12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap The End

Well now that the gift swap is sadly over I can show you the lovely Day 13 gift from Mary-Beth which I opened on my day 9. This sweet little girl has been hanging on my dining room wall since Dec 21 now you can see it too. Thanks Mary-Beth for the gift and for being a gracious hostess again this year.

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap Day Eight Revisit

Just in the nick of time Linda H's day 8 gift arrived so I was able to open it before Dec 24th was over. This lovely little bag sewn so beautifully by Linda is a triangular shape and has a hanging loop, I'll need to find just the right thing to store in this. I might use it for small knitting and crochet tools near by. Whatever I decide I'm glad it arrived in time and with no harm done to it on the way here. Thanks Linda H.

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap Day Twelve

The last day of opening these gifts, I'll be sorry to have it end, but I have so many lovely gifts to enjoy. From Kristy I have this absolutely beautiful envelope book filled with tea. This will be just the thing to help me relax over the holiday and I'd sure like to know how to make one myself. Thanks Kristy.

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap Day Eleven

So today Dec 23 is time to open Linda C's gift. This one is a fun holiday jointed paper doll. Won't she look just lovely on my tree? The last gift to open then the fun ends for this year.
Thanks Linda for adding to my beautiful collection.

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap Day Ten

Yesterday, Dec 23 was Carolyn's gift opening. She made this lovely hanging full of lovely colour texture, photo and beads. This is another beauty for my treasure collection. two more days to go and hoping Linda H's day 8 gift arrives by then.
Thanks Carolyn for this beauty.

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap Day Nine

Day Nine was the day for opening my gift and Suzanne's. Well, since I don't have mine to open I got to open Mary-Beth's Day Thirteen gift, I imagine it will look delicious in my holiday decor, but that's all I can tell you for now since the others will open this gift on their day and I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise.
I can show you the lovely gift from Suzanne. This beautiful snowflake charm in a little frame will look great on my tree. Thanks Suzanne.

My gift is an altered bamboo domino necklace. I used 3 colours of bamboo dominoes and digital images of some of my altered heads and a fish image. All have beads and black or natural jute cord. I printed a scan of the matching pendant on the card before embossing with the Cuttlebug embossing folders.

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap Day Eight

Dec 20 was another 2 gift day, but since Linda H's gift had not arrived yet I still had Sue's gift to open. This is a beauty, a metal tag with mesh and beads angel magnet. This one was a hard one to photograph and really much better to see in person. I guess the rest of you will just have to settle for my photo.

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap Day Seven

On Day 7 to, be opened on Dec 19, I should have opened Beth's gift. Since is has not yet arrived I opened Ruth's Day 1 gift which had not arrived by Dec 13. So on the 19th I opened this lovely magnetic calender and note pad. This has such pretty background paper and ribbon on it and I will have is near my desk to refer to every day.

December ATC Swap AT The Grind

The theme for this month is hands so I have done two series that are similar. The first set is "Creative Hands" and uses a digital background and digital text. The fun foam hand is heated and a rubber stamp pressed into it. The hands are painted with gold and silver craft acrylic paint. I finished with wrapping and tying jute cord around the cards.

The second set is "Mind and Hands" and used assorted recycled tissue box and other cardstock and tissue, text paper and 1 has rubber stamped flowers and another has sealing wax. I hope to do a few more tonight, but with the leftovers from previous swaps I should have enough for tomorrows swap.

Christmas Tags

Today's project at Cherish The Thought was these 2 wonderful Christmas tags. Both of these tags are made from recycled corrugated cardboard. The first tag we peeled the top layer off the tag after using the BigShot to die-cut the tags. The red strip is embossed with the snowflake Cuttlebug embossing folder and tied ribbon around near the bottom.
The second tag uses a poinsettia corner embossing folder and coloured with gel pens on the debossed side. I will hang these on the tree rather than using them on a package.

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap Day Six

So yesterday, Dec 18 was the day to open the gift from Jane H. Now I have a set of 4 very festive and useful holiday coasters. These are nice and sturdy canvas coasters that should be able to come out for the season for many years. What fun this swap is again this year.

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap Day Five

Kathleen's day 5 gift was opened on Dec 16 and is an altered scrabble tile with "Laugh" on pretty blue paper and the letter L on the back. This is on a silver chain ready to wear and is another treasure from my gift basket. I am getting some lovely gifts and more to open, lucky me.

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap Day Four

Day 4 was another double dip day so we had 2 gifts to open on Dec 16.
Wanda's gift is this business size pouch with a Blessings embellishment and charms, just lovely. As an added bonus it contains 3 double-sided cards nicely decorated and rubber stamped with Quietfire Design quotes.

