Seeing Spots!

Hey All! OMG it is a week until Christmas!!!! AHHHHHHHHHH Can you believe it?!?! I did make a dent in my projects, but I have several more to complete! Hopefully I'll have everything done by Sunday. I hope you all are caught up and are where you need to be. If not, I hope it brings you comfort that I'm right there with you! Here's what I've been working on in the last few days. . .

The first project was the gift to my Vet's office and their staff. When I called and asked how many people were there she said "14". I thought your sh***ng me, right? I thought there were only 6 or 7 LOL! So it was double what I thought I had to make! Oh well, 'tis the season huh? I made 14 of my candy sleeves with the "faux" belly band. I made 3 designs and here they are:

Pine branch, snowflake, and holly. The paper is from the Paper Studio, card stock is by Bazzill, and all of the punched images are Martha Stewart punches. I cut the scalloped circles and regular circles with my Nesties, then attached them to the band with dimensional tape. Here is a close up

After making all 14, I put them in a basket and the finished gift looked like this:

I hand tied the big red velvet bow and attached it to the front of the basket, and stuffed the basket with a combination of tissue paper and sparkly red netting. I then arranged all 14 bars in the basket and tah dah! They were very impressed, and loved the gift. I got a thank you note today from the staff. I had also made a card to go with the basket (of course). I wanted it to be "dog themed", but after making 14 of those sleeves, I decided to do a simple card. Here it is. . .



I LOVE this stamp. As some of you may remember, I used it for the first time for one of my Autumn cards. I thought this is so perfect for a winter card. This stamp is from Penny Black, and it has to be one of my favorites. All the card stock is Bazzill, and I stamped the image in Versamark ink then embossed it with white ep with glitter mixed in. Look at the close up below:

Such a pretty effect with the sparkles! Anyway, mounted it on an the Swiss dots embossed card stock with foam squares for depth, then mounted all of that on watercolor card stock. The sentiment is from a $1 stamp, and the snowflakes are from a Martha Stewart punch. Added some bling to the snowflakes and done! Easy as could be.

The last think I have to show you are the "mass produced" cards I did. These are also the reason for the title of this post LOL. I wanted something that I could piece together after cutting all the pieces out for all the cards at once and then begin an assembly line. However, I wanted it to be a little elegant at the same time. So, here is what I came up with:

The stamp is by Hero Arts. I stamped the image on silver card stock using Versamark ink. Then I embossed it with an embossing powder called "gold tinsel". Boy is it sparkly! I love gold and silver together. Here is a close up of the detail of the ep:

I mounted it onto metallic gold card stock from DCWV the metallic stack. The silver section is raised with dimensional foam squares. I then mounted that onto another piece of silver metallic card stock. I stuck every one of those little red sparkly dots on one at a time. Now you understand why I called this post "seeing spots". OMG! They are really small, and I had to lift them off with the tip of my piercing tool, transfer them to the card, and then press them on. I made 20 of these and I'm tellin' ya I WAS SEEING SPOTS when I was done. These are A2 sized cards which I normally don't do. I'm not good at the smaller size, however this design lends itself to a smaller card. The sentiment is on the inside. Below are a few larger square cards that I made to send out too with the same tree stamp:

Again, these 3 designs were done pretty much the same, however they were mounted on card stock that was already pre-embossed. I thought this pattern was really nice.

So, there you have it. That's it for this show and tell. I did manage to get all of my cards mailed out to all of you that I have an address for. Hope you like them. Speaking of, I have been receiving cards from many of you, and I so appreciate them. What I thought I would do is save them and post them all at once as my Christmas Eve post.

One final note. I was very saddened to learn of the death of Joanne Johnson of My Adventures in Card Making. I just went back over to her blog to get the address to link, and noticed that she has 171 comments for the post her husband posted shortly after her death. Amazing. Joanne was one of the most sweet people I have ever met. She had one of the best outlooks on life and was so positive. If you want to read something that will give you such inspiration, read her Friday, November 28Th post. It is a prime example of why I loved going to her blog. Please go hug the ones you love at your earliest convenience. You never know. . .

Don't forget the pic of the week below! I'll see you on your blogs! Thanks so much for coming! I truly am grateful for all of you!

Best,

Curt

"God help me be the person my dogs think I am."