Sparkle for CASology 22 and Cardabilities 64

You would think that a challenge about sparkles would be pretty easy at this time of year, but apparently my mojo has gone on walkabout because I had a hard time with the CASology Sparkle challenge.  I spent some time at my crafting table on Tuesday night and despite drawing, cutting, stamping and dreaming I had nothing.  So I took a little break, which means I went to bed then went to work the next day, and sat back at my table Wednesday.  Armed with the Cardabilities sketch I finally got some inspiration and made a sparkly snowflake creation.

And how cool is it that I actually have a stamp that says "sparkle?"  It's from Warm Words and I'm pretty sure this is the first time it's seen any ink.  The snowflakes are cut in Silver Glimmer and Champagne Glimmer paper and I stamped the sentiment directly on some silver striped washi tape.  Super simple and super sparkly!

I've recently been reminded that Christmas is slightly less than three weeks away (yikes) and I'm beginning to feel like I'm not quite prepared.  I've almost got my shopping done, but I think I'm running behind in my wrapping and tag-making duties.  Hopefully this weekend, I can get caught up.  I'd really like to enjoy the magic of the season rather than worrying about shopping and all the things that Christmas is NOT!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope that you take some time to enjoy this holiday season!

Freshly Made Sketches 64

Hello!  It's Wednesday so that means there's another great sketch at Freshly Made Sketches!  This week Cindy has created a fabulous sketch that I know you're going to love!

Isn't this a great sketch for showing off layers of pretty DSP?  I thought so!  I used some pretty paper called Wintergreen (that has been long-retired) and added some zig-zag stitching to the Always Artichoke layer.  I layered the snowflake layer on some Sage Shadow (which I saved just because I've got oodles of this DSP still hanging around) then jazzed it up by layering that on some Cherry Cobbler.  I struggled for a bit on what to do for the round element of the sketch and changed my mind a bunch of times before I decided to use this round stamp from Sweet Season.  I added a red glimmer brad in the center to make it a little more festive.

I hope you're inspired by the amazing creations of the Freshly Made Sketches design team and can join us in the gallery this week.  Just click here to check them out!

colourQ 166

Are you feeling blue?  I sure hope so, because this week at colourQ Arielle has cooked up some fantastic shades of blue for you!

My first thought when I saw these colors was snowflakes.  This lead to thoughts of snowmen.  Then I saw the latest sketch at retro sketches and was inspired to go in a completely different direction.  

I stayed true to the sketch and used some simple graphic shapes in the various shades of blue for my backgkround.  I love how they let the sentiment be the real showstopper.  I left them un-embellished and sneaked in a small circle from the super-fabulous Silver Glimmer Paper for a little pizzazz.  

The colourQ design team has created quite an amazing batch of bluesy cards to show you so be sure to head on over to check them out!

                                           

Christmas Tags!

I think it's a sign of the season that the challenges this week at CAS-ual Fridays and Stampin' Royalty were to create a gift tag or to use a tag on a project.  I've been trying to stay on top of my Christmas projects this year and I was already in tag-making mode so it was kind of fun to be able to share one of my tags on a challenge site.  To keep things interesting I used the colors from Color Throwdown and the sketch at iSpy.

The Tempting Turquoise with the obvious Christmas colors of Lucky Limeade and Cherry Cobbler threw me for a bit of a loop and I considered a couple of different images on my tag before I thought it might be fun to combine the red and green with some blue snowflakes.  There are actually two snowflakes here layered together and the top one has been covered in Dazzling Diamonds to add some glitz.  At the last minute I added an Ice Circles Rhinestone Brad, which looks way better in person that it appears here.

The holiday season is truly upon us because later today I'm off to Borderland State Park to help out at a holiday concert.  Time to Jingle Those Bells!

Jolly Old St. Nick for CTS7 & PDCC159

Now that Thanksgiving is over it's full steam ahead to Christmas.  I seem to have caught the Christmas bug and have begun making tags for my gifts and I'm making cards fast and furiously to make sure I have enough for mailing.   Today I've made a card with the colors at The Play Date Cafe and I used the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch.

As I was putting this post together and I uploaded the picture of my card, I realized that I completely forgot the little scallops on the side of the main layer.  Yikes!   Thankfully, it was a pretty easy fix to adhere some half circles that I punched from Red Glimmer Paper and take a new photo to upload.  

Of course, St. Nicholas is front and center on a card that features colors like these.  And on a side note, I think I had a tricycle that looked an awful lot like the one in the graphic.  Only mine was purple.  Dark, sparkly purple.  I wonder what happened to it...

Thanks for stopping by!

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!