  

To say the least, I am quite proud of myself for completing this self challenge.

May you all have a very merry, bright & cheery, happy little Christmas!

xxx

Annie

Christmas Postcard Swap

I wanted to join in Sheila's fabric postcard swap.  But one of her rules is that the postcard front AND back are to be fabric.  Although I started my postcards way back in the beginning with fabric backs, I quickly came to prefer paper cardstock backs.

I find that a paper back is more accepting of creativity.  

I finally let Sheila know that I wasn't joining her swap because I'm too old to spend my time playing in a way that I didn't want to.

Sheila is so kind, she offered to swap with me herself.  She was also curious about my cardstock backs and would like to see one for herself.  Sheila received this JOY postcard from me.

And I received this beautifully stitched Dove postcard from Sheila.  The music is a great background for Sheila's beautifully appliquéd Christmas dove.  Thank you Sheila!

Ho Ho Ho

xxx

Annie

November 2016 Calendar Journal

For November I played around with some lettering practice with a single word each day.

This style lettering is easy when the brush tip of the pen is new and stiffest.  Once you letter with it for a short while, the tip gets softer and I find it is harder to make nice looking letters.

No surprise here, I'm getting bored with covering the "notes" section and the blocks with the blank blocks at the beginning and ending of the month.  Why won't someone who loves doing that create these calendars as blanks for me to buy?!!!

I probably should have a little Tequila with that whine.

Happy Day!

xxx

Annie

Happy Thanksgiving!

These are some of my very minimal simplistic Thanksgiving cards.  

I underestimated the pressure of the automated postage stamp cancelling machine and the branches arrived broken.  **big ole sad face here!**   

But, no one to blame but myself.  I did add a sheet of plastic foam as protection, but it didn't protect anything.  I did consider walking into the post office for hand canceling of the postage, but I went with faith instead.  Well, live and learn is the lesson here.  

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!

xxx

Annie

Small Fabric Boxes

I was so inspired by Caroll"s detailed fabric box post, I could hardly wait to make a couple...so far.

This tallish narrow one will be living on my table housing my quick grab tools.  I have a jar inside this box because I have my Xacto knife in there and I don't want it cutting up the bottom of the box.

And this squattier box loaded with chocolate liqueurs will be a Thanksgiving hostess gift.

These cuties make up so quickly and are such fun.  I think there will be some more for Christmas time too.  

I've got to get those liqueurs wrapped up before they begin disappearing from the box!  **wink wink**

xxx

Annie

Dinner Place Cards

I was asked to make place cards for the Thanksgiving dinner table.  My hostess was going to send me an oak leaf pattern.  There would be 12 holiday guests.  I thought about my lack of interest in mass production and how I was already dreading tracing and cutting each leaf.  

Tim Holtz and his Layered Leaf Die and Embossing Folder to the rescue!  I added some inks to the leaves, and cut tags with the Tim Holtz Tiny Tabs and Tags Die.  I tied the leaves and tags together with Hemp strings and gold thread.  

Pinterest inspiration came to my rescue again with these.  

Happy Fall

xxx

Annie

Quick Birthday Cards

I needed a couple of quick birthday cards for a late birthday party invitation.  I am not a quick thinker-upper, nor a last minute procrastinator, so this was stressful.  Thank goodness for Pinterest!

Both card designs are inspiration taken from Pinterest.

I wrote the names for the envelopes on scraps...in case I had to write them a bunch of times to get something presentable in public.  Otherwise a whole lot of perfectly good envelopes end up in the trash.

I then cut out the names, inked around the edges and glued them to the envelopes.

I was pretty happy with these card results.  And so were my recipients.  Whew! 

Happy Day!

xxx

Annie

October 2016 Calendar Journal

My daily "bit" journaling for October 2016

Have a great day!

xxx

Annie

Bentley Postcard

My very clever, creative and inspiring art blogging friend, Donna Gray, has designed new rubber stamp sets for That's Crafty!"  Upon introducing her new stamp sets, Donna had a giveaway.  Lucky me, I won the "Bentley" set!  I could see immediately that Bentley could be a postcard.  

Here's Bentley as he arrived to me in all his rubber glory.  Isn't that a sweet butterfly too!  Donna created several stamp sets and you can see them on Her blog, here.  Thank you so much, sweet Donna, for this fun surprise win.  

