Christmas Cards 2016

Well, my recipients have all gotten their cards...I got them out a lot earlier than normal this year! I thought I would use my Cricut but ended up using die cuts and my elderly Big Shot for all of them! I used the die cuts so much I fear some have dulled! But here's the ones I sent...I had several different varieties this year!

With white cardstock and silver, below. I just got a magnetic platform for my Big Shot which I really like...nothing slides around.

Sorry for the glare! I used one of Martha's doily punches for the red doily underneath.

This was one of my favorites. I want to call your attention to the envelopes...they were mostly made with uuuuggggllly paper that I stamped with ink to make Christmassy! :)

Another doily with Martha Stewart's doily punch. And a stamp/emboss kit I got at Tuesday Morning. Love that place for discounted craft supplies!

The insude of the card above. Ugggglllyyy envelope...:)

Then I did a multitude of the reindeer cards. Thought these were cute.

Ugly envelopes again...:D Everyone got a candy cane on their card, with a tiny bow.

Ahh, but these came out so cute...! A die cut set. Had the inner sentiment too.

The inside of the one above. The only problem is there is no where to write inside! But so cute...I can use the inner die cut with other cards, as well, in the future. I made a LOT of these.

Another tree with it's homemade envelope. These were cute together...a red cardinal in the envelope's tree.

The inside of the one above. This was my first one and I actually used the wrong die cut on the front. The others, I used the larger one and cut it in half for the front. I still like it though.

The "Be Jolly" is a sticker left over from last year. So cute! Real felt hat...

The inside. Not quite as ugly of an envelope. :D

One more tree...they all got a candy cane decoration, too.

The inside of the one above.

Another...

The inside. tried to color coordinate...

The inspiration for this came from Pinterest. I love the alcohol ink colors! More about how it is made below.

A variation on the sentiment.

Also made a few going the other direction...

I was able to get two envelopes out of one sheet of 12"x12" with these and the Christmas tree cards..

When I first tried making these, I tried using thin aluminum (flashing for the roof) in an embossing folder with the alcohol ink, but I was afraid it would be too sharp. I ended up using paper with a shiny silver finish on it and it worked beautifully with the ink...even though I got it at the dollar store...:)

I crimped strips of the same silvery paper for the tops and then cut thinner strips for the ornament hangers. I used two different embossing folders, one for the ornaments, one for the background white paper, which I love that has swirly snowflakes on it. The sentiment was stamped with Stazon gold ink on Dollar Tree shiny photo paper and cut out with a die cut and my Big Shot, then added with some foam adhesive for dimension. Simple but effective!

 That's it for now. Thanks for visiting and keep checking back for more!

More Engraved Stained Glass Pendants

I DID say the next post would be the topic I've been holding back on, but I am still futzing around with the results, so it will have to wait one more post! I hope you find this one interesting anyway! I started off asking in one of my beading groups how to bezel a square pendant. Being that the stained glass is only one layer, it's a bit thin, which makes it harder to bezel. I would probably do better if I rounded the corners somewhat. I was pointed at a design on Youtube and came up with a netted bezel. Below are pictures of the front and back. The Swarovski crystals are actually on what I consider the back! Don't ask me why, it's just how it came out. :D I just couldn't leave the back plain so I engraved it, as well....

The front is mirrored. I love this glass! Not THAT happy with the beaded bezel, but you can't love everything you make! :D It looks a little crooked in the photos but I promise it is not. It is just how it sits on this thin glass....

 I've also been playing around with the flat aluminum wire bezels again, this time with my engraved stained glass experiments. I found some copper colored wire in my stash, and I love the way it looks next to the glass! I came up with this novel method to wrap the stained glass so there are no sharp edges and no chance of breakage. The wire that holds it in is minimal and yet strong and decorative. It has a clean look and feel to it. At the same time, it is much faster, cleaner, and easier than wire wrapping OR beading. What do you think???

This one is in black bezel wire. Sorry for the picture quality! I think I did better outside...

Another copper colored bezel. Love this color! The glass looks so different in person. This is also the mirrored green.

Just to show you the difference...here is one photographed indoors. 

Same pendant, outdoors! :) Aren't the colors just luscious?? This one is a little large for a pendant, though. I think it might be a Christmas ornament! :D

Last, but not least! Thanks for looking and come back now, y'hear? :D

Tomorrow...the unveiling! 

Stained Glass And Copper Wire Wrapped Pendants

Greetings! I've been playing around with the rotary tool and stained glass (see my previous posts) and decided to try to wire wrap the glass this time. What do you think? Front and back of the palm tree. I like the natural white streak "mountain" hidden in the glass on the middle right side. Reminds me of Hawaii!

Don't ask me why I zig zagged the back. Would have been better if I wrapped it like my next one...the same front and back. Oh well, I still like it!

This one came out a little better. Having the wrap the same front and back gave it a little more stability and of course, symmetry. :) The glass is hard to photograph but it's iridescent, rather purply and pinky. This is the same glass I used in the windchimes I showed here last week. It photographs much better outdoors!

And it's transparent. :) It would actually be a nice Christmas ornament or window decoration. As you can see, I wrapped the back to match the front wires. It almost looks like a reflection in the phototgraph! :D

As always, thanks for looking and come visit again! You never know what I'll be up to next....

