Tuesday, May 31, 2016

It's my birthday! Giveaways!

It's my birthday today!  I always take the day off of work, and I have two rules #1, I can't make any plans and #2, I do whatever I feel like.

Today that meant getting a movie from Redbox (The Intern, which was cute), a little shopping, although I didn't find anything to buy, and some reading and relaxing.

But, I also decided I wanted to host some giveaways.  Since today is my fly by the seat of my pants day, I don't have a well thought out plan for this, but I do have some extra goodies in my stash, and of course there will be some Neat & Tangled involved.  I would also love to give away a seat to my Craftsy class too.

So while the actual giveaways are kind of amorphous and up in the air, there will be some giveaways.

Just leave a comment to win.

For an extra chance, be a blog follower.

I'll post winners next Monday.

Good luck!


Friday, May 20, 2016

Neat & Tangled Release Week Recap and Giveaway Winners

Today's the day!  The May release is now live in the Neat & Tangled store.

Here's a recap of my projects for this week, as well as the full look at the products I have releasing:

 




Pixelated Circle and Pixelated Faces
 

Pixelated Sentiments



Fractal Cloud Stamps and Dies

 

Hexastar Stencil



Journaling Alpha Dies



Now for some winners!

conil, commenting on Day 1 post wins the Fractal Cloud stamp set

Christine Canfield, commending on the Day 2 post wins the Fractal Cloud dies

Arianna  Barber, commenting on the Day 3 post wins the Hexastar Stencil

Mary-Anne V., commenting on the Day 4 post wins the Journaling Alphas

Congrats winners!  Please shoot me an email with your mailing address and I'll get these sent out to you.

If you didn't win, never fear, the July release is sneaking up on us already and we'll have more giveaways then.  Be sure to hop over to the store if there's something you have to have immediately, this is a doozy of a release and I'm thinking there will be some sell outs coming....

And thanks to everyone for the sweet and encouraging comments this week!

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Neat & Tangled Release Week - Day 4


Day 4!  Last day of release reveals, and tomorrow they'll all be available in the store.  I am really excited about today's reveal.  

When I created the font for my Bible Journaling stamps, I had in the back of my mind that these would make for a great set of alpha dies.  And part of the reason I wanted them as dies is because I wanted to make my own Thickers.  I have spent a small fortune purchasing Thickers, and of course you always run out of the vowels and are then left with a bunch of consonants.  Plus, I lean towards tall and skinny when it comes to thickers and so there are only a few styles out there that fit in that category.

So as soon as I knew these were on their way to me, I went and ordered some adhesive foam sheets, so I could make my own Thickers.  You'll be seeing these on layouts in the future, but for today I just whipped up a quickly little card.



So fun and easy (the grid paper really helps with lining up).  And they went through my Big Shot like a breeze!

I do want to mention that these are actually a bit larger than the Bible Journaling stamps.  Those are about 1" tall and these are 1 1/4".   This photos is a good comparison:



Want the details on the giveaways?  Well each day of our reveals (Monday - Thursday) Danielle is hosting a giveaway on the Neat & Tangled blog.  In addition, she's picking one random commenter from the DT blogs throughout the reveal for a $25 credit to the store.

I'm also hosting some giveaways here for some of my new products.  Just leave comments throughout the week and I'll draw some winners at the end of the week.

Don't forget to stop by the N&T blog, you definitely want to see what the rest of the girls created and also the rest of the reveals for each day, not to mention enter to win some prizes!

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Neat & Tangled Release Week - Day 3 and Giveaways


Ready for Day 3?  Today I'm showcasing a new set from Danielle.  I am a huge fan of her handwriting and I am in love with this new sentiment die set, it's got a base/mat piece as well as the sentiment itself, and then there's a coordinating stamp set.

I'm also showcasing a brand new product for Neat & Tangled....STENCILS!  If you've been following me for a while you know I love stencils, and I'm thrilled that we're carrying them now.  Our debut stencil is actually the same pattern as our Hexastar Cover Plate.  It's a little more subtle here since I didn't ink the whole thing.  I used two colors of dye ink in two shades of blue to create this burst pattern.


