A Blog Called Wanda

Merry Christmas Snowmen!

HELLLOOOOOOO! As I'm typing this blog post I'm thinking this might be my last Christmas card post for this year! Not sure if I'll have time to make any more Christmas cards or not! I still have a few ideas, and some pretty (unused) stamp sets on my desk! We'll see what happens! I really like this card, so if it's the last one, I'm okay with it! LOL. Merry Christmas 2018!! This card combines stamps from three of my favorite companies. I love to combine stamp sets and dies to make my own design. This card is wintery and cooooooool. 

The finished card is a horizontal A2 card base in white with one other layer, also in white. Pretty simple color palette - white, blue and red. LOVE. I can almost feel a cool breeze go by when I look at this card. Haha. And, who doesn't love tiny snowmen!? 

 

Those big alphabet dies are from Honey Bee Stamps. The snowmen stamps and dies are from Mama Elephant. And the pretty snow background and the 'christmas' word are from Right At Home Stamps. The letters were colored with Distress Inks and the snowmen were colored with Copic Markers. 

 

EEEEEP! How adorable is that guy?? Peeking out from behind the letter! Just saying hi! On the top layer, I used the pretty Snow Flurries background stamp and stamped it in Tumbled Glass Distress Ink. I placed it just on top of the panel. The stamp is huge and would actually fill that whole space! 

 

To make the letters I got a piece of white paper and used a sponge dauber to put down Tumbled Glass and Mermaid Lagoon Distress Inks. Then I splattered snow onto the paper. I dried it really quickly with my heat tool. Then I used the Bee Bold Alphabet dies to die cut out the word M E R R Y. I attached the letters to the center of the card and stamped the sentiment below it in rich black ink. Then I added some cute snowmen!! (I stamped and die cut the snowmen out and colored them with Copics.)

 

This is my paper I used for the letters. I also had sprinkled some clean water onto this panel - before the white snow splatters!! 

 

 

 

 

 

This card has lots going on, but still looks simple and cute! And it has dimension - but will be flat enough to mail! I have loads of ideas for more cards like this!! Never enough time - too many ideas!

 

 

Have a happy, fun, festive and creative day, my friends! XOXO

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Celebrate Christmas!

Hi there! Hope today finds you happy and smiling! I'm having a good week so far. It's my hubs' birthday this week so we did some low key celebrating and there was cake! YAY! My chapter of Tuesdays Together is doing an awesome event today and I'm really looking forward to that. Then before we blink again this year will be in the rear view mirror! 2018 was not a fabulous year so I'm not sad about saying goodbye to it! I need to start making New Year Cards too! EEKS. 

Today I'm sharing another one of my favorite stamp sets from this season. It's called Bells and Baubles and it's from Right At Home Stamps. I LOVE their stamps! Yay! I wanted to put my own twist on this stamp set. So instead of using all the layering stamps, I chose some of the smaller decorative stamps and heat embossed them onto the ornament shaped die cuts. Then I colored them with Distress Inks. Fun! This is an A2 card finished with a white A2 card base. Let's take a look...

 

I cut and folded my white A2 card base. Then I cut a layer of Rock Candy Cardstock (the perfect shade of medium gray) and splattered snow all over that layer! I used a white gel pen to draw some sparkles onto the grey also. Then I heat embossed the sentiment with white embossing powder - in the lower right hand corner. I set that aside to dry. To make the ornaments I die cut the ornament shapes out first. Then I used the small detail stamps to add the designs - also with white heat embossing. I used bright colors of Distress Inks and sponge daubers to add the color to the ornaments. I also splattered snow on them. I really wanted them to look like pastel vintage 60's ornaments!

 

Here is a close up of the sentiment. Such a pretty pretty font! I only used part of the stamp! I used washi tape to crop off the other words so I just had the word 'celebrate' on my card. 

 

For the top of the card, I used the very pretty die set from Hello Bluebird Stamps - called Holly and Pine. It's perfect for winter cards! I die cut the branches from silver cardstock and cut the bow from pink cardstock. Then I added a big ole gem at the top! Silver thread makes for the ornament strings...

