Friday, July 28, 2017

Huge Sizzix Sale - Christmas in July!


Hi all! It has been insanely hot here in Mississippi for the past couple weeks and I am longing for some cool weather, which is months away for us. The next best thing is cranking up the a/c in the studio and working on Christmas projects!

I saw that Sizzix was having a huge Christmas in July sale and thought I'd make a quick project using Eileen Hull's new Journal die and a few of my favorite Christmas dies by Tim Holtz. You might have seen the first shadow box I created using Eileen's die back in May. I made this in a similar way, but used jewelry boxes I got at the dollar store for my niches. Easy peasy!

On the left side, I used a sentiment from Tim's Christmas Stacked Words die and some pretty holly branches cut using his Holiday Greens die. Both are on sale this weekend along with a ton of other great dies from Tim and Eileen. It's a fantastic time to stock up!

You can shop for the dies I used via the banner below.

All the papers, ephemera, and embellishments are from Tim and can be found at Simon Says Stamp via the image below.


I always use Grafix Medium Weight chipboard for my projects using Eileen's dies. It's super sturdy and the perfect thickness for her dies!



Thanks so much for stopping by today! I apologize for no longer posting the thumbnail images of the products I use. InLinkz (whose service generated the images and links) changed and they are charging way more than I can afford for their service. I hope it won't be too much of an inconvenience to my followers!

Have a great weekend!


Saturday, July 15, 2017

Distress Oxides - By The Sea

Hi all! I have been keeping busy with lots of garden and baking projects, but wanted to share a new project I've started with a few friends of mine. I bought Eileen Hull's amazing new Journal die and we were cutting out book covers when it occurred to me that they would be perfect books to hold swap pages. So each month we have a theme and we'll be creating pages to put in each other's books. How fun is that?! I'm really excited to have an ongoing project like this and it's so fun to see what everyone comes up with. I still need to finish my book, but I'll be sharing that very soon.

Our first theme was patriotic/summer. I obviously went for summer. :) I am still getting the hang of working with the new Distress Oxides, so I thought I'd use this as an opportunity to experiment some more. I used a combination of Broken China, Faded Denim, and Vintage Photo to create the backgrounds. I used Elizabeth Craft Designs' soft finish cardstock as my base and I love the way it looks. I was really happy with how these turned out - there were no duds in the bunch!

The image of the women and the ticket are both rubber stamps from Oxford Impressions. The women were stamped on matte coated cardstock with black Archival ink and colored with Distress markers. I was so thrilled with how well the cardstock took the ink! I added a few rub ons to the 'photo' to add some intereste. To finish my card, I added some tissue tape and a bit of cheesecloth. I checked the OI Etsy store and I didn't see this particular stamp set available right now, but you might be able to message Suzanne, the owner, and see if she can make a special order for you. It's a really wonderful stamp set - one of the first of hers I owned! UPDATE! I just checked and By the Sea is now in stock. Thanks, Suzanne!

Here's a 'taste' of what I've been baking! Do any of you watch the Great British Baking Show (Bake Off in the UK)? I'm obsessed! When I saw this pies and tarts class that Craftsy was offering, I snapped it up!

I made these from the leftover tart dough from the tart in the photo at the top. So good! It was based on a King Arthur Flour recipe. Scrummy!

This was the pie that caught my attention in the Craftsy class. I made if for the 4th of July and it was a huge hit! The pie crust is almost like a puff pastry. So flaky and light. And no soggy bottom! :)

And here's an actual GBBO recipe - Paul's Schichttorte. It was really not as hard as it looks; just very time-consuming. And very yummy! I can't promise that this won't turn into a baking blog, but you might see a few of my latest kitchen projects from time to time. :)


One more thing - there is a great sale at Sizzix going on this weekend. Lots and lots of my favorite dies at incredible prices. Click the banner above to shop!


The inks I used can be found at Simon Says Stamp via the link above.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I'm entering my Distress Oxide collage in the Simon Monday Challenge - Distress It,  and the Frilly and Funkie challenge - In the Good Old Summertime.

Hope you have a great weekend.