FTHS Gift Stack Teddy Bear

I'm squeezing in one more card this year. This one's for the December free stamp of the month challenge over at From the Heart Stamps. I received this image for free because I joined in the November challenge.

I printed the image and the sentiment from another FTHS stamp set onto Neenah solar white cardstock and coloured the image using Promarkers. Of course I could not resist adding some festive shimmer using clear Wink of Stella. After several attempts, I managed to take the following photograph that captured the sparkle.

I suppose I would be extremly early to go and wish you a Merry Christmas at this time of the year but I do wish you all a New Year filled with good Cheer. I would also like to thank all of my followers and visitors for dropping by my little blog this past year and leaving me comments. They really make my day.

I'm also entering my card into the following challenges:

CHNC - 261 Anything Christmas goes
Cupcake Inspirations - 340

ABC Christmas Challenge - Z is for Zoo animals

Passion for Promarkers - 326 Let's celebrate, Mega Christmas challenge

Creative Card Crew - 103 Anything goes

W&W Winter Woodland rerun

Today's card is a rerun in more than one way: Winnie & Walter's rerun challenge no. 7 is about giving some love to the (slightly) older Winter Woodland stamp set and I decided to have another go at a card panel I had abandoned back in January because it didn't turn out how I had hoped. The idea was that the birds, which I had stamped in white pigment ink, would show through the green of the tree, but nothing happened, so I started afresh, resulting in this card. When I was browsing my collection of abandoned card panels for a recent challenge at Shopping our Stash, I came across my original attempt and the W&W challenge was the final push I needed.

As it turned out, 'fixing' my card was relatively easy. I simply stamped over the birds in red ink while slightly offsetting the image and then did the same with elderberry ink and the stag image. I also reinked my tree stamp with a darker green and dabbed off patches of ink before stamping over my original tree image. All I needed to do then, was add a sentiment (I cut the sentiment so that I could stamp it in two lines instead of one), trim the sides of my panel, swipe the elderberry ink over my card base and adhere my panel.

I'm also entering my card into the following challenges:

CHNC - 261 Anything Christmas goes
A snowflakes promise - 13 Winter/Christmas
Creative Card Crew - 103 Anything goes
ABC Christmas challenge - Z for Zoo animals

Holly

Today I'm sharing another card that was made using the supplies from Catherine Pooler's SOA Holiday Magic Collection.

I started by stamping the solid leaf images onto my panel of Neenah Solar white cardstock and then stamping over these using the outline image and a darker green. I slightly offset the outlined images for a more loose effect. I then added the berries in red and added a little shimmer using clear Wink of Stella. The sentimen is from the same stamp set by The Ton and was heat embossed in white onto a scrap of black cardstock. I added 2 strips of red glitter paper on either side before mounting my panel onto a black card base.

If you like(d) the cards I created using this SOA collection, would you please consider voting for my cards at the Parade of SOA Holiday cards? This will increase my chances of winning the next collection that will be released by the end of January. To vote, simply follow the link above and click on the heart in the image of my card(s). My cards are no. 19, 35 and 45. You are allowed 3 votes and you can cast your votes until tomorrow, 22 December at 11:55 PM EST (i.e. 23 December, 05:55 hours Central European Time).

Thanks!

I'm entering my card into the following challenges:

Jingle Belles - December linkfest

Beccy's Place - 94 Any card or papercraft project

CHNC - 260 Anything Christmas goes

CHNC Exra - Always anything Christmas goes

12 Tags of Christmas - Day 10

I managed to squeeze in one more tag for the 12 Tags of Christmas with a feminine twist. This tag was inspired by Carly's cute tag on day 10.

I was amazed at how fast this one came together and I love how it turned out. My creation also fits the current challenge at Little Tangles, which is to create a tag.

Materials used:

Cardstock: Smooth Bristol

Tag die: Studio Calico

Ink: Distress Inks (evergreen bow, tumbled glass, bundled sage, 

fossilized amber), Memento black

Stamps: Inkadinkado (trees), Lawn Fawn (fox), sentiment (SSS)

Colouring medium: Promarkers

Other: Clear Wink of Stella, Hemptique Metallic Classic cord

The day after I had created the tag, I turned it into a card, so that I could send it as a Christmas card. I started by reattaching my twine at the top of the tag. I did some more splattering on my Rustic cream card base (Papertrey Ink) using Fossilized amber distress ink mixed with a litte perfect pearls to create my own gold splatter. I shaped a length Hemptique cord using multi medium matte and stuck in into place by adhering my tag over it using pieces of foam tape.