 

 

Thanks for coming by today! Hope the rest of your week is fantastic! XOXO See you soon!

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Beep Beep! Hello Christmas!

Hi crafty friends! Happy Weekend! Hope you're out having fun and enjoying the season. I'm finishing up the last of my Christmas projects and posting them. Some stamping companies have already moved on to Valentine's Day projects! EEK! I am running out of time to share holiday cards with you. I have a few more! My cards aren't mailed out yet either! Never enough time at the holidays right?? 

BEEP BEEP! I have a cute and happy card to share on today's post! A little Christmas car, loaded with presents, and driving over the river and through the woods! This card was super fun to make! I used stamps and dies from Ellen Hutson and Impress Stamps...oh and an action wobble too!

 

I started with a red card base, A2 size. Then I used bright white cardstock and die cut it using the pretty Snowfall Backdrop die from Ellen Hutson. I stamped the sentiment in black onto the bottom of the snowy layer and set it aside. I stamped the car stamp and cut it out with some small scissors because I knew I wanted it to pop off the page!

 

It was pretty easy to cut out this stamp - not too many small parts! I used a black pen and wrote the word 'merry' on the license plate! I colored the car in using my Copic Markers in Christmas colors. 

 

I die cut lime green Christmas trees from the Ellen Hutson Winter Window Die set. I tried to create a little forest for my car to drive through. Now the super fun part! I used an action wobble to attach the car to the card! It shakes down the road! LOL! (Kind of like how I drive!). It's super cool in person. Have you ever used action wobbles?? They lay flat for mailing but then they pop up when the person opens the card. 

 

Here's a side view of the wobble! It's a teeny tiny plastic spring! 

 

I love wood mounted stamps....I have a pretty good collection, but I always like to add new ones!

 

 

 

 

That's my card for today! Best wishes for a great week to come! XOXO See you soon!

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Something Different! A crochet project!

Hi everyone! How are you? Hope you're having a great week! My husband has been away for work all week and it's been a crafting marathon here! Lucky and I have been staying up very (too) late every night crafting and watching too much tv! I can't sleep when my husband isn't home so I end up all wonky. I can't wait to see him Friday night! The house seems too big and too creaky when I'm here alone. Anyhoo - lots of crafting happening! LOL. 

If you follow along with me on Instagram and/or Facebook, then you know I've finally learned how to crochet...and I finally finished a project! This quest to crochet started over a year ago. I took some lessons at a local store but it didn't sink in. Then I took some more classes at Michael's. But I just never finished anything. I really wanted to, though! As luck would have it, I recently became aware of TWO awesome knit/crochet meet ups right near my house! I vowed to stick with it, and I joined both of the groups! I have met the loveliest and most talented ladies through the meetings! And, they have encouraged me and helped me along. Yay! I think I'm on my way now! I have finished two scarves and started a blanket. It's so fun now that I know what I'm doing. LOL. I'm doing basic stitches until I get my confidence up. I can't read a pattern yet.  But I'm having a blast. Turns out that yarn people are just like paper people.... Crafty girls are the best. 

Since my blog is also my way of documenting my creative journey,  I wanted to post about my first project here! I'm sure that a lot of you are also yarn hoarders?! Am I right? I have found that it's been good for my creative juices to do something different. New ways to look at colors and textures and try something that challenges me. I'm loving it so far. I have oodles of yarn already and projects in my mind. I'm going to start a journal to remember everything. Oh, and of course a Pinterest Board! 

Here's my finished scarf - and styled the way I wore it out the other day. HOW fun to receive compliments and say "I made it!" Love that. It's simple, really. Just row after row of double crochet stitches until I ran out of yarn. Then I added fringe to the bottom. Well, because, fringe is better! 

 

In progress... I accidentally threw away the label for the yarn! But I did some research and found out the brand and type. It doesn't have a dye lot system because each skein is hand dyed. It's called Malabrigo. It's all my favorite deep rich Fall colors. SO so pretty! One of the cool things about this hobby is that it's so easy to bring it with you. You just need your project, yarn, hook and scissors and off you go! 

