Humphrey Gift Tin

A good morning to all of you, Crafter's Companion posting day! It was a crazy week, but Sunday night marked the end of the November birthday insanity as we celebrated Patryk's 4th birthday with family and friends. He got so much great stuff, and has been quiet all morning playing with all of his new toys while watching Cars 2, one of his many gifts.

Here he is on his actual birthday, 11/30, when we went to Toys R Us so that he could pick out anything he wanted. He chose this Cars 2 acrylic painting set with 4 canvases, my little crafty boy :)

This is from last night, blowing out the candles. He is always pretending to be shy when all eyes are on him (here, we are singing Happy Birthday to him.) :)

It is usually around this time I freak out, realizing that Christmas is just around the corner, and here I am just now beginning to shop and prepare. With 3 kids, there's always someone I forget, and it requires a last minute trip to purchase a gift in a hurry (normally on our way to the party the gift must be given at!) I had saved this old liquor tin earlier in the year just for this reason. What better last minute gift than an indulgent bottle of liquor and something to mix it with?

I started by adhering this My Mind's Eye Lime Twist patterned paper to the tin using Crafter's Companion spray adhesive.

I chose this adorable Humprey stamp set, Auld Lang Syne, part of the Humphrey Christmas collection, coloring it in with Crafter's Companion's own Spectrum Noir alcohol ink markers (available for pre-order.) Rounded the corners with a CM punch and matted to another piece of Lime Twist and finished by adhering it to the tin with foam strips.

See those Stickles in the image? I thought it was perfect for the confetti :) Twinery twine and a matted sentiment.

Here's the finished tin. See the awesome stacked flower on top? That's another beauty from The Chip Chop Shop!

Well, I've got a bazillion things to get done, but all so that I can relax for the next few days and craft my little heart out...Christmas card time!! It is also crazy Christmas concert time (both of my daughters are in band, and one is also in chorus.) I hope to have some time to fit some shopping in there...although I've bought a few major things for the kids, I have a looooong way to go to be done, and it's starting to give me panic attacks!! SOOOOO MUCH TO DOOOOO!

Have a great day,

xx

Khristen

XOXO Challenge 24: picture inspiration

Morning! Baby, it's cold outside, and it has been morning from hell with a bed wetter and meltdown after meltdown, and I'm ready to head back to bed already!! It's a great day to hibernate in the craft room, but the job that pays me consistently comes first (unfortunately.)

Before I try to tune out the world to write some articles, I thought I would share this month'sXOXO challenge. We were asked to use this picture as inspiration:

How fun is that? I decided I would pull out my affirmation journal for my business, a work-in-progress that I haven't picked up in a while (interpretation: my printer ran out of ink and I was at a loss for what to do instead of a traditional layout HA.) Here's what I came up with, inspired by the color scheme and layout of the girl and words in the original image:

Cool, right? I started by painting the page in the Eco Green Crafts 5 1/2" Recycled Chipboard Snap Book (AWESOME by the way) white with some Eco Green Crafts acrylic paint. Love that stuff! When the paint was dry, I pulled out a Balzer Designs stencil and inked over it, creating the hexagons, and finished it off by pouncing some white paint over it all. Shimmerz Spritz made the middle "layer" of the page combined with a great piece of MM Chloe's Closet, and SEI cardstock for the top. All that was left to do was pull it all together with a bit of inking around the edge of the page and adding some fun elements.
The affirmation is a mix of alpha stickers and tickets. BG Two Scoops for "My vision," Bella Blvd. alpha for "is" which I traced around with white gel pen, and "clear and focused" was written on the tickets first with black Bic Mark-It and then white gel pen, making the words stand right out. Blue glitter glue also behind it all :) I used a great piece of Pink Paislee House of Three and raised it up with some pop dots, and finally glued a piece of lace spritzed with Shimmerz to it, stapling the tickets to the lace.

Ok, that's it for me. Off to have a big ol' bowl of turkey soup for breakfast to get me in the mood for a little writing (or a nap...I wish I was able to nap right now!!) Head over to the True XOXO Girls blog to see how the other girls were inspired, and show us how the image inspires you by linking up a creation for your chance to be January guest designer!

CCCB December Challenge: Sparkle

Good morning! It's time for another challenge over at the Crafter's Companion USA Challenge Blog, and this month we're making it pretty easy to play along...just pull out a Crafter's Companion stamp and something that sparkles and make something, anything, to link up for your chance to win the Humphrey the Elephant Christmas Collection CD and **3 stamp sets of your choice** from the Humphrey Christmas stamp collection!!!!

Amazing prize, especially as the CD contains over 2,500 elements on 2 discs! Enter any project you'd like...altered item, card, layout, tag, ATC, gift bag...as long as it has a Crafter's Companion stamp somewhere on it. Oh, and of course, it has to sparkle :)

I made a Christmas card (as I need to get my little butt in gear making my cards before the season ends!!) and not only used this wonderful glittery MME paper, I used 2 different types of glitter and glitter glue as well. I thought the Humphrey Mistletoe Kisses stamp set was just to adorable, and after inking it up, colored it using the brand spankin' new Spectrum Noir pens exclusive to Crafter's Companion (available right now for pre-order!). I inked the sentiment with the same color pen as I used to color in the tree branch :) Love these markers! The coat has some texture to it as I used a textured cardstock. I think it kind of looks fuzzy, don't you? The doily makes a great mat (and was sadly my last one...I've been using these things on cards/layouts all year! Sad to see them go!)

I used a silver and white glitter for the coat and a white glitter for the snow and snowflakes.

There you have it. Head over and enter your own creation for a shot at the big prize, and I hope you have a wonderful end of the week. Stay tuned for one more post :)

xx

Khristen