Welcome 2013--Happy New Year! Handmade Season's Greetings Kraft Card

It is a new year on the east coast of the US in approximately a minute! Within this time, I would like to thank you all for sharing this past year and, now, ringing in the new year with me! I am overjoyed to have been able to reciprocate ideas, encouraging words, and share this craft with all of you! It has been a delight to grow together, as a person and as a papercrafter.

This is a card that's based off of the tags I made in September 2012 and inspired by LoveofCreating's card. Snowflakes were wet embossed in white on a super thick kraft mat and rhinestones adorn a few of their centers.

Thanks for stopping in today! Without further ado...

Happy 2013!!!

Cream Colored Quilled Snowflake Handmade Ornament

Today I will be visiting my boyfriend's family in the afternoon. Since they speak Russian, I feel lost half of the time. It will be exhausting to keep up. It isn't the first time, but it doesn't get much easier if you know what I mean. The way I feel after may be the equivalent of running after a hyper child all day. lol Wish me luck! :D

This snowflake ornament was made using creamed quilling paper--37 cut strips to be exact. It took me about double the amount of time planning and putting this one together as compared to the other ones I've been posting.

Below are two pictures taken a week before Thanksgiving at Astoria Park during sunset. 

RFK Bridge, formerly Triboro Bridge

Upper East Side, Manhattan

Best,

Silver Quilled Star Snowflake Tree Ornament

Only a day away from the new year. Do you have any plans? I'll tell you the truth...I just want to sleep! The energy here is too exhausting. I don't know if any of you have been to Times Square for the ball drop, but it was far from fun the only time that I decided to go 6 years ago. Unless you're totally committed to listening to deafening levels of music, being without toilet breaks, cold, hungry, and crammed to stake out for hours upon hours, I would say to avoid the craziness there. Much of Manhattan is closed off to traffic and even certain train stations are closed to accommodate for the massive crowd gathering which causes even slower than normal commute times. Go figure...I wouldn't say to not try it if you are into the experience itself, but being the party pooper that I am I would strongly advise against it. :) How does your local area celebrate?

Here is a two-tier star ornament. The top layer is more of a standard layout of a flower. 16 strips of paper go into the making of this one.

Entered in:

-2 Sisters #124 Anything But a Card

Almost 2013 Quilled Gold Snowflake Star Ornament

Catching up with posts!!! Here's the first ornament I made this season. It's gold, quilled, and I tried to make it look as compact as possible for a snowflake. It's got that star shape because I gave it 5 points.

Hope you like it! Enjoy your Friday everyone!

Entered in:

-Tuesday Alchemy #46 Anything Goes

-Make it Monday #120 Anything Goes

-Through the Craftdoor #50 Anything Goes

Merry Christmas! Handmade Quilled Purple Glitter Snowflake

Hello!

We just returned from our long weekend in DC. I was missing home the entire time. :X

Merry Christmas to all of you who live in North and South America (for the rest of you, well, this is old news)! It is an hour after midnight and I was too excited to wait to share my news!

The Jan 2013 Papercraft Inspirations is featuring one of my cards on their blog feature section! Papercraft Inspirations is a craft mag that publishes in the UK. While it is already out in stores overseas, it will not be available in stores in the US until next month! I'll be hunting a copy down at B&N then. :D This is my first time being published, so it's pretty exciting for me. :)

Here is a list of other blogs that were featured for this spread: http://papercraftinspirations.themakingspot.com/blog/beautiful-blogs-from-issue-108

The cover:

I am on the bottom, left: 

The card that is being featured can be viewed from this previous post.

BIG thanks to Lucy and their team over at Papercrafts Inspirations and thanks to everyone for your continued support! It means a lot to me! :)

Today, I leave you with another quilled snowflake (16 paper strips to complete this one). It's a purple one that I made while tabling 2 weeks ago. I will slowly work my way up to catching up with all of the posts that I've been meaning to get up on the blog.

This snowflake will be entered in:

-Make It Monday #120 Anything Goes

-Artistic Inspirations #20 Anything Goes

Enjoy and stay merry!

Quilled Shiny White Snowflake Ornament

It has been a super busy week for me. I tabled at a mini craft fair on campus where I work--thanks to Jolene for setting up this event at Teachers College, Columbia University. I met a lot of great people in the community. Thank you for all of your wonderful support and to Susan from Naturally Susan for guiding me on my first event! It was a lot of fun and I will be looking forward to the next one!

Here is a pic of the table:

I originally only booked half of a table, but in the end I got the entire table as a student decided to cancel to focus on her finals. I now know I very much prefer the space!

