Once there was a Snowman

I find it kind of interesting that the blog team has a tendancy to pick the same dies to work with.

When Ruth Ellen posted her Snow Day layout last week I thought "here we go again" because I knew I would be posting this card with the same Snowman w/broom die.

He's so cute and such as basic snowman to have in your die collection.

He's goes together quickly and has several options:

With or without the broom

With or without the hat

With or without the snow on the hat

I used Copic markers, a fine tip Zig pen, Baby blue & Black diamond Stickles, some pink chalk for the cheeks and white Memento ink to shade his hat. I also inked around the scarf and cut some slit marks at the bottom for some fringe.

You'll want to add this die to your collection - he's great for the holidays and your wintertime projects.

BELIEVE

'Twas the night before Christmas and through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas would soon be there....


The miracles of Christmas. It is so fun to Believe.......
I love making Christmas books for little grandsons. This year I am making a BELIEVE album to help cherish this years Christmas memories.


I used the Cottage Cutz Santa with reindeer along with several Christmas dies to embellish this book. It is a work in progress and I will be adding Christmas pictures and other dies. I also tied different colors of ribbon on each of the rings.

Whimsical Christmas tags!

At Christmas play and make

good cheer, for Christmas

comes but once a year!!!!

I was so excited to make these
cheerful Christmas tags for
all of my packages! Sometimes
it is the little things that
make a big difference.


Have a very Merry Christmas!

CottageCutz
Snowflake Trio Shape
Whimsical Stocking (my favorite!)

Snow Day!!

We had a December snow over the weekend so of course I couldn't wait to grab this adorable Cottage Cutz Snowman from the Holly Jolly Release for my layout. Now before everyone starts laughing at our pitiful little snow, you have to know that flakes of any kind are a big deal in Alabama!! And the fact that we actually had some accumulation in December is almost unheard of for us!! My poor children are now expecting snow for Christmas (which I am trying to explain just doesn't happen in Alabama!)

To really bring this snowman to life, I cut him out of white cardstock and then covered the cardstock with Icicle Stickles. The reason I did it this way instead of just using glitter cardstock, is that I knew that as the Stickles dry, they will curl up the paper a little bit which would give my snowman a more 3-D feel. I also used black stickles for his eyes and buttons. I used my Copics and chalks to outline the body and to add a little rosy cheek before I added the stickles. You can choose whatever color or patterned paper you want for his scarf to really personalize his outfit to your layout!

I'll have to make a layout next of our little snowman that we built - although I will probably need the Cottage Cutz Mini Snowman for that one!! ;) You can see how much we had to work with for our snowman!

WATCH FOR IT WEDNESDAY #38

Welcome to Watch for it Wednesday. For today's project you will need the following items, Distress Crackle Paint, Distress ink and the item you want to distress preferably a CottageCutz die. I used Picket Fence Distress Crackle Paint, Vintage Photo Distress Ink, and the CottageCutz Fence.

After cutting out the die, painted it with the distress crackle paint. The paint needs to be completely dry before you can go to the next step. If you are short on time let the paint dry for a few minutes and then use your embossing gun to dry it the rest of the way. You should be able to see cracks in dry paint.

After the paint is dry, add distress ink to the die then rub the ink into the cracks (I used my fingers to do this).

Take a damp cloth and rub off the excess ink. You will have an antique type finish look, or weathered look like my fence. This was a perfect technique for the fence on my layout.

Here is how I used it on a layout. I also used the CottageCutz Windmill.

Rudolph Was Here.....

If you've followed this blog for awhile, you know I like fun little sentiments to go with my cards and projects. This treat bag is no exception - do you get it?.....Did it put a smile on your face? Hope so!

This CottageCutz Festive Reindeer has a fun whimsical look just perfect for my sense of humor. I cut him out of brown cardstock and colored his antlers and hooves with Copic markers and then cut out the eyes in black, the bells in silver metallic and the rest in white and red. I inked the edges of the brown and added some red Stickles to his nose. The great thing about his reindeer is you can make him with or without the santa hat and bells to meet your needs.

There are some great dies for the Christmas and winter season so be sure to check them all out at the Scrapping Cottage.
Merry Christmas!

And the winner is.....

Amber H!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is the winning comment:

Amber H. said...
I love the S'Mores shape! Mostly because of the versatility of it.. you don't exactly have to use them for camping!
December 02, 2009 2:39 PM

Thanks to everyone who entered the Cottage Cutz Camping Release giveaway!!
Amber H - please contact The Scrapping Cottage to select your free Cottage Cutz die!! Congrats!!

