Never run out of matches!

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I learned something in the past few years about matches, that I'm going to pass on to you. I learned this the hard way after buying thirty billion matchboxes for a matchbox gift project that was all the rage back in the teens.

I figured - hey - matches are useful right? - as I emptied them into a ziploc, put them on a shelf and forgot about them.

Then, during winter storm Uri, I needed to light candles, so I smugly congratulated myself on having ample matches, thanks to crafting. I grabbed one, struck it, and... nothing. Grabbed another one, struck it - nothing. Lather, rinse, repeat. They were all completely useless. 

Matches expire. It's just a fact. I don't make the rules.

You know what doesn't expire? Craft supplies. So there!

Today I'm bringing you a cute sneak peek of tomorrow's Hero Kit, which has a love theme. LOTS of dies, which I have to keep under wraps for now, BUT, this amazing 2D matchbox die that looks like it's 3D is in the kit and it's SO realistic looking! There's a little pullout and these cute LOVE dies. I used a gel print for the box, and this glitter paper.

Come back tomorrow for the full reveal and more cards and (redacted). Here's a link to ALL the sneak peeks so you can see what's coming.

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I have a REALLY good salad recipe for you today from one of my fave blogs - Cookie & Kate. It's a peanut / veggie / soba salad and it's amazing. Five stars.

My recipe notes are here. 

Loveyameanitbye.

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VIDEO: Handmade Quick Journals with Large Embossing Folders

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How was your New Year's? With the exception of some close by neighbors who apparently are in charge of the fireworks display at the Olympics, ours was quiet, like I like it. 

I even made a completely original blackeyed pea dish that I LOVE SO MUCH - and I HATE blackeyed peas. The secret is to remove the evil spirits, by soaking your rinsed and drained BEPs in boiling hot water (off stove) with 1 TBS. baking soda! It's AMAZING the difference this makes. 

Then I concocted a cooked dish with chickpeas and jalapenos and spices that was TO DIE FOR. I was astonished that I loved it because I can detect a blackeyed pea funk at 1 part per billion and it just wasn't there after the baking soda evil spirit removal! I will definitely be making it again. I think I took good notes too!

I have a new video for you today on a SUPER simple handmade journal using this gorgeous large embossing folder, vinyl paint, Dina Wakley paint and a journal stapler. It's so easy it's nearly criminal. 

This is such a fun gift that looks fancy but it's not, or you can just keep it yourself for your car notes, true crime notes or your list of grievances!

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Here's the video - wait until you see how easy this is:

EF of the month [ SPL ] Booklet stapler [ AMZUS ] Gold Wax [ HA ] Cheddar acrylic [ ACH ] Fluorescent Pink Vinyl Paint [ BLIC ] Silicone Spatula [ AMZUS ] Ranger Archival Ink Pad - Sepia [ BLIC ] Rotatrim Professional Cutter - 18' Cut [ BLIC ]

Do you have a New Year's traditional food or ritual? I'd love to hear about it. Loveyameanitbye.

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Is there ANYTHING Duct Tape Can't Do? + 2022 Life in Review & New Year's Wishes

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Happy New Year! Now begins the period of time when we all start crossing out 22 a hundred times on checks and documents. I guess a year long habit is hard to break! Do you have your 2023 calendar out?

Before my cards today, I thought I'd give you a list of tiny, mundane things that made my 2022 better that you might enjoy in 2023. None of these are craft related. Some are recipes. Some are hacks. Some are extremely useful, if not overly exciting, tools. But I liked them, so you might too. I'll put a visual list below too, in the order that I mention them in.

