Shake it Santa Baby (Jingle Belles)

I'm honoured to be making a guest appearance on the Jingle Belles challenge blog this fortnight, because I happen to be the person who proposed the current prompt to the lovely Lauren and Stephanie. As you all know, the best ideas often come in the shower, especially if you're singing, and I thought up this prompt when I was humming 'Shake it up baby (Twist and Shout)'. I was immediately thinking shaker cards, (dancing) Santas, Santa babes ... you get the picture.

For this week's card, I decided to focus on Santa. I thought this might be the perfect moment to break into the pack of dimensional plastic Santa stickers I had brought home from a trip to Sydney, Australia some 18 months ago. I wanted to give Santa centre stage, so all I did was cut a few strips of patterned paper from an old Simon Says Stamp card kit, stamp a sentiment and adhere Santa and a small embellishment sticker from the same pack.

And while I had all the supplies out, I decided to make a second card, with a mirrored design, a different Santa, some more embellishments, and a different sentiment. Wish all my cards came together so quickly.

We would be thrilled if you decided to play along with us. Check out the Jingle Belles blog for more inspiration and all the details.

Challenges:

Holly Jolly Christmas challenge - Use kraft

CHNC Extra - Aways anything Christmas goes

Craftyhazelnut's Patterned Paper - Anything goes with PP

ABC Christmas challenge - K for Keep it simple

Mask-erade day 1 and 2

I have two cards to share that I created for the current OCC class Mask-erade. I thought I had already learned a thing or two about masking, but the OCC teachers completely blew me away with their tips, techniques and creations.

Both the first day and the second day focussed on paper masking. On my first card above I used masking to create depth by placing different images behind one another. All the stamps are from the Sunny Skies set by Lawn Fawn. After colouring the stamped images with Promarkers, I masked the images again and used the two cloud dies from the coordinating die set to create a mask for my cloud background, which I created by making flicking motions off the mask using a blue Flexmarker and then softening the outlines with a blender marker. To finish the card, I cut a panel using one of the stitched rectangle dies by Simon Says Stamp and matted my panel onto a blue card using foam tape.

Challenges:

Papertake Weekly - Anything goes

ATSM - 147 Make your mark

Craft Your Passion - 264 Always Anthyting goes

Kathy Racoosin's 30 day colouring challenge
Crafting from the heart - 62 Always anything goes
Aud Sentiments - 133 Bingo (markers, stamp, die cut) + sentiment

For my second card, I cut 3 masks using a feather die (by Hot Off the Press, free gift with a magazine) and a curved edge die (Custom panels dies by Avery Elle). I coloured 3 batches of translucent embossing paste (Wendi Vecchi) using distress inks (mowed lawn, crushed olive and salty ocean) and then applied these through a stencil (Leaves by Pronty). After the embossing paste had dried I die cut two feathers from vellum and added a little Multi matte medium at the bottom ends to inlay them into the empty space where my masks had been. To finish off, I stamped the sentiment (Say it in style, Clearly Besotted), cut the panel a little smaller and matted it onto strips of SSS cardstock before popping it up onto a top folding card I created from Soft stone cardstock (PTI).

Challenges:

Virginia's View Challenge #15 - Ombre

Mojo Monday #400 - I flipped the sketch and made the rounded area bigger

Seize the Birthday - Anything birthday goes

Snowflake

Hi, I'm back at long last with another Christmas card.

This one came together fairly quickly, except for the sentiment. I pulled out some papers from the Signature Christmas paper pad (MME) and cut a curved edge on a piece of Neenah cardstock and a piece of PP using the curved edge die by Simon Says Stamp. I die cut the snowflake (The Cat's Pajamas) once out of PP and several times out of cardstock and glued them together to give the die cut more body. I finally decided on this sentiment from the Merry Everything stamp set by SSS.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Jingle Belles - Let it snow

SSS Wednesday challenge - Anything goes

Papertake Weekly - Take your pick; colour theme: blue and green

Crimbo Crackers - Anything Christmas goes

Christmas Card Challenges - 26 Anything Christmas goes

CHNC Extra - Always Anything Christmas goes

Craftyhazelnut's Patterned Paper - Always Anything goes with PP