Small Valise Gift card holder

In other non card related works of art I came across a blog called The Gentleman Crafter via Tim Holtz. He makes some pretty amazing projects out of paper and had a tutorial for this small Valise gift card holder. Unfortunately he took down the post with the tutorial so I'm wondering if he is tweeking it up. No matter, I got lucky enough to view it while it was still there and created these little pieces of 'luggage' for the hubs young nephews. They got gift cards for Chapters and EB games which is fun, but not as much fun as finding them in here burried under chocolates.

The outside was adorned with a chain that had a little snowflake and their initial

the inside has a holder on the right for the gift card and on the left a spot where I
slipped in a tag.

Pretty darn cute aren't they!!!! I will say, they were very time consuming but in such a good way I made one for Kim at Pickle too! OooooH....I'm seeing emails pop up from Paula and Pauline...better go check out what was going on....I saw the word shopping in there which has really perked my interest!

Framed Florals

I did say I wasn't busy making cards, but I still was busy. A while back Emily was selling these little crewel embroidery kits and I thought I'd give it a try. I realized I can do a lot of crafty things but embroidery is not one of them and this little dismal looking piece of work in an adorable frame was sitting on my desk at work. Everyday I would look at it and think I really gotta repurpose that cute frame.

So out came one of Paula's framed florals which fit perfect in the opening. YES, that would be our Paula and Emily transformed some of her beautiful drawings into rubber for all of us to enjoy.  I coloured these pansies in a variety of purple and coral's and used primarily pencils here. I quickly picked a paper to used for the background and now I don't like this one so I'll probably change it up. There is a glass over this, but I took it off to get a better picture.

Now THIS is gonna make me happy at work.

I am THE STIG!

Do any of you know who The Stig is? Not the real Stig of course because his true identity has never been revealed. But The Stig who test drives the cars on the BBC show Top Gear. It is one of Derek's fav shows, and he LOVES The Stig. For Christmas we got him an I am The Stig t-shirt and a mug, he even wore the t-shirt when he went to the North American Auto Show in Detroit and was pleasantly surprised to see a group of other guys wearing one too!



Anyhoooooo, when I made Alex the Greenbean Baby Batman for Christmas Derek said "she needs to make a Stig". Little did he know that I had already contacted Ellia to ask if she could create me one. If you are a Greenbean Baby fan you should stop by her blog because the things she can make out of cut paper are amazing and if you want some original cut paper goodness you can find it here in her Etsy shop, that is where I found Batboy.

If you are curious as to what the real Stig looks like, here is his in all his glory.



Crazy eh! Derek loved his little Stig and said he was gonna put it on his desk at school! LOL!!!!

Thank you Ellia, you have once again brought smiles, giggles and happiness into my home!

To Grandma's house we go!

Well, not exactly...but I'm sure many of you, like myself will be spending time on the road the next three days. For all who are travelling, I wish you safe and happy journeys.

This is another last minute card I made up yesterday for that 'whoops-i-need-another-card' moment. Plus, I had to use my new martha punch that I picked up at Michaels on monday. I went with a 50% off coupon in hand only to find everything I wanted was already on sale. For the Toronto class gals, I'll now be travelling in style with my new craft tote! ....I already gave Paula the colors so she can make me a tag! LOL! So with that 50% off coupon burning a hole into my hand I had to buy something that wasn't on sale. It's a catch, isn't it!



The inspiration for this card came from a scrap piece of paper that was sitting in front of me, and I really wanted to to use the car with a tree on top cause that tree is so grinchy and I love everything grinch-like! How the Grinch stole christmas is my fav Christmas movie of all time. That once a year event that you'd have to wait a WHOLE ENTIRE YEAR to see again because recording devices weren't invented yet! LOL! Did ya notice that I also used Paula's snow globe glitter effect here! I just love it.

While I was on a roll, after I finished up the card I put together this little framed piece of art for our son Alex. He is a batman FREAKAZIOD! I think I have said before that he even has batman sheets on his bed in the dorm, and posters all over the wall, and a lego batmobile..and, and, and...



When Emily introduced us to Ellia, the green bean baby, I headed over to her Etsy shop and came across this little batman that I couldn't resist. I got myself a 4x6 frame and went to work cutting out the trees and grass with quickutz dies and cutting the rolling hills free hand. It turned out sooooo cute! If you ever decide to order anything from Ellia you will be most pleasantly surprised when you get the package. She adds all kinds of little details. This guy came with a little joker face and a bitty batman magnet She arranges it on a piece of paper placed in a cello envelope inside another envelope. That envelope is wrapped in tissue sealed with another green baby surprise and a personal note! THEN...she draws a little pic on the mailing envelope. Let me tell ya, that was a fun package to get in the mail!

Now...I'm heading off to do some last minute shopping and finish wrapping, then settle in for the evening possibly with a giant chai tea latte!

Happy Holidays!