Freshly Made Sketches 63

This week Rita's sketch for Freshly Made Sketches seemed perfect to show off a snowflake wreath.  I like to make this at least once each season and what better time than now?

This wreath is actually pretty easy to make.  I take one of the snowflakes from Snow Flurries and stamp it randomly in a circle.  Easy peasy!  I hand drew some small circles with a Cherry Cobbler marker to look like berries and then added a small bow from Cherry Cobbler seam binding ribbon.  The banners behind the circle are from Jolly Holiday dsp.  At the last minute I added a sentiment from More Merry Messages that I stamped in gold ink.  It's not all that visible in the photo, but it's nice and shimmery in real life!

I think you'll agree that this classic sketch has got a lot of possibilities and I'm sure that the gallery this week will be full of amazing interpretations of it.  So head on over to Freshly Made Sketches for a little lot of inspiration from the design team, then get those stamps inky and join us!

colourQ 165

There is a lovely, fresh color palette this week from colourQ inspired by this apron.  I wish I had some fun, retro Christmas stamps to go along with the vintage theme of the apron, but I didn't.  So I broke out a stamp set that I've had for a while but had never used.  And as luck would have it, the sketch challenge this week at The Paper Players was absolutely perfect for what I had in mind!

I waited a long time before finally breaking down and buying Lovely As a Tree.  After seeing so many beautiful cards with this stamp set I figured I better get it while the gettin's good.  Then for some reason it languished in my stamp room, uninked.  However, I knew that when I saw the Glorious Green in this color combo that the big tree in that set would be perfect!  I stamped the tree once, then using whatever residual ink was on the rubber, stamped it again twice more.  I kind of like the effect.  It sort of looks like the trees in the background are somewhat obscured by falling snow.  I wish I had drawn in some white snow on the boughs of the tree in the foreground so I think I'm going to add that before I send this out.

I ripped a couple of pieces of Whisper White then added some glue and Dazzling Diamonds to the edge to simulate snow.  And I'll admit the only thing that had me flummoxed with this challenge was the Regal Rose.  I ended up  using it to add the words "on earth" under the "peace" die cut to complete the sentiment.

Be sure to check out the rest of the colourQ design team cards, then ink up those stamps and join us!

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Happy Holidays for DD#30 and rs39

I loved the blue and silver color challenge at Dynamic Duos (it's one of my favorite Christmas color combos) so I rolled up my sleeves this weekend to get busy with it.  But as sometimes these things go, my card looked way better in my head.  I had big plans for these colors along with the sketch from retro sketches, but I couldn't get them to translate to my card.  I'll admit that this is growing on me, I just wish it had more pizzazz!

The silver frame and sentiment are actually embossed but they probably don't look like it.  In fact, they don't look like it in real life either.  I think I discovered a strange phenomenon when I did this.  I stamped and embossed the outline of the shape first as I usually do and it looked perfect.  Then I rubbed my embossing buddy over it again (I always use the embossing buddy), stamped and embossed the sentiment.  But when I heated it, instead of melting into the familiar raised, shiny design it seemed to melt completely into the cardstock.  Even the frame that I embossed first seems to have melted a bit more too.  In real life it looks like I stamped it with silver ink.  I've never seen anything like it.  I'm not sure if two "layers" of the dust from the embossing buddy had something to do with this weird effect or not.  It actually doesn't look bad, it's just not what I expected.

Anyhoo, I've only got a couple of days left on my vacation {that sound you hear is me sobbing} so a bit later this morning I'm going on a field trip to the new Hobby Lobby store that opened nearby in Warwick, Rhode Island. Around here we only have Michaels and AC Moore (neither one of which I like) and I keep hearing great things about Hobby Lobby so I thought I'd check it out.

Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas Has Gone to the Dogs!

So the challenge this week at The Friday Mashup was to use a stamp that has nothing to do with the holidays and make a holiday card with it.  Heidi encouraged us to get a cup of coffee and think about the challenge before grabbing a stamp set, so that's exactly what I did.  It was good advice because after a bit I remembered I had a punny stamp set that was pretty much tailor-made for this challenge.  I liked the sketch at iSpy so I used that as my layout.

My sister and her family recently adopted a pooch, so I think I'm going to send this to them!  I used some Holiday Treasures DSP to create this fun houndstooth and striped background.  The row of "buttons" at the top were stamped with the aptly named Button, Button and sort of resemble candy to me more than buttons.  (Think sugar plums dancing in my head)!

I'm so glad that I remembered this stamp because it's always fun to make non-traditional cards!  Thanks for stopping by!