Tips & Tricks:

• I LOVE America's Test Kitchen - it's full of great instruction and you don't need to be a chef to find their tips useful. My favorite subset of their recipes is What's Eating Dan? And within What's Eating Dan, I REALLY love his series on eggs, which starts here.
• This is dumb, and I may be the last person to realize it, but consolidating layers in lasagne actually makes it taste better. I used to do the classic - a bit of sauce in the bottom, then no-boil noodles, ricotta (I use Kite Hill vegan ricotta - it's really good - they also have a whipped ricotta I have not tried), meat or veggies, cheese, sauce, repeat. But last time, I cooked the ground beef and then simmered that in the sauce and combined those layers. I swear it was better tasting, and it saved a dish and a step! PS if you can't have dairy, there's only one vegan melting cheese I use and it's Miyoko's liquid mozzarella, which you can get on Instacart, or your local natural food store. It's amazing. Everything else is weird. My fave marinara right now if I don't make my own is this Sacla sauce with whole cherry tomatoes. It's delicious - imported from Italy. 
• To do lists: I've converted to a combo analog/digital task list and it's really worked for me this year. For all recurring tasks, I use the Due app. It's a BILLION times better than any native apps, easier to set recurrence intervals, dismissing is easy - you name it. So this is ALL my work tasks, house tasks, bills, anything that needs to be done on a schedule. The analog part I switched to this year because a planner doesn't work for me. Most of my work is task based. So I got this nifty holder on Etsy for index cards, with a stand for the one you're working on. Each week I put my MUST DO tasks for work, videos etc. on a card in the pop up holder and color code them with highlighters - red, yellow and green. Yellow and green are less urgent for the week. When I'm done with one side, just flip it over for the next week. When both sides are full, I toss those into my index card art pile for gel printing over, etc. So it's also zero waste. Then I just use my planner for journaling/daily notes etc. Since the index card holds the card in a vertical orientation, I use the cards that are lined for that orientation, not the traditional horizontal ones. 

Hacks (today's cards have a hack too):

• My fave recipe this year was Maangchi's bulgogi and ssamjang. Her cookbook is life changing. Thank you to my sweet friend Yoo-Rah for introducing me to this recipe. Because I love to eat it so often, I came up with some hacks. When filet is on sale, I buy a bunch, shave it, and freeze it in one pound portions. I also double the ssamjang every time I make it and freeze it - it freezes great!
• Sprouting green onions - you may already do this, but whenever I buy green onions, I stick the root part in water - the onions continue to grow and you get twice the life out of every bunch. 
• Making potholders - I love to make potholders for friends when I watch TV. I use this loom, and it's metal. Instead of stretching out a loop to hold all the sides on when finishing, I use use a MISTI bar magnet! It works great! I love the monthly box of loops and patterns from Acorn & Twigs. 
• Cleaning brayers/brushes/tools - the one soap to rule them all is Dr. Bronner's peppermint. I fill a bin with water and a few squirts of soap, and soak them. The paint will bubble up off the rubber and be really easy to remove. 
• Get a dull-ish knife and never peel finicky garlic cloves again with this hack. The people in the group where I found this said a sharp knife cuts the cloves instead of pulling them out cleanly. 

Tools & Gadgets:

• TikTok yielded some amazing tools this year. I HATE all my chip clips, binder clips etc. for all the different chip/cracker/cereal bags. Then Soogia (who also posts amazing recipes), showed this incredibly easy bag closer thing that actually closes the WHOLE bag, not just the center part, so everything actually stays fresh. 
• Also from Soogia - this amazing Japanese sesame seed grater I now cannot live without. I use this when I make the bulgogi above.
• This angled long reach stapler for making simple handmade quick journals. Coming soon to a video near you! :) If you want to see the embossing folder I will use in that video, you can do that here. 
• Wifi plugs. These let us set timers for lights, the Christmas tree - anything you can plug in. 
• Temperature sensors for our freezer/fridges. This saved our BUTTS this year when our GFCI went bad - because our freezer happened to be on that circuit and we didn't know it. You get an alert if the temperature drops. If you have kids who leave the fridge open, this is a necessity. A friend of mine went out of town with her fridge open - it was open for a week! We've been jittery since Uri, so being able to know when something goes wrong is important. 
• We also got water sensors at the same time, and nearly immediately, our kitchen faucet leaked, so that saved us HUNDREDS of dollars in cabinet / molding damage. We happened to be away that day and got the alert and came back. Worth every penny. They are now under the sinks, one by the fridge (a friend's ice maker flooded her house a few years ago) and by the washer. 
• Tomato clips - I had an elaborate system for propping up my leggy sungolds so they don't break every year, and this year we found these amazing clips! You suspend some twine from above the plant, and close the twine in the hinge, then clip them closed around the stem. So gentle and scalable! And you reuse them! I wasted so much time with drinking straws! LOL. Just be sure to use a good outdoor twine - the twine that came with them was not good. 

