Want another sneak peek.... ?

I know it's a tad early for Valentines, but who doesn't like a sneak peek, right!? Today's card is a sneak of things to come from Cottage Cutz. The label is a die and it also has stamps that fit perfectly. The damask pattern is one of the background stamps! Cool, huh. There are five more in the set as well. And the "love" is a stamp from this release too. You're going to love them!!!

Gift tags and Sneak Peek #1

With Christmas only days away I am trying to wrap up those last minute touches.

I always like to do some little do-da for my co-workers each year without spending alot of money.

I decided to get a large Costco size box of gum and give it as little gifts at work

this year. I hear "anyone got any gum?" all too often while I'm at work.

I used the CottageCutz mini dies to make some cute little tags to go on the packages of gum.

The best news is your Sneak Peak #1 - see my tag base with all those cute little scallops?

Well this is a new die that will be available real soon here at the Scrapping Cottage.

There are two sizes of these scalloped circles on a 4x4 die. Let me tell you, this die is going to get a work out in my craft room! Love it!

This will make cute little journaling blocks, tags or a place for a sentiment on a card.

For the white center I used a basic circle punch and lightly inked around the edges.

Stay tuned for more sneak peaks coming from the Design team in the coming week!

My gum gifts all ready to give out.

Skating on Yellow Snow

Skating on thin ice and yellow snow. I had found these cute snowflake stickers on a sale table and thought. . I guess no one wants yellow snowflakes. They were like puffy paint and really nice fine detail. I had already decided to use the Cottage Cutz Skating Penguin Die again, so it all started to come together. I am known for going outside the box sometimes with colors. . .and the pale yellow snowflakes, black and white Penguin. . .well all it needed was that other bright color to complete the mix. I decided on shades of Teal. They went great with the pale yellow.

As you can see I used the pale yellow for the scarf, fur cuff on the boots and the shadow on the background, along with a wide white stripe on the base card. The swirls for cold air were done with sparkle and white gel pens. The bow on the card is white. Because there were several sizes and styles of snowflakes the cards all came out a little different.

I used the cards on packages for Christmas. I often use white glossy paper and let the card be the point of interest on the white paper. This time I tied the package in yellow ribbon, a few sprigs of white glittery floral and giant teal snowflakes. The penguin works so well for the bold contrast, all you need to do is add those bold colors against the black and white.

You can do traditional red and lime, orange and pink. . . .last year I did a series of mini ornaments on a 4 foot tree. . . with penguins trimmed in lime and traditional gold glitter. . .against the black and white. . . . for New Years. Don't always think . . light and dark of same colors.

That's it for now, my last chance to say Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone.

Do You See What I See?

Good morning! Today I have some tips to share. I love to find unique ways to use dies or stamps to create things other than what they were originally intended to be. Here are a few things I created after seeing the cuts from the Mushroom Trio die. There are other images I can see that I would like to make. If I have time, I will make more and edit my post. I hope this inspires you to think outside the box Thanks so much for visiting! I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and I will be back on the 27th. Happy Holidays!

Hugs and smiles!

Janice

Catching up!!

Has anyone been following Project 12 from Scrapbook & Cards Today? Each month, they release a new sketch for you to use to scrap your month of pictures. It has been a fun project to follow along with this year even though I have only completed about half of the layouts so far.

One thing I have found on the layouts I have completed are how perfect my Cottage Cutz dies are for embellishing these monthly layouts! For November, the sketch included a spot for a bird. Well, I immediately thought of my Cottage Cutz Turkey. This die is actually from last year's release but is still one of my favorites and would be a great addition to this year's Fall and Thanksgiving releases.

Here is a close up view of the turkey so you can see him better. I ran the die through my cutter with white cardstock and then I used my Copic markers to color the individual pieces.

Happy Scrapping!!

Unhappy Reindeer

My sweet doggie, Joey, is such a princess I can't believe she actually let me put this on her head...and then stood there long enough for me to get a pic. LOL She was sooo happy when I took it off. What a sweetheart she is to indulge me. ;)


The little lights on her "antlers" twinkle so I put bling on them in the photo to make them look like they are blinking. I love the elegant reindeer die and blinged that up as well adding stickles to the antlers and tiny i-rock gems to the ribbon.

From All of Us

Today I want to show you what you can do with one little mini CottageCutz die.

I cut out 5 mini reindeer heads and inked them up with Walnut Distress ink then I

grabbed some white paint and dotted the eyes and let them dry. Meanwhile I gave them all cute little noses with my black pearls and of course Rudolph gets a red gem for his nose.

When the white paint was dry I took a permanent black marker and finished off the eyes

and put marks on their ears.

(We woke up to snow this morning which means not a lot of light inside the house to take my pictures. I apologize for the lack of quality in my pictures.)
I gathered all my reindeer heads together and put them on my card. The front two heads I put on with pop dots for dimension.