The hardest part was lugging everything by myself on the train. It was extra exhausting considering how already stressful regular commutes to work are. I have a lot of things to work out for the future. :)

I also attended two work parties yesterday and today I stopped by the 3rd Ward Holiday Craft Fair in Williamsburg to see what goodies are out there. 

How was your week? Full of wonderful surprises, I hope!

Below is the first post in a series of quilled ornaments that I made during this 2012 holiday season.

It's absolutely one of my favorite ones of all time that I've made. It glistens and sparkles and looks fabulous! There are 31 paper strips and 15 rhinestones in all. It was really fun to make too.

I'm not sure if I'll be posting anymore before Christmas as I will be going away for a few days. If I'm not around, then have a warm, happy, and safe holiday!

Entered in:-Unique Crafters Challenge Christmas-Delicious Doodles Challenges #15 Anything but a Card

Wet Embossed Snowflake Chipboard Tags

It's already Sept. and all paper crafters who are serious about relying solely on their own creations for the upcoming holidays in Dec. need to start getting on it! ...really! I've been doing major procrastination...I think that's just how I am! :T Not. Good. 

This is a minor push toward starting--and thanks to Tuesday Alchemy's Anything Goes challenge this week for contributing to that effort--stamped wet embossed snowflakes on chipboard to create tags. Not only do gifts add up to a lot, all of the packaging do as well so it's a good idea to help alleviate that "pain" in your wallet any way possible. We all know us crafty chicks can do it! 

A silver eyelet was set on the middle top of the tag for extra support (yes, I know chipboard is sturdy, but I think it adds to an overall cleaner look as well). The centered tag is double the width of the smaller one off to the side. Some of the smaller gifts look overwhelming with a larger tag and you also may not care to do too much writing, so the extra space is not necessary. 

Come join us to win prizes this week! It's a super exciting giveaway!

-Fabric.com--$50 Gift Certificate

-Broken Box Designs--Holiday Digi Stamp Toodle Set

Giveaways + Blog Hop + Anything Goes Challenge--Watercolor Snowflakes Card Tutorial

Blog Hop + Tuesday Alchemy Anything Goes Challenge

Today's a very exciting day as I am doing many, many firsts in the blog world--blog hop, giveaway, and a picture tutorial. I hope to be doing more of these things in the future! Anyway...there's a lot to cover in this post, so let's get started!

Tuesday Alchemy and it's team would like to invite you to join in on the fun this week! You may choose to do just the weekly challenge, just the blog hop, or both! You will have the opportunity to win a prize either way! It's that great! :)

Before we get to the fun part, I want to make sure you understand what we're looking for in choosing our prize winners at the end (blog hop and challenge run together and will end together).

Rules

This week the Tuesday Alchemy challenge blog is hosting a Tip &; Tutorials Blog Hop with design team members as well as the regular weekly challenge. In order to qualify for the regular weekly challenge prizes there are 4 things you must do:

• Participate in the "Anything Goes" challenge as many times as you'd like.
• Share this project on your blog AND include a link back to Tuesday Alchemy.
• Post a direct link to your project on your blog (NOT your general blog) using Inlinkz.
• Create a new project. No back links. *If you offer a tip or tutorial in your blog post, please add TIP next to your name in your entry, so you get an EXTRA entry into prizes!

To participate in the blog hop:

• Comment on all of the participating DT's blogs (you can find a list of blog hop members at the end of this post)
• Be a follower of Tuesday Alchemy &; the DT's blogs *if you're already a follower of everyone's blog, fantastic! All you need to do is comment then! :)*

About the Prizes

There are many chances to win this week!!! You can choose to participate only in the weekly challenge, blog hop, or BOTH!


This week's challenge prize *if you only enter a project and don't join the blog hop*:
Tuesday Alchemy's sponsor 
- 1 Digital Paper Pack - Karen's Scraps And Graphics

Blog Hop prizes 
Tuesday Alchemy has two sponsors: 

-A Creative Need (prize: 3 digi stamps); 
-Stitchy Bear Stamps (prize: $10 store voucher)


The winner of the challenge will be announced by Friday, June 22th and win BOTH prizes. 

My blog prize: 

• A copy of I Spy DIY Style: Find Fashion You Love and Do It Yourself by Jenni Radosevich 
• 2 greeting cards: one letterpressed by Reich Paper, one textured by Astro Converters
• 5 humorous postcards, all letterpressed by Gilah Press + Design
• 3 of my handmade chipboard butterfly tags

All packed and ready to go!