Pet stuff:

• I found the nicest man in the world this year looking for things for Clarence and the babies to chew on and get calcium from this year. His name is Kevin Lee. He cuts up gathered shed antler that people send him from the mainland - he's in Hawaii - and makes these little nibble sticks my squirrels LOVE. It's really important that they wear down their ever growing teeth, and if you use these, they also give them calcium. He's such a sweet, kind man and has given me little samples if there are any squirrel lovers in my audience - I'm happy to mail you some. Squirrels can be paralyzed by eating foods that are high in phosphorous - peanuts, for example - they dramatically leach calcium from their bones. So feed peanuts very sparingly. Other foods are way better and you can read the list of good/bad foods here. 
• Heated cat beds - STOP LAUGHING. I bought these two days into winter storm Uri, not knowing we were about to be without power and water for six days. Since then, they've been much beloved my kittiots. They are a flat heating pad (very low heat) with a removable washable cover - you just leave them plugged in. They absolutely love these things. They come in different sizes for different pets. Really good for older pets with arthritis, or just spoiled brats like mine. 

Okay enough of that. On to today's hack for all of you, who like me, don't have a foiling machine. I had one for a while, and it was one of those things I just didn't use enough to justify the space it took up. I love the look of it, and I love seeing people who foil beautifully, but I just fake it with shiny and colorful duct tapes! I find that gold cardstock isn't nearly as shiny as this tape - this truly looks like foiling and it's easy. For this card, I just put the tape down onto black cardstock and then die cut it with this skinny thanks die. The background is this stunning, layering stitching die I stitched with white floss - 2 strands. SO fun to put together. 

Here's a closeup of the beautiful, dimensional shiny sentiment - the die curves and finishes the edges so beautifully. These stitching dies are what I do in front of the TV when I'm not making potholders. See how much shinier it is than foil cardstock? 

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Here's the strip of tape I was cutting for today's cards. I can get LOTS more die cuts out of this one piece.

The second card is with this gorgeous die set themed around the ampersand with matching die cut greetings. I used the little flowers with different glitter papers. SO quick and easy and I love the gold tape.

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Here's an older video I did on using duct tape with dies - this remains one of my most popular videos.

Here are some shows we really enjoyed in 2022 - for some you'll have to find the platforms - I don't know how to use a TV 😂

• McDonald and Dodds (British police drama)
• Knives Out: Glass Onion
• Dead To Me (new season)
• Derry Girls (new season)
• Line of Duty (British Police drama)

I hope you have a great New Year's! I will be making my sister's blackeyed pea bean dip, with arepas and sorrel for the greens from my backyard. 

What is your tradition? 

Loveyameanitbye.

VIDEO: Change the "Season" of Your Seasonal Products with Color!

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Happy Friday! I have a super relaxing watercolor video for you today - and the real point of the video is that you don't have to put your fall-themed products away when spring comes! All you have to do is approach them with different colors. 

I challenged myself to take this wondrous fall-themed cover plate I got this summer and take a look forward to spring and summer with it, just by using seasonal colors! It worked - it doesn't look fall-ish at all! In the video I list the Daniel Smith watercolor I used for each element. 