Happy Mail Day!

xxx

Annie

Happy Halloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

This is one last Halloween greeting that I sent to my daughter.  I sent her 5 greetings.

But she sent me so many more!  She went crazy for Halloween artsy supplies and made a greeting for me for almost every single day of the month of October.  What a fun mail month it has been for me.

I wish everyone a safe and fun Halloween!

xxx

Annie

Halloween Postcards

These Ghastlie Witches were sent to Washington to haunt there permanently.  I know they'll do a good job of it.  Best keep one eye on these ladies, Opal.

The address/correspondence side.

Ms. Skellie is out again and she's gone to visit her biggest fan, my daughter.

For the address side I found these sticker portraits that change faces at certain angles.

Creepy fun!

Have a fun spooky week!

xxx

Annie

Postcard Mail Art

A couple of new mail art postcards have traveled a long way to arrive at their destinations.

This one was for a fellow bicycling enthusiast.

Scrapbook paper, rubber stamping, coloring and shading with stamping inks.

This one was for an animal lover.  Those of us in the USA will recognize the Geico camel.

Scrapbook paper, rubber stamping, junk mail (camel) and shading with stamping inks.

Happy Mail Day!
xxxx
Annie

Calendar Journaling

I haven't quit calendar journaling.  But the creative looking months went missing until September.  So to catch up, here is June

June finishes my first academic calendar journal.  

I went in search of my next one.  One that I hoped I could use any pen I want and do some stamping too without the worry of bleeding through the paper.  Here is my unfinished new cover.  It needs the dates on it yet.

This one has monthly pages as well as weekly pages in between the months.  Which means after I do my journaling with whatever ink media I want, I can tear out the weekly pages and glue the monthly pages back to back and the paper bleeds don't show!  Hiphiphooray!

I started July with every intention of being more creative and artsy, but time kept getting away from me.

There were so many birthdays to be ready for in July.

Then there was August.  I obviously spent the time reading rather than making a creative looking month.  But the 20th was inspiration for September.

So September turned more fun looking.  I chose one short word each day to stamp.  

I found these Ultra Fine tip Pilot Juice Pens for journaling.  I love them!

I rushed to buy them so I thought there were only 12 colors for this fine tip gel pen.  I have since found another supplier and ordered the other 12 available colors in the .38 tip.  I'm over the moon for these pens.  It doesn't take a lot to make me happy.

Have a happy day!

xxx

Annie

Harvest Moon

HARVEST MOON is the theme this week at Sunday Postcard Art.

That falls right into my need to make a few Halloween greetings.

It is a simple make.  The background is scrapbook paper.  I love scrapbook paper as it takes away the hard part of creating a background that I find so hard to do.  The moon is three shades of orange Distress inks, and my Nevermore Raven stamp over the top.  Then a bit more distress ink around the outside edge.

The correspondence side...

Again, scrapbook paper, then I stamped "Post Card".

Happy Mail Day!

xxx

Annie

Ready to Haunt

This week's theme on Sunday Postcard Art is LEAVES.

I took this opportunity to get started on a Halloween greeting.  

The spooky tree is a stencil, the bats and small leaves are paper punched, the rest of the images are die cut.

This postcard will have to travel in a clear sleeve, so I haven't yet decided how I want to do the back address side.

Happy Haunting Soon!

xxx

Annie

Walk Your Pets

This week the theme for Sunday Postcard Art is WHEELS.

I actually started this postcard for last week's theme of PETS.  Needless to say, it didn't get done.  I struggled with the background.  When I finally gave up, I checked what the next theme would be.  Wheels.  My pet walking cart has wheels!  I still had a chance to finish this postcard.  But I was still struggling with the background.  

I worked on the background, but I didn't like it.  Not one little bit.  I finally decided to cut out the images and use my favorite background technique of finding a scrapbook paper that would do the job.  It came with sunshine.  I added Wink of Stella to the fish for his glistening scales look, but the camera doesn't pick it up well.  The tiny silver dots is the very fine Stella glitter.

 

The correspondence side...

Happy Mail Day!

xxx

Annie

Summertime

This fabric sailboat postcard sailed the high seas to The Netherlands and arrived quite safely.

A birthday card (that I basically copied from a Pinterest card).

A scrapbook spread from one of my bicycle rides last summer in Wisconsin.

I always wish summertime would last forever.  Just not the 100+ degree days!

Happy Days!

xxx

Annie