Raccoon Tea Bag Holder!

Hi! I'm popping in with a cute and quick tag and tea bag holder using the sweet raccoon from this month's challenge over at the Gerda Steiner Designs October Challenge! If you played along last month you would have received this guy free!! If you want to purchase this adorable digital image and play along in October by linking your project using him, then you'll get November's image free. I just love this idea, and I was really excited to create a cute tag with this little cutie!

I used a very easy tea bag folding tutorial on YouTube and a piece of 6x6 patterned Lawn Fawn Knit Picky paper to create this cute holder. I'm thinking this will be a perfect stocking stuffer or teacher gift! 

I used a tag die from Your Next Stamp to diecut around the racoon image and coloured him in with Prismacolor and Hobby Colour markers. A little stamp from a Lawn Fawn tag set was just perfect to decorate his little wooden sign!

I added a little black bow and some pretty SpiegelMom Scraps sequins!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Be sure to check out the challenge and all the fun projects for this month!

Your Next Stamp - June New Release Hop!

Hello! I'm so happy to be sharing some of the New Releases from the Your Next Stamp store with you today! I'm Guest Designing with the amazing team at the YNS blog this month, and I'm so excited to be working with their amazing products! I shared a sneak peek with you yesterday HERE, and today I'm using the fabulous new clear stamp set Whatnot Sentiments Ten! As soon as I saw these gorgeous scripty words I knew I wanted to pair them with some watercolours. I can tell you I'll definitely be using this set a lot!!

I'm going to be giving these cards to my daughter's preschool teachers - and the sentiments were perfect to show my appreciation for their kindness all year. These sentiments would make a wonderful friend or birthday card as well for someone special - and would work great inside and outside! I'm even thinking of making some pocket page cards using them for my scrapbook album!

I started off by heat embossing the sentiment with white embossing powder on plain white cardstock. Then, I smooshed Distress Oxide Inks onto a craft mat and spritzed them with water. I used a paintbrush to pick up the watered down ink and painted on three colours at a time. After drying with a heat gun I laid the panel into the remaining droplets to add layers of watercolour. I love the way the embossing powder resists the colour!

I even used the sponge and the Distress Oxide Inks to colour in my off white crochet trim and the smallest flower on each card, which was originally white. I was pleasantly surprised at how well both the trim and paper flower took the DOX Inks!

Inside, I used the Thanks sentiment, included in the stamp set, and stamped it with a coordinating colour of DOX Ink. I don't think you can ever have enough Thank You cards on hand - and I'll be using this sentiment a lot!

I added some of the new Gumdrops from the red/white/and blue package onto my cards and in the center of the flowers. They are so pretty and sparkly!! I love how they coordinate with the SpiegelMom Scraps sequins too. 

The pretty Wildflower paper from Kaisercraft is one of my favourites right now and looks beautiful with the watercolour panel.

Inside:

The Fabulous sentiments is one of my favourites from this set! I think I may just need more of these cards in my stash....

 A black sentiment would look great on the front card panel too!

Inside:

I'm sure my daughter's teachers are going to love these cards, and I hope it lets them know just how much we appreciate all they've done all year!

Here's a look at the Whatnot Sentiments Ten stamp set and new Gumdrops I used today on my project:

BLOG CANDY!!

Since this is a Blog Hop - there is a sweet prize!! A $25 YNS gift certificate will go to one lucky commenter! The more blogs you comment on - the greater your chances of winning <3 (Comments open until June 13th at 12 midnight EST)

And here's a special sale code for you to use to save! WooHoo!!

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Be sure to leave a comment for your chance to win and check out the linky below for the list of all the amazing designers who are sharing their own New Release projects with you! 

An InLinkz Link-up

Linked to:

Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge - June Linkup

FFC #192 – AG

Word Art Wednesday – AG

PDE – 176 Cards

Ori Kami Greeting Card Gift Set!

Wow! Can I tell you how cold it has been lately?!! It felt like -20* C with the wind chill today! At least I don't feel guilty about staying in and crafting ;) I did actually take my girls skating today, inside at an arena - and it was a lot warmer in there than outside.

I thought I'd share a new stamp set I got over the holidays - just in time to make a couple last minute gift sets! I thought these origami stamped images from the Altenew Ori Kami set were so awesome - I love finding things that are a little bit different! I paper pieced the stamps and layered them on some card bases covered with patterned papers and 3x4 journaling cards from a cut apart sheet in the Pink Paislee Take Me Away 12x12 paper pad by Paige Evans. The paper is so pretty - I could seriously frame it - and might!

I added sequins from the SpiegelMom Scraps Store and chose one of the pretty sentiments from the Ori Kami stamp set for the inside (shown in the middle photo below). For each envelope I added a coordinating stamped iamge and coloured it in with coloured pencils. I love how that looks on kraft paper!

I made two sets of 4 cards with matching envelopes each and tied them with a pretty ribbon before putting them into a gift bag with some yummy treats!

And here's a photo of my two littles having fun skating this morning!

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you're staying warm and cozy this weekend!

Linked to:

PDE Linky Party - Anything Goes

Word Art Wednesday - AG #264/265

DL Art - January Linky Challenge

Craftaholics R Us - Create a Girly Card

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - New Something

Crafty Hazelnuts Patterned Paper - January Challenge

Wipe Off Memo Board Teacher Gift!

Well, we're almost to the end of June - and that means teacher gifts! We usually give gift cards to the teachers, but I think it's nice to include a little something useful as well.  I saw this cute DIY tutorial on YouTube and thought it would be quick, cute, and within our budget. Erica had 3 teachers this year in preschool, and Amie wanted one for her teacher too!

We started by picking up four pretty 4x6 photo frames at the dollar store, along with a package of wipe off markers. We then chose 4x6 Project Life Cards - I liked these lined ones so you could easily write your message, 

We added the Currently stamp from Pretty Cute Stamps to the top line with black ink, inserted it into the frame and tied some baker's twine through the little hole on the top of the marker to attach it to the frame.

Lastly, we wrote a little note on the memo board before wrapping it up.

Here's a look at the Currently stamp set I used:

Currently

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you're enjoying the last week of June and have some fun summer plans to look forward to!