The sentiment sits up a bit higher because I used a different color of cardstock first and decided I didn't like the shade, so I switched to this one and just adhered it on top.  That secondary sentiment comes from the coordinating stamp set.

OK, now for the giveaway deets:  each day of our reveals (Monday - Thursday) Danielle is hosting a giveaway on the Neat & Tangled blog.  In addition, she's picking one random commenter from the DT blogs throughout the reveal for a $25 credit to the store.

I'm also hosting some giveaways here for some of my new products.  Just leave comments throughout the week and I'll draw some winners at the end of the week.

Don't forget to stop by the N&T blog, you definitely want to see what the rest of the girls created and also the rest of the reveals for each day, not to mention enter to win some prizes!

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Neat & Tangled Release Week - Day 2 - Giveaways


Welcome back for Day 2 of release week!  You guys loved the Heart of Gold stamp set and die, so I wanted to create something similar in a non-basic shape.  I love clouds, and I thought that it would be the perfect shape to use.

The die comes with both a solid cloud and the webbed one.  For this card I cut the solid shape from both vellum and blue cardstock, and the webbed one from some very subtle patterned paper.  They were adhered offset to one another.


For the stamped panel I first added a wash of watercolor using Dylusions Ink Sprays, and then I stamped some of the raindrops (they are two sizes of these) and then the sentiment.  

The stamped panel is popped up as is the cloud piece.  

Want the details on the giveaways?  Well each day of our reveals (Monday - Thursday) Danielle is hosting a giveaway on the Neat & Tangled blog.  In addition, she's picking one random commenter from the DT blogs throughout the reveal for a $25 credit to the store.

I'm also hosting some giveaways here for some of my new products.  Just leave comments throughout the week and I'll draw some winners at the end of the week.

Don't forget to stop by the N&T blog, you definitely want to see what the rest of the girls created and also the rest of the reveals for each day, not to mention enter to win some prizes!

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Monday, May 16, 2016

Neat & Tangled Release Week - Day 1 - Giveaways


It's release week at Neat & Tangled and it's kind of a doozy this month!  So many new goodies.  I've got a bunch of stuff in the release and today's products are some of my favorites.

I wanted to create something similar to the Pixelated Heart die, so meet Pixelated Circle! 

And I also have some companion dies that are perfect for making emojis, or Minecraft images, and to go along with the dies, a stamp set with a variety of sentiments that work well with emojis, or really anything.  I think these sentiment are especially good for guy cards too.  Here are just a few of the emoji combinations you can create with these dies:


For this card I kept the front super simple, because all the impact is on the inside  

I cut the circle from some yellow cardstock, trimmed out the circle and then created the face with the accessory dies.  I think this would make for a really fun card making session with kids.  Just cut a bunch of circles and accessories and let them come up with their own emojis.


OK, I mentioned giveaways, right?  Well each day of our reveals (Monday - Thursday) Danielle is hosting a giveaway on the Neat & Tangled blog.  In addition, she's picking one random commenter from the DT blogs throughout the reveal for a $25 credit to the store.

I'm also hosting some giveaways here for some of my new products.  Just leave comments throughout the week and I'll draw some winners at the end of the week.

Don't forget to stop by the N&T blog, you definitely want to see what the rest of the girls created and also the rest of the reveals for each day, not to mention enter to win some prizes!

Friday, May 13, 2016

Neat & Tangled Sneak Peeks

Next week is release week at Neat & Tangled  I'm pretty excited about it!  It's a pretty big release and I've got several items releasing, including a brand new product line for Neat & Tangled.  I'm still getting my cards together, but I thought I would share some snippets of what I've created so far.




Come back next week for the full reveal!  

Thursday, May 12, 2016

Orcy



This was a fun one!  There were a couple NSD challenges that involved watercolor, so I was looking for a creative way to incorporate watercoloring, and decided to try and extend my photo with watercolors.

I cut a piece of watercolor cardstock, placed the photo in the center, and then using a straight edge to sketch in where lines in the photo would extend to.  Then I went in with the watercolors and tried to mimic the colors of the original photo.



Once that was dry, I adhered it to my cardstock base, adding stitching around the edges, and then attaching the photo.

