Christmas Ornaments in June

I think it has been established that I love the beach/ocean/tropical and would create with that theme all the time! I'm very fortunate that lots of my fave companies have that theme! :)

A few weeks ago I shared my first ornament created with fabulous Southern Ridge Trading Company chipboard, you can go back to check out that one HERE

I had a few more pieces left over and decided I needed another ornament. And here is the second one that I created.

The wooden tag is from SRTC and the wood like finish is actually a piece of napkin that I got from PEI last June. I used DW Gel Medium to put it on and it pulled apart in just the right places!

The full wooden tag.

This is where the napkin tore a bit and you can see the wood underneath.

The lobster is embossed in Candy Red and then again with the Fractured Ice over it. The crab is just done in the Candy Red.

Look at that gorgeous little crustacean!

The center word blocks are from Kaisercraft Beach Shack Collection and the baby seashells just had to be added.

I do have one more tag to work on and I plan on creating another beach themed ornament for my Christmas tree :)

Supplies Used:

Southern Ridge Trading Company Wooden Tags

Southern Ridge Trading Company Ocean Mix 1

Emerald Creek Fractured Ice

Emerald Creek Candy Red

Dina Wakely Gel Medium

Thanks for stopping by and have a great rest of the week everyone!

Cathy 

For Your Travelers Journal

I think I have established how much I love the Wild Whimsy Collection from Wild Whisper. The dragonflies and the wings are my fave, but the seashells come a pretty close second.

For this project I kept it quite simple. I wanted something to go with the travelers journal that is available with this collection. And let's face it, we all need clips and doo dads to go with our journals. So I used the idea from Eileen Hull's video where she made clips, click HERE to see the video, the clip making starts about 30 minutes in. I used the Wild Whimsy paper and stamp set to make a set of matching clips for my journal.

For more detailed pics and instructions head on over to the Wild Whisper blog.

Thanks for stopping by and hope you are all having a great week!

Cathy

I Really Am Creating!!

I know it seems like I may be doing nothing...but honest I am!! LOL  I have a number of projects coming up next week and the week after and I can't wait to share them with you!! But for now I'd like to share some of my crafting I did while I was on the east coast of Canada, having my first visit to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island! I took some supplies with me, picked up a couple of small things while I was there and just used the quiet evening time to play and relax. Sometimes it was at the little kitchen table we had in our cottage or it was on the kitchen island in the big house we all stayed in, or the coffee table in my pretend bedroom(really a second living room but worked out great for us). I worked on fun tags, tags with trip stuff on them, a thank you card for my cousins and a birthday card for my Uncle Jim.

This was the birthday card for my Uncle Jim for his 70th birthday. So glad I grabbed a handful of my TH Paper dolls and threw them in my little travel bag.

For the map piece, I just trimmed it down, rounded the corners and then drew the hearts on. One around Nova Scotia where my Uncle lives and one around Vancouver where the rest of us live.

And these paper dolls were perfect. The two boys represent my Uncle Jim and my Uncle Rick (who passed away in July a number of years ago), the two girls represent my Auntie Judy and my Mom (who passed 4 years ago) and the lone show off girl is my Auntie Barb, who is 16 years younger than her oldest sibling. I think my Uncle liked his card.

I also did a thank you card, attached to a bottle of vodka to make more vodka slushy, for my cousin Ken and Nancy and Kaley, the owners of Hope River Farm. Be sure to check out the facebook page to follow the antics of farm life in PEI. They fed us so well while we were there and their table was full of family, 12 of us total!!

I seriously just threw in handfuls of TH Paper Dolls and other cards, some stuff from the Prima St. Tropex line and stamps that I loved like the Dina Wakely one that I used to border this card. Colour is from my DW Scribble Sticks and my Wendy Vecchi Minis.

 

These tags were from our first days of heading out to the east coast, from our dinner at the airport in Vancouver to our first night on Cape Breton Island. The Lighthouse Cottages were probably my fave little cottages. And if you go to the site and let the pics run  through, we had the 3 cottages closest to the green space. What a view and lovely beach space.

This piece was from a brochure and the top piece was my receipt from the Glenorra Distillery that we visited.

One of my sassy girl tags! It was just nice to sit and play after busy days of driving, sight seeing and beach combing.

And this one went to my Auntie Judy due to a conversation, over dishes, in my Auntie Nikki's kitchen after some wine and my made up on the spot poem that consisted of "Sassy, Sassy, kiss my assy" Yup...you had to be there to find this as hilarious as we did and yup...my family is batshit crazy!! LOL

And these three tags were done one evening while crafting on the kitchen island while we stayed in big house on the Bay of Fundy. Even though there were 10 of us, it was always kind of quiet i nthe evening, I was crafting, another group was playing crib at the dining room table, another group sitting in the living room reading. Everyone doing their own thing but still all together as a family.

 Thanks all for stopping by! One day soon I'll post some pics of the amazing scenery we saw on the east coast and some of the places we stayed. 

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Cathy

Tag #11 - Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2016

Holy Heck!! I don't think I have cut it this close in the previous 10 months!! BUT....I made it...barely!! 

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2016 - November Remix!

