And he is all ready for your presents. This is another of my tags for my class last week. It is a pretty direct CASE of “Melbarkwith” over at Splitcoaststampers. Melissa’s blog is great and here is the card I used. I love that these are perfect for my kids’ presents. Even better, some of my class members are going to use them for teacher gifts. I added the Dazzling Diamonds with my Two-Way Glue Pen to give ol’ Santa a little sparkle. His face has a little Blush Blossom to make him rosier. I am just in love with stamp set and all of the possibilities. While the previous tags I posted were my favorites, my boys liked this one the best. I guess Santa just has that effect on children!
Thanks for stopping in today. I hope to see you again soon!
I’m back to work on my Christmas cards this week and there were some challenges to get me on track. The first is the SUO Challenge 7 for Clean & Simple Christmas Cards. Over at Splitcoaststampers there are two challenges today, the first is the CAS challenge to use bows and the other is the Technique Lovers Challenge for emboss resist. Finally, Shelli Gardner over at So Shelli asked for techniques as her challenge this month. I have to say that after all the classes I have been having that my creative level is a little low. I’m sure that will be fixed soon enough but I was happy to have a little help from the challenges.
I saw the technique called “emboss rewash” while I was at the Stampin’ Up Regionals in October. Shannon West did a demo of the technique and I loved it! It is a version of emboss resist using watercolor paper and an Aquapainter. You emboss your image and then, instead of sponging, you “wash” the color around the image with your wet Aquapainter and ink. I tried it on today’s card with the snowflake from Snow Swirled. I stamped it in Versamark ink, embossed it with Clear Stampin’ Emboss Powder then washed over my Night of Navy ink. It looks incredibly cool! To add a touch of holiday feel, I then washed over some Frost White Shimmer Paint too. Finally I stamped the words from All Holidays (one of my favorite sentiments for Christmas cards!) in Night of Navy ink. I kept the layout simple and just added my Vanilla Satin bow and a Basic Pearl. I love how the shimmer paint and ribbon make this feel special but that it is really easy to duplicate for a lot of cards! The hardest part of this was getting a good picture since the shimmer kept reflecting back.
I know this picture is a bit dark but I had to take it in shadows so you could see the image. Here are a couple more pictures where you can really see the pearlized look of the Frost White Shimmer Paint.
You can see all the reflection bouncing back in these two pictures. I must say that this card is so much prettier in person!!
Now that I have this one done, I’m off to complete some more. My Advent countdown calendar says 19 days and I have lots more work to do. I will be back tomorrow with the rest of my tags from my class last week. Hope your day is full of Peace, Love and Joy!
Stamps: Snow Swirled, All Holidays; Paper: Watercolor, Very Vanilla, Night of Navy; Ink: Versamark, Night of Navy; Accessories: Stampin’ Emboss Powder, Heat Tool, Frost White Shimmer Paint, Aquapainter, Vanilla Satin Ribbon, Dimensionals, Basic Pearls
I have decided that I must use the word ‘hoopla’ more since it seems to perfectly describe the feeling I have during holiday preparation. More tags today! This may be my favorite for this year. I used the tree from the Holiday Hoopla set and colored with my Old Olive and Cherry Cobbler markers. The versatility of this set is just wonderful!! And guess what…the Free for All Challenge over at Splitcoaststampers uses songs from the Nutcracker Suite as inspiration. I chose Act 1: Number 1 The Christmas Tree. I love that music and will now be humming it all day!
The tag base is the Two Tags die for my Big Shot and the paper used is the Jolly Holiday DSP from the main catalog. I like that this is so cute but easy enough to make in quantity.
Now that my tags are pretty much done, you can expect to see some more cards in the upcoming days. It is crunch time and I still have some work to do to get my card list completed.
Have a great weekend and take time to enjoy the hoopla!!
Stamps: Holiday Hoopla, Short & Sweet; Paper: Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive, Very Vanilla, Jolly Holiday DSP; Ink: Old Olive, Cherry Cobbler; Accessories: Big Shot, Two Tags Die, Dimensionals, 1/8″ Vanilla Tafetta Ribbon
It may not show it from my lack of posting, but I have been busy, busy, busy! I have a Christmas Tags Class tomorrow (actually two) and have been putting the finishing touches on the designs and cutting paper. I’m so excited about the tags and will show the rest later this week but here is a sneak peek for those who are coming tomorrow. Conveniently enough, Our Creative Corner has a tags challenge this week and Diva Coffee Break Designs has a layout challenge, DCBD#205. I saw these trees from the fabulously talented Heidi Baks and I knew I had to try them. I used two versions with my Two Tags die. I can’t wait to make these with my stampers tomorrow!!