 

I am totally addicted to this type of yarn - that has multiple colors in it. I like watching how the colors match up as you stitch along. And it looks so pretty when it's finished. I think it's easier to hide my mistakes too!! 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by and for sharing something new and different with me! I hope your day is extra fabulous! XOXO

AMAZON LINK TO MALABRIGO YARN

Your Friendship Warms My Heart!

Hi crafty friends and Happy Monday! I hope you had a most delightful winter weekend! We have been very busy - that's how December is right? Going, going, going all the time! I love it though. There are so many fun things to do! Craft shows, lights, shopping, coffee, friends... It's awesome. This weekend we went to a beautiful barn market not too far from our house, and I'll share some photos of it at the bottom of my post, after the card. I loooove stuff like that! Being outside on a beautiful winter day, seeing the handmade goods. I'm going to wrap up the rest of my Christmas cards this coming week I think. Time to start the process of addressing and mailing them out. (I'm bad at that part)! 

Now, on for my card for the day. I COULD NOT WAIT TO SHARE THIS!!! OMG these new stamps from Concord & 9th called "Winter Wear" are maybe the most adorable stamps everrrr. I was smitten like a mitten right away! I bought them and had them sitting on my desk when I woke up one night at 2am with an idea! Ha! So that next morning I stamped and colored and tried again until I was able to execute my idea. I'll explain later! Here's the finished card...

 

These stamps!! Oh gosh, how much fun to make this card! The face, the scarf, the hat and the glasses are all different stamps so you can mix and match. There are two girl faces and several other accessories - so you can make it however you want. I love it when I can customize things. So I made this girl to look like me! She has glasses...and she loves buffalo plaid and she's wearing a snowflake pin - just like me! So the idea that woke me up at 2am was that she needed a buffalo plaid scarf! This scarf stamp is NOT checkered. I did that with my Copic Markers. Yes, it took a while, but I love the result!

 

 

This card started with an A2 card base is vivid Christmas red! I layered vellum and then kraft paper. On the vellum paper I splattered Copic Opaque White with a toothbrush to look like snow flurries. On the kraft layer, I used the Concord & 9th Swirls Dies to make snow swirls. Then I stamped snowflakes in white over that. Finally, I used sponge and white ink to go around the top edges. 

I stamped and die cut the pieces out and colored them all with markers. Then I heat embossed the sentiment with white embossing powder onto black paper. I like that look on a sentiment. It makes it pop! In this photo you can see all the layers. 

For accents I added some die cut snowflakes and pearls. I also added a bit of glitter shimmer to the brim and pom pom on the hat. It's frosty out there, you know! One of my signature pieces during winter is to wear a snowflake brooch. I have two that I love and I wear them all the time. So I die cut a tiny snowflake and made her (me!) a brooch. 

 

 

 

Supplies for this card are at the bottom of my post! You're going to want these fun stamps and dies I know it! Endless combinations of fun cards for gal pals!! Can't wait to make some more! IN the photo below you can where I got my ideas! LOL. Mark took this photo at the Barn Market on Friday. My new haircut is kinda short but I'm happy and that's what matters. XOXO

 

 

Here are a few photos I took at the H3 Barn Market on Friday. It's in Rescue California, which isn't too far from my house. Mark and I had a delightful time there! So peaceful and beautiful. The vendors were great and so so talented. The weather was perfect. It reminded us of an old fashioned Christmas - lovely! Big shout out to Laura, the proprietor, for creating something so special. I can't wait to go back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you have the best, blessed, happy, fun and creative week ahead! XOXO

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Christmas Joy Card with Tim Holtz Stamps and Dies!

Hey there crafty friends! How's your week going? It feels like Winter and now it's only a month until Christmas! My studio is FULL of Christmas crafty projects and new stamps and I'm having a hard time keeping up with it all. I want to use everything, but I'm running out of time! Eeeeeek! I want to stamp, and make treats, and crochet, and decorate! Trying to cram it all in to my favorite time of year! How's your holiday planning coming along?? Yesterday Lucky and I did a Christmas card photo shoot and I got some adorable pictures of him. Christmas cards were ordered late last night. Check! Enjoy your day my friends!