Challenges:

Virginia's View Challenge - 21 All about glitter

Passion for Promarkers - 326 Mega Christmas challenge

Color Throwdown - 373 Any Christmas creation, any colours
Beccy's Place - 94 Any card or papercraft project

12 Tags of Christmas 2015 - Day 5

These tags were inspired by Kryssi's tags on day 5 of the annual challenge at the Ellen Hutson blog: 12 Tags of Christmas with a feminie twist.

Christmas UFOs?

This week's challenge at Shopping our Stash is all about UFOs, UnFinished Objects. I suppose we all have some unfinished (or abandoned) projects or elements hidden in our craft room. I know I do.

Last summer, I created several card panels by blending distress inks the way Jennifer McGuire demonstrated in one of her videos, found in this post on her blog, and sprinked pearlised water (using Perfect pearls) on the panels. I intended to create some shaker cards, but the panels ended up in a drawer. Until now...

I collected my panels, along with some other abandoned elements, and set out to turn one of these panels into a shaker card by die cutting a few of the stars (by CAS-ual Fridays) from the SOA Holiday Magic collection from the panel. After die cutting, I decided to abandon the idea of creating a shaker and do some inlaid stamping instead. (Does this exist? If not, I have just coined a new phrase). So, instead of inlaying the die cuts, I stamped the coordinating stamps behind the apertures onto a white card base (Neenah Solar white), heat embossed them using gold EP and adding a little festive shimmer using clear Wink of Stella. The sentiment was also heat embossed in gold.

Challenges:

SOS - 230 UFOs

Virginia's View Challenge - 21 All about glitter
Catherine Pooler - Parade of SOA Holiday cards
ATCAS - 78 Joy

 

Two more candy cane cards

While I was having my stamps out, I decided to make a few more quick cards using the candy cane stamp. The card was inspired by Kristie's card on the Merry Monday blog.

And since I had my red (Core'dinations scrap) and blue (Audrey Blue, SSS) out, I decided to switch the colours around for another card.

Materials used:

Cardstock: Neenah Solar white, Audrey blue (SSS), red (Core'dinations)

Stamps: Holiday Trimmings (Winnie & Walter), set by Lil' inker

Inks: Ruby red (Altenew), Audrey blue (SSS)

Baker's twine: Martha Stewart

Embossing powder - white (SSS)

I'm entering my first card into the following challenges:

Merry Monday - 183 Candy canes

Cupcake inspiration - 340 (see image below)

Candy Cane shaker

A quick post to show you the shaker card I made this week using 2 stamp sets from Catherine Pooler's SOA Holiday Magic collection. The candy cane border is from the Holiday Trimmings set by Winnie & Walter, and the sentiment stamp is part of the Holiday Flourishes set by The Ton.

I stamped the candy cane border onto a Soft stone card base (Papertrey Ink) using Ruby Red ink by Altenew. The star aperture for my shaker was die cut from another panel of Soft stone cardstock using a Docrafts Xcut nesting die. The sentiment was heat embossed in Liquid Platinum EP (Ranger). The sparkly red stars are from a large container of Christmas confetti that I bought from the local supermarket 1 or 2 years ago.

Challenges:

Merry Monday - 183 Candy canes

Virginia's View Challenge - 21 All about glitter
Catherine Pooler blog - Parade of SOA Holiday cards
HLS Christmas - Star

25 Days of Christmas Tags - Stocking

I have one more tag to share for Tracey's 25 Days of Christmas Tags event.

When I saw Tracey's own tag on day 25, I immediately thought of the stocking image that I had printed out ages ago and still had not coloured. Since I didn't want to cut the image in half to fit on a tag, I decided to create a mega tag to fit the image, which suited me just fine, since it allows me to send it as a Christmas card. I coloured the image (I could not find the original on my computer just now, so I will need to check later whose artwork this is - update: found it; Long stocking by From the Heart Stamps) using SN alcohol markers after drawing the lines on the stocking to mimick the pattern on Tracey's image. I cut my tag from a few scraps of red cardstock and layered a piece of zigzag patterned vellum (Papertrey Ink) on top. I printed the 2 sentiments (SSS) onto a scrap of cardstock that I had coloured with my lightest blue marker and adhered them using foam tape. I finished off using a piece of ribbon and fibre from my stash.

I'm also entering my tag/card into the following challenges:

52CCT - Pick a previous 2015 challenge 

(Colour combo #43 Red + white + anything but green)

ATSM - 173 Holiday

Beccy's Place - Anything goes

CSAYL - 61 Christmas gift

Deck the Halls Birdbrain

It seems I am on a roll when it comes to creating Christmas cards, and about time too, because Christmas is approaching fast and I still have quite a few cards to make...

