Holy Shrinkin' Snowmen, Santa!

Hi, I'm Barb, and I'm the most procrastinating elf Santa's ever known. If that's naughty, then so be it. Some things are never going to change. Of course, that makes life... challenging. Especially when you're Mrs. Black's daughter and the one rule that you manage to adhere to is, "Never show up empty-handed."

We had a dinner to go to, one I knew about for a while. One I pushed out of my mind with an, "I'll deal with that later..."

Suddenly, it was later. Suddenly, my mate was saying, "Don't forget we have that di..." "OH, Nooooo!!!" Panic mode set in. I had nothing ready to bring. I had about fifteen minutes to come up with something.

Bring on the polyshrink and Fitztown's Winter Collection No. 1!

I raced to my computer, stuffed a sheet of polyshrink in the printer, and printed out two adorable snowmen.

I quickly colored them in using Derwent Inktense pencils and Sharpies. Then I cut them out.

Now for some Honey-I-Shrunk-the-Ornaments magic. Polyshrink, when heated, reduces to about 40% of its original size. Heat can be applied by using an oven (and a very watchful eye!) or with a heat gun. I didn't have time to wait for my oven to heat up, so I blasted 'em with my heat gun.

Once they'd shrunk, I used my white Pico Embellisher from ImagineCrafts and some glitter. After all, what's an ornament without bling?!

All that was left to do was to attach some thin gold braid so they'd be all ready to dangle.

With that, I sprang to my sleigh; to my team gave a whistle. And away we all flew like the down of a thistle. You probably heard me exclaim e'er I drove out of sight...

Merry Christmas to All!

(And to all, Good Crafting!!!)

This Is That Time of the Year!

Let's face it. The winter holiday season is the best time to be an arts n' crafts freak. 

Am I right, or am I right?

Of course, my winter holiday season starts in August - at which point I'm already about two months behind schedule! Alas, and thankfully, I work well (read: best) under pressure.

Anyway, now that the holidays are upon us, I can share some of my projects without fearing someone will throw a sweaty flip-flop at me!

I love the simplicity of this candle digistamp from Fitztown. I began this project by printing it out on ivory colored cardstock.

The first thing I did was to fill in the candle drips with IMAGINE Crafts irRESISTible Pico Embellisher in white. The ink from the Pico Embellisher stays raised and shiny, so it really does look like wax drips!

I let that dry - it only takes a couple of minutes - while I colored in the holly with a blender pen dipped in distress ink. I also colored the flame in yellow. 

To embellish both, I used a gold pen to do the inner markings and the outline of the candle.  I also added yellow Stickles to the candle for sparkle.

I colored the ornaments in blue, rose, and green and then added corresponding colors of Stickles or glitter.

I stamped Noel in green, using a stamp that long ago forgot the name of its manufacturer.

Then, to finish the piece and give it a little extra somethin'-somethin', I made some snowflakes out of blue cardstock using an ancient Marvy Uchida punch that I have had for-just-about-ever.

I glued everything together and then added just a bit of Waterfall blue Stickles to the snowflakes, because snowflakes need a little pizzazz too.

That's it for now, folks. I'm off to make something else. 

What artsy craftsy things are you working on for the holidays?

Making It Snow

IMAGINE Crafts and RubberMoon Art Stamps are excited to share with you the amazing projects that our design teams have created to kick off the Holiday Season! Over the next few days, we'll be sharing with you inspiration and techniques using IMAGINE Crafts' line of ink products featuring rubber stamps from RubberMoon. Be sure to visit the IMAGINE Crafts and RubberMoon blogs daily for more projects and ideas!

Can I just say? I have been having sooooo much fun playing with my stuff from IMAGINE Crafts and Rubbermoon! I thought I'd share a fun card with you today. 

For this, I started with a half sheet of watercolor paper, which I sprayed with IMAGINE Crafts GooseBumps Shimmer Texture Spray. I love the slight shimmer and the texture adds some nice dimension to projects. In this case, I was going for snow, and it worked so well!

If you look closely, you can see the shimmer! It's really difficult to capture in a photo.

Once the GooseBumps spray was dry, I used a couple of different colors of blue, an IMAGINE Crafts Ink Blusher sponge, and some Ink Potion No. 9 to fill in the sky.

I sprayed the Ink Potion No. 9 directly onto the cardstock. It helps the inks blend and made the perfect cloudy sky for my falling snow. As you can see, the IMAGINE Crafts GooseBumps resists the ink, making it look like falling snow.

Time to start stamping! For the trees, I used RubberMoon's Skinny Trees background stamp. 

Again, the GooseBumps resists the ink, so it looks like the snow is falling on the trees and just beginning to give them their wintery coats. 

To add to that effect, I sprayed the trees with a bit of IMAGINE Crafts Sheer Shimmer Spritz in silver.

Then I cut the cardstock down to size. Of course I saved the rest of it for later!

I added a few more trees to fill it in. 

I topped just one of the trees with a single gold star using the star stamp from RubberMoon's Dust Collection. (It's not like I won't use the rest of that set, but I tell ya... that star stamp alone was worth buying the whole set!) I stamped it using IMAGINE Crafts Delicata Golden Glitz ink.

I felt like it needed just a little something more, so using IMAGINE Crafts Delicata Silvery Shimmer ink, I added the sweet RubberMoon New Moon face in the sky. She has that peaceful look that I feel when the snow starts falling.

One final word about Delicata Metallic inks. I wasn't convinced that I needed more metallic ink pads. But! I love, love, love these! The colors are so vibrant and lush. I may never use any other gold or silver pads again.

PS.  If any of you IMAGINE Crafts / Tsukineko gods are listening... I'd love to have one in a nice bright copper. Pretty please!