I will say - my friend iamvics on Splitcoast helped me out with this card! Without even knowing it! She mentioned in a thread that there was a universal die cutting bundle you could use with any machine, and since I had been struggling with the right sandwiches for a few products, I decided to buy it for myself for Christmas and HOLY COW. It's solved all my problems, one of which is getting great cuts on my cold press watercolor paper with intricate dies like these. Every single element of the bundle is clearly labeled with what to use with what. For watercolor paper, use the normal die cutting sandwich but add a shim and it cuts that 140 lb. watercolor paper like a hot knife through butter! This was some of the best crafty money I've spent all year, so thank you so much my friend!

I fully intended to put this on white or black cardstock, but I grabbed a piece of this beautiful blue and felt like it looked like a springy sky, so that's my card base.

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Don't put those seasonal products out to pasture at the end of the season - just get outside the color box!

I'm really hoping to take a few days away from the computer this week - I don't think I've had a day off all year - so I'm not sure I'll be back before 12/30, but if not - I hope you have an amazing holiday, whatever that looks like to you!

And if the holidays are stressful or bring unpleasant events to mind, I get it. Take some time to do something that brings you peace, and don't worry about what you are "supposed" to do. My dad died in December, and that was five days after a significantly stressful event, and that sort of trauma lasts a long time, so be kind to yourself. If you feel like doing nothing, do nothing. If you feel like doing something, do something. Life is short. 

Here's the video - I hope you find it relaxing - I try to end every year with a relaxing video you can just enjoy without thinking too much about. 

Loveyameanitbye.

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VIDEO: Crafty Rewind - Faux Quilting with Reactive Ink + New $5 Class

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I'm SO loving the Cook's Illustrated mushroom bourguignon! Oh my gosh - I've been eating leftovers for a few days and it's so, so good. I cannot cook from a video though - I usually read a recipe a few times before making it to figure out timing, mise en place, etc. Stopping and starting a video is not ideal. So I transcribed it for you in case your brain works like mine, and you can see that here.

I made it with the NYT creamy vegan polenta - it's just veggie broth and polenta and nutritional yeast if desired. When I first became dairy allergic, I tried a lot of vegan recipes to learn to cook differently, and a LOT of recipes called for this for a "cheesy" flavor. However, to me, it just tasted like mold! I hated it! But in one of my cooking groups, someone who had the same experience shared this brand with me and OH MY WORD does that make a difference! It's so different from the other brands. I use it all the time now. Highly recommend.

Anyway, I have a new video for you today using reactive inks to create a faux quilted look. It's really fun. I have several cards in the video, and all the supplies for the extra cards are listed in the video description. (One is retired, but you might have it since this is a rewind - showing you how to use older supplies instead of buying something new.)

For this card, I wanted to use this darling little girl for a valentine. I used these heart dies for the shape, and this little ink stack. So sweet and easy - even if you are making multiples for your kids - just create a whole sheet of the inked piece and die cut it. 

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I also have a new $5 class! Check out all my online classes here.

Here's my video!

I hope your Christmas week looks great! Ours is going to be COLD.

Loveyameanitbye.

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Why not PINK champagne?

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I've had song lyrics in my head this week. Yesterday, I was singing "why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near?" and for the FIRST time in my life I THOUGHT about them and how truly bizarre they are! 

What if birds showed up every time you saw someone? I'd think they were a witch! LOL! It would definitely be freaky. I don't think it's a good quality in a person to always be showing up with a flock of birds.

Anyway, the other one I thought about while I was making today's card was Hotel California. "pink champagne on ice" - when I was little, I thought that meant they were drinking it with ice cubes, and even six year old me knew that was completely uncouth!

Anyway I enjoyed this. I used the champagne dies from this adorable collection to make this. I used the round dies in the set to punch out bubbles from this pink glitter paper. I glued them onto black cardstock before die cutting the bottle shape. The glass has that little die that cuts out the champagne and I punched some smaller bubbles to float up out of the glass. The sentiment and the mod flowers in the background are from the same collection. You've seen me do this before, but to create the background, I just took the flower dies while they were still all attached together and ran them through to make a textured card front, using double sided adhesive sheets to hold them together and secure them to the card base. When I saw these dies and the champagne it looked like fireworks in the background!

