Guiding Light, Cardinals, and Rosebud!

Last day of the STAYcation.... so here is what I made last night and today.
Again the details on what I used to make these cards is on my SplitCoastStampers Gallery:
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=91627

 A Musical Cardinal Holiday to you...

(All Die Cuts- Impression Obsession: Cardinals, 

Memory Box: Virtuoso Music, Cheery Lynn: Merry Christmas)

You are My Sunshine and Guiding Light

(Images all from Stampin' Up! Stamp Sets- 

From Land to Sea, Feel Goods, 

Kinda Eclectic, The Open Sea, Chalk Lines)

Rosebud! 

(Images all from Stampin' Up! Stamp Sets- 

Winter Wishes, Woodgrain. 

Window is SU! Hearth + Home Thinlits Die)

Thanks for looking! Leave comments if you like and if you ever want to buy some Stampin' Up! goodies- contact me! :) Makani

Oh what to do with a wreath!

At first I thought I wouldn't buy the new Stampin' Up! Wondrous Wreath and its matching framelit Dies Wonderful Wreath because I have toooo many (is that possible?) Christmas things. But the big cursive Joy and Noel got me and I bought them both as a bundle. Here's a link to the Stampin' Up! (SU!) Holiday Catalog. (If you want anything, please do send me a message- I don't have a merchant page with them... but I can order things for folks and dropship them to your homes easily!)
http://www.stampinup.com/ECWeb/ItemList.aspx?categoryid=1995

Then the next task was to use my new stamps and framelit dies... and that's when I realized you can do ~~anything~~ with a wreath! Here are few of the wreaths I've made so far (I have a bunch more in my idea file to be made later). :)

They all have shiny bows thanks to painting on SU! Crystal effects. 

Two card color layouts. The flowers were made using  the Itty Bitty Flower Punch 

on flowers that I got from SU! Perfectly Preserved. 

Two card color layouts. The leaves were pulled off a leaf garland made of leaves and wire.

The snowflakes came from an edge punch by EK success. 

I sparked them with my clear/sparkle Gelly Roll pen.

The hearts are popped up with a big blob of Liquid Crystal

Half wreaths work perfectly for a garland!

I also used SU! Filigree Frame Embossing Folder and Labels Collection Frames Framelits.

I also had to play around with using the big cursive "Joy" framelit die. Of course I also wanted to use those totally cute little houses from SU! Holiday Catalog: Holiday Home, the matching Homemade Holiday framelit dies, and White Christmas.

Here is a gate card that I call "Christmas Neighborhood Village" 

The house is the "latch" to close the gate card. To allow ample room for "Joy", 

I made the dimensions so that the gates were scored at 3.5 and 9 on an 11.5 x 4.25. 

This awesome red is the Cherry Red Cobbler paper. 

I fussy cut out Santa's sleigh so he could be on the roof top. 

I bent the photopolymer stamp of the reindeer to fit in the moon and stamped those first.

(As much as I've resisted Photopolymer stamps- the Stampin' Up! ones are good quality and I like the things you can do with them (like bend them).)

I like making "latches" for my gate card doors.

Put a dab of Tombow Mono Liquid Glue (green + white bottle) on one side of the little house that is on the gate fold front seam. Let the glue dry- and it becomes re-positionable! (aka re-openable)

And here are the little Fall cards I made for my stamping buddies

I love the SU! Lovely as a Tree stamp set... and hope it never retires. 

I used the old oak as a fall tree by dabbing some Cajun Craze (rust) ink in the leaves (Old Olive) 

I love making motion lines with dots.... only one more leaf to fall.. 

This is a color wonder- I only use one color- Cajun Craze ink drops on a dish and a blender pen.

I like how there are so many hues as a result! 

(sorry for out of focus- I already gave it away, so no retakes!) :)

Thanks for looking! 

Makani

It's really Owl Fun!

Lynda has me convinced that the SU owl punch can be converted into or dressed up into anything!

Colleen and I came up with the Christmas owls.

Batty owls are thanks to Ms. Owl Genius herself, Lynda.

And I had a blast creating little owls getting dressed for Halloween, imagining their moms and dads shoving their heads into masks and little wings into capes. Tell me what you think!

PS. I posted the how to's and some other cards on my SCS gallery. Check it out: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=91627

Okay, I'm a plebe. (That's Shakespeare for cheap seats).... I'm going to see Phantom of the Opera tomorrow and just can't get to sleep. Too excited! So I thought I'd post another wonderful masterpiece for the 6 people who might be reading this blog. These were made with cookie cutters and Femo clay (I combined colors to get the brown gingerbread color) Then I pressed one of those Ikea tealight candles into them before cooking.... so they make perfect holiday tealight candle holders. Thank you Gold Canyon candle company for the idea in their catalog. Hugs all around, on me. M