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

Get Sketchy #11 and Paper Cutz #14

Get Sketchy #11 Bonus Challenge Buttons

 Okay, first of all, I cannot believe I have posted at least one card every night this week!  That is an all time record for me.  That might tell you that I haven't done much else this week!  LOL!  Oh well, it has been a slow week.  My son who is on crutches doesn't need surgery, just physical therapy.  And so since he has still been on crutches, it's been school and home basically.  School is out tomorrow and my hubby is off work tomorrow through Sunday.  Yea!  A 3 day weekend for all of us!  Maybe we will get some things done around the house or maybe I will just get more cards done as I am still behind and clearly now on a roll!

Here are cards I have made for some Thursday challenges --- Get Sketchy and Paper Cutz: 

Witching You a Happy Halloween

Originally I was going to use a witch hat stamp for this card along with the broom, but found it was too much with incorporating buttons also.  So, the witch's hat will go on another card.  I had a lot of fun making this card.  The orange paper I made with Versamark and burnt orange cardstock.  I also used this paper behind the title circle that was versamarked and embossed in black as was the decorative stamped doodles on each side.  Both patterned papers I outlined with black chalk to give it more of a witchy look.  I used black rick rack between the papers and then decided to border everything, which I think helps give the card an extra pop.  The broom is a Jolee sticker enhanced.  It originally had gold for the bristles.  I took those off and found some straw from an old straw coaster, wrapped tape around it to stick and then wrapped straw wire to cover the tape.

Paper Cutz Challenge #14 - 3 Different Patterned Paper

Autumn Is In The Air

This was a quick card, under 45 minutes!  Fastest I've ever worked!  I cut out the pumpkins from patterned scrapbook paper for one of the three patterned papers.  I am hoping the embossed brown paper is counted as patterned paper as well.  The title is versamarked and embossed in a brick brown powder.  Brown ribbon is added for some flair.  Even though this was a very quick card, I am liking it!

Cinema Saturday Challenge #55

SPOOKY!

Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge #55 - Hocus Pocus Movie

Challenges are geared toward a movie and this week of course, it's a Halloween themed movie. I think Hocus Pocus is one of the better family Halloween movies.  It's funny and scary, but not too scary!  This is my first Halloween card this season and my first Cinema Saturday challenge. I found the colored spider embellishments at Jo Ann Fabrics and thought they were so cute!  I think they are perfect on the webs.  I am very happy with the finished product.

Stamps:  'Spooky' title; spider web, skeletons.

Ink:  Versamark; Moonlight White; amethyst and silver tinsel embossing powder.

Other:  Cardstock and patterned paper from stash.  Plastic colored spider embellishments and colored gem stick-ons. Orange staples.

Have a 'spooky' evening!

"Some men see things as they are and say 'why'? Others dream things that never were and say 'why not'?"

~ George Bernard Shaw

PPA13 Anything BUT A Card

TRINKET BOX
Here is my entry for the PPA 13 Anything BUT A Card challenge for this week ---- a small trinket and/or jewelry box. I just made it inside the deadline. WHEW! This little box created a few little problems for me. This was a box to begin with, I just recycled it and gave it a facelift. I am very pleased with the outcome other than the gluing problem it presented in gluing the box back on to the rest of it. Still trying to get the Monkey glue off my fingers! LOL! Anyway, I enjoyed this non-card challenge. It got me thinking about Christmas gifts and other projects other than cards I need to do.

Enjoy!

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. "

~ Albert Einstein

CPS Sketch 138 -Thank You

Thank You 1

I needed to make some thank you cards and wanted to try the CPS Sketch 138 last week. I ran out of time to enter the challenge, but thought I go ahead and post it here.



Thank You 2

A second soccer Thank You. Simple, elegant and to the point. The orange ink represents the color of the soccer team.

Get Sketchy #10 -- Pumpkin Birthday

I cannot believe it's been 10 days since my last post. But, then again, life happens --- end of a soccer season; a husband ending 12 years of coaching rec soccer; a son on crutches with an injured knee with therapy and tests looming in the near future, possibly surgery; unfinished kitchen cabinets in the living room, etc. Several card challenges I intended to do came and went. And in the mean time, my list of cards to make keeps growing. So today, I finally took some time out to recharge myself by making a card for the Get Sketchy Challenge #10.

I'd never made a gate-fold card before and after seeing some of the designer's examples, I decided to give it a try. Let me just say, it must have been the 10-11 days and plethora of things occupying my mind, my creative flow vanished for a bit. It took me forever, it seems, to finish this. Yet, I did have a lot of fun making it and will try a gate-fold again.