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As you can tell, I haven't cooked much lately! No new recipes to share. I have eaten pizza bagels for a few days, just like the 50 cent ones I survived on in college. If you are in Texas, try the fROSEN's bagels. I get them at Farmhouse here. These are bake at home, so you can bake one at a time and have hot, perfectly chewy bagels - they are amazing. 

No shame in the pizza bagel game - they are so good! I like the Sacla marinara with cherry tomatoes in it and I use Miyoko's vegan liquid mozzarella - the ONLY melting vegan cheese I endorse! 

It's been so grey and gloomy I just don't feel like being creative in the kitchen. Saving that for my cards!

I hope you have a great week! Loveyameanitbye.

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Kitty Pop-Up Building Card + Weathered Paint Effect

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I'm very concerned about the weather the next few months, based solely on how much my little kittiots are eating! They are eating an insane amount of food - are your pets? The heavy acorn crop combined with this is scary.

I have the CUTEST pop up card for you today! I had so much fun building this and adding the little architectural details from these pop up dies. You can combine a bunch of different scenes - a book store, a bakery, just a house - it's so adorable!

I decided to use a brick Gel Press print I made for the main portion of the die that forms the building. The die includes the little strip above that white molding that covers the rest of the card base, so I just cut that from the same brick print. That little extra space at the top of the card base is what allows the whole card to fold flat for mailing - you'll see that in the second photo. It's a really simple popup assembly - just two score lines top and bottom form the 3-D building. It's the architectural details that make it amazing - the molding detail you can assemble a few different ways - same with the door which I did a fun old-paint technique on - and the paned windows are so cute. I built a little brick flower box for in front of the windows.

BUT, in the bookstore set of dies, there's a CAT, so I could not resist using the little lamp die to shine a spotlight on the deserving little kitty in her townhouse! It's hard to see here, but there is acetate inside for the windows.

I put the lamp down on the cardbase where I wanted it to be, and marked the bottom of the lightbulb with a pencil and then removed it and masked the light beam. I ink blended that with yellow, and then masked that and blended everything around that with gray ink to make it look dark inside.

This view lets you see the box shape at the bottom.

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This straight on view lets you see the flat top of the card base at the top that the whole card folds flat against.

On the door, I wanted it to look like there were layers and layers of old paint on it, so after I glued the three door pieces together, I did a two step process. First I covered it all with clear embossing powder, and after that, I glopped on some gloss medium, making it thick and uneven in some spots. After that was dry, I added the mail slot and door plate, cut from gold foil.

Here you can see the acetate, and the dimension of the card and box shape bottom right.

I love the way the door looks - it looks like an old door on a London rowhouse when they just keep painting over old paint - like this.

How fun is that? Check out the other combos here - lots of fun little scenes you can make - it's just adorable.

Hope you have a great weekend. Ironically - I have some cabinet painting to do!

Loveyameanitbye.

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Deep Space Dreams + Giveaway

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As you saw Saturday, I'm psyched about space themed cards. So now I get to show you the new Hero Arts space themed kit. It's funny to me that we ALL want to go to space - an inhospitable place you would instantly die! But we all want it. The curiosity is just too much! I really think the most memorable shows and movies are the ones with space themes: Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien, The Martian, Armageddon, The Right Stuff, Apollo 13 are just a few.

Maybe it's because there aren't any other people up there? LOL. 

Okay I had an accidental discovery on this card! And that is how very fun it is to combine a dye ink with a reactive ink. I didn't think about when I was doing it but I love the look. 

The sweet little chick astronaut whizzing through space on her star is from the main kit. To create the background, I first blended Hero Hues inks - purple blue and pink. Over that, I used the new layering galaxy stencil - first with Soft Granite dye ink which reacted with the background in SUCH a cool way! I was expecting dark streaks through it but they reacted with the base layer and gave sort of a lift look that I love! The next layer I used unicorn ink. This is a very cool stencil. For the moon, I just used my Circle Infinity dies and markers to create craters, and then used the sentiment from the kit. 

