Newton's Nook Designs' Inky Paws Challenge #27 ~ Kraft & Sparkle

Greetings!  Today I have the honor of being featured on the Newton's Nook Blog and I wanted so share a card I made for the current Inky Paws Challenge: Kraft paper & Sparkle!

I have been loving the look of sparkly red and sparkly green on black cardstock backgrounds lately, so I used the sentiment from Holiday Wishes and the birdies from Winged Wishes and heat set them using red tinsel embossing powder to create the center panel, which I then matted with a sheet of red foil cardstock I purchased from Michaels last year during post-holiday clearance.  To create the sparkly striped background I simply took a ruler and a tape runner and created lines and then sprinkled some super sparkly green glitter over the sticky portions - VOILA!  Easy sparkly background complete!  

Are you ready to get your paws inky with us and play along to win a prize?  The Challenge winner will receive a $10 store credit to Newton's Nook Designs' online store and an Inky Paws Challenge Top Pick Badge to add to your blog!  AND IF there are more than 15 participants, Jen will choose TWO winners, so be sure to tell your friends to play along too!  Please visit the Newton's Nook Designs' blog HERE for all the details!

Can't wait to see what YOU create!  Have a happy Thanksgiving!!

~ Crafty Math Chick

25 Days of Christmas Tags with Newton's Nook Designs

Hello Crafty Friends!  Newton's Nook Designs is participating in the 25 Days of Christmas Tags event generously organized by Tracy McNeely, where she showcases Christmas tags created with a different company's supplies for 25 straight days.  Isn't that cool?  There are lots of prizes and oodles of inspiration along the way so I hope you will check it out.  Today, Newton's Nook Designs is being highlighted.

Being the huge dog lover than I am (Ty even gives gifts to his doggie friends) I wanted to show off some of Jen's adorable canine illustrations, and selected a lab pup from 'Fetching Friendship' to show how you can really use ANY doggie (or kitty) and turn it into a holiday image by adding a cute Santa hat (as I did here, it was a 'Make it Christmas' embellishment from Hobby Lobby) or scarf:

The tag itself is one of Spellbinders' ornament shaped Nestabilities dies, and I created the holly using a Martha Stewart punch for the leaves and sequins with rhinestones centers or the holly berries.  I tied some silver cording around the ornament top and then tied some tinsel ribbon in festive colors at the base for some added sparkle.  The 'Happy Howl-idays sentiment is from NND's 'Canine Christmas' set and the little 'to: & from:' (I LOVE that little font!) is from NND's new 'Jolly Tags' set.  I have a dear friend who has a black lab pup; she will be finding this attached to his gift this year from Ty.  

Hope this tag with inspired you and help start kindling the holiday spirit!  Enjoy!

~ Crafty Math Chick

Newton's Nook Designs' November Release ~ Day 2

Welcome come to the second day of reveals for Newton's Nook Designs' November Release.  Today we present a fun new sentiment set with lots of fun, different styles which accommodate oodles of seasons & holidays -- introducing Simply Seasonal: 

I was SO excited when I saw that Jen included Hanukkah in the mix, so I wanted to show that holiday (which is wicked early this year - the first night is December 6th!!) a little love and created some background patterned paper using this set:

I used the negative die cuts of the menorah for my family's Hanukkah cards last year, so I saved all the menorah cut outs knowing I could use them this year (every day is Earth Day!).  So I took one and highlighted it with a piece of Ballet Blue cardstock and adhered golden sequins as 'flames' on top of all nine candles as well as a few iridescent blue ones here and there to fill in some gappy white spaces - TA DA!  Easy peasy fun Hanukkah card!  

Would you like to win a 'Simply Seasonal' stamp set?

This set will be given away to ONE lucky winner!!

 Here's how to win:

 Comment on the NND blog and Design Team and Guest blogs (see list below)! The winner will be chosen at random from the collective blogs' release posts. Make sure you check out each of the blogs and comment for your chance to win. You will not know which blog has been chosen so the more you comment on the better your chances are of winning! You have until Thursday, November 12th at 9 pm CDT to comment -- the winner will be announced on the blog post on Friday, November 13th. 

