Just a note...

I have the design capabilities of a soap dish. Every card I make is based on a layout that someone else came up with, most often a sketch from one of the card-making challenges. I love this sketch from  Sweet Sunday Sketch..


This has got to be one of the most easily adaptable and versatile sketches ever and I intend to use it over and over. I made two using this already.

Here's one:

Using my Impression Obsession feather dies, I cut a feather out of brown card stock with white core and glued some patterned kraft paper behind the opening. The second feather from the left is the opening in the paper. I sanded the paper a bit for a distressed effect. Then I cut three feathers out of patterned paper and inked around the edges. A little baker's twine and a Hero Arts sentiment...pretty darned simple when you have a good sketch to work with.

I was pretty excited to be picked as a Shooting Star at 'Tis the Season . Great Christmas card challenge so check it out!!

Dreaming of a White Christmas!

I've been busy making Halloween goodie bags, trying to use up some older Halloween scrapbook paper, so it's nice to switch to Christmas card making. I adore this photo prompt for the card challenge at 'Tis The Season. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to make a snowy card, especially since the weather here is in the eighties and I'm ready for a change!

My other inspiration for this card is the sketch from Jingle Belles Sketch Challenge created by my good friend, Stephanie. Pretty darned adaptable if you ask me...and you did.

When I saw this sketch the first image that came to mind was snowy hills (wishful thinking!). I was inspired by Sparkles Christmas challenge to create the background using Distress Inks. I used three colors of inks, then misted with water to create a water color effect. I used a white gel pen to add snowflakes (they could also be stars, whatever floats your boat). The house and trees die is from Memory Keepers. This was fun and easy to make and I'm way behind on Christmas card stash so I'm going to make some more!

I am submitting this to the following challenges:

Jingle Belles Sketch Challenge 

Tis' The Season: Skates & Snow

Sparkles Christmas Challenges Distress it!

CHNC Challenge Extra Anything Goes as long as it's Christmas

I still have to make more Halloween goodie bags, but it was nice to have a wintery, Christmas break.

xo

The Hop to Stop

I don't usually post my cards because, well, I mean to but by the time I get around to taking a photo of my card the challenge I made it for has closed.

But this time there is a really good cause involved. The Hop to Stop is all about bringing awareness to the victims of domestic abuse, which accounts for 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men.

The purple base in the card is a lot lighter than the way it shows up here. I love purple but I don't have a lot of purple paper; this paper is actually DCWV scrapbook papers. I love the subtle tones and the way the colors complement each other perfectly. I have been playing with the starburst layout which it a lot of fun and allowed me to five different papers.

Now I'm going to go check out the sponsors and look at more of the cards posted; so many great ideas!

xo

I (heart) vintage Christmas

I broke out these pretty My Mind's Eye vintage-y papers for the Jingle Belles challenge to make a card with a vintage or retro vibe. I love love love coordinated papers because they're so...coordinated. Used Sweet Sunday Sketch #278 for the layout, inked around the paper with blue chalk ink, added some ecru lace and a vintage looking sentiment and Bob's your uncle! OK, it's a little busy. Oh well. It reminds me of when I was a kid and my dad picked out my clothes. Stripes and plaids Dad?? He was hopeless.

I'm also submitting to the Merry Monday Challenge #167 to make a Christmas card featuring hearts and Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra (anything goes every month).

Red, white, blue and thank you

The current Sweet Sunday Sketch challenge is to make a card using an earlier sketch. They provided a link that takes you to all of the prior sketches and it is a goldmine! Here's the sketch I chose, but there were so many great sketches to choose from that I bookmarked it for future reference. Thanks SSSC!!



I made my card as a thank you to the hosts of our neighborhood 4th of July party. Used some patterned paper and card stock, a little ribbon and jazzed it up with a glittery star and some blue rhinestones, added a die cut thank you and wow was that easy.

Silver Belles

Less than 6 months remaining to build up my Christmas card inventory so here's one more, using the Jingle Belles Silver Belles and CCAYR Dots and Stripes card challenges. The papers are all Pink Paislee. The Tim Holtz reindeer is die-cut from silver card stock. I added a strip of cloth ribbon with bells and cut out a piece of Pink Paislee paper printed like sheet music with the words "I Heard The Bells on Christmas Eve." Well, actually the paper cut off after Ch. I am also submitting this to CraftyHazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas Cat & Mouse

I seldom use digital images in crafting so the recent Jingle Belles challenge, We Wish You a Digital Christmas, was, er, challenging. But the freebie digital download "Jingle all the Way" offered by Deedees Digis for this challenge was way too tempting to pass up.

The cat & mouse image is adorable and I love the colors and how everything you need is all right there.

But first I needed to figure out how to layer the image on top of the patterned paper. So I did what all normal people do, I asked my teenage son. He showed me and then he showed me again. And after a few more demonstrations I was off to the races. 

