DIY gifts

  Friends enrich our lives.  One friend showed me how to make soaps.  Another friend showed me how to make notecards.  And so, these are our Christmas gifts this year.
  Thankful for creative friends!

Harried for the Holidays

In the midst of soo many scrap tools and papers,  it is so sad at times that I am reduced to writing

Christmas greetings on cards bought on the sidewalk. 

Don't knock it though,  those cards are many at times, my life saver.

Early on, I used to hoard anything that had Martha Stewart on it.

Patterns are timeless.

Quick tags!

Washi tape. Just tape and go!

Puppy Love

   My Chow and my Chihuahua.  Love.   

         My chow Kaki was born in California.  She hates baths,  and only takes them  twice a year.
    She does not smell.  She is a constant scrap companion, choosing to always lay by my feet.
   She loves Siomai, KFC  and goes nuts for Beggin' Bacon.  My brother had to put her sleeping pill inside her siomai so she could board her PAL flight to Manila.
   She roared at the people inspecting her kennel at the local airport and skipped on quarantine.  Maybe it had to do with her snapping teeth at them.
  Piccolo is a recent addition to our doggie family.  He is about 4 months old.  So kulit.
  I know and love each of my canine family.  So it comes to no surprise that I fell in love with little guy too.

A card made by Dr. Sharon Chua using a Sizzix die from Memory Lane store.  She used a Sharpie marker for the eyes and nose.  And also used a cute little clay flower as an accent.  

Dr. Sharon is such a pro at making cards.  In the same way that Karen Filipino is good at distressing things and loves all things Tim.  

Thanks Jeanie David for appreciating each one of us.  And realizing that each one of has incredible talents and gifts.

Christmas in the City

  Full disclosure.  I've owned my bind it all for the last 3 or so years.  But I've never mastered using it.  I usually beg friends to bind my album for me.  Because I seem to miss the learning curve.
  Every time, I have to use it,  I have to watch a tutorial on youtube.  Apparently all I needed to learn how to use it is a lot of practice.
  I purchased index cards from National Bookstore for less than 30 pesos for 100 pcs.  But each book I make only has 50 pages.    I made covers from chipboard and covered them with papers.
  I hand cut my birds using a Maya Road template. Painted it gold, and for the wing, I put some glue and dunked it in Mica flakes.

  Flowers, Flowers, a bit of trim.  And Voila!  Now I have tokens for people whose kindness has touched me this year.

'Tis the Season

Do you love bling and glitter?  I do!

I love Christmas and all the glitter, the borloloys.

Let me show you how I put glitter on all my papers.

Use a fave background stamp.  Mine is Fancy pants.  It's old but still a favorite.

use embossing ink.

apply stamping up heat and stick powder

Heat it up.  when it's suitably  heated, it becomes clear and sticky.

apply glitter and heat it up again.  This will set your glitters.  

Now glitters will stay set on your paper, and will not be all over the place.

From the trash

The help saved me a ton of tissue wrapping paper.  These were supposed to be thrown out, but  since they know that I collect these.  I got a huge bag full!

And so I spent my morning, punching punching.

Scalloped circles, circles, Big Ones.

Layered them, squished them.  Mist them!

I used a WRMK brad setter and All About Scrapbooking gem brads.

And now, I have tons and tons of these beautiful flowers.

From my trash to flowers to treasure.

Locally, tissue wrapping paper can be bought as papel de hapon.

Oooh, I can't wait to save all the wrapping papers from Christmas!

Scrap loot!

 
   I got some scrap stuff from my sister in law Tricia!  Woohoo!  She got me an album and a stampin' up stamp cleaner.  Awesome.

Thankful

  I am thankful for friends who support my crafty needs.  One friend shops for me in Binondo:  Derwent pastels, Sakura water brushes,  clay,  and anything under the sun.  .  And the other one lets me play with her   new toys:  be it in the form of dies, stamps.
  They inspire me to constantly create new lay outs.  Used washi tape as the top page border.  Webster's stamps and paper.  Spellbinders dies.  The border on the bottom is actually doily bought from a bakery supplies store.  No need to go crazy buying all the paper punchers out there.

Getting Creative

I hoarded prima flowers that until now, I have not used.  Find three flowers of different sizes.

Glue a pearl in the center, and squish.  Layer with glue and squish petals again.

The finished product!

I purchased the fake pearls in SM department store today.  A string is 25 pesos.  Bigger pearls go for 40 pesos for a strand.  You can find them in the notions section.  I was also able to buy some pink felt for 60 pesos.  Great buy!

Now, I am so excited to put these layered flowers in my lay outs.

Trick or Treat

  Thanks for checking in every day.  I am currently working on a few lay outs for next year's DT work. When I get a patch of time, I try to get things done and out of the way.  
  I never did like posting sneak peeks.  seriously,  why tease people?  No one likes to be teased.
  A couple of more lay outs, and I am done.  And it's back to posting projects here.  Until then, here is a cute picture of my niece Hana,  giggling when I surprised her.  What a treat!

My Crafting Cases

What girl isn't obsessed with bags?  

I have lots of scrap bags.

In fact, putting my stuff in bags keep me organized.