Today's card is a Vintage/Retro/Old Fashioned Christmas card! I LOOOOOVE everything Tim Holtz for Christmas, don't you?? No one does it like Tim! Everything is so pretty and fun to play with. This card started with me coloring those pretty Blueprints stamps one day... Then another day I made the stenciled background.... And they went together perfectly! The finished card is A2 size made from woodgrain paper splattered with white paint to look like snow. 

I stamped the Holly and Poinsettia onto watercolor paper with Versafine Ink. I watercolored the images with my Distress Markers and a water brush. EASY PEASY! After I colored the images I inked the edged with brown ink. I also added snow splatters and a tiny bit of blue ink (marker) around the edges of the images. Here's a close up....

I used the Tim Holtz Sizzix Festive Greens Dies to make some leaves to tuck in between the images. I colored those with Distress Ink pads and a sponge dauber. I like to have just that bit of a spray there! Makes the card have more texture. 

Now for this stencil! It's called Peppermint - of course! I used a small sponge dauber and red ink to ink the stencil onto watercolor paper. Next I used a water brush to blur the lines of the edges. Then I sprayed it with clean water for some water droplets effect. Next I splattered it with Copic Opaque White ink. FINALLY I inked the edges with Vintage Corduroy DIstress Ink! OOHHHH LA LA! At first I wondered if I ruined a perfectly good stenciled paper... But this look really grew on me! 

 

 

 

 

I used the Holiday Words Script Dies from Sizzix and die cut the word joy out. I inked it with Black Distress Ink and glued it onto the card. I like this die set because the scale is small - and I needed a little word right in that spot!

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by! What's on your holiday agenda for this weekend? Tell me what you're up to! XO

 

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Right at Home Stamps - Coffee with a Friend!

Helloooo! So happy to see you today! Happy Monday....and don't look now, but it's almost December! Cheers to a good week ahead. I'm getting my hair cut and going to stamp night and then crochet meet up...lots of fun things planned. Our college rivalry football game was rescheduled because of the fires so we'll head down to Berkeley on Saturday for the game. So excited for Winter activities and being out in the now fresh air. 

Today I have a super fun card to share with you, made with stamps from one of my favorite stamp companies - Right at Home! Gosh, I love Nicole and her creative and innovative stamp designs. I'm a huge fan of this girl and love to stamp with her products. I'm happy to see her following grow and see her company thrive. I love it when good things happen to good people. I'm happy she invites me along sometimes on her creative journey. 

My card today features the Cuppa Friendship Stamp set with matching dies...and the awesome large Woodgrain Background stamp. This stamp set is not necessarily a Christmas set, but I made a Christmas Friendship card by choosing red, green and gold as my colors and adding snowflakes to the background. I love their big chunky scarves - so fun to color. The finished card is an A2 card base from kraft cardstock. 

 

To start, I stamped and die cut out the girls and the word bubble (HOW CUTE IS that???) and colored them in with my Copic Markers. I added white highlights over my coloring by using a white gel pen. I resisted the urge to glitter.... 

 

The sentiment was heat embossed with gold embossing powder onto an olive green piece of cardstock. I chose that color to match the green Copics in the coloring so it all works together. I layered the green piece over some heart patterned paper from Sunny Studio Stamps. 

 

The woodgrain background layer was made by using the large background stamp and stamping it with Versamark ink for a subtle watermark effect! I love how that came out! TIP: You will need a mega mount rocker (see supplies) or some other jumbo stamping block to use this stamp! I used white ink and added snowflakes to the background.

 

 

 

I'm going to be using that "hey girl" stamp a lot! SO many uses for that one! EEP. The girls and the word bubble were attached to the card using foam tape. 

