Bright Lite, Let It Snow(pink) -Man, Tree Bling and Peace

Winter Advisory for the next two days for the Triangle!  Winter is definitely knocking on our doors here in NC.  It's a good thing I have nothing planned or anywhere I have to go for the next two days but finishing cards, baking and wrapping.  Anyway, I have finally found time this week to get some cards made and am posting several tonight.

Bright Lite Christmas - Get Sketchy #18

The first, is for the Get Sketchy #18 challenge. 

Stamps:  Christmas light stamp from stash.  Merry Christmas tree stamp, Inkadinkadoo.
Paper:  White and red cardstock, green polka dot DCP  and Christmas light DCP from stash. 
Ink:  Pine green for light border.  Versamark embossed in yellow and emerald embossing powders for tree/sentiment.
Embellishments:  Red and green ribbon; Christmas light buttons; cuttlebug emboss folder.


Let It Snow(pink)-Man! -- Paper Cutz Challenge #21

 I made this card  using the sketch for the MMSC 31 challenge at Priscillastyles and  for Paper Cutz challenge to use a snowflake or snowman.  I  got so busy I didn't get it posted for the Midnight Madness challenge, but here it is for Paper Cutz.  The color scheme fell together with the DP background paper.  I wanted to make something kind of girlie and soft.  I love the snowman face and I played around with him in many different colors and techniques before deciding to go with the pink embossing with glitter on top.  I chalked around him, or 'her' I should say being as 'she' is pink, for a softer effect.  I thought the double framing accented more of the dark blue and pink colors and livened the card up.  The snowflakes are yet again a find at Michael's in their Christmas decor section.  I purposely made one side of the ribbon longer to add to the softer look I was wanting.

Stamps:  Snowman face and 'Let It Snow' sentiment - Inkadinkadoo.

Paper:  DP, baby blue, pink, white, and royal blue cardstock from stash.

Ink:  Versamark with pink embossing powder and pink glitter; pink chalk.

Embellishments:  Colored gems, mini snowflake ornaments, baby blue sheer ribbon; snowflake embossing folder - Cuttlebug; corner punches - EK Success and Sizzix sizzlit. Tag - Sizzix original.

My next two cards were free design cards, meaning I designed the layouts and themes myself not to fit any particular sketch or theme challenge.

Tree Bling

I have had the sparkly blue and red paper and when the holidays rolled around and I got one of the Sizzix ornament dies, I knew it was a match.  I had a 'Cheer' sentiment in red on it also but the more I looked at it the more I thought it was too much so I went without it.  I like it much better this way.

PEACE

In my craft supplies I found a bunch of Christmas stencils and decided to try them on my cards.  I used chalk for the medium, chalked the pine cones and then sprayed them with craft matte spray.  I placed gold ribbons with gold brads on them.  I punched the corners off and adhered it to green textured paper and then gold paper.  I punched the 'Peace' sentiment out of wide, gold ribbon using the Sizzix Skittle Dee Doo alphabet.  Lastly, I used a gold rope ribbon down the middle.

I like the simplicity and masculine look of this card.  I intend to use the stencils for more cards so stop by in the near future to see them!

 

Season Blessings!

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Cupcake Bunny

A birthday card tonight for the PPA 20 challenge.  It stars 'Cupcake Flopsey' one of my gift stamps from My Favorite Things Stamps for winning the CPS challenge a few weeks ago.  This bunny and cupcake is just too cute as are many of their stamps.  Hop on over and a take a peek!

Now on to my card:

Stamps:  Bunny and Happy Cupcake Day sentiment - Cupcake Flopsey from My Favorite Things.
Paper:  Brown, Deep Olive sparkle, gold polka dot DP and gold cardstock from stash.
Ink:  Versamark, Staz On Jet Black; pale yellow embossing powder; brush markers in butter yellow and         golden brown.
Embellishments:  brown embroidery thread; olive brads; brown sheer ribbon.

Warm evening wishes to all!

'Present'-ly Surprised

 

For Mojo Monday #116. 

Well, yesterday, I did not get finished what I planned to do cardwise.  I did help my son finalize his book of poems to mail out this week to the Poetry Society of America.  And after a morning of baking and afternoon of a little shopping, I can now concentrate on cards until a dreaded Monday morning dental appointment.  What could be worse than going to the dentist on a Monday morning?  Ugh!

'Present'-ly Surprised evolved first with the polka dot ribbon and the puppy stamp.  I loved the puppy stamp when I saw it and thought it would be really cute for a child's card or even a child at heart.  I stamped him, colored him and then used him as a die cut so he could 'pop' out of the box.

Supplies:  Red, white and green solid cardstock; three DPs; three ribbons; dog stamp Versamarked and colored with marker; 'Merry Christmas' sentiment Versamarked and embossed in emerald. 

Well, that is it for now.  Unfortunately I am not very eloquent in my posts these days.  My creative flow is I guess is flowing more out of my fingers and camera than my words.  I must get busy before the week is over and I am scrambling around as usual to get everything done before Christmas.  Thank goodness shopping and some baking are done!