Gobble for CASology 20 and JAI145

Even though Thanksgiving is over I had one more card in me for the holiday.  I spent the day at my sister's house and wanted to send along a card to thank them for a lovely day.  The challenge at CASology this week is GOBBLE so I had been pondering it since Tuesday.  Finally when I saw the sketch at Just Add Ink the light bulb went off!

I never even thought of this little bird as a turkey until I saw the CASology guest designer Donna's card.  So I borrowed her turkey idea to make my card.  Not everyone would appreciate this, but I'm fairly certain that my sister and her youngest son will get a kick out of it!  I'll find out soon enough because I'll put it in the mail today!

Thanks for stopping by!

Oh Snap! CTD219 & MOJO268

Today is that weird post-Thanksgiving day known around here as "Black Friday."  It's a day when bargain-hunting holiday shoppers go out in the middle of the night and try to score details at all the big box stores.  I consider myself to be mainly an armchair shopper and early this morning when people were likely running around in the cold, I was all snuggly and warm in my bed!

So when I got up this morning I figured I better post this card that I made the other day for the color challenge at Color Throwdown and the sketch at MOJO.  It's been a while since I've participated in the MOJO challenge and I really liked those circles.

Even though I liked the circles, I thought it would be fun to substitute one of them for a picture frame.  I embossed one of the Lucky Limeade circles with the Chevron embossing folder then paper pierced a circle around the Bermuda Bay circle.  I found some Soft Sky DSP in my stash so I paper pieced the photo frame from it.  Snap!  That was easy!

If you were brave enough to do some early shopping today I hope you were successful!  Thanks for stopping by!

'Tis the Season with DD#29 & ATCAS#1

Happy Thanksgiving to all my U.S. visitors!  Today of all days should conjure up visions of turkey and the colors of autumn, but Thanksgiving is also the gateway to the start of the winter season, so today I've got a snowy, snowman card to share.

The color challenge at Dynamic Duos is Marina Mist and Basic Black with a snowman theme thrown in for good measure.  As luck would have it there's a new challenge in town called Addicted to CAS and their inaugural challenge code word is "snow!"  Kismet!

I've got to admit that I'm not much of a fan of snow.  I live in New England where we see our fair share of the fluffy white stuff, but the truth is that I would be a happy camper if I never saw a snowflake ever again!  That being said, I am fond of snowman images and this happy fellow from Snow Much Fun is particularly engaging!  I gave him a snow drift that I cut from Silver Glimmer Paper and even a small pile of snowballs in case he wants to start a snowball fight later.

I'll be off later this morning to my sister's house to enjoy a lovely dinner with family, but I first wanted to offer an apology to the ladies at Dynamic Duos because I couldn't resist coloring the snowman's carrot nose orange.  I tried coloring it with a neutral color but it looked like a weird sepia-toned, washed out version of a carrot better suited for my compost pile.  So, in a direct defiance of the rules I used an unsanctioned color. Consider me chastised and hanging my head in shame and I promise to be good in the future.

Thanks for stopping by!

Freshly Made Sketches 62

Wow, Wednesday.  Thanksgiving Eve, as it were, to my U.S. friends.  I hope you've got the turkey defrosted because tomorrow I'll bet there's a hungry crowd in your future lining up with forks in hand ready, willing, and able to put away tremendous amounts of food!  But that's tomorrow and today we've got a new sketch for you at Freshly Made Sketches.

This week I am the hostess and I put together a sketch that I thought would be fun to show off layers of patterned paper, ribbon, cardstock or whatever else your imagination can conjure up!

I've been leaning towards a more rustic Christmas theme this year with my cards so I've continued that here with a Crumb Cake card base paired with some burlap ribbon.  I really wanted to participate in the CAS silver and gold challenge at The Paper Players so I cut a couple of snowflakes from the Snow Flurry Bigz die out of the gorgeous Champagne Glimmer Paper.  For a little extra shimmer I twined some gold cord around the burlap.  The sentiment is from More Merry Messages and to add some color I added a red Glimmer Brad in the center of the snowflake and a small strip of Cherry Cobbler cardstock.

The super-fantastic and always amazing Freshly Made Sketches design team has put together some great cards for you to see so head on over there and check them out.  I hope you can join us this week!

colourQ 164

I thought I could squeeze in one more leafy, Thanksgiving card before the post-Thanksgiving Christmas craziness sets in and I need to really shift my focus to Christmas.  Arielle's latest colourQ challenge had a couple of colors that were perfect for autumn and a couple of colors that had me wondering how I was going to fit them into my leafy card.

The More Mustard and Cajun Craze were a no-brainer for me, but the Bermuda Bay and Concord Grape had me scratching my head.  Since I had already decided that I was going to do leaves, and there was no convincing me to do something else, I couldn't come up with a way to use those colors gracefully on my leaves so I added them by creating some layers with Lap of Luxury and Welcome Neighbor DSP.  The leaves are from French Foliage and I stamped the sentiment from Teeny Tiny Wishes on one of the flags from the Bitty Banners die.  My layout is from the latest reto sketches challenge.  