From Daphne came a lovely little purse for an ipod or similar electronic gadget. I don't have any of those gadgets, but I will sure find a good use for this gift, it's just to pretty not to use.

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap Day Three

Day Three, the gift I pulled from my basket on Dec 15 was from Wendy, and couldn't be more perfect for me. Now I don't go out for coffee very often, but when I do the cups are just way too hot for me hold, so this java jacket with the cute little bird will come in very handy. Wendy has done a beautiful job on this, it is well finished and the colours are so lovely.

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap Day Two

We had a treat for Day 2 and had 2 gifts, which I did open on Dec 14 but just haven't gotten it on the blog till now. From Carmen is this lovely snowman shaker ornament. I just wonder how many times this will get shaken when someone passes the Christmas tree.

From Jane S. is the most lovely paper bag book. Now I have seen information about these, but just never thought they could be very elegant. Jane sure has changed my mind about that with this beautiful book which has tags for us to do some art on.

Christmas ATC 4, 5 and 6

Christmas ATC 4, 5 and 6
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

More Christmas ATCs. All use the same photo as the previous ones and the first of this group has a burgandy cardstock frame with distress stickles added. The other 2 have a photo of my toy sewing machine.

Knit Scarf

Knit Scarf
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

This scarf is knit with a very rustic thick and thin yarn, not what I would usually pick, but it seemed to call to me this time. I knit most of it in 2 days, then took about 2 weeks to finish the last bit off, so it would be a quick knit if I stayed focused. I knit this on 12mm. needles and used approx. 2 and one third 50gr balls of yarn and measure 5.5 in by 57 in long.

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap Day One

This is the wonderful day one gift from Judy. She has done a beautiful job of needle felting. Some of our days have 2 gifts since we ended up with 18 participants, but my second day 2 gift has not arrived yet. I will get to open that when it lands in my basket.

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap

I've been making the gifts, checking my list twice and got everything in the mail. I just hope they have arrived at their destinations, the mail has been slow this year and my gift basket is still waiting for 5 more gifts, but we are going to start opening each days gifts and hope the rest arrive before they should be opened.
I've been collecting the lovely gifts in this basket as they arrived and waiting till we can start opening.

The first photo is the basket from the stairs using zoom. This is what I see every day when I walk past or come down the stairs, all the better to enjoy the pretty gifts from upstairs or down.

Standing by my basket in the foyer. This is right beside the front entry and near the bottom of the stairs so I can enjoy the gifts frequently.

Christmas Art

Here's what I've gotten done so far today, 1 more Christmas card and 3 ATCs. The card is very simple and uses the Lace Tree Cuttlebug embossing folder on white cardstock, mounted on a reddish brown cardstock then onto a cream card blank with a ribbon bow for embellishment.
The ATCs are rubber stamped tree and flourishes, coloured with Vintage Photo, Fired Brick and Tea Dye distress inks. The words are computer generated and the photo is from an old family photo. I added ribbons, beads and bells.

Christmas Projects

Yesterdays open house at Cherish The Thought was very fun and I met some of the people that trade ATC at the Grind every month. We made 4 very lovely projects. The first was this Christmas Card which used sugar beads on the Santa image. The next station we went to was for this cute little ornament. We chose the image and frame we wanted to use, fit it to the back of the frame, trimmed and added the lace. We punched 2 new holes for the ribbon and covered the original hole with flat back pearls. The ribbon was added to the top and a tiny jungle bell was tied on with the bow. The third project was a postcard sized hanging. For this one we used a poinsettia die cut and ran the petals through a Cuttlebug embossing folder. The background paper was added, trimmed and edged with brown ink. The petals were also inked on the edges then glued on with double sided tape and green rhinestones placed in the centre. I added the family photo at home. The last but not least project was a postcard from a vintage postcard kit. We selected the image and embellishment to use. The image was cut to fit the postcard and sprayed with Glimmer Mist. All the pieces are edged with brown ink. We used copper wire for the hanger and tied the embellishment to a loop in the wire again adding a bell with the ribbon.

Knit Star Mini Mystery Knit-a-long

I knit these stars with a pattern from Holiday Mystery Gift Along with no photo or clue what the finished project would be. They are a very quick to knit project and for the first star I used Patons SWS (soy wool silk) and 5 mm needI knit these stars with a les. This turned out pretty good so I tried another one. This time I used Patons Koy sock yarn and 6/0 seed beads and 2.25 mm needles.

