The Ton October challenge

I have been wanting to play along at The Ton for a long time, but I have to confess I only own one of their stamp sets so far. They have some amazing stamps and their new releases are always wowing me, but I also get overwhelmed by the many designs. It's so hard to pick a favourite.

Anyway, when I saw the October moodboard at The Ton's challenge blog, I was intrigued by the image at the bottom left (see below). The swirls in the image reminded me of the swirls in the Christmas set that I own (Holiday Flourishes). In addition, I have been wanting to try out the Antique linen DOI on dark cardstock ever since I saw a video where Tim Holtz was demoing the new inks.

I started by stamping the swirls of the Holiday Fourishes set in Antique linen DOI onto black cardstock and grabbed some random solid stamps from other sets to stamp the middle area in Vintage photo DOI. I lightly spritzed my panel from a distance to activate the inks, causing them to 'light up'. Next I stamped the small outlined leaf images in Vintage photo around the area where I wanted to pop up my sentiment panel. I die cut a circle out of my panel (Lifestyle crafts) and heat embossed the sentiment in Silver pearl embossing powder (Ranger). After adhering my panel to a Neenah desert storm cardbase and popping up my sentiment panel using 3 layers of white cardstock, I embellished my card with rhinestones in clear, pale pink and pale blue.

I'm also linking up my card at:

Christmas as Sweet Stampin' - Anything Christmas goes

SSS Wednesday - Anything goes

The Merry Christmas challenge - #40 Anything Christmas goes

Christmas critter on kraft

While I was having my Penny Black stamps and coloured pencils out, I decided to create another card using another sweet hedgehog from the Holly day critters set.

I stamped the image and sentiment in Memento Rich cocoa onto a previously die cut stitched rectangle (SSS) panel and coloured it in using my SN pencils and odourless mineral spirits. I used my NBUS Gingham background stamp (SSS) to add a little interest to my kraft card base by stamping the pattern using Vintage photo DOI on the lower part of my card. I blended a little Tumbled glass DI (still on my blending foam) at the top of my coloured panel but found it was still standing out too much against the kraft base, So I also blended a little Antiquie linen DI all around my panel. I wrapped some twine around my card base before foam mounting my panel. To finish off, I rounded the bottom corners using my 1/4 inch corner chomper.

Challenges:

Jingle Belles - Not a creature was stirring (animals/monsters)

Allsorts - #439 Christmas creatures

SSS Wednesday - Anything goes

Penny Black - Holiday head start

HLS - October Christmas challenge

Christmas critters

I was able to spend some time in my craftroom today and decided to create a quick card for a couple of challenges.

I stamped the Penny Black hedgehog couple (Party couple, wood-mounted stamp), and a single hedgehog (Holly day critters, cling stamp) and onto my Neenah solar white cardbase using Memento Rich cocoa and coloured the images with Spectrum Noir coloured pencils and odourless mineral spirits. The sentiment is from the same stamp set and was stamped in Altenew Jet black ink.

Challenges:

Merry Monday - #262 Gifts

Jingle Belles - Not a creature was stirring (animals/monsters)

Penny Black - Holiday head start

SSS Wednesday - #439 Anything goes

Allsorts - Christmas creatures

Crimbo Crackers - #144 Quick and easy

STAMPlorations - October CAS cards

HLS - October CAS challenge

Subtle pink for Christmas

To show you all that pink Christmas cards can be subtle, too, I created two more cards that were inspired by the current Muse ChristmasVision challenge as well as the current Pn-sights challenge over at the Ellen Hutson blog.

I decided to create 2 cards of the same design, for the Jingle Belles:

My starting point were the layout and the neutral background and tree (I used Neenah desert storm cardstock and warm grey Altenew inks) plus the white sentiment of Elizabeth's first card below. For the embellishments, I pulled in the colour of Elizabeth's second card below. The tree theme and the pink were also what attracted me in the Pin-sights challenge moodboard, as well as the coppery pink of the star ornaments in the bottom left, which I mimicked with a few similarly coloured sequins from my stash.

The tree stamp is by Winnie & Walter, while the sentiment is by Essentials by Ellen.

Below are Elizabeth's muse cards:

And here's the Pin-sights moodboard:

More pink Christmas cards

I have created a few more pink Christmas cards to support a great cause at the Jingle Belles blog. For each pink holiday card that is being linked up this fortnight, Lauren and Stephanie are each donating 2 dollars to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Since the linky will close in less than 2 hours, I will stop chatting and simply show you the cards, especially since I have another blog post to write up with two more cards. And guess what: I think I have reached the target (set by my husband) of creating 80 Christmas cards before the end of October. YAY!