I have had the idea for a pumpkin cupcake birthday card for a while now and this challenge gave me the perfect opportunity to make it. I share my October birthday with one of my best friends from high school and her twin sister. One of them got this 'birthday mate' card and the other got a different card I have posted.



With the bonus on this challenge being handwritten sentiments and doodling, I took it a bit farther and hand drew the pumpkin cupcake elements, including the face and cupcake liner lines. The only thing not hand drawn was the candle, a Sizzix Sizzlit.

I hand wrote the Happy Birthday sentiment and squiggles inbetween as well as the stitching along the outside of the card just to keep with the stitched theme of the printed paper. I also hand wrote the sentiment inside: 'Birthday Mate, Let's Celebrate'. I'm afraid I am a little rusty at hand doodling, which is a bit embarrassing when my roots of creativity come from drawing and painting. I laced the ribbon behind the cupcake circle die cut and through the inside of the card. Inside, I placed the deep orange cardstock and then glued some deep green cardstock on top of the ribbon.



Supplies:

Cardstock: Chocolate brown, deep orange, deep green.
Printed Paper: Jacks & Lanterns by Stemma of Masterpiece Studios. Striped: Unkown.
Ink Pen: Marvy Memory Series Le Plume, Black.
Embellishments: Lace and orange ribbon glued together.

Birthday Wishes

Color Challenge PPA11







This is my first try at the PPA challenges. I love the color combinations of this challenge. One of the reasons I decided to enter this week. At first I was going to do something for Halloween, but just couldn't come up with anything I really liked. I had these flower dies in my stash and have been wanting to use them and they were the perfect color. The pearls are fake, an old necklace from years ago that broke that I kept to use for something crafty. You never know what you might be able to recycle later on.

Supplies I used:

Plum, olive and a pale pumpkin cardstock; Birthday Wishes stamp; Black ink with pearl lustre amethyst embossing powder from Stampendous!; Cuttelbug Happy Birthday emboss card; Sizzix Texturz 'diagnols'; silk ribbon; old 'fake' pearl necklace.

Baby Girl

Today I decided to switch it up a bit and add a scrapbook page to my blog. Actually, I've been too busy with life to work on my growing list of cards. I decided to look through my scrapbooks and pull out one of my favorite pages to post. However, while looking at them, I realized that my new hobby of cards makes my scrapbook pages seem oh so dull. So, what started as a small task to post a scrapbook page turned in to another long list of improvements to my finished pages. I didn't already have enough to do with a growing list of cards and new pages to create. I need an entire decade devoted just to my crafting!

This page was done a while back, way back, like in 2005. It is one of my favorites because it is of my favorite feline fur person, my late cat, Buttons. After she passed away in 2004, I began a scrapbook of her. One of those many unfinished projects. So much work, so little time. You'd think that life would be just a tad bit more understanding about a girl's priorities! LOL

Get Sketchy #8 -Pink Pumpkins

FAITH

Been away from the crafting a few days to capture the sites of fall for my photoblog. I have finally gotten back to the craft table and here is my entry for the Get Sketchy #8 Challenge (Brads) this week. I've been in a 'pink' mood lately since it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and wanted to use my Stampin Up! ribbon stamp again. I also wanted to incorporate the pink ribbon theme with fall so I went retro, so to speak, and made a pink pumpkin. I think trying to come up with the right color combo for the pink pumpkin was the hardest part of this card.

Lavender Elegance

For a special birthday I wanted to do something bright but elegant. So I embossed one half with a birthday embosser and the other half with patterned paper. The die cuts are made out of bright purple, lavender and red cardstock. I played around for awhile with the middle and the ribbons and then wound up using all three. I think the lace adds more elegance and texture. Topping off the elegance and staying in theme with the lace, I used a white silk flower embellishment for the flower center and tiny pearls on the ribbon on the pot. I think the straight alignment of elements gives this card a clean and simple look while also adding to its elegance.

Be Yourself

HAPPY WORLD CARD MAKING DAY!

A red hat card inspired by the Red Hat Society. I thought the title 'Be Yourself' would be very fitting since the Red Hat Society is all about older women celebrating individuality.

You Rock! - - Pink Hope

You Rock Star!

Another card for today. Couldn't resist using the Extreme Guitar stamp from Stampin Up! I wanted to make a card for my oldest son to celebrate him being accepted into the college of his choice this week.

Hope In Pink

A card to start off the month of Breast Cancer Awareness.


In honor of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month I have changed the look of my blog. You can also participate and register with other sites in support here: http://pinkforoctober.org/.