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!!