Aren’t these trees cool??!! And not nearly so hard as they look! I used my Deck the Halls paper along with Always Artichoke and Crumb Cake. I particularly like the darker Cherry Cobbler background paper because it has the words for ‘O Christmas Tree’.
Well, off to finish the last cutting. Hope you are enjoying your first day of December!!
Black Friday = Hoopla!!! There certainly is a lot of hoopla with shopping today and I figured there should be a card to go with it! Naturally, I pulled out Holiday Hoopla. I just got this Santa last week and will be using him for a tags class I am holding next Thursday. He is so much fun and takes hardly any actual work to make him shine on a card. I paper-pieced his hat with Jolly Holiday paper and then used additional patterns from the same DSP to make the card. The layout is SC308 from Splitcoaststampers. It has a lot of layers but comes together really quickly (it had to!). Just take a look at this happy fellow:
I had a hard time getting a picture because of a cloudy day but finally got this one. I colored Santa’s face with Blush Blossom to make him a little rosier and added some Dazzling Diamonds on his hat with my Two-Way Glue Pen. The sentiment is from Short & Sweet (this one seems to stay in heavy rotation this time of year!). I added the Old Olive buttons and called it done. This was actually made on Wednesday while I was waiting for my pumpkin pies to bake.
I hope your Black Friday is only filled with Jolly Hoopla!! Thanks for stopping in…see you again soon!
Stamps: Holiday Hoopla, Short & Sweet; Paper: Jolly Holiday, Old Olive, Very Vanilla; Ink: Basic Black, Blush Blossom; Accessories: Bright Designer Buttons, Dimensionals, Thread dyed with a Cherry Cobbler Marker
No, not a recipe for Thanksgiving but what a great idea!! Instead this uses the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge 94 and the Splitcoast Color Challenge 298, Chocolate Chip, Cherry Cobbler and Crumb Cake. Not much time today so I’m just going to post the card.
I colored the Day of Gratitude medallion with my Espresso, Cherry and Crumb Cake markers. The Square Lattice Embossing Folder came out again for the Crumb Cake panels and I added some Espresso Satin and a button with Linen Thread as final details. I love the different feel this medallion takes when you change up the colors!
I’m not sure I’ll post again before Thanksgiving so I wish you a safe and happy holiday! See you soon!
This was supposed to get posted yesterday but it has been THAT week. Yes, the phone line/DSL line went weird, the garage door opener quit opening and we came home from church yesterday to find that the dishwasher was leaking in the kitchen. The phone line is still crazy, the garage door is fixed and my brilliant husband found the cracked fitting and stopped the leak. But the insanity didn’t allow time for posting.
I had some little boy birthday cards to make this weekend and needed them fast. So I got the Stampin’ 411 sketch for this week and got to work. Actually, I had looked at the sketch in the morning and then remembered that I hadn’t made the cards for the party and then panicked and started stamping. Fortunately, the layout was one that stuck in my head (love that kind of layout!!) and I think I mostly kept it right.
I started with my Play Date DSP (it is currently on sale as part of the Online Spectacular!) and added in a little of my Brights Pattern Paper. Minimal stamping and maximum use of the DSP…a sure way to keep it quick! My favorite part of the Play Date paper is that you can pop up the special birthday number! The cupcake comes from Party Hearty and the little sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes. These are pretty basic cards so I think the rest is self-explanatory. Here they are:
With any luck my DSP connection will stay working and I will be able to post a little more tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by today and I’ll see you again soon!
It must be my lucky week because this was chosen as the SSSC 93 Winner! Thanks, Karen!
It is week two as a design team member for the ColorLab Color Challenge and this week was definitely more of a challenge for me. Julie chose the beautiful colors from the Candy Cane DSP – Real Red, Blushing Bride, Baja Breeze and Garden Green.
They are super together but…oh, no…I don’t own that paper!! So I started looking at what I DO have in those colors and you know what? I found more choices than I thought. I had Real Red and Baja Breeze in my Play Date DSP, and more Real Red in my Patterns Designer Paper Stack (Brights) plus additional Baja Breeze in some retired papers. I thought about the colors as I was drifting off to sleep (boy, I hope that I am not the only one who does that!) and it came to me that I should use my new Every Moment set. I have had this set on my wish list since I first saw this catalog and finally was able to get it!! I chose the word paper from the Patterns Pack and a bit of Baja Breeze DSP from Play Date. I added Basic Gray as a neutral to ground the colors a bit. I think this Gray is really pretty and don’t use it enough. I did a little light watercoloring on Whisper White paper with my Blender Pen. Remember, when you are coloring on this very smooth paper, think of coloring as dabbing on color instead of blending color. This helps the paper stay nice and smooth. I think these colors make for a very happy card!