This is not my card, it is my trial run of layering the cat and mouse image over the patterned paper. I tried it a few more times, also using the bell image and other papers. 

I like it and had fun trying my skills, but I realized that I preferred the image on plain paper. So I played around a bit more and came up with this:

I'm pretty happy with this one and plan to make others since there are oodles of possible combinations. I'm also glad I tried this because it wasn't as intimidating as I feared...and as I was perusing Deedees I found another set that I had to have so I'm excited to try that one out too!

Howdy. Just whipped out a Christmas card combining a couple of challenges: Jingle Belles, make a card that uses element that are recycled, up-cycled or re-used in honor of Earth Day and Christmas Cards All Year Round, make a card featuring ornaments. I re-used a card from a friend, scrapped with some complementary colored papers and a few bits of bling. Also, the embellishment in the lower right hand corner was from a gift tag. Not a great photo but I'm happy with it.

Jingle comma Bells

Is there a comma between "Jingle" and "Bells" in the song title, for real? There is on the Pink Paislee scrapbook sheet music paper I used for this card. I've never heard anyone sing it with a comma, but I am pretty sure Pink Paislee would not fib to me.

Anyhoo, this card was fun to make. Stitching around the sheet music, the iconic Tim Holtz leaping reindeer die, die cut and embossed sizzix poinsettias, gold ink and some tiny pearly sticky thingies. Oh, and that black thing on the reindeer's nose? It's red...as in...ah you know.

I am submitting this to the following challenges:

Jingle Belles  Incorporate Music

Weekly Christmas Card Challenges Anything Goes

Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge Feature a Creature

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Card Challenge Stick it any which way you like

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Card Challenge Extra Anything Goes

Here we go a-washi-ing among the leaves so green...

The Jingle Belles challenge is to make a Christmas card using washi tape. I thought about rushing out to try to find some Christmas washi tape but then I remembered my firm resolve to use stuff I already have!! I knew that I had purchased several rolls of washi tape a couple years ago and never used them but couldn't for the life of me remember where I put them. I found them, 4 rolls in all, in a box of ribbon scraps. They're not traditional Christmas colors or design so I went for a funky unconventional look. I cut the tape into irregular pieces and scrapped them together in a quasi-Christmas tree shape. I started out trying to make the tree look symmetrical but found that I liked the cattywampus look better.

Here's my first card:



 



 

I am submitting to the following challenges:

Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge Non-traditional colors
Weekly Christmas Card Challenges #12 Anything goes
CHNC Extra Anything goes

Shaping up to be a great year!

Utter disbelief re NBC's Brian Williams, reportedly the most popular anchor in the coveted 26 to 54 age demographic. I don't believe it..no one under the age of 60 watches network news.

But I do know that few things are more satisfying than creating a new Christmas card and so I made this one for the Jingle Belles Shape up for the New Year challenge. Any shape will do, as long as it's not a square or rectangle.

I die cut my Spellbinders Nestabilities Layered Poinsettias out of Tim Holtz Kraft-Core card stock and sanded them with an emery board to add definition. There was a little bit of gold ink on one of the dies that transferred to the paper but I thought it looked okay so I left it. A little baker's twine and a smallish Stampin' Up sentiment completed the card. BTW, I am crazy about this set of 25 little wood block stamps I found on Ebay, copyright 1999! I can't wait to try them all out.

The card was actually pretty easy to make and I liked the end result!

I am also submitting this to the following challenges:

ABC Christmas Challenge C is for Colorful!
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra Anything Goes Every Month!

Ringing in the New!

Got another Christmas card finished! This one is based on the Jingle Belles Ring in the New challenge. I used Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #253.

For the "new" I used some new MME papers I got for Christmas, a new wood snowflake embellishment and finished off with a sentiment from a brand new set of Unity stamps. I stitched around the edges of each piece of paper and managed to keep my stitches relatively straight!

Here is the sketch:

And here is the card:

And now I need to get to work on Valentines!

Time to wrap up...

Two weeks into the new year and two Christmas cards done!

Here's my second card for the Jingle Belles Wrap it up! challenge.

Fast and easy, featuring a gift tag from Michael's. 

In addition to posting more of my cards in 2015, I want to do more stamping. I didn't stamp on either of the first two cards so now I resolve that the next two will have stamping!!

Only 351 card-making days left!

Happy New Year!

For my first post of 2015 I am back on the Christmas card-making track with the Jingle Belles challenge, Wrap it up!  Lauren and Stephanie are unmatched in sheer creativity, inspiration and general lovableness, so I'm excited to get back to it. For this card I used an old Santa gift tag that I've held onto with plans to make it into a card but it never quite made it to the top of the heap.

This year my goal is to post more of my cards than I did last year. We'll see how long that lasts!!