Only one more day before Thanksgiving in the U.S.  I'll be heading to my sister's where we will surely eat too much food.  Thanksgiving is actually one of my favorite holidays partly because the traditional foods we eat are some of my faves and partly because the holiday is a great excuse to get together with friends and family and not have to worry about things like shopping for gifts before-hand.  The perfect holiday!

Thanks for stopping by!

Thank You For ISSC42 and CASology 19

Since Thanksgiving in the US is only a few days away and this is truly the season of "thanks" I wanted to participate in the challenge at CASology.  I've just made the challenge at the last hurrah because I couldn't think of a design.  Then the mailman delivered my brand-spankin' new washi tape, I found a cool sketch at iSpy and suddenly I had an idea!

I love the geometric shapes of this washi and I'm glad that I finally caved and bought some.  The only problem I see now is that I'm going to need more of it!  Oh, such is the life of the paper crafter!

Thanks for stopping by!

CAS(E) This Sketch 6

I've been having a little stamping mental block the last few days.  I hate when that happens because I know there's something creative inside my head that wants to emerge on cardstock but I just can't seem to get it out of there!  Today I was meandering around the craft cave when I stumbled on an image that I stamped ages ago and never used.  The newest challenge at CAS(E) This Sketch seemed like a good way to use it.

As you can see I turned the sketch on its side to accommodate this poor hapless fellow.  Why is it that the lights give us so much trouble when it's time to decorate the tree?  The snowflake DSP that I used is from my oh-so precious Holiday Thyme.  I've been on a mission for the last couple of years to use up all the Christmas-themed DSP that I've got, but cutting into this set is the hardest of all!

I've got my eye on a couple of challenges that I'd really like to participate in over the next couple of days so hopefully my forays into the craft cave will be fruitful.  In the meantime, thanks so much for stopping by!

Freshly Made Sketches 61

I can't believe it's Wednesday already and time for another fabulous sketch from Freshly Made Sketches.  This week Jennifer Timko designed the sketch and I've been itching to make a card for it ever since I saw it ages ago.  Once I got down to business in my stamp room I knew exactly how I wanted this to look and exactly what stamp set I was going to use.  I love when that happens!

This gorgeous image is from Christmas Blessings.  I fussy cut it (including all those curlicue stems) and I'll admit I won't be doing that again soon!  But as hard as it was, I think the look is pretty fantastic and was worth all the trouble.  I was going to add a spot of ribbon at the bottom of the white layer but decided to add a simple line of paper piercing instead.  It keeps the focus on the image, I think.

So now all that's left is for you to hop on over to Freshly Made Sketches and check out what the design team has put together for you to see.  There are so many ideas to give you loads of inspiration.  Then ink up those stamps and join us!  We can't wait to see what you create!

colourQ 163

The colourQ colors this week are inspired by this adorable hat and made me think of a warm sweater on a cold night.  However, what emerged on my stamping desk is anything but.

I think the Tempting Turquoise threw me for a loop.  It probably should have inspired a cold winter scene in my head, but instead it inspired some flowers.  So I inked up the lovely Summer Silhouettes  and stamped some random leaves onto a background of text from By Definition.  Then I created the small circle and put a couple of wispy-willowy flowers in it.  This is probably the last time I'll ink up this set until the spring melt, but it was fun to take it out for this color challenge!

The colourQ design team has got quite an eclectic bunch of cards using these colors this week, so I hope you have a chance to check them out.  Then ink up those stamps and join us!

CAS(E) This Sketch 5

I've only been on vacation a couple of days and already I'm feeling relaxed!  Usually, the weekend finds me running around trying to do all the things I don't have time for during the week.  But so far I've slept in a bit and haven't felt that same sense of urgency that "I must get things done" before it's time to go back to work.  I could get used to this!

Today I've got a card to show you that I made for CAS(E) This Sketch.  After a short birthday card break, I decided to go back to a Christmas theme.  Tis the season!

In keeping with the CAS spirit, I kept this one really clean and simple!  I stamped the trees onto the Jolly Holiday DSP then layered them on dimensionals over some Cherry Cobbler Baker's Twine that I wrapped around a layer that was scored a couple of times.  Aside from the time it took to cut out the trees, this card went together very quickly!

I'm off shortly to go to the Veteran's Day Parade in my hometown.  My father, as a member of the local VFW, has participated in one way or another in the parade for at least 50 years and although he has officially retired  from his parade duties he will be there this year in a special car with some of his veteran buddies who are not able to walk the route.  It's a special day and I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Thanks for stopping by!