Warm Winter Wishes

From The Funkie Junkie

I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas!! I did for sure! Since most of us have been eating and drinking our way through the holidays, Jenny Gropp, our hostess this week at Our Creative Corner, has challenged us to make a card with a food/drink theme. I flipped through my stamp image binder looking for food and found that I don't have many stamps of food images. I did find this adorable Whiff of Joy stamp that had never seen ink and thought it was a perfect time to use it. I actually had been wanting to use it before the winter season is over. I also had this (digital) round brush from a set called On the Edge, In the Round by Katie Pertiet from Designer Digitals that I had been wanting to use. I am not much on digis, but I really like her designs. The file came in black and I really didn't want black. I spent some time a week or so trying to change a digital stamp from black to another color in Photoshop Elements 7 and finally gave up. But this week, I was fortunate enough to be reading Faith's blog Delightful Inspiration and caught her post with tips on how to change the color of digital stamps. Thanks to Faith I was able to match up the digital image very closely to Sage Shadow. I also lucked out and found a free Verve digi. I changed the color to match up with the brush and printed it inside a smaller (resized) version of the brush. Later I decided to just cut the sentiment with a circle Nestie, but a little of the brush design remained around the outer edge - that is not a part of the Verve digi. The designer paper is retired SU and the snowflakes are Cuttlebug dies. A l ittle zigzag stitching and some tiny chocolate Kaiser pearls and this crad was ready to post.

After the gifts are unwrapped and the goodies gobbled down, I hope you'll take some time to stop by Our Creative Corner and the blogs of the other team members to see what delicious concoctions they have whipped up for your delectation.

A Simple ATC & a Merrry Christmas to All

From The Funkie Junkie

Time is running out as we make our final preperations for Christmas. I had a couple of hours free this morning to run last minute errands and then went to the food pantry and worked with volunteers to pack 100 regular food bags and 100 holiday bags for distribution this evening. We ended up distributing about 97 bags so we didn't run out, praise God! We have some food left for tomorrow but not much. I am going in early to clean up the pantry and get things ready for when the volunteers get there at 10 a.m. We will distribute as much food as we have until it runs out. Then I will race home and get ready to travel 3 hours to the in-laws to spend a few (hopefully) quiet days. Tonight I will try to get everything we need to take organized and ready so when I get home from the pantry, we can jump in the car and head out. You know how the DH is always anxious to get on the road, a least mine is - LOL!!

Monday night I stayed up way late to create my sample for Saturday's challenge at Our Creative Corner. Normally I would also have made a card to be published Tuesday for the Creative Card Crew, but we are on a holiday break right now. So I felt like I needed to do another card for this week. I WANTED to do another card this week, but was short on time. Then I saw the challenge this week at Flourishes Timeless Tuesday - make an ATC. Cool - should be fast and easy, right? But the challenge to me was: can I make a small & simple card? After all, I am sort of a big canvas sort of girl. And simple??? No layers, sewing or heavy embellishments? It was definitely a challenge, but turned out to be a fun little project! Here is my (first ever) ATC. It's stamped on a 2.5 x 3.5 piece of Very Vanilla, embossed with Baja Breeze, Versamark and clear EP with the snowflake from SU's Winter Post. The deer are also from Winter Post, stamped in Close to Cocoa and Versamark and embossed with clear EP. The postmark is likewise from Winter Post stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black after being stamped off once. A scrap of kraft was run through my crimper and a graphic from Magic Moonlight was used as the main image. All edges are ink distressed with Close to Cocoa. The holly leaves are a Martha punch and the red hemp is from SU (now discontinued). So now I'm done crafting until we return on Sunday. I'm sure by Sunday I will be itching to get back into my craft room!

Wishing you all a blessed Christmas for you and your families.

A Blue Christmas - OCC Winter Challenge

From The Funkie Junkie

We're getting down to the wire on Christmas now. This will likely be the last Christmas card that I will make for this year. Have I sent any? No! Have I bought any Christmas gifts? No! Fortunately, I don't have many to buy for and I plan to do a quick blitz at the mall tomorrow. I will be giving cookies or Fair Trade gift baskets of coffee, chocolate and other fairly traded goodies to co-workers so I have those covered. And I am giving several of my cards with the insides nicely finished off and beautifully presented in gift boxes to several of my family and friends who will appreciate them.



This week at Our Creative Corner, our hostess Jenny Gropp has challenged us to create a card with a snowflake or winter scene. This is the card I came up with for the design team. I struggled for quite awhile with it. I tried to start it out as a tag, but after moving things around for way too long, I decided there was too much here for a tag and it grew up to be a 5.5x5.5" card. This wonderful image is from Heidi at Shabby chic papirskatter (be sure to check out her blog for fabulous free vintage images!) and printed out on my printer. The blues matched up perfectly with SU's Bordering Blue. The base is Creamy Caramel with a layer of white sponged with Tim Holtz Antique Linen distress ink. All the dry embossing is with Cuttlebug embossing folders and the snowflake and letters are Cuttlebug dies.