I am also linking up these cards at:

October Rudolph days - Anything Christmas goes

CHNC - # 356 Anthing Christmas goes

CHNC Extra - Anything Christmas goes

SSS Wednesday - Anything goes

A Snowflakes Promise - #45 Anything goes

Card 1: white heat-embossed garland, masking using blue painter's tape, blended pinks using a Clarity brush. Embellished using sequins.

Card 2: Switched to a Penny Black sentiment and used a die to create a reusabla frame mask for my other cards. Embellished using Kaisercraft pearls.

I'm also linking up this card at:

PBSC - Penny Black plus lace and/or pearls

Penny Black Holiday Head Start challenge

Card 3 and 4: heat-embossed the garland in silver ep and did not add any further embellishments.

Stenciled landscape

When my sister was visiting, she brought some crafting supplies with her. Some of these I had ordered from a shop in the Netherlands, some she had found at a bargain price and decided to bring as a gift, and some to show me to see if she should order them for me as well.

One of these was a fun mask/stencil by John Next Door (Landscapes), containing both the postives and negatives. I decided to give it a quick work-out before my sister was taking it home again. It was unlike anything I had done before and super quick too, but I love how it turned out. The card was inspired by a challenge on StampNation and some of the sample cards by the SN design team.

The next day, my sister had another surprise for me. She had contacted her supplier to see if he could order another stencil for her, so she could leave her stencil with me, and he did! So I get to play more with this stencil. Yay!

I used Altenew warm greys for the mountains and tumbled glass DI for the sky and the bits of water. For the trees, I used Distress Oxide ink (peeled paint), because I had to cover up part of the mountain, and the pigment constituent of the DOI did the job perfectly. One of the mountain masks even had a tiny bird. How fun is that?!

The sentiment is from the Lovely Notes SOA collection by Catherine Pooler.

Pink Christmas - 6 cards

As October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, many challenges call for pink cards, and of course the Jingle Belles challenge is no exception. As always, the lovely Jingle belles, Lauren and Stephanie, will each be donating 2 dollars to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation for each pink holiday card that is being linked up this fortnight.

I started with a card that was inspired by this card that Kristie Goulet had created for the release of the new Stamp of Approval Winterhaven Collection by Catherine Pooler (which has by now sold out). Since my SOA box has not arrived yet, I decided to CASE Kristie's card using the supplies I already owned. And after the first one, I just could not stop, so here goes:

I masked off a portion of my card and blended some pink and lilac inks and then stamped the silhouette sleighing stamp from the Inkadinkado set that was still lying on my table from the Christmas cards that I had made with my sister. The sentiment is by Winnie & Walter.

I'm linking up my card at:

Jingle Belles - Pink Christmas ... for the cure!

Christmas Card Throwdown - CCT19 Winter sports

On my second card, I used another silhouette stamp, from a set that came with a crafting magazine. This was the first card that I had inked up but I found it was too dark for my sleighing scene but it's just perfect for this card.

I'm linking up this card at:

HLS - October Christmas challenge

HLS - October CAS One layer

Next, I decided I could change the orientation of my card, and decided to use a NBUS stamp set by Simon Says Stamp featuring these pretty falling stars and a sentiment stamp by PTI. I had added splatters to my inking, but wanted a cleaner look, so I made another one without the splatters, which I like better.

 

I am linking up this card at:

LIM - #350 OLC Stars

ATSM - #264 CAS

Tuesday Throwdown - #365 CAS

Next, I used the falling hearts stamp from the same SSS set as above. I had already stamped the sentiment on multiple cards using my MISTI. I needed to cover up a pink smudge, so I selectively inked up 3 hearts and stamped these over the smudge, creating a new, black, smudge. Arrrgh! So I stamped one more heart to cover this up and then another one to balance it out, and I really love how it turned out in the end.

I'm linking up this card at:

CAS-ual Fridays - CFC185 Think Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness

For my last card, I used another silhouette stamp from the Inkadinkado set.

OCC Merry Making - non-holiday stamps

The cards I am showing here were inspired by May Park's creations for Day 3 of the Merry Making class. She used tone on tone stamping and non-holiday leaf stamps to dress up her Christmas cards.
I played around with the leaf image from the Stylized Autumn set by Papertrey Ink and this beautiful sentiment from the Festive cheer set by Penny Black.

For my first card, I used Ivory Centura Pearl cardstock from Crafter's Companion and Versafine sepia ink.