SANTA'S HELPER

This little angel is a perfect helper for Santa! I am certain Santa will appreciate his help! Although sometimes help from a one or two year old can be more work then just doing it yourself!!! But oh what joy they feel being a helper!!!

For this layout I used the CottageCutz Santa with Reindeer. Santa is standing next to a tree made out of buttons. If you look closely you can see I put distressing stickles on Santa's boots and on the big Quickutz Nesting Star. I put gold stickles on the small Nesting Star for the Christmas tree.

New Cottage Cutz and New Contest!!!

We have another fabulous release of brand new Cottage Cutz dies - Camping!! But that is really just the start - there are some adorable animals, great lake-themed dies and other dies for just general outdoor fun. There is definitely something in this release for everyone!!

We are starting a new contest today that will run through Sunday night at midnight CST. To be entered in the contest, all you have to do is leave a comment on this thread telling us one of your favorite dies from the new Camping themed Cottage Cutz release! The winner will be drawn by random number generator from all the posted comments and announced Monday right here on the Cottage Blog. The lucky winner will receive your choice of a
Free Cottage Cutz die
(up to $19.95)!!!

Good luck everyone!!! I can't wait to see what your favorites are because I already have so many!!

In Search of the Perfect Tree!!!!

Getting a Christmas tree can be an

experience all within itself.

Big or Small?

Full or Thin?

Lots of Space or Very Bushy?

White Fir, Scotch Pine, or Silver Tip?

Flocked or Not?

For many of us, getting a Christmas tree
creates a lot of memories. Jackets and
laughter, pitch everywhere and hours
of time, hot apple cider and dirty knees!!



For all of the people
who still go out hunting
for a "Good old fashioned
family Christmas tree".....
this card is for you!




CottageCutz
Truck with Hay
Truck Accessories
Pumpkin Patch (sign)

First Christmas Layout

I just can't get enough of these Holly Jolly Cottage Cutz Shapes!! This Santa Claus Shape is one of my favorites from this release! I love that he is so realistic looking and that he is carrying that big pack of toys. I just knew he would look perfect on so many different Christmas layouts.

I used this Jolly Santa on a layout of my youngest daughter on her first Christmas morning. In addition to the Santa Claus, I also used the Cottage Cutz Mini Christmas Tree, the Cottage Cutz Mini Gingerbread man, and the present from the Elf with Present Shape.

These cute litte mini shapes are so fun to decorate with Stickles! I also used shiny gold paper for the tree star as well as shimmery green paper for the tree itself.

Watch for it Wednesday #37

Christmas Star Mini Album

Star albums are my favorite of

all mini books! They are amazing

and are not very difficult to create!

These wonderful books open

up into a star shape that can

be beautifully displayed on your

mantle, your coffee table, or

anywhere your heart desires!

You can leave these out for the

season and when it is time to

clean up you will be so

thrilled that you can just fold

them up and put them away!

These sweet little books have

lots of space for wonderful

Christmas pictures and fun

holiday embellishments!

For step-by-step instructions on

how to make these bright and

merry books, see the very next post!

Instructions for the Star Mini Book!

1. Cutting pieces of paper to create your album!

You are going to need:

6 "back" pieces

6 "middle" pieces

6 "front" pieces

Cut papers as listed

in dimentions in

diagram below

(if you click on the

picture below it

will get larger!)

2. Fold each piece of paper in half.

3. Place double sided tape (any

type of taper runner will also

work) on the side edges of the

"middle" panel. Adhere "middle"

panel to the "front" panel. (see

step 4 in the diagram above).

4. Place double sided tape on the

side edges of the "back" panel

and adhere the "middle" panel.

(see step 5 in the diagram above).

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 to

make 6 complete triangles!

6. Adhere sets together to form an

album! (see step 7 in the diagram)

7. Attach some ribbon between

the panels of the front and

back cover of the album or

a cute paper clip can also be

used to hold the book open!

Deck the Halls Penguin

It's finally here! The Christmas season is upon us which means I get to create with these cute CottageCutz holiday dies. For this card I used the Deck the Halls Penguin, some gems, silver Stickles, Distress ink and some mounting tape to pop the penguin off the ladder just a bit.
There are lots of Christmas and winter shapes available only at the Scrapping Cottage so be sure to check them out.

SNOWY DAYS

There is no time, like snow time. We don't have snow where I live so we head to the mountains for snow time! This is a picture of Jack's first trip to the Snow!!!





Star Light, Star Bright, Please don't let me melt tonight! I love this adorable CottageCutz Snowman with sign shape. To add to the fun, I used Snow Tex to give my snowman and snowballs texture.