2014 Christmas Cards and Beaded Ornament Covers

It's been a while since I posted, thanks to Christmas and other household projects. But I've been making new things all along! I guess I'll start with Christmas!

I had never made any beaded ornaments before, but this year I was determined to make one! I had no pattern, I just saw a few on the internet that I liked the components of and combined them to make a couple that I liked. Love the little snowflake, they are very quick to make! Here is the link to the pattern, which is from a Russian site. The panels I made by looking at one similar and guessing it was brick stitch. :) The one on the right does not have wings! The wings belong to a wire fairy I made - behind it...for another post. :)

Then in the middle of my beading, I had to make my yearly Christmas cards! They weren't as involved as in other years but still took a bit to design. What do you think of the outsides? I have some wonderful embossing folders and had a lot of fun with them this year. The ones that looked like a reindeer sweater were my favorite. Middle right is one of them. Click the picture to enlarge! The metallic paper was cool...looked like metal when I was done embossing. Doesn't photograph too well though!

Here is a closeup of one card. I made the green patterned envelope to match the size of the card from some crappy Christmas scrapbook paper. I have stamped/embossed papers that are just a little ugly with some pretty glittery embossing powders before, but I decided to hold back this time! :) I cut the mats and used an embossing folder for the embossing on the white paper but cheated with the little ready made glittery chalkboard chipboard figure on the lower right. 

Here is the inside of the card! They all had a fireplace inside. Saw it on Pinterest where someone used a crimper to make the border of the fireplace look like paneled wood. Came out cute! (There are other examples of fireplaces like this on my Christmas Pinterest page!) Used another embossing folder to try to make the background by the fireplace look like wallpaper. Stamped the Merry Christmas over the fireplace. I used some kid's holographic large chunk glitter for the fire, and it sparkled nicely! I used a punch for the "doily" and cheated with stocking stickers - they were cuter than anything I could have made! I did break down and buy a die cut for the fireplace grate. I love 40% off coupons! I also used snowflake peel-off stickers from Hobby Lobby to decorate the card and some had this type of wreath - which is also a sticker - and some had a different type. I didn't use my Cricut to make this card, it was pretty easy to do the math since they were all the same. I just used a ruler and a blade to make the few cuts there were. 

Snowflakes were the theme for most of the cards. I used an embossing folder and some very old Christmas paper I'd been holding on to for a long time. Wasn't sure about using pink glittery snowflakes but I think the card worked, don't you? :) The "Season's Greetings" on the bottom right were a stamp/diecut set I had.

Another inside. This was the other type of wreath I ended up using. No doily on this one. 

 I liked this set of earrings, I made several. They feel Christmassy to me!

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Now, on to more recent stuff. I've been playing around with my polymer clay again. I love making the bone/ivory canes! They look so beautiful when they're done right. And I've fallen in love with this one particular mold, which I like making into sun faces. You can see below the difference when the finished clay has not been antiqued! It really brings out their features. 

This is a recent sun I made, using one of the molded faces above. I love playing around with the faces after I mold them, before baking. On this one I only made it one sided but sometimes I sandwich wire between two of them so I can make two sided pieces out of them. 

I had a problem with the edges of some of the clay beads I had used the Lisa Pavelka Magic Glos on, and also when I had two suns that I wanted to meld back to back after baking (below). So I recently tried using this flat wire I found at Hobby Lobby (I've seen it at Michael's, too) as a bezel wire, as you can see in the photo. I glued a black one around my fauxpal in the photo below. I guess I could have done a better job with the seam! In the future I am going to bake them right in the bezel...this was my first experiment! I will also be able to drill holes to hang them by. I am going to use the others I made to cut out and bake the next clay pendants I make in so they'll fit perfectly. Has anyone else tried this? 

This sun is a good example of my bezel idea. I had two of the suns, which I glued together, but the sides showed, so I made a bezel that encased them both. So this little guy is two sided. :)

In the photo below, you can see the black bezel I made a little better. This is the other side of the one above.

While I was looking for my sun mold, I found a couple of other molds I had bought that were supposed to be for fairy and female forms. I wasn't fond of the fairy face but I loved the female one. Once again, it's fun playing with their features, although these are so tiny you'd need a magnifying glass and very steady hands! I had recently joined this cool Facebook group for polymer clay and saw someone using these intricate metal filagree plates to back a pendant and thought I'd try it with these flower filagrees. Love the butterfly one! They have a rather weird cast on some of them because I used pearl clay and it left a pattern on their faces, but I think it makes them look aged! Rather haunting, aren't they? Not sure if they should be pendants or pins...

Here is the butterfly one before antiquing. Big difference, huh! What a beautiful mold!

Another thing I played with was a contest I found, also on Facebook, on a DIFFERENT polymer clay group! I am so excited because Lisa Pavelka is actually a MEMBER and I think she's so talented! She has a different little contest every month - I just joined so they were doing a Valentine's Day Carmex jar challenge. I made the little doohickey below as a decoration for the jar but didn't use it. I made it from a clear rubber stamp! Once again, antiquing made a huge difference! Isn't it cute? It's only.about 1.5" square.

And finally, to end this long post! I made some of my sun faces into ladies. What do you think? Maybe a redhead? Brunette? Lol.

For some reason, this reminds me of the Les Miserables girl. :)

That's it for now! Look for me on Facebook. Karmic Confetti, or my Pinterest page! There is so much more there that I haven't uploaded here yet. Soon! Later!