Newton's Nook Designs June Release- Chicken Scratches

Good Morning!  It's release day for Newton's Nook Designs!  Their June release is so fun!!  Today we are sharing cards made with the new Chicken Scratches stamp set:

Chicken Scratches is all about chickens!  I had fun with this one!  I started by stamping my card front.  I chose a rainbow of colors from my Stampin' Up! inks and used them to stamp the chicken wire stamp over and over again until the space was filled.  Next, I added a panel of the sunrays patterned paper from the Hello Sunshine 6x6 pad by Lawn Fawn and sewed around the edges.  I added the doily and sewed the edge of that, too.
I stamped the chickens over the doily and on patterned papers with black ink.  I fussy cut around the patterned papers and pieced them over the images on the doily.  I added a bit of shading with my Copic markers and also added some chicken feed to the area around their feet.  Aren't they cute?  :)  I added my sentiment last.

This set is so fun!  Even if you're not a chicken person (I'm not! Hee!) this one might just grow on you!  I love the way they look paper pieced...  Chicken Scratches will be available for purchase on June 20th.

Would you like to win “Chicken Scratches”?This set will be given away to Two lucky winners! 

Here's how to win: 

Comment on the NND blog and Design Team and Guest blogs (see list below)! Two winners will be chosen at random from the collective blogs release posts. Make sure to check out each of their 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, June 19th at 9pm CDT to comment  -- winners will be announced on the blog post on Friday, June 20th.   Check out all these awesome Design Team and Guest Blogs below to enter:

Newton's Nook Designs

Taheerah Atchia

Christine Drogt

Samantha Mann

Larissa Heskett

Crafty Math-Chick

Danielle Pandeline

Valerie Ward

Tessa Wise

Ria Montefalcon  - Guest Designer

Donna Idlet  - Guest Designer

I hope you get a chance to pop through everyone's blog!  The team and guest designers made the cutest cards this time!  Thanks for stopping by here, too!

A Homemade Christmas

Hello!
I thought I would share some of the Christmas gifts I made this year.  I didn't make as many as I usually do but the ones I did make, I really tried to put my heart into!

The first one is a canvas I made for my Dad.  He has always talked about building a barn.  He likes farms.  So I made him some barn art:

The whole thing is collaged using book prints from dictionaries and other old books.  I learned how to collage like this from Stephanie Ackerman.  Her work is beautiful and so inspirational!  I was lucky enough to travel up to Groves in Huntingdon, PA with my friend Kristen for the class in the fall.  If you ever have a chance to take a class with Stephanie, don't hesitate!  She is great!

The next gift I made was a blanket.  It is the first I've attempted and it took me about a week to get the first row done. :)  Once I got the hang of it, the crocheting wasn't too bad!  I might even make another one for my family!  Here it is:

This was for my brother-in-law who is hard to shop for.  He is a huge University of Alabama football fan so I used Crimson Tide colors. I followed the ripple pattern tutorial from Attic24.

My daughters and I also made quite a few homemade ornaments.  The girls used Perler beads for theirs.  Here is my favorite that Natalie, my five year old made:

She followed a pattern for the snowman and came up with the taalll hat herself!  Cute!

The ornaments I made used wine corks, beads, and charms:

Sorry about the picture... I used the recipients favorite wine's corks.  The original idea came from the Lavender Clouds blog.

The last gifts I made were for the girls' teachers.  I made them simple cups with the schools name and mascot on them.  I added a gift card inside, too:

Since the cups were not flat all the way around the bottom, I had to keep my design on the top portion.  I used vinyl and my Cameo to make these.

I really enjoyed making each of these gifts!  If I had more time, I would have made even more!  Giving gifts is one of my favorite things and something homemade feels even better to give.  Did you make any of your gifts this year?

-tessa