Happy New Year!

December was a busy month, with preparations for Christmas, work parties and events for our clients, and just general busy-ness.

Now, it's the new year, and time for a fresh start. I love the possibilities of the new  year- so much potential, and who knows where the year will take us?

I have a few crafty resolutions, including:

Try to update my blog at least once per week.

Get crafty at least once or twice a week- one of my non-crafty resolutions is to try to avoid snacking at night, and this might help with that, too!

Use what I have, including designer paper, stamps that haven't made it out of their packaging and other misc items. 

I also want to stamp each image I have to create an index of sorts.

Now, onto crafty goodness! 

The House Mouse and Friends blog had a new challenge posted this week, and I've really enjoyed playing along the last couple of months- the challenge this time around is to celebrate anything new... and I am celebrating a NEW STAMP!

My friend M and I headed to our fave store for some post-Christmas bargains, and I came home with not one, but two HM stamps... This little guy got inked about 10 minutes after I got home. 

The image was stamped with Momento black ink and coloured with Copics. I love the background paper- it's La banquise paper, called Vent Polaire. I cut the card blank at 5 inches square, and cut the silver mirror stock at the same. the Vent Polaire paper was cut at 4.75 and the House Mouse image was cut at approx 3 inches, with the silver backing 1/4 of an inch bigger. The sentiment is a sticker. 

My mother in law is here for a visit, and this little guy will make his way home with her next week. 

I've been busy in the craft area this week- there will be more coming shortly!

I like to move it, move it!

It's been a crazy weekend. I was busy yesterday, busy puttering today, and finally got a chance to play this afternoon. I went to my favourite LSS this weekend with M, and there were new House Mouse stamps... this one called my name. It fits in perfectly with the Less is More challenge this week, which is THINGS THAT MOVE. We could make a moving card, have an element that moved, or depict something that moves. So, mousey it was.

I actually stamped, coloured and punched the mouse yesterday, but I was in a bit of a bad mood, and nothing was turning out, so I put it to the side and came back to it today. It turned out that I didn't like the colour of the flower (pinks), so I decided to colour over it using purples. I had never done that before- colouring over one Copic job with another, but I like the way it turned out- it added a bit more depth of colour.

I finished off the card by punching the mouse out using a 3 inch circle, layering it on a 2 inch strip of purple and putting it on a base.

The more I play with the Less is More challenges, the easier the clean and simple method is becoming.

Can't wait to see what's in store next weekend!

Swinging mouse

I was checking out splitcoaststampers for inspiration tonight, and came across a new challenge in the Try a New Technique forum. The technique was for a swinging z-fold card. Doesn't matter if you say zed or zee- this card is pretty easy to make, and it took me longer to pick my paper and colour than it did to make the card.

The tutorial is here. I have a few more ideas for cards like this.

The paper was a sale find, and I have been looking for something to use it for. The paper is reversible, and I didn't need to worry about finding matching papers (BONUS!). Once I stamped, die cut and coloured the House Mouse stamp, I attached it to the card front. It wasn't quite finished, so I added the flowers, which I coloured by pressing a yellow stamp pad onto the flower and held the four pieces together using a black brad. The inside has a 1.75 inch piece of white cardstock with a hello sentiment stamped on to it.

Brother's birthday

My baby brother celebrated his birthday last Saturday. He really loves woodworking, and he is very talented with it. I decided that his birthday card needed to involve his favourite hobby.

The base of the card is a 4.25 by 5.5 piece of adhesive cork. I picked it up from a local scrapbooking store around Christmas and finally got around to using it. The first piece, I stamped the sentiment in black and didn't like it at all, so I tossed it to the side and cut the second piece and used brown. I like it much better- it looks like it was burned into the cork.
The tape measure is some creative re-using. We got a mailer from a local phone company with the tape measure wrapped around it- I decided to save it from the recycling bin and used it on the card. The stickers are from my favourite store in Stonewall, and I coloured them with my copics so they had a little different look to them. I really like the way this card turned out, and I am sure my brother will like it, and the little something I stuck inside for him as well.