Have a good evening!

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Wreath Joy

Seasons Greetings!

 

Courtesy of N. Salkeld for ShutterSavvy

CPS 145

OK!  It's been a long and crazy week.  I've been trying all week long to get cards done and I've been doing everything else but that.  I spent some time earlier this week updating both this blog and my photoblog  for the season.  So, I finally sit down this evening to do a card for the CPS challenge before deadline and wouldn't you know it, when I go to photograph it, my camera battery dies!  Note to self:  Charge camera battery after taking 500 shots.

I am still posting even though it probably won't be considered for the challenge but because tis the season of sharing, I will share.  The first photo is one of my holiday photos and thought it appropriate to go with my card tonight.  It will show up later in the month on my photoblog.

Now, I am off to help my son in final editing of his book of poetry for submission to the Poetry Society of America for consideration for publication as a Chapbook Fellowship.  If he is one of the winners, he gets a nice cash price to use towards college next year.  So, more cards to come later.


Seasons Greetings!




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Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays!  The season is well upon us.  I cannot believe it is now December 2009.  And of all days, today it does feel like winter!  BRRRR!  So here is my first December post.  I had planned on having several posts by now but as I've come to realize, I have a real addiction.........to blogging!  hahahaha   I've spent the good  part of a day and a half upgrading my blog for the season.  Now, to get on with the meat of the business.......Christmas cards!

Fa La La La La!

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Thanksgiving Blessings

 

 

Hoping everyone had a wonderful and fulfilling Thanksgiving.  Have been away from cyberspace celebrating with family so did not get to post the last of my cards of thankful blessings.  So for the last hours of November here is a continuation of my last post. Layouts of my own these cards were given to special people in my family's life  who we could not be with this Thanksgiving.  I was running out of time to get them out so I used dies and embellishments from my stash.  The last card was created to be a more masculine/grunge type card so why the sentiment looks ragged and why I used a muslin type paper behind the acorn dies.

Blessings to all!

Holiday Palooza of Cards and Challenges

Challenges:  Paper Cutz Challenge #18, Caardvarks Challenge, PPA 17 (Pals Paper Arts), and Color Throwdown #69 (CTD)


A Pumpkin Thanksgiving 

 Paper Cutz Challenge #18  (Thanksgiving Theme) and Caardvarks challenge  (Color It!)

 

Happy Holidays Everyone!  Happy news --- I won my first card challenge over the weekend at CPS, CPS142!  Thank you so much to everyone at CPS for choosing my card, 'Thankful', posted on November 21, 2009.

Seeing as how it is a busy holiday week for everyone, I have been busy finishing up some cards to get posted online for a few challenges and with the post office! The first one, A Pumpkin Thanksgiving, is a completely stamped and colored card save for the stamped sentiment, ribbon and brad embellishments.

Season of Joy  -- PPA 17 and CTD #69

It took me a while to finally decide what to do with this sketch for PPA 17.  I had various ideas and finally wound up with this one.  I am pretty satisfied with the final product.  I used the color combination from this past week's challenge at Color Throwdown #69.  However, as I said, it took me a bit to finally decide how I wanted to do it and so I missed the deadline to submit for CTD.  I loved this color combo and will use it again sometime.  CTD always has wonderful color combos!

Cardstock: Chocolate, Deep red, Cream, Olive.

Stamps:  Daisy and 'season of joy' sentiment, embossed.

Punch: Square

Embellishments:  Brown organdy ribbon, cream silk ribbon, brown flowers, red poinsetta flowers, crystal gems.

Check back later for I may have more postings for today.  Hope everyone has a safe and happy, FULL-filling Thanksgiving!

Thankful

CPS142

CPS142

A time to be thankful!  Thankful for time to make cards to send to family and friends.  Thankful for the family and friends.  A very simple sketch to bring out the warmth and gratitude of the season.  I was 3/4 done with this card when I realized I didn't use any stamps!  Both patterned papers are from K and Company on textured orange and plain brown cardstock.  I had all of these little leaf embellishments and one thing led to another and they wound up as the feathers on the turkey.  I found the cute metal alphabet stickers at Ollie's, a discount store here similar to Big Lots (only a lot more disheveled).  Prices are great.  I got a pack of those alphabet letters for $1.29.  The pumpkins are a Sizzix die and I wrapped embroidery thread around them and the corners of the frame.  The leaf buttons are another cute find at Jo Ann's, tied with the same thread and atop green grosgrain ribbon.

Rockin Space

  

Tonight a fun card.  A birthday card for a friend's son who loves space.  My stash was limited on things 'spacey' except for stickers and a die print of the moon.  The background I stamped with a star trio stamp and embossed with silver powder.  I did the same to the edges of the card and moon die.  The 'You Rock' sentiment was also embossed in black.  The black ribbon is actually from a set of graduation ribbons from The Paper Company.

Happy Hump Day!