Fortunately, this card came together quite fast. After printing this adorable Free Stamp of the Month November chick (Deck the Halls Birdbrain) by From the Heart Stamps, together with one of the accompanying sentiments (this one really cracks me up), I used my Spectrum Noir coloured pencils to add a soft layer of colour and then blended it using a paper stump and odourless mineral spirits. I cut the panel using my SSS stitched rectangle die, matted it onto some pink cardstock from my stash and adhered it to an A2 sized card base. As a finishing touch, I added a little clear Wink of Stella and coated the ornaments and eyes with Glossy Accents.

Challenges:

FTHS Free Stamp of the Month Challenge

Merry Monday - 182 Birds

The Challenge - 53 Non-traditional Christmas card
SSS Wednesday challenge - Anything goes
SSS Work it Wednesday November - Holiday cards
The Cutie Pie - 93 'Simply' Cute and Christmassy

Christmas robin

Earlier this week, I won a digital stamp during Beccy's Month of Christmas Card challenge. Her next challenge prompt (Day 29) was to use the newest item in your stash. So I knew what was being expected of me lol.

I had picked this particular image (Baby robin) from Beccy's shop because I had left her a comment earlier this week saying that I loved to see coloured birds on cards but was a little scared to colour them myself. Me and my big mouth...

Anyway, I printed the image onto Neenah solar white cardstock, grabbed my Spectrum Noir coloured pencils and a book on European birds (purchased last May), took a good look at the European robin and set to work. And I have to confess I really loved colouring this sweet image using pencils AND I love how it turned out.

After my colouring was done, I had a look at my container of Christmas offcuts and found these three patterned paper pieces; the large one and two smaller ones. Just perfect for this week's sketch at Tuesday Morning Sketches. It's been ages since I've played along, but then it's also ages since I made a layered card.

After putting the card together, I thought it needed just a little something extra, so I added a few stray embellishments I happened to have put in my bits and bobs container. The sentiment is from the Merry Everyday stamp set by Simon Says Stamp.

Challenges:

Beccy's Place - A Month of Christmas Cards - Day 29 Something new

Tuesday Morning Sketches - TMS#328

Jingle Belles - Holiday leftovers

Christmas Card Challenges - 52 Anything goes
Papertake Weekly - Take your pick: Colours - Red and/or green
SSS Wednesday challenge - Anything goes
SSS Work it Wednesday - Holiday cards

25 Days of Christmas tags - Holly

After seeing Natasha's tag on day 24 of the 25 Days of Christmas Tags, I immediately thought of the small holly stamps I had in my stash. I thought this was a perfect opportunity to put them to good use.
BTW, the inspiration for day 24 came from the Design Team of the Muse: Christmas Vision card club. Somehow I had completely missed this week's post, but I blame it on my computer (the hard disk of my laptop was failing, so I had to confiscate my husband's laptop and set it up so that I could continue working until the new hard disk arrives, and deliver my translation work with the slightest possible delay).

I stamped two panels, one using an outlined image to be coloured the way Natasha had done, and one using solid images (Brushstroke Christmas by Julie, Essentials by Ellen) and my new Altenew crisp inks.

I didn't have enough time to colour the outlined images, so I went with the panel with solid images first. For the sentiment, I stamped the JOY stamp (from another stamp set designed by Julie Ebersole) using Altenew ink onto a snippet of vellum and heat-embossed in clear embossing powder and then stamped the second part of the sentiment using black Altenew ink. I fussy cut sentiment and adhered it to the tag using pieces of transparent dimensinal tape. Most of my ribbons are hidden in a box somewhere, but I did find this gorgeous ribbon (Really Reasonable Ribbon) in my drawer. A bow of Hemptique twine was added and another tag was finished.

Challenges:

25 Days of Christmas Tags
Muse: Christmas Visions 30
Rudolph Days Challenge

25 Days of Christmas tags - Merry

After savouring all of the wonderful inspiration that appeared on Tracey's blog these past 25 days, I finally found some time to play along and link up during the final hours of the challenge.

This tag was inspired by Danielle's tag on day 15. I loved the soft ink blending behind the vellum and the peek-through stars. I tried to recreate the tag using the supplies I had, but instead of cutting out a corner of the vellum and stamping the sentiment, I cut the vellum at an angle and adhered a die cut from a snippet of red cardstock I found in one of my boxes with left-over papers and cardstock.