I stamped the inside of the card with the butterfly again and a Happy Birthday sentiment. This sketch comes from the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge 93. What a fun layout!
I hope you enjoy these colors. I’d love to see what you can do with the ColorLab challenge this week so pop on over and post your card! See you again soon!
Stamps: Every Moment, Teeny Tiny Wishes; Paper: Basic Gray, Blushing Bride, Patterns DSP Stack Brights, Play Date DSP, Whisper White; Ink: Real Red, Blushing Bride, Garden Green, Baja Breeze, Basic Gray; Accessories: Neutrals Designer Buttons, 1/8″ White Taffeta Ribbon, Dimensionals, Blender Pen
Is there anything better than new stamps??!! Hmmm, well there is chocolate but new stamps are right up there in my favorite things list! I received some new things this week and “needed” to put them to good use as quickly as possible. So I did the challenge search and found some great ones! First I found this sketch challenge from Stamping 411:
This is one of those fantastic, use it again and again, layouts! I also saw the color challenge for this week at Color Throwdown for Soft Suede, Cherry Cobbler and Kraft. Oh my, how I love that combination. Because I got some new sets, I stayed away from the temptation of using Dasher (but I really wanted to!!). Instead I went to the inspiration challenge over at Splitcoast today IC258. I found a cool rug from Company C that reminded me of Fast & Fabulous (my new hostess set, conveniently). I got to work and here is my card:
I did some light watercoloring on the flowers with Crumb Cake (formerly known as Kraft) and Cherry Cobbler. It was stamped in Soft Suede. While the layout didn’t call for it, after changing the direction the card needed something. Buttons were the solution!! The dots along the vine on the rug just seemed to call for them.
Hope you are enjoying your weekend. Hope to see you again soon!
Stamps: Fast & Fabulous, Because I Care (words); Paper: Crumb Cake, Soft Suede, Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White; Ink: Soft Suede, Crumb Cake, Cherry Cobbler; Accessories: Cherry Cobbler Seam Binding, Buttons (Neutrals and Regals), Big Shot, Square Lattice Embossing Folder, Blender Pen
Since this blog was really created to show my adventures in stamping, I am thrilled to tell you about a new one!! I have been asked to become a member of the Design Team for the ColorLab Color Challenge at My Create, Ink. I’m flattered that these talented stampers wanted me to join their ranks!! Thankfully, the first color selection is a natural for my “seasonal stamper’s disorder”. I have have commented on this before but if you are new to my blog, this is my strong need to stamp in seasonal colors (and the corresponding difficulty in stamping in “non-seasonal” colors). Here are the lovely choices for this week:
This paper from the Holiday Mini is just perfect for your November cards! In order to not stray too far on my first challenge, I did pull out my Day of Gratitude set. Instead of a thank you/Thanksgiving card though, I opted to make mine a birthday card. In the midst of all my holiday stamping, I am a bit behind on birthday cards and have a few important family birthdays coming up soon. I used the layout from this week’s Splitcoaststampers Sketch Challenge 306. The lovely medallion in the stamp set called out to be used for this one! Here is my take on the challenges:
It seems that I still can’t get enough of the Square Lattice Embossing Folder so I pulled it out again here. This is actually for one of my brothers-in-law and I wanted to keep it from being too feminine. I used the Linen Thread to cinch the bow and through the button. On the medallion, I used the sponge dauber technique again with More Mustard and Cajun Craze. After I cut it out, I sponged on a little Early Espresso to finish the edges.
I hope that you enjoy these colors as much as I did. When you post your cards (you know you have to make one!), make sure to tell them that the new Jen sent you! Have a great day!
Stamps: Day of Gratitude, Teeny Tiny Wishes; Paper: Naturals Ivory, Early Espresso, Cajun Craze, Old Olive, More Mustard; Ink: Cajun Craze, More Mustard, Early Espresso; Accessories: Big Shot, Square Lattice Embossing Folder, Scallop Trim Border, Espresso Satin Ribbon, Neutrals Designer Button, Linen Thread, Dimensionals
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