The First Christmas

Remember, if Christmas isn't found in

your heart, you won't find it under a tree.

Charlotte Carpenter

Christmas is such a magical, wonderful

time of year. For us scrapbookers and

card makers, there is so much to create!

I was so excited to enhance the
QuicKutz Nativity scene with one
of the precious lambs from the
CottageCutz lamb die. I love how he
fits perfectly and is looking right at
Baby Jesus in awe and amazement!

Holiday Hugs

I know we are just barely through with Thanksgiving, but can you blame me for not being able to wait any longer to play with these fabulous Holly Jolly Cottage Cutz dies!! As soon as I saw these adorable Elves I knew I had to have them. For the past couple of years, we have had our own elves come to stay with us during the Christmas season. My oldest daughter absolutely LOVES them!!! She named her elf Candy Cane Red and named her sister's Candy Cane White. Our elves are playful and happy and would never make a mess in the house! They mostly like to move around at night or when we are gone and play with the girls' toys and stuffed animals. Last year, my oldest daughter insisted that we take a picture with the elves in front of the Christmas tree and this is one of the pictures. I added the Elf with List die to draw attention to the little elves that the girls are holding in the picture. These Cottage Cutz Elf dies are going to be so fun to use to document the stories of our elves for years to come!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Watch for it Wednesday #36

My tip today is a fun way to use Perfect Pearls and a Mini Mister. You will need Perfect Pearls, a Mini Mister (they normally come in sets of 3), and some Ranger Re-inker (I used Peeled Paint - great neutral base with just enough die to make the Pearls show up). Now, you want to pick a couple colors of Perfect Pearls that you want to use. I chose Perfect Bronze and Sunflower Sparkle because they both said Autumn to me. Put a tiny scoop of each color into your Mini Mister. Then drop 3 drops from the Re-Inker bottle into the Mini Mister (FYI - You MUST use a re-inker and not regular alcohol inks. Alcohol inks are not designed to be aerosolized and are TOXIC if used in this manner!!) Now, just fill the Mini Mister up the rest of the way with water and mix it all together.

You are now ready to start spraying!!

Here is a before picture of a whole bunch of leaves that I have cut out to be sprayed with my Perfect Pearls solution. I have gone ahead and inked the edges and also outlined the leaf veins with my Copic markers before I spray them with my solution.

When you are ready to spray, make sure you have the area surrounding your pieces covered unless you want your work surface to have a new Bronze coating ;)

Hold the Mini Mister about 12" or 14" above your pieces and give it a couple of sprays. When you are first starting out, you are going to be tempted to over-spray. It will take a few minutes for the spray to dry so that the color will show up. Spray it a couple of times and then let it dry before you spray again. You can always add more color - you can't take it away once it is there! You may even want to practice on some spare sheets just to get a feel for it and to see if you like more or less color.

I gave this leaf a heavier coating than my others so you would really be able to see the change. The spray really gives the leaf such a wonderful sheen.

Here are the rest of my leaves. I know it is hard to see the bronze flecks on the leaves but hopefully you get the idea. Once all of my Perfect Pearl leaves were dried, I added them to my layout. I used the Cottage Cutz mini maple leaf die from the August Cottage Cutz Release to cut out all of the leaves. Then before I sprayed them with my Mini Mister, I inked the edges and then outlined the inside veins of each of the leaves with my Copic Markers. I also used the Cottage Cutz Raking the Leaves Die as another Fall accent to my page. And once again, the November Pagemaps were my inspiration for my page design.

Another really cool effect of spraying the leaves with the Perfect Pearls mixture is that as the leaves dry, they tend to curl up just a little. This curling makes for much more realistic leaves. I mean, when have you ever seen perfectly flat leaves, right?!!

This technique would also be great to use on your Winter layouts to make snow glisten and shine! Just change your Pearl colors! Really, what projects couldn't use a little something extra ;)

Here are a couple of close-ups to give you a better view of some of the details :)

I hope you liked this tip. Now, run out to the store and stock up so you can start spraying your cards and layouts!!

It's hard to say "I'm sorry"

If you're like me every once in awhile I say something stupid that offends a friend, family member or co-worker. I feel terrible of course and want to apologize and clear the air. I hate the feeling inside when this happens, luckily it's not very often.

I like to find fun sayings to go with my cards and thought this old saying about ruffling your feathers was perfect for this CottageCutz Rooster. I cut the large feather combo out twice in two different colors and inked the edges with similar colors of Distress Ink. I also inked the rooster's body and added some pen markings to make him stand out a bit more.

Whether you're sending an apology or not this rooster is a fun die to create projects with and goes together quick and easy.