I'm linking up this card at:

CCAYR - Monochromatic browns

For my second card, I decided to stamp the leaves using Distress Oxide ink in Peeled paint.

I'm linking up this card at:

STAMPlorations - October theme and sketch (I went with the theme)

For my third card, I used green cardstock and heat embossed the sentiment in Platinum embossing powder.

I'm linking up my trio of cards in the following challenges:

Penny Black  - Holiday Headstart challenge

CHNC - #355 Anything Christmas goes (optional: stripes)

CHNC Extra - Always Anything Christmas goes

Merry Making class - Bokeh background

Today's cards were inspired by Kristina's bokeh/snowflakes card on day 1 of the OCC Merry Making class. Just as with the previous OCC cards, my sister and I tackled this challenge together. So much fun!

After I had selected the blue distress inks, I gave my sister the purple inks so that we could work at the same time. After we had blended our inks, we created our bokeh dots and then went on to select the snowflake stamps we wanted to use.

I selected a wood-mounted background stamp by Hero Arts (Stunning Snowflakes) that I have had for many years. For my sentiment I used a new to me die by Penny Black (3 layers of cardstock with 2 layers of silver ep) and a white heat embossed sentiment strip (Brushstroke Christmas, Essentials by Ellen).

My sister selected a stamp set by CAS-ual Fridays, which was part of an older Stamp of Approval collection. She loved this set so much that she took it home today, while I ordered a new set when I ordered the latest SOA collection, which could arrive any day now. The sentiment is from the same Essentials by Ellen set that I used and was heat embossed in silver.

Challenges:

CHNC - #355 Anything Christmas goes (optional: stripes)

CHNC Extra - Anything Christmas goes

ABC Christmas - U for Unlimited, V for Vibrant

Cute Card Thursday - #500 Snowflakes

A Snowflakes Promise - Anything goes 

The Holly and Ivy - #17 Anything Christmas goes

Christmas ornament

Today I have a Christmas ornament to share. I saw this fun tutorial at Splitcoaststampers for a glittery foam tag ornament using die cuts, foam, adhesive sheets and glitter of course.

I kept my ornament fairly simple, but you could add further embellishments such as ribbon and sequins.

To create the layered 'scale' look on my ornament shape (Top Dog Dies), I die cut a panel of thin foam to which I had adhered a layer of adhesive sheet using the Leaf effect cutaway die (Winnie & Walter. My ornament shape also had a layer of adhesive sheet attached, making it easy to adhere a few rows of 'leaf scales' and sprinkling glitter on top, working my way to the top in three sections using three shades of gold glitter. Before adhering the last section, I added a loop of gold thread.

Challenges:

Winnie & Walter - WCMD Anything but a card with Kelly

ABC Christmas challenge - U for unlimited, V for vibrant

Inspired by Shari Carroll

I have been spending quite a bit of time in my craftroom this past week, together with my sister, who is visiting. Her visit coincided with a number of fun challenges as well as the latest Online Card Class, Merry Making, so we decided to tackle a few of these challenges together ... and now my sister realises she needs more stamps haha.

The above cards were inspired by Shari Carroll's wintry scene on Day 2 of the OCC. Personally, I was attracted to the colours, which were a perfect match to the colours in inspiration graphic of the current Card Concept challenge. We used silver acrylic paint for a subtle (selective) resist background (Collage Music background, Hero Arts), smooshing (DIs in Evergreen bough, Iced spruce), additional blending (DIs in Evergreen bough and Walnut stain) and stamping (Altenew warm grey inks). We chose different stamps to finish our scenes, though.

On my card (above), I used the tree and deer from an old Inkadinkado set, a stamp with 2 smaller trees from an Essentials by Ellen set and a sentiment from a Crafter's Companion set.

My sister used trees from the Mini Holidays 2 set by Stampers Anonymous, the deer from the Santa's coming set (by Kelly Purkey for Simon Says Stamp) and a sentiment from an old set by Flourishes. She does not have a blog of her own, but she allowed me to enter her card into the same challenges that I'm linking up at.

Challenges: 

Winnie & Walter - WCMD Variations challenge with Shay

I hope it's OK to link this one up since the 

cards are made by different persons. 

If not, please ignore our entry.

The Card Concept - #79 Rustic Neutrals

Both our cards fall into the Mixed Media/Vintage category

Penny Black and More - Close to Nature

CHNC - #355 Anything Christmas goes (optional: stripes)

CHNC Extra - Always anything Christmas goes