A little bit of love to go around

February.  I can't believe that January is already gone!  In 2 weeks I will celebrate 2 of my kids birthdays.  Wow.  Guess I better get back in the groove of things!

I want to share my February projects with you....Gecko Galz has some of the most adorable images this month.

First up is this vintage inspired tag.  A while back I found this wonderful dictionary paper so I decided to use "love" on a tag.  The images are from Valentine Wishes collage set, Noteworthy collage set, and the February paper pack.  After printing, I fussy cut and combined them to make the tag.

 Just love the stamps....

 Added some mini pearls and stickle to the frame....

 And of course a little distress ink....

 Some vintage lace to finish it off.....

Last month I began a small calendar that hangs in my craft room.  Each month I will add my favorite images.  Here is February's.....

 Closer inspection...

 I just "love" the love image.....

 And I say this to my kiddos....

Stop by Gecko Galz to see all the new images.  There is a free gift with purchase too!  Hope you have a great day crafting.  Stop by again soon...there just might be a freebie coming up!

First of the year

The new year has settled in here.  I have finally stopped writing 2015 on everything!  Every January I have this desire to get organized (like everyone else I know)!  I have this "passion" for planners, calendars, notes.  I guess you can call me a planner nerd!  I love all things organized!

I decided that I needed a hanging calendar in my craft room to help organize just my design team things and classes.  I could have purchased one.  But nope.  Not me.  I had to make it!

So.  Each month I will post my calendar page for that month.  It will encompass images that I love and want to look at.

Ready for January?

I am using an old blank calendar from Archiver's.  (Another resolution of mine....try to use what is in my stash!)  I added the month's in Vinyl (because I had it).  I still need to add the dates in each square.  The base of January is made with a digital paper from Gecko Galz.  It was part of the release for last January.  I believe it was from the Robyn G papers for the month of December 2014.

I chose 2 of my favorite images ever.  I just love the red birds in this image.  Something very serene to me with the snow, and the birds, and the the depth of the picture.

The second image, the ice skates, just brings a good memory to mind.  I added snowflakes all around the picture because I just adore these Elizabeth Craft Design snowflakes.  It is a die set (all 3 snowflakes) and they cut perfectly.  I added clear Wink of Stella to them and the pearls to the center for some depth.

I hope you enjoyed taking a peek today.  Remember, I will add each month to the blog.  Have a wonderful winter day!

All that glitters.....and a free stamp!

This month's challenge for Gecko Galz is All That Glitters.  I had some fun with several images:

I love mixing images.  The base of the tag is from the digital paper set called High Society.  I printed it on a large scale to create a background.  Once it is adhered to a manilla tag base, I painted it with gesso.  Not too thick, but just enough to really mute the colors.  Once it was dry I added gold glitter paste thru a french text stencil to give more dimension.  Next I matted my main image, from holiday icons collage set, onto navy card stock and trimmed it with a small gold lace from my stash.  A while back I purchased these cute stencils that are all words so I decided to use "faith" with gold glitter paste from Bo Bunny.  It is on navy card stock again and matted on a lighter blue card stock.  Add flowers and leaves and a nice bow at the top and I'm done.

I love this paper set and collage sheet.  Visit Gecko Galz to see these and so much more.  Want to come play with us?  There is a spot or two left for our annual retreat!  We have so much fun on these weekends in the Hill Country of Texas.  Visit the Gecko Galz blog for details.  It is in a few weeks so march on over today.  I am one of the featured teachers this year too!  I have a great mixed media project for us that I hope everyone loves.

And just for visiting me today.....

Have a wonderful day.  Go create something pretty!

A sweet little reindeer

A quick little post to share another Christmas tag with you.  Might have been a mix up, but I posted a different tag than the one Gecko Galz did for me that day.  Here is the one they had...

I have a "thing" for Bingo cards and just LOVE the Santa bingo card from Gecko Galz.  I have used it many times.  The tag is really very simple....Start with a manilla tag and paint it with Iced Spruce distress paint.  Give it a spritz of water to distress it a bit.  When it is dry lightly distress ink your edges with Frayed Burlap (all of the images too).  I have a punch for the greenery - you will need some of the small branch and some of the holly too.  The bingo card can be found here.  I then added the cute little reindeer (found here) that was fussy cut by pop dotting it on top of all of the greenery.  Add a big red bow and you are good to go!

So quick and easy you could make them for all of your packages!

Hope you are having a blessed Christmas season.

