First cards of this year

Hello crafty friends. I have finally resurfaced after 2 months of silence on the blog. With my husband's recurring health issues and his surgery early December, followed by a slow recovery, I simply did not have the time or the energy to do any crafting. The weekend before last, I finally managed a little crafty time in my craftroom and even managed to create 2 cards for different challenges. I did not manage to post them on the blog before some of the linkys closed but I am just in time for a couple of other challenges I wanted to join.

First up, I have this Christmas card. I started by blending some silver pigment ink through my new stencil (part of the Tiny wreath bundle by Gina K), but when I realised it would take too long to dry, I sprinkled clear embossing ink on top and heat embossed it. I then blended several distress inks over my panel and added some water droplets before die cutting it with my new MFT die. The white heat-embossed sentiment is a favourite from an older stamp set by Studio Calico. I foam-mounted my panel onto some Fog cardstock (SSS) and finished off with a few sequins.

I'm playing at:

 Jingle Belles - Look what Santa brought me (i.e. new schtuff)

CCAYR January - Let it snow

Sparkles Forum - #112 New year, new stash

Sparkles Forum Christmas - #96 Add some sparkle

My birthday card came together really quickly after seeing a tv commercial. I stamped the banners and sentiment from my NBUS Birthday Stacks set (Concord & 9th) in Black Jack ink (Catherine Pooler) and used the single solid stamp on a few of the banner flags. Easy peasy. I did die cut my panel using a stitched rectangle die (SSS) and foam-mounted it to my card base.

I'm playing at:

Seize the Birthday - #157 Stamping only!

Aud Sentiments - #219 Anything goes with a sentiment

Warm Wishes

I haven't quite finished the number of Christmas cards for this year, so I'm trying to come up with some fun but quick makes, using elements from my UFO box.

I figured my previously stamped card base was the perfect background for a festive food/beverage type of design. For my topper, I heat embossed my NBUS stamp by Neat and Tangled in liquid platinum embossing powder and then used some acetate to do some ink smooshing (Coral Cabana and It's a boy, CP inks). I intended to do this in a controlled manner, but then one of our cats decided to give me a helping hand by jumping onto my craft table, so I just went with it.

I'm playing at:

Jingle Belles - Festive food/drink

Beccy's Month of Holiday Cards - W ... Warm Wishes

ABC Christmas - W for Wishes

CHNC - Anything Christmas goes

SSS Wednesday - Anything goes

SSS Work it Wednesday - Holiday crafting

Embossed wreaths

I'm popping in with a quick post so that I can link up my cards at Beccy's Place where there's a race going on.

I started by cutting and scoring several sheets of cardstock in green and red and stamping the SSS gingham background in tone on tone (Spruce and Rockin' Red, CP inks). I had embossed my (square panel) wreaths last year, but could not figure out how to use them on my cards. I decided to fussy cut the wreaths and blend a little ink over it, and then used a marker to add colour to the berries

I discovered that this sentiment by Penny Black fitted perfectly in the middle of my wreaths, so I used my MISTI to stamp them and heat embossed them in gold. To finish off, I adhered a strip of gold glitter washi across before popping up my wreaths using thin foam tape.

I'm also linking up my cards at:

Stamping Sensations - Getting ready for Christmas

Sparkle's Christmas - #95 Embossing (heat or dry - I used both)

CHNC - #413 Anything Christmas goes

It's the end of the month and that means 

it's also time for the November Rudolph Days