Life is a beautiful thing

Hi! I'm Valerie Reyes.  I'm so excited to be here as a guest designer for April.  Susan's artwork is so lovely, it makes me smile just to look at.  It was 3 AM when I walked in my front door from a road trip to see my design team box. I did take a few minutes to get the kids in from the car and into bed before I opened my box, but not a moment longer.

It was a true act of self control not to start working before I finished my haul video (you can find it on my YouTube channel). I went to sleep dreaming about two patterned papers in particular: Live, Love, Create and Beautiful Daydreams.

I knew that charming green house belonged in the sunny afternoon, so I started there.  After cutting out the house, I popped it up on dimensional adhesive using the Beautiful Daydreams patterned paper as a background. I used Smooch Pearlized Accent Ink to add definition to some of the details in the background paper: stems of flowers, rays of the sun, edges of clouds. The next thing to go down was the stamped sentiment, "Let your heart sing." from the Sing Your Song stamp set.

Then, I wasn't quite sure what to do.  I knew that I wanted it to be either wall art or a title page for one of my scrapbooks, so I googled the phrase, "Let your heart sing."  and came up with a song by Katharine McPhee. I filled in the white space with stamps from Little Yellow Bicycle's Love Letters Collection. Here is the final page.

If you're interested you can watch this video of my whole process.

Thank you so much for stopping by and a special thank you to Susan K. Weckesser, Inc. for giving me the opportunity to guest design here.

Valerie Reyes
Susan K. Weckesser Guest Design Team Member

Live to Create Mixed Media Canvas

Hi everyone hope you all had a great holiday season and have had a blast to the new year!  I had fun creating this little canvas for you this week.  It is a small canvas 6 inches by 6 inches. 

First I painted the canvas with blue and green paint, then I put some beige paint over it by painting and smooching bubble wrap on it. 

On top of it I used a variety of rub ons (black and white) including small flowers, Fleur De lis, etc. 

I inked the edges with Staz On ink and then stamped around the edges with a stamp from Susan's Grandma's Needlepoint set (see left hand side at bottom in the above picture)

I gathered together a bunch of flowers, metal embellishments to decorate it.  I started with want2scrap flourishes and glued them to the canvas.  I left them the natural colour.  I then glued on top a metal watch from Michael's. 

I stamped the little girl from Susan's Grandma's Needlepoint set and cut her out.  I also cut out from the Live In Colour Tags a little banner and the saying Live to Create. 

I arranged some paper and resin flowers, metal flowers together with the little girl and saying onto the canvas and glued them down.  I also added a few pearls to the canvas as well. 

This is the final canvas finished!  I love the over all feeling of the canvas and it will sit on a shelf in my scrap room.

Hope you all have enjoyed today's post and will have a great remainder of the week.  To those going to CHA this week, enjoy and bring back a lot of goodies!

Love Jennifer

Let it Snow double frame

Hello crafty friends, Einat Kessler here with a project to warm your hands ! Now that winter is here and some places are already snowy and white you probably have fun photos of playing in the snow, building snowman or making snow angels. Here is a great idea to display these photos in a double chipboard frame!

Start with stamping a piece of thick transparency with a snowman from the Let it Snow set. Use a permanent ink like StazOn to make sure it will not smear. Emboss the snowman with white embossing powder. I used an embossing markers to make sure I only emboss the inside of the snowman and not cover the black outline. Cut around the snowman shape.

Stamp two clouds as well. I embossed one cloud with teal, grey and sparkle embossing powders and covered the other one with white paper.

Then cover the bottom of the chipboard frame with cheese cloth to create your snow.

Add a little light blue color with color spray or Pan Pastels.

Adhere the snowman and clouds on the frame and add rhinestones.

to finish the frame stamp Let it Snow on the frame. Stamp the sentiment from the same set on a white piece of cardstock and cut it in a cloud shape. Adhere it to the frame.

Now all you need to do is go outside, have fun and take a picture of it!

Have fun creating!
Einat

Let it SNOW!

Hello crafty friends! Einat Kessler here with a new fun and easy project.
I always say I was born in the wrong place. I love my country but not the weather, the summer is too long and the winter is barely winter in North American or European terms...it rains, it gets a little cold but that's basically it. We only get snow on one mountain, which is a tourist attraction that you have to drive 3 hours to get to and try to have fun with too many people around you.

So...to encourage myself I created a cute card that I'm going to put on my work desk to help me imagine a snowy winter...

