My Advent Calendar

Every where I look someone is making an advent calendar. I love the one that Beate did for her tutorial on SCS, and might have to make it once we move to our new house (Beate's Advent Calendar). But for now I needed one that was small, easy to make, and portable (since we are moving in 2 weeks). When I was putting up the Christmas presents that I bought today I found a bag with 3 Target Dollar Bin Mailboxes from last January in it. I thought these would be perfect, and I had enough to make one for each kid so there would be no fighting. Baker even thought they were great.

Recipe:

Paper: Provo Craft Holiday Slab IV , SU whispering white, and Real Red

Stamps: Alphadots (retired) and Perfect Presentation (hostess set) both Stampin Up

Ink: Real Red

Other: Crystal Effects, double sided tape, glass pebbles

Friday Dirty Girl Challenge - Camria's Pink, Pink, Pink

I have only got one of the Dirty Girl Challenges finished yesterday and it was Cambria's Pink, Pink, Pink. I used a new technique that I recently learned called Faux Tearing because I only had one piece of pink cardstock. I even wrote a tutorial for it, check it out. Here is my card:





Supplies:
Stamps: Paint Prints
Paper: Pretty in Pink
Ink: Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose, Rose Red, Non-SU white craft ink
Technique: Faux tearing

Faux Tearing Tutorial

I recently learned how to do this from my demo and I loved it. Faux Tearing is so easy to do and it comes in handy when you do not have a lot of cardstock in a certain shade or hue.


Supplies:


Card base
Ink to match
brayer
paper/cardstock to rip



Step One:




Fold cardstock base in half and decide which way the card is going to go, vertical or horizontal.


Step Two:



Take your piece of paper or cardstock and rip it in half, making sure that there are some curves in the paper.


Step Three:




Place your ripped cardstock on top of your card base so that the part of the card showing is where the ink will go.


Step Four:



Ink up your brayer.


Step Five:



Hold down the white paper and run your brayer over the base card. You will have to reink it several times to get full coverage.


Step Six:




Finish your card. Here are two examples.

Make n' Takes from Upline Meeting

My demo is great. I use to be in her downline and she still includes me in with them. Melissa had a make n' take party on July 2nd so that we could all ohh and ahh over the catalog along with making a few new cards. I provided 2 projects, one card and one 3-D item, and Melissa had 3 cards set up. She had a brand new demo coming so we tried to showcase some techniques as well.


My card used Carte Postale along with the coordinating wheel, Leaves a la Carte, and background stamp, French Flair. I got the idea for the layout from one of Beate's Sketches.







Paper: Certainly Celery, Handsome Hunter, More Mustard, Glossy, and Very Vanilla


Ink: Basic Black, Certainly Celery, Handsome Hunter, More Mustard, and Versamark

Techniques: I used the Stampin' Around Wheel Guide with the Leaves wheel and Versamark ink on the base of the card. I also sponged Certainly Celery, Handsome Hunter, and More Mustard on to the glossy white paper after I stamped the French Flair background stamp in Basic Black.


This card was really easy to do.

My 3-D project was a wood frame that I got at Michael's for $1


To make the frame I added about 15 drops of Tempting Turquoise Reinker to plain white craft paint. It makes a very light blue color that I painted on to the wood frame in 3 coats. I then used Taken with Teal and the new Baraque Motifs stamp set and stamped away. Nice and easy.


Melissa had 3 cards for us using the following techniques: Faux Tearing, Faux Metal, and Dry Embossing. It was great I hadn't used any of them before so I was really excited.

Faux Ribbon Tutorial

I found this really cool tutorial for faux ribbon on Croppycatter's Corner blog. I love ribbon but I hate to buy it because I hardly ever use it all. Case in point I still have the ribbon left from making my BIL's wedding invitations 3 years ago and I use it as often as possible (french blue from SU, now retired). So I was very excited when I ran across this post. I am going to have to try it when we get back from the beach.

Faux Ribbon Tutorial

Baroque Motifs Sample & SC 129

I thought this set would go perfect with a technique that I was dying to try using Pearl Ex. I found the tutorial on Amy's Prairie Paper & Ink blog. The tutorial is using Pearl Ex with heat and stick powder from SU. I was going to do a swap with this at my demo's house this Tuesday but I'm not sure if I still am since Pearl Ex is retiring and she won't be able to use it next year. I used the sketch challenge from last week as well (SC 129).

Some Cool Tutorials

I can not wait to try these out, especially the tie box.

Colleen's Tie Box

Faith's Baby Wipe Tutorial

Faith's Faux Matting Technique

Adding Tutorials and Challenges

The more blogs I read the more techniques, tutorials, and challenges I find that I might want to try. I don't know about you but when I finally find time in the evenings or on the weekends I can't remember whose blog something I wanted to try is on. So I am going to borrow an idea from Stampin' When I Can's blog and just post links to the ones I want to try on my blog, that way I will always know where to find them. YEAH!!!!!!!!!

Tutorials
Cracked Glass
Pearl Ex with Heat & Stick Powder

Challenges
Meg's Sketch
Beate's Weekend Sketch #6