12 Days of Holiday Inspiration - Day 1

Welcome to Day 1 of the 12 Days of Holiday Inspiration Blog Event brought to you by "The Inspiration Crew".  We’re just a group of online crafty friends who love being creative. This time we're doing a 12-day event to provide you with tons of Holiday Inspiration.

We're making crafty projects using products we like and some of us are even offering prizes. Check each blog and the information there for what prizes are being offered and when the winners will be announced on that blog.

To kick off the month of December I'm sharing a very very simple Advent Calendar. My calendar last year was very time consuming, and while I loved it, I needed a little more simplicity this time around.

All of the gorgeous rustic number squares were cut from a single sheet in the DCWV "Christmas Memories" stack. I matted each number on some DCWV holiday glitter paper and simply attached them to a gold ribbon with a clothespin. Done and done!

Each day that passes, you take the coordinating number off the ribbon and pin it around the Christmas tree. I'll be linking up to the current Paper Issues gallery and the Advent Curtain Call.

Thanks for joining me for Day 1 of our holiday event! Be sure to visit the other talented ladies to see what they have planned today!

Donna Bowman 

Rachel Kleinman

Ceal Pritchett

Lalo Ik

Barb Murphy

Angi Barrs

Annette Allen

Ardyth Percy-Robb

Susie CraftHappy

Geri Greening

Jennifer Cuthbertson

Rachel Izakowicz

<3 Rachel w k

Holiday Gift Bags

It is the day before my absolute favorite day of the year! I'm so excited to get the house smelling like delicious food and spend the entire day with my little family. Happy Thanksgiving and please travel safely!

The new Make it Monday PTI challenge is to create a kraft gift bag. Since Thanksgiving is tomorrow but I'm completely in a wintery mood, I created two bags: one for each season. I'm linking up the winter bag to Paper Issues gallery "it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas".

My winter kraft bag uses stamps from PTI "Winter Hills" and "Tis the Season Sentiments". The winter scene is colored with Copics and matted on pattern paper from October Afternoon. I stamped the "Joy" sentiment directly on top of the images, added some cute washi tape, and stamped snowflakes in white.

Here is the autumn themed gift bag...

Don't you love this little squirrel? He's such a sweetie pie. This bag uses stamps from PTI "Nuts For You" and "Bubble Talk", it also uses a die cut from "Bubble Talk". The images were colored with Prismacolor Pencils and blended with some mineral oils. All papers are from Lawn Fawn "Into the Woods" 6x6 pad.

Time to start cleaning and cooking! Have a beautiful holiday!

<3 Rachel w k

PTI - Tis the Season	PTI - Winter Hills	PTI - Bubble Talk	PTI - Nuts For You	PTI - Bubble Talk Dies
A Cardstock, Neenah Classic Crest Solar White, Ream	Hero Arts Memories Pigment Ink Pad, Unicorn White	*Inky Antics GAMSOL KIT Coloring	*Prismacolor PREMIER COLORED PENCILS 72	Memento Ink Pad, Tuxedo Black
Memento Ink Pad, Rich Cocoa	Lawn Fawn Into the Woods	COPIC Markers

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Unity Friends Blog Hop

** Click Here for the DCWV + Clear Scraps Blog Hop! **

Welcome to a special Unity Stamp Company blog hop with some Unity friends! I'm so excited to be a part of such a fun hop for the new releases AND the Brown Thursday sale... 55% off the entire Unity site! I have a lot of projects to share so I'll get right to it...

I made one project for each new release set. First up is the new "Candy Hearts" stamp set! I created a little matchbook box to hold some Valentine candy inside.

Next up is a simple sympathy card using the Unity Stamp "Everything More"

I have one more card to share, which was a lot of fun to put together. I just cut a lot of strips from pattern paper and lined them along the card base. Then I distressed the stamped image with inks before applying it to the card. This uses the "Hope Builds Courage" Unity stamp.

Lastly, I'm sharing a fast art journal page I made. I got some brand new-to-me Twinkling H2O's and I just really wanted to play. So this little page uses a stamp from "Lasting Thoughts".