Check out all these awesome Design Team & Guest Blogs below to enter:

Newton's Nook Designs
Lydia Evans
Larissa Heskett
Samantha Mann
Crafty Math-Chick
Jess Gerstner
Stephanie Muzzulin
Danielle Pandeline
Nina-Marie Trapani
Kimberly Rendino
Yukari Yoshioka
Anette Allen - Guest Designer

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Jess Gerstner is the next stop on the hop, I am sure she has created something spectacular for you to see!  Enjoy! 

~ Crafty Math Chick

Newton's Nook Designs' November Release ~ Day 1

Welcome to the first day of reveals for Newton's Nook Designs' November Release!  Today's set will making creating fun & festive holiday tags easy peasy -- introducing Jolly Tags (which has a purrfectly coordinating die too!)

(Do you SEE the sweet little cardinal on the tip of the snowman's carrot nose?!!  EEP!!)  I had SO much fun creating a bunch of tags as well as a little box to hold them all:

I really enjoyed coloring in all these cute tag images with my Copic markers and adding little rhinestone accents and glitter.  Mr. Snowman even got a petite pom pom at the end of his hat.  And they all fit in this little 2" x 3" x 1/2" box I created to house them - I thought it would make a nice pre-Christmas gift, perhaps for a friend who isn't as crafty and might not make tags herself.  What do you think?

Would you like to win 'Jolly Tags' stamp set?

This set will be given away to ONE lucky winner!!

 Here's how to win:

 Comment on the NND blog and Design Team and Guest blogs (see list below)! The winner will be chosen at random from the collective blogs' release posts. Make sure you check out each of the blogs and comment for your chance to win. You will not know which blog has been chosen so the more you comment on the better your chances are of winning! You have until Thursday, November 12th at 9 pm CDT to comment -- the winner will be announced on the blog post on Friday, November 13th. 

Check out all these awesome Design Team & Guest Blogs below to enter:

Newton's Nook Designs
Lydia Evans
Larissa Heskett
Samantha Mann
Crafty Math-Chick
Jess Gerstner
Stephanie Muzzulin
Danielle Pandeline
Nina-Marie Trapani
Kimberly Rendino
Yukari Yoshioka
Anette Allen - Guest Designer

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Jess Gerstner is the next stop on the hop, I am sure she has created something spectacular for you to see!  Enjoy! 

~ Crafty Math Chick

Get Well Soon

Hello everyone!  I received some sad news recently, a friend, who is one of the most positive people I know, is having a medical struggle.  In the hopes of cheering her, I made her this card using kitties from Newton's Antics (which has a matching die BTW, which I also used, so handy!) & Newton's Sick Day:

I wanted to include a little something in the card, so I found a pattern for a support ribbon by the Crochetbug HERE in the appropriate color and crocheted a small ribbon for my friend.  I didn't want to adhere it to the card and make the back all sticky in case she wanted to repurpose it.  So I stacked two 1/4" Pop It's on top of one another to bring the kitties up to a 1/8" height, which is the width of the ribbon, and strategically placed one kitty at the top and one kitty at the bottom so that they hold the ribbon in place during card viewing but it can also be easily removed and pinned on a label or a hat or tucked into a pocket as a little reminder that she is strong and that I am thinking of her and praying for a successful treatment and a smooth & speedy recovery and that I care about her very much.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by my blog!  Have a great day!

~ Crafty Math Chick

Newton's Nook Designs Holiday Release ~ Day 4

Welcome back for the FOURTH (WOO HOO!) and final day of Newton's Nook Designs' Holiday Release.  I am SOOOO in love with today's set - MORE FOXES!!!  EEEEE!!  Introducing 'Fox Hollow': 

For some reason, when I first saw this set, I envisioned the gentle fox sleeping peacefully on top of the Earth, like this:

I couldn't find a globe die or an image of the Earth in any of my Cricut cartridges, so I did my best to cut out the land in green free hand (hope you geography majors out there will be kind, cutting out the continents is trickier than I originally imagines) after punched circles from green & blue cardstock.  I think it loos pretty good considering I did it using scissors...  Ty frequently sleeps in this cute position too, dogs and foxes are related after all, do your dogs sleep like this too?

