heart the art: week 52!!!!!!!!!!!!

can you believe it's the very last HEART the ART prompt...and i am posting it on the very last day of 2010?! talk about your synergistic symmetry, eh?! :)

ok, so for week 52 miss gina gave us--appropriately enough-- NEXT YEAR! so i had myself a little free-form think about some stuff i'd like to happen...or that i want to work on...and kind of just lumped all my ideas together and then embellished the heck outta them. 'cause hey: it's what i do!!! ♥

and here is my super-full, over-stuffed, biggest book-ring-you've-ever-seen HEART the ART journal, in its completed stage, holding all 52 weeks of art journaling inspiration from 2010:

in summing up this project i have to give one last super-shout-out to the founder, devisor, inspiration and cheerleader of this project: the very lovely and very talented gina cunningham!

she put the "heart" in HEART the ART! come to think of it, she put the "art" in there too! if you're ever looking for a muse/teacher/friend with whom to spend an entire year thinking, talking, and MAKING art, i seriously do not think you could better than my girl down there in florida!!! now i am excited about the unveiling of her new "play along" project for 2011: USE PRACTICE CREATE

that she'll be hosting at the tyggereye art blog. this time, she's going to devote each month of the year to a different medium, starting in january with acrylic paints and ending up in december with watercolor crayons and pencils. i hope you'll join in, too--i GUARANTEE you will learn a lot and you will totally HAVE FUN! (which is the entire point, am i right??!)

thanks, g!

♥♥♥

ps: the lovely miss stephanie and myself are also starting a bit of a year-long endeavor tomorrow, it's called JINGLE BELLES and at the moment the only thing that's missing is *YOU*! so come on over and check it out!!!

fussy cut bird card

it's pretty hard to believe i am already announcing for the last time this month and this year, the final pixie dust paperie project made with the december 2010 kit, TIMES SQUARE TWENTY 11:

you'll have noticed it's a card, and i've done juuuuusssssssssssst a little bit (ok, a lot) (ok, a really REALLY lot) of fussy-cutting on this one! :) read more about it (& see additional pics) on the PDP blog!

oof, and can i ask you to stay tuned tomorrow over there, as well?! because it's almost time to debut the *JANUARY 2011* kit...which is very near and dear to my heart, since *I* got to choose all the ingredients for it!!! yepper, pixie-in-chief kirsty gave me the honor of putting that thing together and i could not be more excited or more proud! i hope you'll like it, too, so be sure to jump over there tomorrow for a few days of designer previews...and then the kit goes on sale in the pixie shoppe from january 5th!!! ♥♥♥

xmas fave five

debby at scrapjourney--a cool and new-to-me papercrafting site i discovered this week--is having a blog candy draw for which the entry is a post listing my top five christmas cards that i made this year. so here they are in no particular order:

it's pink...it's layery...it's got my fave TH reindeer die used on recycled soda cans!

not so pink...but still layery and reindeer-based...this time i gussied him up with some snowflake rub ons (to hide a few imperfections in my flattened can!)

blue again...with a fancy compound flower + snowflakes embellishment...on a transparency base

this one might be my most fave: i used a sketchy thursday sketch as my scheme...and so it's MUCH more sophisticated than i'd've thought up on my own!

and we've come full circle to pink again...on a hambly transparency...with ancient KI memories letters that had to be sewn on because they weren't sticky enough any more!

proud as i am of ALL of these...at the moment my MOST favorite holiday card is the one i made for the very first JINGLE BELLES prompt that debuts this saturday, january first! i hope you'll drop by then and see it...and maybe you'll like to join us in our mission to make our 2011 holiday cards EARLY...by doing one a week??! (did i mention there's going to be a bit of a giveaway during january??!?!)

hope to see you saturday, darlings!!!