The Merry Christmas tag is a digital brush by by Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals. It's adhered with a little Crystal Effects to a Tim Holtz Fragment. I adhered three tiny silver half pearls to the top and bottom to make it a little more festive.

I know its a busy time of the year for everyone, but I hope you will take time to stop by Our Creative Corner and see what the rest of the team has been up to. I'm sure you have a snowflake/winter card you have made this week that you can enter into the challenge. We'd love to have you play along with us this week.

Wishing you and your family a blessed Christmas!

Tag a la The Funkie Junkie

From The Funkie Junkie

Since I struggled with my Tim Holtz inspired Christmas tags the other day, I needed to get my frustration out of my system. So rather than being inspired by another's work, I decided to start with a blank tag and let my creativity go where it may. My starting point was this beautiful medallion image of two young angels from Magic Moonlight Free Images. I printed it out on my computer, trimmed it out and painted the edges with gold paint to enhance the gold colored printout. Then I glazed the center image with several coats of Crystal Effects and when dry, placed tiny gold rhinestones at each V.

For the background of the tag, I used the retired SU Script BG stamp plus an old music score stamp from Stamp Oasis, both stamped in Creamy Caramel. Then I used two angel stamps embossed in gold. The upper one is an old SU stamp (I believe the set is called Angels) and the other is one I bought off eBay and has no manufacture's markings on it. The edges of the tag were sponged with Tim Holtz Antique Linen distress ink.


The Merry Christmas stamp is from SU's A Cardinal Christmas, stamped in Versamark and Brushed Corduroy and then clear embossed. The tag is a Spellbinders Fancy Tags die, flower and lace by Prima.



I like the results and feel good now that I have cleared all that tag frustration out of my system - LOL!! Hope your Christmas preparations are going well and that you are taking some joy out of this beautiful Advent season. Holiday blessings to all.

Christmas Tags a al Tim Holtz

Our last challenge for this calendar year at the Creative Card Crew is anything goes. I have long admired Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas and decided to give them a whirl. Should have been a piece of cake, right? After all, I DO VINTAGE. It's my favorite and a think I am pretty good at it. So why did a struggle so with these tags? Maybe because I was running behind in everything all weekend and I left this DT assignment until the last minute. Normally, I would have fussed more, or re-did some of the elements or backgrounds, but I was totally up against my deadline. So here are my first two attempts at tags a la Tim Holtz. I say first two because I know these won't be my last. I really love his style and will definitely be working to bring more creativity to my tags - might take awhile, but is sure to be fun.

When you stop by the Creative Card Crew, you'll notice that we are running a DT call through January 5th. Would you like to be a part of this talented group? If so, just enter the challenge and type DT Call in your comments. Again, it's anything goes this week at the Creative Card Crew. Hope to see your card or project entered into the challenge this week - no excuses, just take a little time out for yourself and make something this week!

The Holidays Are Here!

That's right...and we hope you will help us celebrate over at Our Creative Corner by making a holiday card - Christmas or Hanukah - and entering it into our challenge! The design team has some fabulous holiday cards to get you started. Stop on over and check them out and get your holiday mojo revved up! Here's my DT card for this week...another one that I didn't get the inside done yet.

It will happen, of course, but maybe not in time to use this one for this holiday season! This has been a super busy week and unexpected issues kept cropping up to monopolize my crafting time (don't you just HATE that?). And I wish I could look forward to taking some time off, but while the rest of the parish staff works half days and the parish school is out entirely, I will be working even harder to keep the food pantry running throughout the holiday season - probably with a reduced volunteer staff because people will be away or wanting to take time off even their volunteer gigs. So if you don't hear from me and I don't visit your blogs, please don't take it personally. I am hoping to cut my hours back to the 20 hour work week that I am being paid for after the first of the year - I want my life back and I need my sanity back! And my New Year's resolution will be to do it!

Okay, so now that I am done venting, I'll tell you a bit about this card. First of all, I'll tell you that I love it. I think I am becoming a brown person. I didn't really have a plan for it. It just evolved. I knew I wanted to use the Cardinal Christmas set. I was a little lazy and didn't want to pull out my Copics and spend time coloring so I decided that brown tones would work just fine. From there, the cracked glass technique seemed to be the right move. Have you seen the Mojo Monday sketch this week with the three circle elements? I've seen a bunch of cards made using tha sketch and I loved it so I set out to use it. It got me started, but I couldn't work it out with the circle size I used for the cardinal so I went to one circle element with Spellbinders dies behind it. First I stamped a piece of Close to Cocoa with the Weathered stamped inked up with Chocolate Chip ink. Then I used the Spellbinders Fleur De Lis pendant die to cut one out of the Close to Cocoa and one out of Chocolate chip cardstock. I offset them, glued them together and layered the main element over them. The main element is stamped onto Very Vanilla with Chocolate Chip, sponged with Tim Holtz Old Paper Distress Ink and with Chocolate Chip around the very edge and then embossed 3 times with SU's Glassy Glaze EP. I stuck it into the freezer for 20 minutes and then cracked it immediately upon removing it. The ribbon is from Jo-Ann's holiday selection, the buttons from Foofala Bag-o-Buttons and the silver half pearls from Michael's.