Be sure to visit all the lovely talented ladies on today's hop!  LEAVE a comment on my BLOG Post and you have a CHANCE to WIN a GRAB BAG of 20 STAMPS from Unity! :)  Winners will be picked and ANNOUNCED on the Unity Blog and FACEBOOK PAGE on Tuesday Morning!

Camille

Kassi 

Karen 

Kary 

Rachel (That's Me!)

Julie

Kris

DCWV and Clear Scraps Blog Hop

Welcome to a clearly inspirational pairing of amazing products!

DCVW is proud to partner with Clear Scraps, a wonderful high quality acrylic company that

goes hand in hand with our high quality paper products. You should have arrived here from the amazing Emily!

For the next new days we will be bringing you inspiration from the talented DCVW team as well

as the very creative Clear Scraps team.

Friday & Saturday the DCVW team will be giving you something crafty to chew on, 

Sunday and Monday Clear Scraps will be presenting their projects.

Sit down, get ready to be inspired to create!

We also have amazing giveaways!

BOTH companies have incredible prize packages that are sure to get you and your craft on.

Be sure to hop every day and comment, every comment is a chance to win a great goodie box of prizes!

 

I played with the Clear Scraps mixable album "Lacey". ALL papers and die cut embellishments are straight from the new Jolly Whimsy DCWV stack available at Michael's! This album was so much fun to work on and I love love love the fun papers.

There are great little journaling tags in the stack, which work well for the first page of my album. 

I adhered the paper to each album page using my ATG adhesive and inked all edges with StazOn brown ink. I added some little frames on a lot of pages so I can just tuck in a photograph after Christmas.

This page definitely shows my faaavorite papers in the Jolly Whimsy stack! That great Santa Claus steals the show, so I only added a frame and a sweet die cut image from the stack.

Working with a CLEAR scrapbook page is totally new to me, so this was a fun challenge. I wanted to show the clear space, so the front and back of this page mirror each other. I stamped little snowflakes with StazOn black ink and some strips of gold washi tape.

Make sure to leaves comments on each blog... DCWV will be giving away an amazing stash of prizes!! Your next stop is the talented Hilde!

DCWV blog

Emily Lanham

Rachel Kleinman (That's me!)

Hilde Janbroers-stolk

Karen Hanson

Britt Bass

Karla Der

Clear Scraps blog

Right Where You Should Be - Journal Page

It's been quiet here this week, but I promise it is only because there are a LOT of exciting posts and projects coming up... starting right now :) There will also be a very special hop happening tomorrow AND another exciting hop on Sunday! Stop back here over the weekend... it'll be good ;)

Today I'm sharing an art journal page for the Unity Friends With Flair today. This page is exciting for me because I used a new-to-me color combination and some untouched beautiful Unity stamps.

I never knew neon could be so gorgeous! There are multiple layers and elements going on with this page (cuz we know when something doesn't look right... put more gesso on top!). The main elements are the beautiful Unity stamps: "Donna Downey Peony", "You are right where you should be" (Donna Downey), and "Tattered Chicken Wire".

I wasn't getting the coverage I wanted with my usual StazOn ink, so I just coated all the stamps in black acrylic paint... and they stamped perfectly! That will probably be my go-to from now on. In the photo above you can see some of the neon ink chicken wire stamping.

Another new-to-me product... GLITTER MOD PODGE! Why have I gone a decade of my life without it?! So here you see the entire page was given a generous coat of glitter mod podge. Why wouldn't it be?

A date stamp and a couple fun rub-ons finish this page. I'll be playing with neons again in the very near future! Most of my supplies used are listed in the thumbnail images below. Items not shown: black and white acrylic paint from Golden, teal and fuschia acrylic paint from Americana.

I'm also entering this page into the color challenge with Unity, based on these colors:

Don't forget to stop back throughout the weekend!

<3 Rachel w k

*Unity Stamps DONNA PEONY Rubber Cling	*MOD PODGE Modge SPARKLE Paper Fabric Art 8 oz	*American Crafts Dear Lizzy ACCENTS & PHRASES LUCKY CHARM Stickers	Studio Multi-Medium, Matte	Hero Arts Neon Ink Pad, Neon Pink
Hero Arts Neon Ink Pad, Neon Orange	Studio Gesso

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