"ISABEL" name banner

if you've been here more than once in the last year you'll have sussed that the "banner craze" in papercrafting has hit me HARD...and seemingly permanently! i like full-sized banners, i like shaped ones, i like mini-ones on cards, and on wall hangings; possibly the only banner i DON'T love is david banner, the incredible hulk...though he's a lovely shade of green, it must be said! :)

but today the banner in question was made for my young friend miss isabel, and i am very proud of it indeed:


maybe the BEST part of this one was how verrrrrrrrrrrrrry easily it came together, a fact which i attribute 100% to having used the january pixie dust paperie kit! and i'm not just saying that because i'm so proud of my part in putting together MY FUNKY VALENTINE (though i am, of course!) or even because all the pixie dust kits are so beautiful as well as being a great value (though they are, of course!) but seriously, the main thing is, if you start out with a group of pre-selected, pre-matched, pre-coordinated papers and embellishments you can skip that whole long "gather your suppies" step (which in my case can sometimes seem ETERNAL!) and get right to the "hey! i'm makin' a banner here!" step, which is the fun bit!

there are more detailed photos on the pixie blog, as well as additional detail on the products and method used in this project. there's also info about the MONTH LONG spree of giveaways miss kirsty is hatching for some lucky pixie readers, so be sure and check that out!

(there's also a second post today here on my own blog, featuring my very first limelight papercrafts design team project! YAY!) ♥♥♥

it's FUNKY VALENTINE day!!!

and i don't think i could BE more excited! i've never put together a kit before, and having my very first one officially on sale in the pixie dust paperie shoppe is such a cool feeling!


can i just tell you, also, that i appreciate the people who do it EVERY MONTH...people like, say...pixie-in-chief kirsty vittetoe...even more now that i realize how much work and thought and effort goes into the process! seriously, WOW!


ok, so you already know it's called MY FUNKY VALENTINE... because it's the january kit, and of course we're all gearing up for the holiday... but i hope there's as much "funky" in there as there is "valentine"!


there's plenty of pink of course...because i love pink...but there's also teal and brown and seafoam green...and neutrals to tie it all together. and yes, there are hearts and flowers and birds--but there are fun stickers, too, and metal keys, and vintage sheet music, and diecuts made from vintage book pages, and...ok, you can see the whole list HERE, actually!


yet another reason i love this kit is that my eldest niece, riley, was born on valentine's day nine years ago, and as i was putting the kit together i was thinking of all the things i wanted to make for her; things i can't wait to show you!!!

but as much as i like my own projects, i have to tell you this month i believe my fellow pixies are going to STEAL THE SHOW: just look at this gorgeous card zielonooka (aka "miss z"!!!) made! and how cool are these tags of lori's?! and miss jessy is, as always, rockin' the layouts!! also, i happen to know that kirsty is planning a bit of a giveaway this month...and i guarantee you won't want to miss that, so please check out the pixie blog ASAP!!!

then c'mon back here tomorrow...when i will have not one, but TWO new posts for you!!! (it's rainin' LAUREN this week!!!) :) :) :)

jingle belles: CARD ONE

i had soooooo many cool things to tell you yesterday that i never posted my jingle belles card! so in case you've not been over there yet, i'll do it now. the prompt for CARD ONE is SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW which you can interpret in any way that you like; i chose to combine some cool vintagey bits with a few brand new items i got for christmas or in the sales right after:

(vintage: ideals magazine, sheet music; patterned paper: dcwv, hambly, love elsie; flowers & leaves: prima; dimensional tree stickers and fabric brad: recollections; ribbon: may arts; small brads: doodlebug; bling snowflakes: oriental trading co; adhesives: uhu gluestick, tombow monorunner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

for old i've got a poem and illustration from a vintage "ideals" magazine, plus a bit of vintage sheet music; for new there are some fancy recollections' christmas tree stickers, a super-cool fabric brad, and my very VERY all-time favorite may arts leaf ribbon...which i'll tell you right now you'll be seeing A LOT MORE OF because the amazin' stef gave me AN ENTIRE ROLL for christmas!!! everything else is of medium age from my stash, and i went with a round card just to kind of maximize the pretty scene.

i am verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry excited indeed to report that we've already had cards come in over at jingle belles!!! NEVER in my wildest dreams did i think we'd have submissions on the first and second day, and i could not be more thrilled! plus i have to tell you that just the excitement of getting started this early on my own cards would actually be enough for me...but to have a gang of old friends and new ones doing it too, at the same time, in an atmosphere of ZERO PRESSURE??! this might be the coolest card-making experience of my life to date! seriously.

thank you so very much to all who've played along already, and WELCOME!!! if you're reading this and wondering, "should *I* try that?" all i can say is the feeling of virtue involved making a holiday card NOW is a heady, heady thing; you have to try it for yourself and see!!! ♥

speaking of fabulous card-making experiences, i have one more little new year's surprise up my sleeve: the very lovely mandy has invited me to join her limelight papercrafts sketch design team, and i've just finished my first card which will be shown there (& here!) this thursday, january 6th. the sketch is FAB♥U♥LOUS and i must say i am quite pleased with my take on it, too, so i hope you'll come back for that!

happy new year!

i am so excited to tell you that the very first project made with the january pixie dust paperie kit MY FUNKY VALENTINE is up on the pixie blog today, and it just happens to be this fun card i made:

on it you can see some of my favorite things from the kit: the dear lizzy rose brads, a selection of my mind's eye, american crafts, and october afternoon papers, cool stickers, chipboard letters, vintage sheet music, metal keys... there's loads more, of course, and you can see a bit of it here in the preview post, and then there'll be a full listing with lots of photos in the shoppe when the kit goes on sale january 5th!

the other super-exciting thing that's happening today is that our very first prompt has gone up on the JINGLE BELLES blog!!! if you haven't dropped in over there yet, i hope you'll check it out: stef and i are rounding up as many friends as possible and we're all planning to make one christmas card every week from now through november! then we're takin' december off and doing...ummmmmmm...whatever people do in december who're not consumed by holiday-card-induced stressed and knee-deep in red & green patterned paper. if this sounds like YOUR december...why not join us this year and together we'll all find out exactly WHAT "civilians" do during that month??!?!

ok, ok, obviously i cannot GUARANTEE that the rewards of such a virutous plan will involve daniel craig in any way...but if we're stuck in the house makin' cards the whole month we'll never find out, will we??! (it will be FUN, though, i promise! and there's a giveaway, too!!!) :) :) :)

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!!!

♥♥♥♥♥