Thank you for coming by today! Be sure to visit the RIGHT AT HOME BLOG for more fun inspiration from this great company. I know you're going to love it! Have a wonderful week. XOXO

 

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Merry, Merry, Pretty Layered Trees!

Hey everyone! How was your Thanksgiving!? And, did you go shopping yesterday?? Our Thanksgiving was really nice. We stayed home all day, and it rained ALL DAY! It was fabulous and cozy and perfect. Since it's just two of us here, I made us an Italian dinner for Thanksgiving. Baked rigatoni, salad and garlic bread...and of course pie! Sometimes I cook us an entire turkey dinner but this year I wasn't in the mood. We watched movies and I crafted... No running around all crazy like we do some years. Usually on Black Friday we are the crazy ones up at 4am and out shopping, but this year we didn't go! Again, it was pouring rain all day and we both felt like staying in and relaxing. Mark ran out to Lowe's and got us a new Shop Vac but other than that we didn't buy anything! Go us! I have been spending so much time decluttering and it felt good to not bring more stuff into our home. I'll venture out shopping next week sometime. Anyhoo - happy weekend! I've been doing lots of crafting, so I have projects to share!

I'm pretty quick to know what I like when I see new crafting supplies. Something usually grabs my attention right away or it doesn't. Well...when I first saw a project on Instagram made with the new Pretty Pink Posh Layered Tree Dies....I was like POW! Yes! I need that asap! Hahahaha. It's a set of dies that make a beautiful Christmas tree that you can layer. Genius and so so pretty. I chose to ink up some trees using Distress Inks... Then later I made some backgrounds for them - also with Distress Inks. Here are my two finished cards. Both cards are on white A2 card bases. 

 

To make the trees, I used shades of green Distress Inks on the pieces. I used the small sponge daubers to do the blending. Each piece is not very big by itself so the small daubers are perfect. After the ink was dry, I splattered white ink over them to look like snow! I also used a clear Wink of Stella pen to splash shimmer onto the tree pieces. I attached the pieces together using foam tape. The star, trunk and some ornaments are all included in the die set. 

 

For the backgrounds I used the brand new Swirls Dies from Concord & 9th. Another awesome genius product. I used them on another card too - to share later. I die cut the swirls into the paper layer and then inked shades of blue ink, keeping the color lighter in the center. I also splashed Wink of Stella pen onto this background layer. SOOOOO pretty! I added the Wink of Stella to the star too. 

 

The Merry word was die cut from silver cardstock from my stash. The die is very large and actually says Merry and Bright! I used a pair of detail scissors to cut the word Merry out of the bigger die cut. It's the exact right size for this space! I glued it on using clear glue. 

 

Here is my tree in my work space. You can see the dies in the background. LOVE. 

 

 

 

The next card has a super bright red background! I made the card the same exact way as the first one. But with a red background and a gold word die. I also decided to add a snippet of black paper with the word Christmas embossed in white. I felt like that was A LOT of red so I wanted to break it up with some black. 

 

 

 

Those swirls....sigh... They are so pretty! 

Okay, that's it for me! I'll be back on Monday with a really cute coffee themed card made with supplies from Right at Home! Looking forward to sharing so much with you in the coming weeks. Take care and have a wonderful day! XOXO

 

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Happy Thanksgiving 2018 - Counting My Blessings!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

BEST WISHES FOR A BEAUTIFUL HOLIDAY

FROM MY HOME TO YOURS! 

Hey everyone! Happy Thanksgiving 2018! I hope that you enjoy a great day with family and friends and that you feel loved and blessed. Whether you are partying with 50 relatives or enjoying a peaceful small gathering at home I hope that you have a good time. It's the one day of the year when we pause and reflect on our blessings outwardly. It's so important right now. The world is crazy and it's important to find some peace. I'm sending you a virtual hug right now! Normally I do not post a card on Thanksgiving, but I made this card last week and it seemed perfect to save it for today. Enjoy!