And I know you're all thinking, here comes another Christmas project, but NO, I had no rub ons of any kind that were wintery, Christmasy, or autumny!! I only had some that were...BEACHY!! So this is how it went!

I had coloured rub ons that were beachy and had gotten the tropical dies awhile ago, so it had to be a beachy tropical tag this month!

Yay!! I did have some cork and the cardboard to use, and for my attachments I used the Emerald Creek Angel Fish and dyed them in Turquoise alcohol ink.

I used some extra twine I had in my stash and a piece of drift wood I picked up on one of my trips to the beach with my nephews!

And voila....my November tag is completed! And now I want it to be summer so I can go to the beach, enjoy the sun and find more driftwood and seashells!! :)

I sure hope I have the supplies for the December tag LOL Or we may be heading to the beach one more time!

Thanks for stopping by and hope you are having a wonderful week!

Cathy

 

Which Way To The Beach?!

These days I seem to have a number of projects on the go!! Canvasses prepped and hanging on the wall, or sitting on a shelf, backgrounds done and drying on the edge of the table, pretty much anywhere there is space, I have put something there to dry.

It has been so great to get back into creating and being at my craft table more and more. It was the faith in me from Emerald Creek Craft Supplies, designer/owner in choosing me to be on her Design Team, that has made me want to be creating and crafting and be covered in ink and paint and gesso LOL 

I finally finished my Beach sign and got it hung up on my wall. I truly do love being at the beach, it's so calming and peaceful to me, even when it's full of other people.

On my craft table with the finishing touches. Some of the shells are from a bag I bought at a store and some are right from Crescent Beach, BC and the small piece of driftwood is from the beach too.

And now it is hanging on my wall, so I can have a beachy feel anytime!

Isn't the crackle awesome?! That was done with my DecoArt Media Crackle Glaze! And the alphabet stencil is from DecoArt as well and it was the perfect size for my wooden banners.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

Cathy

 

On My Table Today

A work in progress!  A beach sign for my wall! Just need to attached my wooden banner and then I'm adding some shells and driftwood that I collected from my favorite beach here, Crescent Beach. I used my crackle glaze for the first time and love the effect. On my wooden letters, after I let the crackle dry I sprayed them with Tim Holtz Distress in Tea Dye and love how they turned out. Just using some hemp twine to string the letters together and I'll attach that to the back.

Well I'm back to work for the next 4 days, then a day off and hopefully time spent at my craft table!!
Have an awesome week everyone!
Cathy

Easter, Best Friends and Life

Yes....I know my last post was a depressing one. But that's  life some days. Things haven't  improved too much and the job interview that I had and was super excited for, didn't turn out in my favor. I had thought it had gone so well but someone else got the position.

Easter weekend was awesome though!!! My best friend came over from the island for a jammies clad crafting weekend!! Picked her up at the ferry terminal about noonish....talked all the way back to the house then talked some more. Do you have that friend in your life that you can say anything to...no matter how dark & depressing it is, or how silly it sounds. That person that you can say everything that is wrong...ALL of it and there is no judging, just understanding and empathy and then tears (lots of those) and then some laughter (tons of that) maybe some more tears. Yeah that's  my friend  Linda Lou!!! I am so glad she came even though I truly had nothing to offer her...cept tea, but she came, picked up a few groceries & snacks and still came for the long weekend! And I needed that visit even more than I knew! And to top it all off....she spent a bunch of time with my crazy family coloring eggs and then Easter dinner the next night!

Going on 24 years of friendship and we are still the most hysterically funny people we know!! And nope....not everything we find funny is politically correct or appropriate yet we laugh anyways!

We spent Saturday evening dyeing eggs with my nephews...so much fun!! So much dye spilled on the table....we decided we should have white material on the table next year because the spilling made such cool colors and patterns!

Getting all the dyes readyand still using Mom's teacups that we used when we were kids 

There were alot of eggs dyed (and cracked)

 I am very lucky that I am able to do fun things like this with my nephews!

Will post again very soon to share some of my works in progress from my art table and some great pictures I took out at Crescent Beach last week!!

Thanks for visiting!! Have a great start to your week!

Cathy

A Day At The Beach

Well it was a nice quiet Sunday. My kids and I decided that we were just going to go out and wander today. So we went out to White Rock Beach and walked the boardwalk and out to the end of the pier. I took a lot of pics, as I always do! So many things reminded me of my Mom while we were out there today, the beach itself, the daffodils blooming all over, just being out there.

One of my Mom's favorite flowers ♥

Heading onto the pier, love the arches

The train tracks that run along this part of the beach, have some ideas for more pics here

Seashells on the seashore, love the shells

After we strolled and chatted and had ice cream, well gelato, strawberry cheesecake for me, tiramisu for my son and peanut butter snickers for my daughter, we left the beach and headed out to a little spot called Fort Langley. We actually used to live in Fort Langley about 12 years ago, but moved away to Calgary. Love the little shops and artisans storefronts there. One of the best little places is in Gasoline Alley, called Cranberries..Naturally, great place!

Cranberries Naturally in Fort Langley, BC

Was a great idea to just go and get out of the house.....next Sunday maybe a new neighborhood out in Vancouver to adventure in?!

Hope everyone's week starts well :)