♥♥♥♥♥

savor the journey

we are down to the last few of december's pixie dust projects made with the TIMES SQUARE TWENTY 11 kit; today on the pixie blog you can read about this super-customized birthday card i made for my brother-in-law (that is he on the motorcycle!):


i'm proud to say that this one was quite a hit with the whole family, in fact my sweet niece jessica was showing this...and the treat bags i made for her and her brother...to everyone with an enthusiastic, "aunt lauren *MADE* these!" that definitely warmed this papercrafter's heart i can tell you! :)

last HTA "catch up" post!

and it's a triple-play! but i'm well on my way to my goal of posting ALL of my HEART the ART pages within the 2010 calendar year*--a first for me in a year-long journaling scenario-- i just want to be able to have that sort of bragging rights ONE TIME, ok?! so here are my pages with the exception of week 52...and i am going to tackle that one when i've finished posting this. :)

week 51: CONQUER

yes, i'd like to takeover the world in 2011...but first i think i will make further strides on my goals from the last couple of years, the big three being procrastination, weight and clutter!

week 48: MY STATE

i live in new jersey. i am used to the jokes. heck, sometimes i'm the one telling the jokes!

but it's a lovely place, really, and it's been pretty good to us. as you can read on the pull-out journaling card:

week 50: COURAGE
when i am stumped on a theme, i often look for a quote, either online or in barlett's or the oxford dictionary of quotations. sometimes the results are enough just to get me started; sometimes i actually build my whole page around what i've found. this was one of the latter times:

in case you can't quite read my funky hand stamping it says,

"courage does not always roar. sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day that says, 'i will try again tomorrow'." -mary anne radmacher


(i ♥LOVE♥ that!!!)

speaking of tomorrow, i'll be back then with the year's penultimate pixie dust project and then i hope to have HTA week 52 ready to show you on thursday!

*this is the third year i've done a year-long weekly prompt, and i highly recommend the concept to anyone who has even a passing interest in art journaling! in 2008 i loved elise blaha's PAPER ADVENTURE...which i finished in february of 2009; last year i had a blast with emily falconbridge's 52Q...that i wrapped up in january of this year; i feel quite strongly that it's not important WHEN you finish...or even *IF* you do...the fun and inspiration and creativity of trying one of these things is just SO valuable!!! remember there is no statute of limitations on papercrafting, so if there's something where you think, "oh i wish i'd've finished that...go on and DO IT!" trust me, you'll forget about the time frame when you are holding that cool project you LOVE!!!

heavy metal reindeer...part 2!

you'll notice the edge punches and nestie labels have really come into their own this year, and the sewing machine is ubiquitous! tied in the category of "favorite background" was the kraft/silver version of this hambly snowflake paper and vintage sheet music, but there's plenty of older basic grey solids and prints and a bit of love elsie noel paper that i think i may actually cry when i've used the very last bit! the reindeer was diecut with the tim holtz sizzix die and has been used on flattened soda cans and some thin craft metal; i even had a bit of an experiment with copper alcohol ink. having had lots of interest, i did a little tutorial on using soda cans in the cuttlebug at some point. it's very EASY and totally cool, so you might like to rinse and save a pop can or two!!!

if, like me, you left your holiday cards a bit late and found the process more stressful than creative, might i suggest TAKING STEPS to prevent the same scenario next year??! stef & i are lookin' for a few stalwart companions on a christmassy journey...it starts on new year's day...but you can read a bit about it here right now!

fa la la, indeed!

wishing all of my lovely friends who are celebrating christmas today a particularly fun and festive celebration, filled with friends and family, love and laughter!

but if you're serving catnip, PLEASE remember to designate a driver, ok?!

~♥♥♥~

it's raining reindeer!

or reigning rain, dear?

or...something...

meteorologically speaking, what this means to you is that i'm gonna show you A LOT MORE cards made on the "modular mass production" principle of making them all the same, and all different at the same time! maybe half today and the rest on the 26th? feel free to call your uncles and antlers*! :)

*worst pun EVER--a very proud achievement for me there! WAHEY!!! :) :) :)

more holiday cards

here's another "best of" group i like to call, "the ones with words on"! having discovered a bit of a cache of bling, and some older chipboard words that had accumulated, i decided to use them up! again, i used one basic layout, but varied the papers and trimmings on each card, so they'd be easy and quick-- but still a bit creative and fun to make!