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Here's what comes in the kit:

This beautiful moon phase die is one I wish my dad could see! It's STUNNING. All I did was run it through with black and holographic cardstock, and then piece the holographic pieces back in. It's so beautiful in real life and SO quick and easy to make.

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Yesterday's card features a new Peter Max style space background cling that comes in the kit. I thought it would be fun to do something that was very popular back in the late 1900s with the sun from the main kit, and that was to stamp the outline in a complementary color, rather than black and then just color it carefully. The little cloud dies are from the kit too.

Here are the add-ons!

Of course there's a giveaway as always and tons more inspiration for you! Leave me a comment to be entered! Start at the Hero Blog for the rest!

Hero Arts

Hero Arts Creative Team:

Channin Pelletier
Dana Joy
Daniel West
Emily Midgett
Ilina Crouse
Jessica Frost-Ballas
Kelly Taylor
💙💙💙 Lydia Fiedler 💙💙💙
Maria Willis
Michelle Short
Mindy Eggen
Seeka

Special Guests: 

Jennifer Kotas
Meg Brooks
Nichol Spohr
Rebecca Keppel

Loveyameanitbye.

You're a Star - REALLY

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Happy Caturday! I learned this week that cats can SMELL your central nervous system! I'm sure dogs can too. But little changes in your hormones and nervous system - they can smell them! It explains a big mystery I've always wondered about. My kitties FREAK OUT and paw my face when I have a laughing fit! They think I'm crying. Which tells me the hormonal changes in laughing and crying must be the same. Fascinating. Makes it hard to watch funny shows though. They literally jump on me and meow and paw my face and are so stressed out. I wonder if it's the smell of tears, because I cry when I laugh. 

My Nobel prize awaits, I'm sure. 

Anyway, I used to tell my dad all my kitties' quirks - he loved those stories. And so I thought about him when I was making the cards I'll show you on Monday from the Hero Arts kit, because they are all space-themed, and no one knew more about celestial things than my dad. 

Here's a little peek. Somehow I made this card extremely hard to photograph. So I have another view you can see below with the cloud detail a little better.

The other thing that made me think of my dad is this Peter Max style background - it's so fun and has a coloring book style that I love and is sort of retro.

I used a foil background, because - you know - SPACE. 

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Here's the better view of the cut/emboss cloud dies.

I'm running around doing all sorts of things this weekend, including painting some cabinets.

Prayers appreciated LOL.

Have a great weekend. I'll see you Monday. 

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VIDEO: Mixed Media Double Shimmer Technique - Splitcoaststampers

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The first tutorial for Falliday Fest was phenomenal! I'm normally busy working on moving the challenge cards, working on the challenge forum, etc. so I don't always have time to do the tutorials DURING the challenge - I usually try them afterwards in the catch-up period, but this one - I had to try it! Also, as you'll hear in the video, it justified me hanging onto some of my very oldest craft supplies! Wait until you hear how old!

The original tutorial is here and it's STUNNING. I looked around to see what I could use aside from trees because I didn't feel like I could approach how beautiful hers was, so I decided - 'tis the season - why not a poinsettia? I used this poinsettia die, and I cut it from Parsley and Ballet Slipper cardstocks. The items you will see in the video are pigment powders and gilding flakes and two-way glue, as well as a little scrubby finishing tool. The background I made with a snowflake cover die and gold gem stickers, and the sentiment is from this set.

If you want to make a bunch of these, I recommend adding the glue to multiples all at once - as you will see in the video - it dries really fast, but I think assembling multiples would be so much easier if they were all coated with glue at the same time. 

Man, I had fun doing this. If you want to try it, it's the inspiration for the MIX-Ability challenge this week too! Just use keyword MIX514 in the gallery or on social media.

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Here's the video:

Did you see the amazing cookie recipe Jen Timko shared with me? If not, you MUST try it. It's SO delicious! Note her instructions!

Here is the recipe.

Loveyameanitbye.

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