The title was hand drawn/painted with watercolors and fussy cut.



I really enjoyed creating this and will definitely be trying it again!

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Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Hello Eight



Another day, another layout!

Don't worry, next week is release week at Neat & Tangled and I'll be back to my regularly scheduled programming, but since I've been away from it for so long, I'm not quite ready to stop scrapbooking since I'm really enjoying myself, and getting things done to boot.

This is Ellie's 8 year old photo.  I've stopped ordering the school photos (with the exception of the class picture) because they always turn out badly, and I'd rather not waste money on bad photos (because you have to order them before they are even taken) and just spend a little more on a professional photographer.



For this layout I used one of the Documenter/Project Life kits from Studio Calico for most of the elements, the stamp, frames, journaling cards are from there.  Some very old thickers completed the title and I used some Maggie Holmes Craft Market Ephemera in the gold frame to the right.

The right side was looking a bit bare, so I added some die cuts, the Papertrey Ink Branching Out die.  I cut it from a dark blue and light gray cardstock and offset them a bit to soften the dark die cuts.  I also added a bit of detail to the leaves with a gold marker.



Ok, I'm keeping it short tonight.  I stayed up way too late to unfortunately watch the Caps lose to the Pens, and so now I'm tired and somewhat depressed.  :(

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Sisters



Here's another layout I created over the weekend.  This was a lot of fun!

I used five shades of CTMH dye inks (Topiary, Sweet Leaf, Sky, Pacifica, and Lagoon) and a rubber brayer to create the background.  Then I added the stenciled flowers using black MFT dye ink.  I used a gold Wink of Stella pen to add some gold accents to the flowers.

Then I added some more stenciling using some Delicata ink.  I managed to smudge my white cardstock during all the inky fun, so I had to cut that down and mount it on another piece of cardstock.  For some extra definition, I added a strip of black cardstock and stitched it down with some gold thread.



The thickers are some of my all time favorites and I really only have this bright green set left.  They are still around because the color doesn't go with everything, but here I altered them, coloring them with a black Copic marker.  They're just colored on the top, the green still shows on the dies, but they work with the greens in this layout.

This was a really fun one to create!  Thanks for stopping by!

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Monday, May 9, 2016

National Scrapbooking Day



I was thrilled to be able to a lot of scrapbooking over the weekend.

I've been away from it for a while now, so I have quite a backlog of photos to scrap.

It really was fun to get all my stuff out and participate in challenges.  I'm hoping to continue to get some more done this week.

I thought I would share some layouts this week.  Today, I wanted to share some Halloween layouts...from two years ago....

These are pretty simple, when you have as many photos to scrap as I do, you can't make every single layout an eight hour work of art.  I'm trying to find just one or two things to make something 'interesting' and keep myself from getting carried away.



For the Little Mermaid layout above, I used a simple grid design.  Some scraps of paper were used to create the 'open' grid spaces.  I wrote my journaling on vellum and stitched that over one of the open spaces, and then added the title over the other open space.  A little hint, the alphas that I used were a little two large to fit 'little' into the width of the space, so I just trimmed down the 'i's and the 't's, the same alphas were used for 'maid', so you can see the actual shape of those 'i's.



Carina's layout was really simple.  I played off the lines of the street in the photo on the left to cut the lighter cardstock.  I think it adds some great interest and dynamism to the layout, and beyond that I kept it really simple.  I like how the geometry of the photo is echoed in the background.

That's all for me today.  I'll have some more layouts to share over the course of the week.  Hope your week is off to a great start!

Thursday, May 5, 2016

Thinking of You Sympathy Card



Unfortunately I needed to make a sympathy card this week.  I don't generally make these unless I actually need one.

I'm using last month's My Monthly Hero kit.  The flowers in the stamp set are so pretty.  I decided to use the same Warm Gray color scheme I used for this recent card.  The center of the flower was colored with a gold Wink of Stella marker.




The base of the card is My Favorite Things Grout Gray cardstock, and I stamped the leaves with Grout Gray ink.  I added a bit of shading with some green copics, and also added some doodled/sketchy accent lines in with a thin Pigma Micron pen.

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