My daughter is home for a few days so we are planning to decorate the tree tomorrow and bake Christmas cookies...mmuumm...I can almost smell them now. Looking forward to some quality family time this weekend. Hope you find some too!

Update: This card was featured on Card of the Week.

Gold 'N Angel

This week, our challenge at the Creative Card Crew is to make a card with silver or gold on it. So here is my design team card with a bit of gold. Well maybe a little more than a bit - sometimes I don't seem to know when to stop! But I think it works - I like the gold against the navy blue.

The main image is from SU's retired set Yuletide Montage, stamped with Tim Holtz Frayed Burlap Distress Ink and colored with chalks. I used a little Antique Linen Distress Stickles on her wings. The main image is mounted on a panel die cut with Nestabilities Large Deckled Rectangles, stamped with the Script BG stamp and embossed with Judikins Egyptian Gold EP. The DP is SU's retired LeJardin pack. The gold CS is also from SU and was die cut with Spellbinders Fleur De Lis Borderabilities. The tag was cut with Spellbinders Fancy Tags. The Merry Christmas stamp is from SU's A Cardinal Christmas and the gold half pearls are from Michael's.

Wishing you blessings on your week!

Update: This card was featured on Card of the Week.

A Musical Inspiration - An OCC Challenge

It's a new month and a new hostess over at Our Creative Corner. Jenny Gropp is our December hostess and she has challenged us to create a card or project inspired by The Twelve Days of Christmas. There is also a prize this week - a $25 gift certificate from Prickley Pear Rubber Stamps. The winner will be randomly selected from the players listed in Mr. Linkey and announced at next week's challenge on December 12th. Thnks so much to Carole at the Prickley Pear for donating a gift certificate for this week's challenge prize!

Such a vintage Christmas carol surely must inspire a vintage creation and here is mine. It's a wall hanging rather than a card this week. I have seen a number of wall hangings on blogs recently and have been wanting to create one for my home this season. I thought this was the perfect opportunity!

On a 5x7" thin cardboard backing, I glued/sewed a layer of Very Vanilla sponged with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Antique Linen and then stamped it with the SU Script stamp in Close to Cocoa, then ran a line of gold stitching around the outside. The next layer is a piece of distressed Cosmo Cricket Be Good: Poinsettia designer paper, also sewn with gold stitching. The musical score and the vintage image of the turtle doves are both from The Graphics Fairy, although I did modify the vintage image with my Photoshop Elements program to add the words 'Two Turtle Doves'. I glued a layer of gold net between the music sheet and the vintage image. The two small poinsettias are stamped with a Florishes stamp and embossed in gold, sponged with Close to Cocoa, layered and then I added gold balls for the centers.

Both pieces of chipboard are Tim Holtz Grungeboard, heat embossed with Judikins Egyptian Gold EP. The heart was pressed into my Riding Hood Red ink pad and then embossed with the Egyptian Gold. The 'Compliments of the Season' piece is also a digital image from the Graphics Fairy.


I hope you will take the time to join us in this week's challenge at Our Creative Corner. Check out the other design team members' blogs shown on my sidebar. They are fabulously talented and it's well worth it to spend some time surfing their blogs!

Update: This project was featured on Card of the Week.

Retro Santa

From The Funkie Junkie

This week's challenge at Creative Card Corner is to make a Christmas card. How fortunate, right? We get to make a card for a challenge that we can put to immediate use. Here is what I came up with for my design team card this week. The stamp set is the many-years-retired SU Up on the Rooftop which I borrowed from a friend. Last year, I tried to buy it on eBay and was outbid every time. I think I set $30 as my maximum bid and ever time it went for around $70 so I think it is a set many stampers would love to have in their possession!



I started with a shell of Very Vanilla, sponged with Creamy Caramel to distress it. Next layer up is Always Avecado followed by another layer of Very Vanilla stamped with an old SU text background stamp (sorry, don't remember the name of it). Next up is the delicioiusly retro Melissa Frances designer paper called Rudolph. The main image was stamped with Superior India Ink on #140 lb. watercolor paper and watercolored with my SU reinkers for a nice vintage look.


The flowers were made using the Cuttelbug flowers die. I stamped the text stamp in black on the Melissa Frances paper and cut them using the die. The stars are also a Cuttlebug die coincidently called Stars. Brads are SU and the ribbons are Basic Grey. The buttons are from Jo-Ann's.


Update: This card was featured on Card of the Week.