Vintage Christmas 2

Vintage Christmas 2
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

This my interpretation of the Vintage Christmas Card I made at Cherish The Thought. The background is burgundy cardstock run through the textile Cuttlebug embossing folder and white pigment ink rubbed over the high points. 2.5 inch lace is added near the bottom of the background. I used an old family photo printed in sepia and edged with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I don't have the snowflake die, so I rubber stamped the snowflake on white cardstock with Vintage Photo ink and embossed with pearl white translucent embossing powder, the cut out the shape. This was also rubbed with vintage photo ink and a rhinestone added to the centre. The Quietfire Design quote is stamped on cream cardstock with Vintage Photo distress ink and the edges are rubbed with the same ink, and burgundy ribbon is tied around the piece. The snowflake and quote are mounted with foam tape.

Christmas Card 4

Christmas Card 4
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

This card uses the whole Lace Tree Cuttlebug embossing folder, white pigment ink rubbed over the high points and embossed with Winter Wonderland embossing powder. The words are from 2 Quietfire Design quote stamps, "When this Christmas" and "Follow your dreams", stamped on white cardstock and cut with the scalloped oval Nestabilities die. There is a strip of silver ribbon down each side applied with Sookwang tape.

More Christmas Cards

I've been playing with some of the elements I used in the first card I made with the "Snowflakes" Quietfire Design stamp. I used the Lace Tree Cuttlebug embossing folder as a background element on 2 cards and on the purple area of the fairy image on one card. All have white pigment ink rubbed on the high points and embossed with Winter Wonderland embossing powder. I used a sponge to add purple dye based ink on areas of the embossed background. Two of these have a snowflake stamped and embossed with the Winter Wonderland embossing powder. The quote is stamped on white cardstock with purple dye based ink, then edged with the purple ink. All the quotes are mounted with pop dots. I've also used ribbon on each of the cards.

Christmas Countdown

Lisa Vollrath is running her Christmas Countdown now so go visit and download some lovely clipart images.

Vancouver ATC Exhibition

Please take note of the information in my sidebar of a call for entries in the big 2010 Vancouver Artists Trading Card groups exhibition and swap. I'll leave the information at the top of my sidebar until the deadline. I hope some of you will send some of your great cards along.

Vintage Christmas Card

Vintage Christmas Card
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

This is today's card project at Cherish The Thought. We used a cream coloured card blank, a red and grey patterned paper and lace. The image and "Seasons Greetings" are stamped on cream cardstock and the snowflake is a Sissex die cut with a rhinestone for some bling.

Cake Slice Template

For those of you who wanted to know if there is a template to the cake slice boxes I made for the 9th Anniversary of ATC VAncouver I did a search and found a couple and one pie template. I am sure that this is the one Penelope gave us and in my opinion is the best I found.

Vintage Christmas ATC Swap

Vintage Christmas ATC Swap
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

This is for a one for one ATC swap on PDA with the theme of vintage Christmas. I called my card "Christmas Dreams" for the work stamps I added to the ATC. The background is scrapbook paper run through the Textile Cuttlebug embossing folder and white ink rubbed over the high points. The tree is stamped on grunge board and embossed with Emerald green embossing powder. The edges are rubbed with Fired Brick Distress Ink. The hand and photo are from Dover and the sewing machine is a photo of my toy sewing machine.

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

These are the gifts all wrapped up for the 12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap, expanded to 18 participants. They are starting to arrive at their destinations, but I can't tell you what is in them until after Day 9 of the gift opening. I wrapped all of my gifts in paper napkin which I hope everyone can use in an art project after opening the gifts. The tag which needed to indicate which day it is to be opened on is made from a collage done on a playing card and scanned. This is then printed to ATC size and rubber stamped with a large no. 9 and the word "Day" I punched a hole in the corner and added a piece of yarn. The packages are tied with a silver curling ribbon.

Knit Gem Scarf

Knit Gem Scarf
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

I started the little scarf on Wed and finished it yesterday. This little triangular scarf measures approx. 8 inches and the point and approx 32 inches at the slightly curved long edge. This was knit with Red Heart Kiss in Gem colour on 9mm needles.

Knit Scarf

I've been working on this scarf for about 2 weeks in between working on the 9th Anniversary projects and the 12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap gifts. I finished a few days ago and thought it was about time I got it posted to my blog. It measures 5 inches by 60 inches and is knit with Red Heart Kiss yarn in Flame colour on 6.5mm needles.

Here is a closeup detail of the scarf with a little more accurate colour representation.

9th Anniversary ATC Vancouver

Last Sunday, Nov. 15 was the party at the Grind where we usually swap ATCs every month, but to celebrate the 9th anniversary we had "Cake". Boy did we have cake, each member who wanted to could create as many "cake" slices from a template provided by our fearless leader Penelope. Once all the slices were complete they needed to be filled with handmade goodies, finding something to fit these boxes was the challenge and everyone met that challenge with great creativity.

And I filled the slices with the little knit amulet bags I posted earlier, plus a few more for a total of 12.

This is all the swapped slices.

These are all the lovely gifts I received in my swapped slices.