I used four different stamp sets from one of my new favorite companies - Hello Bluebird - to make this card. Their stamps and so sweet and adorable, and oh so fun to color! I used Copic Markers to color all the images and I made a pretty Distress Ink background for the card base. I am REALLY into blended ink backgrounds right now! The finished card is an odd size. I needed room at the top for the sentiment. So the finished card is 4" x 6".  

 

This sentiment set is gorgeous! Big words in a scripty font and then lots of smaller words to mix and match with them. That is one of my favorite ways to do sentiments. I stamped the sentiments in rich black ink at the top of my card after the distress ink was dry.  I stamped it first and then rearranged all the other images below it, starting with that tree branch. 

 

This little deer and his squirrel friend are enjoying a day out in the Autumn forest together. They are all ready for a pumpkin feast! Maybe they will make a pie! LOL. I really had so much fun coloring all the pieces. I kept the color palette warm and Fall-ish so that it would all go well together. 

 

 

 

Here is my blended background before I put all the images on. I am totally in love with Peacock Feathers ink right now. And that color looks so pretty with orange and yellow. I left a bit of white space in between the yellows and the blues so they wouldn't make green there in the middle. I splattered some white ink too. In order to get this pretty blend, be sure to use the Tim Holtz Ink Blending tool. I've tried everything and that's the only way I can get this to work. Oh, and use LOTS of ink. 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything is attached to the card using foam tape. I love the dimension!

 

 

That's it for today! It's time to start cooking! I count all of you in my list of blessings. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! XOXO

 

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Hello card with Sizzix Tim Holtz Funky Foliage Dies!

Hi friends! How are you doing? It's almost Thanksgiving! Wow. Are you in holiday prep mode? Are you traveling? I hope you have a great week, whatever it is you're doing! This was a strange week here in Sacramento. There is a horrible, huge wildfire burning about 75 miles Northeast of us and we have been inundated with awful smoke for going on a second week now. I've never seen anything like it. On Thursday last week, Sacramento had the worst air quality IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. Whoa. School is cancelled, everything is cancelled and it is so terribly sad. They are telling everyone to stay indoors. And, I repeat, this is 75 miles away. Gosh. I've been depressed the entire time. Thinking about those poor families. The thick smoke is a constant reminder of what is happening. I pray for my fellow Californians and pray for rain. My heart is heavy and I am again reminded to be so grateful for the blessings I have. Hug your loved ones a bit tighter this Thanksgiving and let the small things go. 

Today I'm sharing a card I made with the super cool new Funky Foliage Dies from Sizzix and Tim Holtz. They've been sitting on my desk for at least a month and I just needed some time to ink them up. The other day I finally just sat down and did it! These dies have all kinds of foliage in a cool retro style: mushrooms, ferns, flowers, leaves, branches... Perfect to create a forest scene. I love the little mushrooms the best. All the coloring of the die cuts was done with distress ink pads. The finished card is an A2 size. 

 

I die cut all the pieces out of watercolor paper so they are nice and thick. I used pretty shades of distress ink pads, water, and a paint brush, to color the images in. I dried them with my heat tool. (when it's cold outside I used my heat tool a lot more to dry watercolors and even my Copic coloring!). After the pieces were dry, I went back and splattered Vintage Photo ink onto all of them. 

 

The 2nd layer and the top layer are Cream cardstock. I used the pretty leaves from the Nature's Wonder stamp set to stamp my own background paper with Antique Linen ink. I stamped the sentiment in brown ink. Both cream layers were inked around the edges using distress ink and a big sponge dauber. 

 

I used a bit of Rock Candy Distress Glitter on the mushrooms and leaves for just a hint of sparkle and vintage feeling. Here's a close up of the layers and the background stamping. 

 

 

 

I arranged two different clusters on the card front. Usually when I'm making a card like this I will stamp/die cut and color a bunch of pieces and then mix and match them until I get the look I want. This arrangement took a while! I wanted to use ALLLLL the pieces!

That's it for today. Much love and good wishes for a safe and happy Thanksgiving week. If you're traveling - have a great journey! I'll be back on Thursday with a Thanksgiving card. Until then, take care friends. XOXO 

 

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