Total estimated prize value for my blog: US$45.00!

Winner of my blog's giveaway will be announced on Tuesday, June 19th's blog post. :)


Teammate Prizes:

$10 Gift Certificate - Corrinne

Stamps, Rub-Ons, Doiles, Butterflies, Flowers &; Surprises - Laine

Felt Sheets, Cards, Tags, White Pen, Stickers, Embellishments - Kelli

5 Cards, Prima Flowers, Plaster Hearts, Lace &; Tickets - Maria
Emboss sheets of cardstock, Die Cuts, Outline stickers Katya

Please check individual blogs for more information!

Tutorial

This week I want to show you how to make this card for Tuesday Alchemy's challenge. This is a crash course combining watercolor paint and wet embossing. :) I know, I know...it's weird that I'm in the winter holiday spirit in June, but I know that I will procrastinate 'til the end if I don't take advantage of the little spark of motivation here and there.

Gather these materials to begin. You can use the discount kids watercolor paint set as I did. If you use another type of ink for wet embossing that is fine too. I would recommend using either watercolor paper or heavy cardstock (I used French Paper Company's Pop-Tone Whip Cream 100 lb. cover stock) for this project as it will be absorbing a lot of liquid and will cause less stress and distortion to the final card. 

The first step is to center the 3x3 inch scrap paper as best you can on the top part of your card and tape a border around the scrap paper. Don't push down too hard on the scotch tape otherwise it will make it hard to remove later. Scotch tape is a light adhesive, so you can still remove it if only light pressure is applied. Then remove the scrap paper when you have all of the tape down around the perimeter. 

Paint inside of this box any way you like! I used the 2 blues and added some white to a few areas! This will be your background. Then let it dry for a bit. Remember to clean you brush with water every once in a while, so the colors don't bleed and mix too much if you're using other colors. 

Peel off the fence of tape gently.

This is what it looks like when the parts underneath the tape are exposed--clean edges!

Now you're ready to stamp when the background is dry. Rub your dryer sheet (or embossing buddy found in craft stores) to remove as much static as possible from the part of card where you will stamp--the blue painted background. This will help the embossing powder come off easier from the parts where it is not wanted. Stick acrylic stamps (I used BoBunny snowflakes stamps) of your choice on an acrylic block and apply Versamark Ink. I used the Dazzle version but it is not necessary here because I am not using clear embossing powder, so it won't show through.

Position stamp around the center of the background and push down with even pressure to stamp (make sure your surface is flat underneath before!!!). 

Apply embossing powder to area where you just stamped (mix a little glitter to a small batch if you want glitter in it!). You may want to consider buying the detailed embossing powder (or super fine) if you are stamping images that have many details and thin lines. Sorry for the poor quality picture. My boyfriend helped me take pictures and we didn't realize it was not in focus until I uploaded it to my computer. 

This is what the card looks like after I poured off the white embossing powder.

Tap off excess. Wipe some parts carefully if necessary.

Stamp sentiment. This is a little "season's greetings" stamp from Inkadinkado. 

Turn on heat gun and run over the powder gliding back and forth so as to not burn the paper. You'll know the embossing powder is melted as you see it's transformation from grainy to glossy! You can touch it as soon as you bring it away from the heat! It will feel raised and full of texture! With this last step I want to congratulate you because you're done! :)


Tip: Run the card through the Cuttlebug or any other cold press die cutting machine to flatten out any unflattering bends.

Where to Go From Here

Continue on! Leave comments, learn something new/refresh your memory of techniques, follow new friends, play along in this week's challenge! There is much more to be explored!

Eileen - You Are Here

Corrinne - Your Next Stop

Maria

Laine

Kelli

Katya

Tuesday Alchemy

Happy crafting and exploring!

P.S. If you have an online shop you'd like to promote on my page, you can add your link under my "Link Up" tab. :)


This card was also entered in:
-Craft Your Passion Challenges 114 Anything Goes
-Make It Monday 93 Anything Goes
-CRAFT Challenge 158, Male Card

Happy New Year All!

Suddenly a cold front hit us and it dropped from 50s to 20s. Crazy!

Hope you're all making good progress on your new year's resolutions so far. I am trying my best!

This is a holiday card...yes, I am always behind.

I think I like quilling. It's cheap to do, requires minimal materials, and your imagination is your limit to your creations! It is probably the most time consuming when you compare it to other types of card making styles though. Despite that, I feel the most accomplished and fulfilled after making quilled cards. Hope you will enjoy this snowflake design!