Long Distance Hug

It's time for a new challenge at Little Red Wagon. Jan is our hostess and she is "Die-ing to Craft"! We'd like you to use die cuts on your projects.

I've been using a Cuttlebug for about 15 years now in order to cut all my wafer dies. For the past year or so, I've been using a shim and still not getting very good results. In fact, last week's project took multiple attempts to cut my die. Although my Cuttlebug has been a close and dear craftroom friend over the years, it was time to retire it. I did some research and asked some questions, eventually narrowing things down to a Vagabond 2 and Gemini Junior. When I found an awesome sale price for the Vagabond 2 last week, my decision was made. The timing was perfect with this week's challenge! And what a difference the new machine makes!

My card is a fairly simply one. I used the Happy Rainbows die set from My Favorite Things, cutting the largest set twice in each of five colours. I have a number of cards I'd like to send to friends who I'm currently not able to see, so thought that I could use an "assembly line" process to create a mass set of cards. The sentiment is from the I Miss Your Hugs stamp set, also MFT, and the little heart that I popped on each card to finish things off is from the inside cut of one of the MFT Love Speech Bubbles dies. The frame is a Silly Stitched die from Lil' Inker Designs (no longer in business). 

Please head over to Little Red Wagon to see what the rest of the Girlfriends have created - and then link up your own project created with a die cut. 

I'm also linking up my card(s) in CASology's UNITE challenge. 

You Make The World Beautiful

Our latest Little Red Wagon challenge is all about friendship! As long as your creation does something to celebrate friendship in some way, you are welcome to join us!

I made this card for a dear friend. She is such an incredible support to me and I love her dearly. Given Covid, I have not been able to spend time with her so made this card to send her, just so she remembers how special she is to me and how she makes this world a beautiful one.

Please head over to Little Red Wagon to see how the rest of the Girlfriends are celebrating friendship - and then use this opportunity to create something to celebrate a friend in your life! 

3x3 Daffodil Cards

Happy New Year! I do hope that you all had a safe and happy holiday. My first day back to work is today and I was spoiled with two weeks off. That said, I think I was busier with my time off than I was when I work! Originally, we had planned to take a cruise but that was nixed given the current health situation. However, we had a fabulous family time with lots of games and puzzles. Each year, we get the Christmas Wasgij (a reverse perspective puzzle - hence the name is jigsaw spelled backwards). We had great fun putting that together and then did a couple of Magic Puzzles. If you're a puzzler, I highly recommend these puzzles! We had a blast and are looking forward to putting the third one together too. 

It was nice to return to my craft room for Little Red Wagon's first challenge of 2021. Imke is hosting and she has chosen the theme 3x3 cards. I used a Simon Says Stamp daffodil die for my little set of cards. They would have been quick and easy to put together although I had a challenging time trying to remove the die cut daffodils from the die itself. I think there is some sort of crafting tool for this sort of thing so I think I will have to investigate!

Please head over to Little Red Wagon to see what the rest of the Girlfriends have made - and then create your own 3x3 card(s) to join our challenge this week!

Away in a Manger

I'm thrilled to be hosting this week's Little Red Wagon challenge! Initially, I had asked the Girlfriends to help me with commenting as when I chose this challenge back at the start of 2020, I had been planning a family cruise leaving Boxing Day. As I will now be staying put (and not even leaving the house let alone heading to the Caribbean!), I am excited that I'll be able to see all the projects entered into our challenge this week.

I've chosen the theme "Merry Christmas!" I'm looking to see any sort of creation that celebrates Christmas - or any other faith/cultural celebration. I'm happy to have all friends join, regardless of beliefs or traditions.

I used Clearly Besotted's "Nativity Play" for my creation. I just love these sweet little mice dressed up for their Christmas pageant! I had all the little images that I wanted to use coloured up but when I cut them out, the baby Jesus mouse got cut in half for some reason! Mary also had part of her tail cut off. I was able to solve the issue of Mary's tail with a strategically placed donkey. However, there was no solution for the cut Jesus. I could have made excuses for other characters. Mary might have been off getting a snack (shortbread, if she was anything like me). Joseph might have been out buying new swaddling clothes. However, I really couldn't come up with a reason that Jesus would not have been at his own birth. So back to the Copics went I!! 

And for those of you who might wonder about mice at the birth of Christ, I'm posting part of the Love Actually script - a few of my favourite lines from one of my favourite Christmas movies!!

Please head over to Little Red Wagon to see what the rest of the Girlfriends have created - and then link up your own Christmas (or other faith/cultural celebration) creation!

In the spirit of my family's tradition, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Peace, Love and Paws

Brenda is our fabulous hostess at Little Red Wagon this week and she's telling us that "It's hip to be square". Well, I never used to be a renegade and wasn't the sort to fool around (at least not too much!) so I guess I am a square to some extend. 

I was going to create a square card with some square stencilling in the background but wasn't really happy with how things were going. I used some of the bits that I'd had for my original card and switched things up a bit - well, quite a bit! I do still have a square frame on my card and I think things look better without a square overload. Huey claimed it was hip to be square here, there, and everywhere - but I've decided it's better to be just a little bit hip with my squares!

Please head over to Little Red Wagon to see the rest of the hip cards created by the Girlfriends and then pull out your squares to join the fun!

I'm also linking this up with Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge - Christmas Critters.