Let It Snow

Let It Snow

A round card for the Caardvarks Challenge.  I've never made a round card before but this was really fun.  I will definitely do it again.  At first, I thought of doing a tiered snowman card that would fold up to a snowman face on the front of the card.  I intend to still try that idea.  My mind then naturally switched from a snowman to a snow globe.  My intention was to actually apply a transparent cover and loose 'snow' to make it more like a real globe, but once the card part was finished, I felt adding the rest would detract from the picture.  I am thinking I will still make a real globe card sometime in the near future, too.  However, I like the way this card turned out as is.  Oh, and I made it to open from the top to keep with the globe effect with a flat bottom.

Supplies:

Paper:  white cardstock, blue star patterned paper.
Stamps: tree stamp inked, embossed and cut out; Let It Snow sentiment stamp embossed.
Die:  Sizzlet snowman
Punch:  Snowflake
Ink:  Versamark, white embossing powder, pearl lustre emerald powder.
Embellishments:  Clear gems, white glitter, crystal snow.

Thankful For You

Color Throwdown #68

Thankful For You 

The holidays are fast approaching and I have sooooo much to do!  Making this card has put me more in the spirit of things and ready to go.  Cards, cooking, painting, cards, cleaning, raking, cards, shopping, eating, cards!  Is there a pattern progressing? After Ida blew through last week leaving us soggy and a blanket of leaves to clean up, playing with these colors and this card makes fall much more enjoyable.  I loved the colors this week at Color Throwdown and just had to play.  I mixed it up a bit and instead of colorful leaves, I made colorful fall flowers with a dash of leaves in the patterned paper behind the smaller flowers.  I chose brown for the dark neutral because I loved the embossed pattern of it.

HO HO HO

HO HO HO --  CPS 141 Sketch

 A very simple and cute sketch from CPS this week.  My first Christmas card for the season.  I loved the Santa stamp and the little candy stamp.  I used red and green cardstock and dotted patterned paper that I embossed and I used a rope border punch on the green cardstock.  Embellishments included:  green brads, red button, holly die and green ribbon and red pom pom ribbon.  Ink was Versamark with Evergreen and Rich Red embossing powder.  To bring out Santa's white beard and hat fur, I used Stampendous! Crystal Snow.

HO HO HO!

Rockin Dogs

Rockin Dogs

Finally I have finished this card!  I thought this would be so easy with this week's Get Sketchy Challenge #13, but it proved much more challenging than I bargained.  I did not do the bonus challenge of dry embossing, mostly because I do not currently have a light box.

I have had the dog stamps for a while and like my last post, I wanted to do a more masculine type card for my dad.  I decided on a music theme along with the dogs.  While creating the card, I happened upon a stamp set that just happened to have a drumset stamp just the size I needed.  Karma!  Maybe.  Being new to stamping, it took me fiddling with everything several ways to finally come up with the finished product.  I am very happy with it, thank goodness!

Color Throwdown #67/Mojo 111

Thinking of You

Ok, another hectic weekend.....indoor soccer, professional soccer on TV, beautiful weather to boot!  There were too many things to do and not enough time.  So here I am once again, scurrying to get my cards done for challenges I've chosen to do to push me to get the cards done in the first place!  LOL!  What a vicious circle!  This card was a double challenge, Mojo111 sketch challenge and Color Throwdown #67, only I may have missed the first one.  I had a little trouble getting all the colors together on this.  Definitely a color challenge!  I wanted to make a card for my uncle who is battling cancer and I thought the color challenge from CTD would be perfect for a masculine card.  Didn't have any patterned paper in any of the right colors, so I embossed a few and stamped another.  The stamp on the orange is actually a Celtic stamp but I felt it had a nice nautical feel to it.  Originally I had tried a shell with the same stamp background but I felt it was too busy and took away from the sentiment I wanted to add to the shell.  I had to compromise on the embellishments a bit.  The shell die I had to cut myself from another die cut in my stash and then I  embellished it with dry ink and then the sentiment.  After doing it, I feel like I shouldl have added some glitter of more 'umph' to it, but I do like the card.  And, now after publishing and looking at the card again, the shell reminds me totally of a crescent roll!  Don't know what is up with my card elements reminding me of food.  So bizarre.

Red Hatters Matter

 

Some simple quick cards tonight.  My mom is a Queen Redhatter and so I made these for her to give her members on birthays.  Even though it is the Red Hat club, for a birthday, purple hats are worn.   I haven't been able to find a hat stamp to my liking so I created a template for die cut hats.

'Red Hatters Matter' II

PPA 14 In The Pink

Grateful

A thank you card of sorts in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month and the PPA 14 In the Pink Challenge to use pink in a card.  The sketch is from the Midnight Madness Sketch, MMSC25.  Pink is one of my favorite colors so I could NOT do a pink challenge!  And, it didn't take me long to get it all to come together.  After I got it all together and in my lightbox, those brown embossed circles remind me a lot of Oreos.  LOL! 

Boo To You!

My last two Halloween cards for the season.  I ran out of time to make all the Halloween cards I wanted to make so I have had to file my ideas away for next year.  These are simple creations of my own, no challenge inspired.

Spooky, Frightful, Scary