A quick little tag

Welcome to Gecko Galz tags of December!  I am especially fond of making tags.  I think of them as mini pieces of art!  I have a tag wall in my craft room that is just for my enjoyment!

So, here is one of many tags I will share with you this month:

I made this tag using the czarina papers and the baroquen dreams stamps.  First I die cut a manilla tag then covered it with one of the gorgeous paper from the czarina paper collection.  I can see I will be using those papers often!  Once I had the butterfly stamp printed I covered it heavily with glossy accents and left it to dry overnight.  The next morning I "cracked" the butterfly by carefully bending it.  I then inked it.  This creates a really cool antiqued look.  I matted it on a yellow ochre card stock and fussy cut.  Some velveteen leaves from Petaloo and some fall flowers along with the "so thankful" tag complete the tag.

Hope you enjoyed this quick tag.  Visit Gecko Galz to see these images and so many more!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and a free stamp

I can't seem to get that song out of my head!  I am one of "those" who does not like to have Christmas things up before Thanksgiving.  Are you?  I read something on Facebook last week that said something about enjoying my holidays one at a time.  That's me!  So now that Thanksgiving is over, I am ready for Christmas!

Our local radio station plays Christmas songs for the whole month.  I love that.  However, this morning I had just a limited amount of time in the car and this was the song I heard.  Now it is playing over and over in my head!

I thought I would share a few things from Gecko Galz with you very quickly.  These are 2 of the projects I made with the December release.

I fell in love with this lantern image this month.  I have made several tags and cards with it but this one is by far my favorite.  The image is pop dotted onto a kraft tag that I splattered with white paint.  I punched the greenery from different scraps of green card stock I had laying around, tipped them in white to look snowy, and then stacked then under the lantern.  The original image had the greenery but I wanted a 3D affect.  I made the tiny pinecones as well.  It is hard to see since I did not get the best picture, but the lantern light is glittery as well (thanks to some Faber Castell glass bead glitter gel).  This may end up being a version of my actual Christmas cards that I send to family!

Some of the images were called Blue Christmas and as you can guess they were all blue.  I love the santa image and decided to fussy cut the snowflake out.  It has glass bead glitter gel on the outer edges.  I used the papers, the christmas list image and then the santa to make this quick card to put in some baskets I made.  It is perfect with the silver ribbon I tied the baskets with.  Can't show you the finished basket or the recipients would know who it came from (it's a surprise).

Want something free?  Well, as a thank you for stopping by :

A free Gecko Galz stamp!

Please stop by Gecko Galz and see all the wonderful images they have in store for you!  It's a great way to customize your cards this holiday season.  So many great things to see.  

Enjoy!

A big thank you

Wow.  What a great Gecko Galz Blog Hop!  I know I had a great time hopping from blog to blog to see the incredible pieces and to grab my freebies!  Did you?  A huge thank you to those who hopped along and left comments.  It's nice to hear from blog peeps that enjoy my creations.

It has been a busy week.  (as usual!)  I only taught "2" classes but I was at the store every day , or so it felt!  My home schedule has changed significantly this year and has forced me to re-think how I have my classes at Scrapp n' Savvy.  Usually I hold a morning and an evening class on the same day for a project.  But I have had to change that up depending on the day.  So last week I taught a night class on one day and then a day class the very next day for the same project.  Felt weird.  But all was good.

I thought I would share these projects with you here:

First is a class project from Bo Bunny.  This is a kit available to retailers and I thought it would be fun and easy.  There were some significant issues with the kit (papers that I felt did not match the kit, poor instructions, design challenges).  I ended up "re-making" the album to suit my standards!  It really is adorable.  The satchel opens to reveal a mini album.

Satchel shown open to show the back with a "hidden" pocket.

This is the cover of the mini album.  The papers are part of the Enchanted Harvest collection.  The kit included brads and a pre-made mini album from previous collections.

A little Halloween album.  This was fun to make and included all the new Tim Holtz Halloween goodies.

A fall 3 D layout.  The picture seems so dark whereas the original has deep and wonderful fall colors.

A second fall 3d layout.  This one is so cute....I have a great pumpkin pic to put here.

And lastly, I have had a large demand for pet mini albums.  I love Authentique papers and this fall they released an adorable cat/dog collection.  So, I made one of each for a class.  The papers are so cute and have wonderful prints!

I am playing around in the craft room this weekend.  I have a layout I am making for a gift (aaaghh-just realized I have to get this done!).  And there is some fun Christmas stuff happening too!  Will share when I'm done.

Hope you have a great week. Craft for happiness!