Whew! We made it!

Well Christmas Day is over, a bittersweet moment to be sure! I love the hustle and bustle of getting everything ready and the time spent with family and friends, but there is something to be said for the relaxed atmosphere of the day after Christmas. We often never get out of our pajamas that day, and just enjoy being together and playing with our new "toys".  I hope you had a wonderful holiday with your family too.

I finally finished my Christmas cards last Sunday! I took the Dreamweaver challenge of "Holidays in a Hurry!" to heart and quickly whipped up some cards. I often have bits and pieces left after doing blog post experiments, or demos at stores. I keep them in a bin to use later, well later was now so here they are:

You can see that I keep them pretty simple. It's hard to show, but most of them are on beautiful washi cardstock from Hanko papers. Their papers are so beautiful and add a simple elegance to your cards.

See what our other team members posted for you this week:

Dream It Up! 

Lea Kimmel 

Louise Healy 

Stacey Rumsby 

Terrece Siddoway 

Pam Hornschu

Until 2014...
Happy Creating,
Louise

Holidays in a hurry!

The days are rushing past faster and faster. I still do not have my Christmas cards started, much less finished! Each day as we receive more beautiful cards in the mail I realize how far behind I am! Oh well, somehow it all gets finished.
The Dreamweaver Stencils design team has been posting ideas for last minute projects or cards to help you in this busy time of year. I had an idea pictured in my mind using the beautiful Nativity stencil (LL554), it seemed so straight forward! Somehow I just could not make it turn out how I envisioned it, have you ever had a day like that! Here are two attempts, but I'm not very happy with either, so there may be another later if I can get it to do what I want it to do.

Nativity - LL554 and Season of Joy - LX7016

Nativity - LL554 and Lg Peace on Earth - LX7019

See what I mean...they are OK, but not WOW! and I really like to make WOW cards. The first one uses Glossy White Embossing Paste with Crystal glitter on a navy blue shimmer paper for the Nativity stencil. The words from the Season of Joy stencil (LX7016) were stenciled using a small stencil brush and Memento Paris Dusk ink which was then highlighted with a clear glitter pen.
The second card in done on white linen cardstock. The Nativity was dry embossed near the bottom and then stenciled with the Paris Dusk ink. The Lg Peace on Earth - LX7019 was stenciled near the top, had Translucent Embossing Paste put over the ink, then Crystal glitter on the wet paste.After everything was dry, I used a larger stencil brush to add color to the background.

Here is list of other team members who ideas for you too:

Dream It Up! 

Laura Drahozal 
Lyn Bernatovich 
Pam Hornschu 
Heidi Erickson 
Louise Healy  
Cyndi Bundy

 

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!
Happy Creating,
Louise

Holidays in a hurry!

The Christmas season is coming fast! I've almost finished my shopping, am having some dear friends over today for lunch (what the season is really about, making time for family and friends!), and leave Friday for a family party in MN (hopefully, if we don't get more snow). My daughter got home last night from college and will be here until after the first of the year, my middle son arrives on the 16th and will be home until the 30th, and my oldest son and his family will be here Christmas morning...life is good!

The Dreamweaver Design Team wants to help you create in a hurry this season for those last minute gifts and finishing touches to make your holidays extra special. We hope that you will enjoy our creations and join in our fun if you have the time. This week I've created  some gift tags for the perfect addition to your presents.

These are easy to create in multiples with the power pasting technique.

• To power paste put a piece of removable tape along one edge of your stencil
• Turn the stencil over and put another piece of removable tape on the same edge from the other side so you get a double layer of tape along that one edge (this is your "handle")
• Place the stencil over a piece of paper cut to the size of the stencil
• Place a piece of removable tape on the edge opposite of the one you double taped, then on the other two edges
• Paste your image using a palette knife and paste spreader to apply a layer of embossing paste (I used Matte Black Embossing Paste)
• Carefully lift the edge of the stencil with the handle while keeping the side opposite it still attached to your surface
• Slip the pasted image out and slip a new piece of paper under the stencil and repeat the pasting process. I was able to paste four sets of images before I had to clean and dry my stencil
• I let the paste dry for almost 10 minutes before carefully brushing on some Metallic FX powders for color
• Let them dry completely before brushing off the excess powders
• Once dry cut the images apart to triple your counts! I used the beautiful 3 Xmas icons stencil (LL469) for my tags, you can get 8 sets out of 1 piece of paper (that's 24 images in no time at all!)

Matte Black Embossing Paste with Metallic FX powders, before
extra powder is buffed off

Buff off the extra powders and cut the images apart

Cut out a little tag from decorative paper, use the To:/From: part of
LS25 To From Snowflake to stencil the To From on the back of the tag

Add them to your packages 

Here's the list of the other designers who have ideas for you this week. Enjoy!

Dream It Up! 

Lea Kimmel 

Louise Healy 

Stacey Rumsby 

Terrece Siddoway 

Pam Hornschu

Happy Creating,

Louise

Countdown to Christmas!

Only 2 full weeks left until Christmas! Are you in a panic yet? Hopefully you have everything under control and have the time to enjoy the season. The Dreamweaver Stencils design team wants to help you with those last minute gift and tag ideas that are sure to come up in the next couple of weeks. Our challenge for the month of December is "Holidays in a Hurry!", perfect for quick little projects that will look like you spent hours!
This week I am showing you a great project that I love to use for hostess gifts during the holidays, or all year long. It's a folder with matching notecards and can be created with virtually any papers and stencils. The sky's the limit! Here's a sample:

Lg Fleur de lis (LL447) in Matte Black Embossing Paste

Four matching notecards and envelopes tuck in the pockets of the folder

Coordinate your notecards to the folder papers for a beautiful presentation

The steps for this project were posted on  May 9, 2013, click here to see the step by step pictures for this easy project:  Just change the papers and stencil to ones you like! Here's a sample of the one on the instructions:

The rest of the team has more great ideas for you. Here's this week's list of designers:

Dream It Up! 

Laura Drahozal 
Lyn Bernatovich 
Pam Hornschu 
Heidi Erickson 
Louise Healy  
Cyndi Bundy

Happy Creating,
Louise