a couple of quick money-saving tips i learned this year: 1. buy bling words off season...they're $2.50 at full price, and under $1 in the clearance section at michaels (& there are ALWAYS some in the clearance section!); 2. walk right past the expensive stacks of tiny poinsettias for papercrafting and grab a couple of "stems" from the floral dept; i've used both kinds interchangably...can you tell which are the cheapies?? (no, nor could i, even when the cards were in my hands!) :)

by the way, may i extend all of the greetings on the cards to everyone reading, whether or not you are celebrating christmas on saturday? i wish you joy, love, peace and a disproportionally large serving of merriment, darlings!!

princess for a day!

we have a DOUBLE HELPING of princessy-ness over at the pixie dust paperie blog today! a fabulous layout of kirsty's and this card of mine, which both use the most beautiful piece of my mind's eye glittery patterned paper you've ever seen!

why not check it out? while you're there, you can read the details for this month's reader's challenge which utilizes a wonderful sketch by our very own pixie-in-chief! i know we're all super-busy coming up on the holiday here, but the prize is...wait for it...the october pixie dust kit, FALL IN LOVE! do you think if i change my name to "rita" and use NO PINK AT ALL, i could get away with entering??!?! (...'cause it's a FAB kit!!!) :)

fancy *HYBRID* xmas gift bags!

i was deliberating on what color to use for the nieces' and nephew's holiday gift bags, when i saw that this week's city crafter challenge (hosted by december's pixie dust paperie GDT!) is "kraft kreations" --thanks, ros, that was easy!!!

thrilled by the quickness of letting someone else make my difficult decisions, i hopped over to sketchy thursdays and nabbed the current sketch:


color...sorted! design...mapped! let the gift bag embellishment commence!!!

(digistuffs: papers: vera lim, gretchen thomas, katie pertiet; stickers: mindy tersawa; word art, tags & snowflakes: katie pertiet, designer digitals; real stuff: plain bags & wired ribbon from michaels; alphabets: thickers; snowflake punches: ek success & martha stewart; border punch: recollections; brads: my mind's eye; stickers: mrs. grossman, jolees; inks: colorbox; adhesives: gluedots, tombow monorunner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

ok, how cute are those "jolly friends" christmas characters? they're by mindy terasawa at designer digitals, and i used them last year too, but i couldn't resist a comeback! plus...HYBRID...totally saves you time when you need to make FOUR of something, but you want each one to be individual! believe it or not, i used only one 8.5x11" blank label sheet for each bag, and then just a few "real" embellishments on top for texture and interest. here are the printed bits in various stages:

you can see that i've got three panels: the one with the character on it, a blue one for a primary mat as shown in the sketch, and a longer skinny one for the very back panel behind. each one is a digital patterned paper to which i've added only a little customization...snowflake brushes in various colors...a couple of word arts...those cute dangly tags. the only thing i changed between printings was the cute little character; all else is the same on each bag. here's a shot where you can see the "real" things i added:

i spelled each name in thickers (whose adhesive i enhanced with my sewing machine; i LOVE thickers...but they don't always stay ON, do they??!) the character panel was matted on copier paper and trimmed with scalloppy scissors. i added a punched strip of white paper and a bit of lace. i swapped out the cute journaling spot in the sketch for a compound snowflake made up of a large punch, a few stacked stickers, and a very fancy brad holding it all together.

i stuck all the bits on, and at the end i trimmed up the top with some swirls of ribbon and a fancy bow...et voila!

in closing may i please apologize to all my lovely blogging friends?! i realize i've been a NON-presence in your comments, but not in spirit!!! at the moment, the holidays are verrrrrrrrrrry slightly kicking my crafty butt! :) also...the upcoming january pixie dust kit is very VERY special to me indeed, and i'm finishing up some pretty cool projects to show you next month over there. then i've got a super-cool new DT gig that starts january 6th, about which i am most excited! oh yeah, and did i mention my darling stef and i are hatching a CUNNING PLAN??!?!?!? :) :) :)

please bear with me, and for now accept an extra helping of my holiday cheer, darlings! ♥♥♥