I also envisioned the side view fox looking up at a starry sky, taking a deep breath, and enjoying the cool winter air and sense of goodwill towards men (or foxes in this case) and peace on Earth that is so prominent this time of year.  I was excited to bring that vision to life with this card:

  

This is another card where I 'let the patterned paper do the work for me,' starting me off with a snowflake flurry filled sky.  Of course, I added plenty of my own heat embossing, rhinestones and sequin elements.  The snowdrift was die cut from pre-glittered white cardstock (the sparkle isn't showing up well in this photo, but it is there IRL).  Of all the cards I made for this release, thee two are my favorites!

And in case you didn't notice - this set has coordinating DIES too!  A little tip: I leave the dies for the main images stuck together, removing only the smaller pieces with a scissors, and run the whole thing through my Cuttlebug at once - I stamp them all right away and put the ones I don't use immediately in the backside of the plastic envelope for the corresponding NND stamp set - that way if I need to whip up a card super quick, some images are all set, ready to go!  :)  

Would you like to win 'Fox Hollow' Stamp wet?

This set will be given away to ONE lucky winner!!

 Here's how to win:

 Comment on the NND blog and Design Team and Guest blogs (see list below)! The winner will be chosen at random from the collective blogs' release posts. Make sure you check out each of the blogs and comment for your chance to win. You will not know which blog has been chosen so the more you comment on the better your chances are of winning! You have until Thursday, October 15th at 9 pm CDT to comment -- the winner will be announced on the blog post on Friday, October 16th. 

Check out all these awesome Design Team & Guest Blogs below to enter:

Newton's Nook Designs

Lydia Evans
Larissa Heskett
Samantha Mann
Crafty Math-Chick
Jess Gerstner
Stephanie Muzzulin
Danielle Pandeline
Nina-Marie Trapani
Kimberly Rendino
Yukari Yoshioka
Anette Allen - Guest Designer

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Jess Gerstner is the next stop on the hop, I am sure she has created something spectacular for you to see!  Enjoy!

~ Crafty Math Chick

Newton's Nook Designs Holiday Release ~ Day 3

Welcome back to the THIRD day of Newton's Nook Designs' Holiday Release Reveals!  Today's set is going to thrill all you Newton & kitty lovers out there - introducing Newton's Christmas Cuddles AND the matching dies too!

I have a confession - I have a LOT of designer paper, more than I could probably use in a lifetime, so I am trying to make more of an effort to use more of it rather than hoarding it.  So the 'technique' I invoked for today's card I call 'making your patterned paper work for you' where you find papers that matches your stamps in fun ways.  Here I used another slice from a Recollections holiday stack.  I thought about the display windows and decorations that they set up in the middle of shopping malls and when I saw the bottom border of this sheet of cardstock I envisioned a display of BIG presents or maybe presents lined up under the tree with Newton peeking out of his gift box hidden among them:

I feel kinda bad not using the images where Newton was actually 'cuddling' like the title of the set, but I wanted to make sure this image got some love too - and it is perfect for any gift giving occasion really - birthdays, anniversaries, valentine's day, you name it!

So, are you like me?  Do you have a lot of patterned paper stashed away?  More than you can use?  Or am I the only one? 

Would you like to win 'Newton's Christmas Cuddles' stamp set?

This set will be given away to ONE lucky winner!!

 Here's how to win:

 Comment on the NND blog and Design Team and Guest blogs (see list below)! The winner will be chosen at random from the collective blogs' release posts. Make sure you check out each of the blogs and comment for your chance to win. You will not know which blog has been chosen so the more you comment on the better your chances are of winning! You have until Thursday, October 15th at 9 pm CDT to comment -- the winner will be announced on the blog post on Friday, October 16th. 

Check out all these awesome Design Team & Guest Blogs below to enter:

Newton's Nook Designs

Lydia Evans
Larissa Heskett
Samantha Mann
Crafty Math-Chick
Jess Gerstner
Stephanie Muzzulin
Danielle Pandeline
Nina-Marie Trapani
Kimberly Rendino
Yukari Yoshioka
Anette Allen - Guest Designer

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Jess Gerstner is the next stop on the hop, I am sure she has created something spectacular for you to see!  Enjoy! 

~ Crafty Math Chick