My pile of vintage suitcases.

One grab and go.  Distress inks with distress tools.  Possibly has space for distress stains too.

Tim Holtz stamps.

And all my heat embossing tools, powders.

Friday's online scrap

Took part in an online scrap last Friday.  I like it because you get real time feedback if people like your lay out or not.  I was supposed to work with my Eclectic papers from Echo Park,  but those papers have me stumped.  I don't know what to do with them.  So I reached for my stand-by  Webster's papers.

If you look closely, you will see that the green is actually Happy Birthday papers,  which I got for less than 10 pesos at the Memory Lane.  Just flipped them over and stamped on them.  The yellow doily stamp is from Stampin' up and is also available from Memory Lane.  Used trims purchased from Divi.  The metal lock and key was purchased from Karen Filipino.  She has them in amazing designs.  I just used Vintaj paint on them, to give them that weathered distressed look.  

Used washi tape and a Hero Arts stamp.  Funny thing, I ran out of the letter 'E',  so I butchered a couple of other letters to make it work.

  I scrap lifted the stamping of the tags from Papercraft's March stamping magazine.  I stamped them unto tags to make them  useable in a lay out.  A bit of punching for the border strip.  And I used Glitz stamp for stamping my background.  Very fast and easy lay out.
  I would have done more lay outs but I got side tracked and read a couple of books.  Gabriel's Inferno, Gabriel's Redemption.  Now, I am reading Love Unscripted and Love Unrehearsed.     I couldn't put the Kindle down.  After, I am done with these books, I'll be back to scrapping.

Blocks

  I get stumped too.  Sometimes, all I am drawing is a blank.  So what do I do?
  I reach for a paper punch. Start from there.
  Layer on mists,  and pile on different embellishments.
  I borrowed this cool birds on a wire Sizzix die from a friend.    I die cut them, and ended up with white white birds.  I sat on the idea for a couple of weeks.  I truly did not know what I would do with it.  I really don't like coloring with markers.  I think using markers, takes up a lot of time.  I am not a very patient person.  So no,  I did not even bother purchasing distress markers.
  I do however, like to play around with inktense and Prang water colors.  And so it clicked.  I colored the birds with water colors.  Totally loved the metallic shiny effect.
  Birds on a wire, now available at Memory Lane store.  Please do take advantage of the awesome online Hero Arts sale.  Some stamps are at 40% off.

Reverse Swap

I received a beautiful mini album from Jeanie Nieva dela Rama.  I'll take pics later on.

But I was so in awe of her talent.  And was thanking her effusively.  She suggested that I make her a recipient of a mini album I will make.

Ok.  I  finished the mini album in two days.

One day to make the album.  

And the next day to paper the album and put embellishments.

Afterwards, I was so tired.  I probably won't push myself to do this craziness ever again.

I just hope that  there is a magic wand hand out there, so I can wave it about and it will clean up my scrap space after.  

My limitation for this mini album is to work with the stuff I have around the house.  I cannot go and buy anything for this album.  And  you know what?  I successfully finished without buying a single thing.

Make Your Own

It all started when I lost my non-stick craft mat.  

I don't know if someone got it.  Or I lost it in a class.

Totally sucked.  So I bought a replacement.

Got a 6x6 version which I know I am the only one who has.

And I also got this EK one.

Tip:  do not remove the plastic cover.

This way, I do not have to clean it.  I just wipe over it with a rag.

Now I even use it for distressing.  So this is now my working surface.

I got this ebook for Ella publishing about stamping secrets.  Learned creative stamping.

So I used shipping tags.  It's easy to stamp, and just later on just add them to a lay out.

Used this beautiful stamp, and used different colored embossing powders.  I cut around the stamp.

I used the felt flower from American Crafts.  A lot of people have been asking about the felt flower.

and so I made my own.  Used felt purchased from Divi and sewed on buttons.  Used sizzix dies to cut the felt.  Had a very crafty week end.

Sweet Day Wednesday

Still playing along with Echo Park's Sweet Day.

May I just say, wow!  I truly love the soft and muted colors.

The air balloon is American Crafts which I have had forever.

But  I just got around using, because I've been cleaning my embellishments.

Loving my Secret Santa's huge doily stamp from Stampin' Up.

I use different colored embossing powders with the stamp.

Beautiful stamp, fine details.  Lovely colors.

I said in a previous post that I have made my peace with Ranger Distress Embossing powders.

Darn it!  No.  It's still hit and miss for me.

And I am humble enough to admit that I still have not perfected the technique yet.

And so, with this admission of defeat.

I am moving on to:  

drum roll please.....

Zing powders!!!!

And now I have a zing powder doily in yellow.

I am now obsessing about Zing, and got all the pastel colors.

My simple joy.

My Mini Album for Tin

We had this amazing swap in Pinoyscrapbookers.  

Each one of us makes a mini album.

We only post the cover and an inside page.

And then we each pick a mini album.

It was like a feeding frenzy during shark week.

Albums were being snapped up so fast.

It was so hard to pick and claim one.

Anyway, here is my album.

It was picked by Tin Yao.

Thanks to Karen for teaching us how to make the mini album.