This card is very easy to make. First stamp the cute and amazing One of a kind winter by Susan Weckesser on a white cardstock. Make sure to use StazOn ink so it will not smear. Then color it with water colors or Copics. Cut it in a square or a round shape. I used Spellbinders Nestabilities. Then cut from different papers more shapes each one a little larger than the other. Adhere all the layers and add a title and a little bling!

Now all I have to do is look at my card and imagine....

Have fun Creating!
Einat

Hand-Made SnowGlobe

Hello Crafty friends! Einat Kessler here with a special project created for our Hand-Made Christmas Celebration with the Christmas Love Campaign.

 I had this project in mind for a long time and I finally got the perfect chance!

A hand made snow globe!

It's actually very easy to create.

First you need to find a glass or plastic jar. I reused an old pickles jar I had (why not give the gift of recycling to our planet too right?). Paint the lid with your choice of color, I used red of course.

When the lid is dry you can start adhering your embellishments.

For my main embellishment I used the cute snow man from the "Let it snow" stamp set by Susan Weckesser. I stamped a thick transparency with Stazon black ink and cut it around the image.

Then I adhered it to the lid.

Make sure you use a silicon water resistant adhesive to glue down all your embellishments.

Also make sure to use only plastic embellishments because metal will rust in the water.

The next step is to fill the jar with distilled water, but not all the way live about half an inch of air.

Add glycerin (you can get it in any drug store) which will give the water the right consistency so the "snow" will fall slowly when you shake the globe. Add glitter and close the lid. I recommend putting the silicone glue around the inside of the lid before you close it so it will be completely sealed.

My photo is a little blurry because of the water but you can see the glitter floating around. I also added diamond glaze and let it drip to mimic a window with frozen water on it.

I added a colorful bow made from May Art ribbons on the top and it was done!

I hope you'll be inspired to create a snow globe as a Christmas gift for someone you love!

HAND-MADE CHRISTMAS CONTEST

To start off this wonderful year 5th year of the Christmas Love Campaign, we are having a Hand-made Christmas Contest. 

What you have to do: 

*Follow along during our Hand-made Christmas event from November 2 - November 16, 2013 at Susan K Weckesser Inc blog 

*Like the Christmas Love Campaign Facebook page ---> HERE. 

*Make your own Hand-Made gift. (it can be something you designed yourself or if you want try something that the designers have created please go ahead and have fun and do that!) 

*Take a picture and post it on our facebook page. Or if you have Instagram post it there and tag it #craftuplove , #christmaslovecampaign & #susankweckesserinc so I see it! You can find me @ [SUSANKWECKESSER] on Instagram, so come follow me and I would LOVE to follow you! So much fun! 

*Give your gift to a neighbour or stranger to make them smile! SPREAD THE LOVE! 

*Come back to our Hand-Made Christmas post and let us know that you have crafted up some love and you will be entered to win a awesome prize pack from the above sponsors. The prize will include lots of goodies so you can craft up more love! How awesome is that! You have until November 17, 2013 at midnight MST to enter. Have fun! 

COME & JOIN US!

- See more at: http://mysweetearth.blogspot.co.il/#sthash.iIKuW8vW.dpuf

Have fun creating!
Einat

Simple Bag

Hello, Allie here to share a little project I created using the Celebration of Simple stamp set designed by Susan for Unity Stamp Company.

I had some dyed fabric scraps left over from a recent project and I thought it would be fun to make a simple bag. I love to have bags and boxes on hand, because I'm always getting a simple little something for a friend.

So, this project is truly a Celebration of Simple!

I stamped the pennants on to scraps and cut them out with pinking shears, then sewed the top of each pennant to a square of fabric that I had hemmed at the top. I stamped the sentiment on the same piece. I then sewed two squares together (back to back) and turned them right side out.

I thought it was a little plain, so I added some fun buttons at the top with embroidery thread.

Supplies:

• Fabric - Moda 
• Buttons - Buttons Galore
• Stamps - Susan K Weckesser for Unity
• Ink - Tsukineko/Imagine Crafts "Stazon" Inks
• Embroidery Thread and Sewing Thread - Coats & Clark
• Dye - Rit Dye
• Shears - Fiskars

Now, I have a fun little bag for gift giving. It's all about the presentation, right? What would you use a fun little bag for?

Thanks for joining me, I've really enjoyed guest designing for Susan and friends!