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

More pink Christmas and CAS(E) this sketch

Today's card came together very quickly. I love when that happens.

While I was browsing my ancient pink Christmas papers by DCWV, my eye fell on this sentiment paper and I immediately thought of this week's sketch over at CAS(E) this Sketch.

All I had to do was cut a rectangle, and ink (Althenew pinks) and heat emboss (Versarmark ink and Irridescent sparkle EP) the ornament die cut I still had lying on my craft table. I used the ink that was remaining on my dauber to also add a little pink to the PP background. After mounting the panel and the ornament, I pierced two holes, added the twine and called it a day.

Materials used:

Cardstock - PTI Rustic white

PP - DCWV

Inks - Altenew & Versamark

Ornament & rectangle dies - Holiday Ornaments
and Stitched rectangles by Simon Says Stamp

Embossing powder - Irridescent sparkle by Judi Kins

Twine - Metallic Classic by Hemptique

Challenges:

Jingle Belles - PINK Christmas
For each card that is being linked this fortnight,
Stephanie and Lauren will each be donating
 2 USD to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation

CAS(E) this Sketch - Sketch 145

ABC Christmas challenge - U for Unusual Christmas colours
Crimbo Crackers - 91 Pink Christmas
Allsorts - 333 All sentimental
Classy Cards 'n Such - 107 Pretty pink Christmas

Pink Christmas 2015

As always, the lovely Jingle Belles have dedicated their first challenge prompt in October to PINK CHRISTMAS creations in honour of breast cancer awareness month. What's more, Lauren and Stephanie will each be donating 2 dollars for every card that is being linked up this fortnight.

I had and have a lot of ideas buzzing in my head, but I thought I would start with colouring this sweet digital image by From the Heart Stamps that I had already printed onto Neenah desert storm cardstock a while back. After all, I'm trying to do at least a tiny bit of colouring in honour of Kathy Racoosin's 3rd 30-day colouring challenge and wanted to play along with Virgina's View challenge this month which is all about colouring.

I had already added the stamped sentiment after I had printed the image, so after colouring the image using Spectrum Noir coloured pencils, all I had to do was add a little shimmer using my clear Wink of Stella, add a few sequin hearts from the Bright White mix from Lucy Abrams that was included in the Catherine Pooler's Stamp of Approval Friends collection and round the top right corner. To ground the image, I also added a strip of MME washi tape along the bottom edge.

I'm also entering this card into this fortnight's challenge at 

Crimbo Crackers, where the theme is PINK

WCMD 2015 - Gold Christmas ornaments

My second WCMD card was inspired by the techniques used on Day 1 of Sandy Allnock's Go for the gold class.

I used some gold embossing paste that I bought from a local supermarket (part of a German chain) about a year ago. On the large ornament (Holiday ornaments by SSS, NBUS) I applied the paste, spritzed with water and stamped two leaf images from the Happy Christmas stamp set by Winnie & Walter. For the small ornament from the same die set, I applied the gold paste through the Tim Holtz Festive stencil (more NBUS, yay). I also applied the gold past to the edges of the base card. The background was created by smooshing the water colour cardstock in distress inks (tumbled glass and crushed olive). When the background was dry, I painted a zig zag pattern on my craft sheet using gold glitter paint (bought together with the set of embossing pastes) and pressed my panel onto the craft sheet to pick up the glitter. The glitter is clearly visible in my craft space picture in my previous blog post. I die cut the panel using a stitched rectangle die (SSS). The sentiment (Winter Woodland, W&W) was heat embossed using Ranger gold embossing powder. I added some Hemptique twine to the ornaments and popped them up using foam tape.

Challenges:

Winnie & Walter WCMD 2015 - Watercolour

SSS Wednesday challenge - Anything goes

WCMD 2015 - Lots of Christmas NBUS

Yesterday, I celebrated World Card Making Day by breaking into a lot of never-before-used Christmas schtuff and creating two cards using inspiration from Sandy Allnock's free Go for the gold class. Her videos focussed on different gold products and how to use them. She also gave a very useful piece of advice: don't spend all your time looking for inspiration or cataloguing your supplies but use your time to actually create something. Thanks Sandy! I guess I needed to hear this.

So I got out my supplies and started playing with never before used supplies, including some gold paste and paint I bought from a (German) supermarket chain about a year ago that you will be able to see in my next post (and in the photograph of my craft space below).

This card was inspired by Sandy's card for Day 5. Apart from wanting to use my very old Viva pearl pens, I was intrigued by Sandy's hand-painted tree. I'm so chuffed that I managed to paint my very own tree using Letraset Aquamarkers. Yay!

For the stamping, I broke into several never before used stamp sets:

The snowman is from Winter Friends, designed by Clearly Besotted for Simon Says Stamp.

I used the Rejoice stamp from the Holiday Border set (SSS) to heat emboss the string for my lights.

I used two stamps from the Sparkle & Shine holiday additions by Papertrey Ink to stamp my lights.

The sentiment is from Holiday Hellos by Simon Says Stamp (used the stamp set before), stamped in VersaColor gold and heat embossed in clear EP.

The heat embossed string of lights got a bit lost when my tree was done (it was really pale gold, just like the sentiment), so I traced over it using a gold gel pen. I matted my water colour panel on some old gold paper by Crafter's Companion.

I'm entering my card into the following challenges:

Winnie & Walter WCMD 2015 - Use gold/metallic

SSS Wednesday challenge - Anything goes

Kathy Racoosin's 3rd 30 day colouring challenge

Virginia's View challenge - 19 All things coloured

Below I'm also sharing a picture of my craft space during my crafty WCMD session, which I'm linking up for the Winnie & Walter WCMD 2015 Crafty challenge.