Challenges:

25 Days of Christmas Tags

Jingle Belles - Holiday leftovers

Santa's on his way

This weeks's prompt at Less is More is a one-layer card inspired by Santa. I rummaged through my stash trying to find a Santa image, found several digital images that might work, and then my order of two Crafter's Companion Inspiration magazines arrived two days ago, including a Christmas stamp set by Sheena Douglass. Talk about perfect timing.

So I set to work masking off a strip on my card where I wanted to create my scene and punched out a circle mask for my moon. I created my night sky by blending distress inks and adding a little more ink at the bottom after removing my circle mask.

The sentiment is from a Kelly Purkey set and was stamped in Memento Tuxedo black and after my inked panel was fully dry, I heat embossed Santa and his reindeer using Liquid platinum embossing powder. I rounded the corners of my card using my corner chomper and my card was finished.

Challenges:

Less is more - 250 One layer - Santa

Beccy's Place - A month of holiday cards - Day 6 Masking
ATSM - 171 Anything goes
SSS Wednesday challenge - Christmas
Addicted to CAS - 76 Hero

White Christmas

Beccy of Beccy's Place inspired me to try my hand at a white on white Christmas card for her Month of Holiday cards challenge.

Edited to explain how I suspended my snowflake ornament in the aperture on my card:

I cut the snowflak twice from heat-embossed cardstock. I adhered a small piece of double-sided tape in the middle of each snowflake and liquid glue on the delicate parts. I then placed a long thread from top to bottom and put my second snowflake on top. I adhered the thread at the top and bottom to the backside of my circle frame using another piece of double-sided tape, snipped off the extra lengths of thread and adhered the combined frame and snowflake to the front of my card. I had used the smaller of the two circle dies to cut the aperture from the front of my card. Because the snowflake fits snugly in the aperture, you cannot see the thread I've used to attach it between the card and the circle frame.

Materials:

Neenah solar white cardstock

Stitched circle dies (SSS) - I used two sizes to cut my circle frame

Snowflake stencil (SSS)

Embossing paste (Marabu CreaPaste, Fine sand)

Snowflake die (SSS) - cut twice to sandwich a thread in between
and to make it look pretty on both sides

Judi Kins Irridescent embossing powder

Vellum

Sentiment stamp (SSS - Small Folded Banners)

White embossing powder (SSS)

Versamark embossing ink

Challenges:

Beccy's Place - A month of holiday cards - Day 13 White on white

Virginia's View Challenge - 20 Texture

The Paper Players - 271 CAS Christmas card

      

Not a mouse was stirring...

With Christmas a little over a month away, I really need to speed up my production of Christmas cards. For today's card, I did a little colouring using my Spectrum Noir coloured pencils and this cute wood mounted stamp by Penny Black that has been in my stash for quite a while but had never seen any ink until now.

I love how the coloured pencils add texture to the mouse's face. I die cut my panel using my favourite stitched rectangle dies (Simon Says Stamp) and layered it onto some slate cardstock and then onto a side-folding A2 card cut from lipstick red cardstock (both SSS). The sentiment is from a set by Die'sire and to finish things off, I added a little shimmer using clear Wink of Stella on the collar and the trees.

Challenges:

Beccy's Place - A month of holiday cards - Day 1 Coloured pencils

Colour Throwdown - CTD 368 - see image

Penny Black Saturday - November - Dies and/or punches
ABC Christmas Challenge - W for Wild thing
CASology - 172 Give

Penny Black and More - November - Anything Christmas

Funky Christmas tree

A few days ago, my husband came home with a box containing the Stamp of Approval Holiday Magic collection. The stamps and dies in this collection were hand-picked by Catherine Pooler and are just wonderful. I think this is the first time that I broke into my new stamps within 3 days of their arrival into my house.

I'm always having a hard time deciding which stamps to use first, but this time I let myself be inspired by the interesting colour combination over on the CAS Colours and Sketches blog. After picking my ink colours (Dark Chocolate by Papertrey ink, and Dandelion and Elderberry by Memento), I grabbed the Bright Baubles set by Neat and Tangled (none of the products in this SOA collection have been released to the general public as yet) and set to work, using my MISTI and a die cut panel I saved from a previous project (cut using a stitched rectangle die by SSS).

I stamped the tree trunk in brown ink and then added the various baubles in Dandelion and Elderberry ink. I also used my Elderberry ink to stamp the sentiment (from the same N&T set) and the background borders (Holiday Trimmings set by Winnie & Walter; also included in the SOA collection) on my base card. For some festive shimmer, I went over the baubles, star and background borders with clear Wink of Stella and adhered the stamped panel to my base card using foam tape.

Edited to link this card up to the Parade of SOA Holiday Cards.

