Handmade gift tags

In the last few days I’ve been working on some gift tags (14-15 so far). Nothing as fancy as the ones I made last year but I’ve had fun with them and that’s what counts.  I don’t really have time to show them all but here are a few.

I had to use the naughty or nice stamp for the picture on the left because my G was pretending to eat dry leaves (this past fall). We made a game of it where he’d put the leaves in his mouth and I’d pull them out and say no no no! and we’d laugh as if it was the funniest thing on earth.

On the right is a more current picture of G with his Santa hat on…..Luckily I managed to take a picture because he only keeps the hat on for 10 seconds before he rips it off his head.

The rest are a little less personal but as I said before, I’m having fun with them. The “To” and “From” go on the back. 

I also made all of my Christmas cards this year. Forgot to take pictures of them before I mailed them out.  But alas, no hand made gifts this year.  No time.

Well, this may be my last post of the year so I’ll say:

I hope you all have a very

Merry Christmas

and a

Prosperous New Year.

See you in 2012!

Recycle old Christmas cards

I thought I’d share a link to a cool tutorial named “Making Boxes Out of Christmas Cards”  The boxes are great for gift cards, jewelry, or anything that fits into a small slim box, etc…You can find it here:

Making Boxes Out of Christmas Cards

It’s very easy to do. Take a look at the one I made from recycled Christmas card from last year.  Because the card was a used card, it had writing on the inside. I covered it up with scrapbook paper as suggested in the tutorial. Made the box look very elegant.

If you follow the tutorial and use glue, I suggest using tiny clamps to hold the flaps in place until the glue is dry. Otherwise, it was a fun little project.

Taking risks

I can’t say I’m much of a risk taker. I tend to play it safe a lot of the time. To this day I still kick myself for not investing in AOL when I knew I should.  That was back in the mid 1990’s.  I knew it would take off and make stockholders a tidy sum….did I listen to my own advice?…Nooooo. 

Not sure how risky it was to choose this color scheme….Yellow green, Purple and Red (with a little white and black)…or in the color theory terms…a split complementary.  Look at my last post, there is a link to a discussion on color theory.  Anyway, the yellow green isn’t as cool in the picture as it is in person andI think the experiment was successful.

Not sure why I love this shade of green. With the exception of Hunter green, green itself, has never been a favorite color.  I few years back I found a craft paint `in a lovely shade named simply “Pear”.  I used that until it was gone and I could find it no more. Now I use Masters Touch brand acrylic paint called Olive green.  I’ve never seen olives that particular color so I’m renaming it Pear. :)

This journal page is for Karen in the Traveling art journal group.

Promise me

Another  journal page for the Traveling Journal group I’m in via Facebook.  This one is for Laura and the theme was Strength and Encouragement.

I used a double complementary color scheme with the colors phthalo blue and violet as the main colors and added orange and yellow as the complementary colors.  Wow that sounds so color snobby. But I confess that I used my color wheel to help me determine what a “double complementary” actually is.

So what is a “double complementary” color scheme? It is two adjacent hues and their respective complementary, which is the color directly opposite it on the wheel.  The complementary color for blue is orange.  And the complementary color for violet is yellow.  Does that sound as dry and boring to you as it did to me? It’s hard for me to write about but to read more on color theory visit: The COLOUR Theory Tutorial

Does the quote sound familiar? It was said by Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh. I love Pooh Bear.  I wish my grandson did as well because I could watch it over and over.  Have I mentioned that I have Pooh Bear PJ’s?…I got them for Christmas several years back and I still wear them….so comfy.

Thanks for visiting.

Potholes in the road

Where has the time gone?  I really wanted to get back to posting more often but life sure is getting in the way. I’ve been working on Christmas cards for the family but nothing I can show.  This year instead of making one card and then making prints, I am making the cards individually.  That’s taking a while but I’m enjoying it.

Here is a journal page I made and it seems apropos.  It ain’t pretty that’s for sure but then some of life’s bumps aren’t pretty either.