handmade cass

In preparation for my Christmas cards this year I bought my supplies early.  The fantastic idea I have in my head is going to take a while to execute.  As part of the project I bought 6 Distress Stains  (from Tim Holtz/Ranger).  I haven't had as much luck with them as I thought I would for blending colors easily and quickly.   And when I opened a few of them they were already leaking, before I even used the dauber.   I have to admit that I'm disappointed.  Has anyone else had the leaking problem? I've had purple fingers for a week.

I have had a Silhouette electronic cutting tool on my wish list for a long time.  And I got to use one for the first time this weekend.  It was love!  My mom is the proud new owner of a Silhouette Portrait and I think she plans on using it to cut fabric for quilting.  But she is in the middle of a big move right now, so I get to use her machine for a bit.  Hooray! I used it to make a father's day card for my husband, and was amazed by how clean the cuts are.  It was really easy to set up with my Mac too.  Here is the cut held up to the window so you can see through it. Now, what else can I cut??? And here is the finished card.  I really like the way the bumble bee came out. I used an enamel brad and Sharpie marker and added some vellum wings.  My husband said it was one of his all time favorite cards.  Just goes to show what a difference the Silhouette makes. I also pulled out some old Hambly screenprints paper to make a mat...

There must be something in the air right now, because I have a bunch of girlfriends that are all expecting babies this summer and fall.  So I decided to send some happy mail to these special ladies and try out some new stamps and craft supplies. I fell in love with the oven image on this Lawn Fawn stamp set and then the sentiment really sealed the deal.  Everything else just came together in 5 minutes increments while unpacking and keeping my toddler from destroying anything in my new craft room. This is the sentiment from the same stamp set that I used on the inside. I used my Copic markers to color the oven images and found out the hard way that they smeared the new black ink I was using for the first time (Hero Hues Dye Ink).  I have always used black Memento with Copics in the past, but I thought this would be safe since it is a die ink...no such luck.  Stick with Memento Dye Ink for Copic markers.  Even after drying overnight, see the bleeding...