I'm entering my card into the following challenges:

CAS Colours & Sketches - 149 Colour combo

ATSM - 169 CAS

52CCT - Pick a previous theme (21 Christmas trees)

Aud Sentiments - 144 Bingo + sentiment
 (middle column: stitching - stamp - glitter)

Paper pieced poinsettia

Cannot believe we're well into November already and that means I really need to get on with my Christmas cards. So I'm trying to squeeze in as much crafting time as I can and to actually create something instead of just thinking about the cards I want to create lol.

I started by stamping the outline image of the Poinsettia Christmas set by Verve Stamps onto a very old sheet of red patterned paper using black ink and then fussy cut the images, making sure to cut the small leaves that were peeking out at the back. I then stamped the solid image onto Rustic White cardstock by Papertrey Ink using Altenew Evergreen ink and my MISTI for perfect placement. I added a few score lines using my mini-scoreboard and stamped the sentiment from the same stamp set using Altenew Ruby Red ink. Love how that red stands out against the rustic white background. After adhering the red poinsettias over the stamped green poinsettias (it was at this point that I discovered I could rotate the red flowers so that the larger green leaf popped out on different sides of the flowers for a more random look). To finish, I added gold dots to the flower hearts using my ancient Vivan pearl pen.

The photograph did not turn out as I had hoped. I will try to take and upload another one that is less dark.

I'm entering my card into the following challenges:

LIM - 248 Paper piecing

Virginia's View Challenge - 20 Texture

ATSM - 169 CAS
52CCT - Pick a previous theme (#1 Christmas flowers)

FTHS stamp of the month October

Today I managed to do a little colouring and create a card with this month's stamp of the month by From the Heart Stamps, called Cornucopia.

After printing the image onto Neenah Solar white cardstock, I coloured the image using Spectrum Noir alcohol markers and used SN coloured pencils to add more shading to the aubergine and grapes. I created the background by colouring with my alcohol markers and then dabbing blender solution using a rag, a technique I picked up from Kathy Racoosin of The Daily Marker.

I die cut the panel using a stitched rectangle die (Simon Says Stamp) and stamped the sentiment from a Birthday sentiment set by Stampendous! using Archival black ink and my MISTI, which arrived 2 days ago, just in time for my birthday (which was yesterday). My husband was so relieved that it arrived in time lol.

I layered my panel onto a piece of orange PP from my stash, after giving the edges a bit more definition using Dried Marigold distress ink (Ranger). The panels were adhered to a top folding A2 card created from Rustic cream cardstock by Papertrey Ink. To finish things off, I went around the edges with my blending tool that still had some Dried Marigold on it, and I added Glossy Accents to the aubergine and the apples.

Challenges I'm entering:

FTHS - Digital stamp of the month October

Seize the Birthday - Anything birthday

Craft Your Passion - 285 Always Anything goes

Papertake Weekly - Take your pick (Colour: Halloween hues)
Kathy Racoosin's 30 day colouring challenge

LIM - Cozy Christmas

When I saw this week's sketch on the Less is More blog, I just knew I wanted to play along.

To create my card, I stamped the houses and trees from the Cozy Christmas set (Essentials by Ellen) on a panel of water colour paper using Versamark ink and heat embossed using SSS white embossing powder. I then added water to the area I wanted to paint and added colour using a wet paint brush and distress reinkers. To finish things off, I stamped the sentiment, curly smoke and some tiny stars using Archival black ink and adhered my panel to a black card base.

I'm also entering my card into the following chalkenges:

Kathy Racoosin's 30 day colouring challenge

ATSM - 168 Holiday

Winter Wonderland - Anything Christmas goes
52 Christmas Card Throwdown - Emboss resist

Who wants more pink?

Yep, another pink Christmas card from me. I just cannot get enough.

While my husband was undergoing his 4th round of chemo at the hospital, I had some time to do a little colouring. This fun image was one of the images I had printed the night before and took with me to the hospital along with a selection of Promarkers. The image is part of a digital set of 3 stamps and 2 sentiments by From the Heart Stamps, called In the Meadow Snowmen (yes, one of the other images has trees and some cute snowmen).
After my colouring was finished and I was home again, I die cut the panel using my SSS stitched rectangle die, and die cut the Merry sentiment (Ellen Hudson Essentials) from the panel and inlaid a white version. I used foam tape to adhere my panel to my card base after inking the edges with the same pink Promarkers that I had used for the trees. To finish things off, I added clear Wink of Stella to the sentiment and adhered a few sequins (SSS, Moonshine) using Multi medium matte.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Jingle Belles - PINK Christmas

Kathy Racoosin's 3rd 30 day colouring challenge
Addicted to Stamps - 167 Make your mark