They are so cute and so simple to make. He'd be cute on a little reindeer tag, placecard on your dinner table or make a border with them on a layout.

From all of us on the Scrapping Cottage Design team we wish you a
Merry Christmas!

Days till Christmas

This weeks project I used the Cottage Cutz Skating Penguin Die, I gave him a red scarf and lime ear muffs. Mounted him on the side of a 3 1/2" x 6" chalkboard panel. The Base panel is 6" x 8". Added mini tinsel garland around the chalkboard. Highlighted the penguin in black and white ink.

You know when you have an idea and have it all worked out in your mind and than you complete the project except for that last THING. Well this is one of the projects, completed it last week except for one thing. . Chalk. A good while ago I found this cool, self sticking chalkboard vinyl (had not yet used it) came in several colors by Wallies. . . I thought about the penguin skating on the black ice and being able to change the number each day and leading up to Christmas, added the wire handle so you could hang on a door or add magnets to the back and stick to the fridge. . . . well. . . I hadn't eaten chalk for years, so NO! I did not have any chalk in the house. I kept forgetting to pick some up.. so . . .today I did. . . went to take the pictures. . get the chalk out of the box . . . write a big bold ""10"" for ten days left to Christmas. . . . . . . . . . What happens. . .the chalk does NOT write on the chalkboard vinyl !!!!!!!!! I'm a guy, you know we don't read direction. I break down and read the instructions on the Wallies package. ""NO help '' (I knew reading the package would not be of use . . .that's why I did not!). So I am now going to cut out numbers with self sticking back to use and remove to change out.

By the way, Mr. Wallies and Mr. Crayola Chalkman do not seem to be compatible. . at this point.

Thanks and Merry Christmas !

Baby It's Cold Outside

Good morning friends. Today I have a darling die to show you. It is the Polar Bear on Sled die. I think that he is so cute! I made him going down a hill on his sled. No snow here in MA yet, but my home town in WI has a 2 hour delay this morning because of snow. I do hope we have a white Christmas! Enjoy the day!

Hugs and smiles,

Janice

Snow Many Memories

Hello! For my card today I used the Cottage Impressions Penguin with ski's stamp. I just think he is absolutely adorable! I colored him with my prismacolor colored pencils and blended with odorless mineral spirits. I used my sakura glitter pen to give his ski's some sparkle.

I attached him to the card with a wobble, so he wiggles around. ☺ Ok, that's it for me today. See you back here next Sunday. Have a wonderful day!

♥ Nikki ♥

p.s. You have until midnight tonight to comment on all my posts for the last 12 days on My Blog...I have 12 giveaways, including some Cottage Cutz Dies!!! ☺

Ho Ho Ho Y'all

One of the reasons why I love Cottage Cutz dies so much is because they can be used year after year. For my project today, I have combined the Cottage Cutz Poinsettia Spray which is one of this month's Christmas dies with a couple of Christmas dies from last year which are the Ho Ho Ho Die and the Ornament Die.

Ya Better Watch Out...

Hello and happy Friday!!  Are you ready for Christmas yet?  Not me, by any stretch of the imagination, but, this is the time of year, when we're telling the little ones that they'd better watch out, better not pout, better not cry, becasue... YES... Santa Claus is coming to town.   Ready or not, it's coming!!  My card today uses the Santa With Reindeer Stamp from The Scrapping Cottage.  Another fun and fabulous Cottage Impressions image to color. 

 There's plenty of sparkling glitter on the snow in the reindeer's antlers, and under their feet, although it doesn't show up so well in the picture.  I thought the rhinestone swirls paired up great with this pretty paper from K&Co..  Well, I still have plenty to do to get ready for Christmas, which includes some wrapping that's calling to me.  I wish you a glorious day, a wonderful weekend and lots of happy stamping and crafting!

Yummy tweets!

I've been busy making Christmas goodies, decorating and getting the tree up this week. So it seemed only fitting that this week's project is a layout of my daughter, Cyndi, making goodies last Christmas. I love using non-traditional themes and colors for Christmas pages so having dies that coordinate with the bird and cage on these Christmas papers is pretty cool, dontcha think!

I cut the birdcage from metallic paper...

...and colored the "bluebird" to match the brown and red birds on the paper.

Are you ready for Christmas? You have just two weeks and two days left to finish, believe it or not!!! But hey, no pressure. ;) Have a productive weekend!

Today I'm featuring the Christmas Doily. This die is so cool and can be used as a backdrop on a card, clustered on a layout, and so many other things. Barry showed you how to use them on tags and my project today is using it on a little gift bag.

I cut it out and inked it, and added some Stickles and a gem in the center.

I put some pop dots on the back of the trees so it would stand out against the busy patterned paper.

You got to love dies that have multiples ways to use them.

Hope your holiday shopping is coming along well.

Don't forget the Scrapping Cottage for those crafters on your list.
Happy Wednesday!
Kay