ABC Christmas Challlenge U V and Stencil Fun Challenge 11/2024

I found some already stenciled ornaments in the package and created a card with them.  This one fits the bill at ABC Christmas - U for unusual Christmas colors - and also at Stencil Fun Challenge.

Pinkfresh Studio Dotted Fancy Frames, hot foiled Ornaments and Basic Banner Sentiments make up most of the card.  Altenew Frayed Leaf to ink the border, Richard Garay Pine Needles embossing folder and TH Holiday Greens make up the rest.  

I need to count but I think I'm close to the number of Christmas cards I need.  How about you?

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Color Throwdown #773

Today's card is for Color Throwdown.  I haven't played there in a while and I thought their colors lent themselves to Christmas ornaments.  The only question was which ones to use.  I settled on these from STAMPlorations.

After heat embosssing in gold, I watercolored the ornaments with Distress Ink in Wilted Violet and Blue Print Sketch. Then things went wrong.  I painted the background with Mowed Lawn DI but wanted to add what I thought would look like pine branches so streaked in some Rustic Wilderness.  I should have left well enough alone but once I started there was no going back.  To get rid of some of the background, I trimmed it down and added frames in gold and purple.  It almost looks black in the photo but it is Royal Velvet from PTI.  

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Christmas Kickstart #70 and Stencil Fun 1.23

I'm still trying to make at least one Christmas card every week and today I have one for Christmas Kickstart.  

I used Cracked Pistachio Distress Ink through a stencil from Pretty Pink Posh.  For the decorative layer I added GinaK Glitter Glitz Gel.  The sentiment from Penny Black is layered three times with a cream metallic on top. 

I'm also sending this to Stencil Fun.  The optional twist is winter and while Christmas is in winter that may not be what they're thinking.  That's okay.  You don't have to use the option.

I'm so glad you dropped by.  I love it when you do.

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Stencil Fun October and Inkspirational #175

Did you hear about the new challenge in town?  It's the Stencil Fun Challenge.  Since stencils are all the rage now this should be a successful challenge.  Their optional theme is Halloween but I didn't go that way.  Stencils are also the prompt at Inkspirational so here's what I did for both of them.

The Pretty Pink Posh ornament stencil was inked with CP All That Jazz, for a soft, non-traditional Christmas color.  The decorative layer is Gina K Glitter Glitz Gel and the sentiment from WaffleFlower is foiled in silver.  Last year I made a bunch of cards with this stencil in different colors but without the Glitz.  That's new to my arsenal of crafting products.  What a wonderful shine it gives the ornaments.

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Time Out #202 - Guest Designer

Yes, that's right.  I won a challenge at Time Out with this card and they asked me to be a guest designer.  Who can refuse an honor like that.

This is the photo inspiration.

There are lots of things to inspire you.  The colors, words, decorative items, layers and texture.  What caught my eye first were the lights on the head of the bed.   I thought if I painted them right the ornaments from STAMPloratations would give the same effect.

I stamped and gold heat embossed three ornaments from the set on Bristol and colored them with Zigs.   A sentiment from the set is stamped in red and clear heat embossed which caused a spotty look from the glare.  To pay homage to the layers I bordered the panel with red and gold and put it all on Soft Stone cardstock. 

Please head over to Time Out to see what the Design Team has made for your inspiration and then make a card for the challenge.  The winner will receive a $25 gift voucher to STAMPlorations.

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Inspired By #197

Inspired By is changing things up and having a color challenge this week.  They have a photo but we are to use the colors in the photo to inspire us.  Here's the photo.

And my card.

Can you see what inspired me?  It was the deep red in the glasses of wine.  I hope it's Sangria because that's the color of CP ink I used on my Pretty Pink Posh ornament stencil. I placed the second stencil over them, added Duo Transfer Gel and when it dried I covered it with foil and ran it through my die cutting machine.  I blocked of two of the ornaments so I could stamp the sentiment from Neat and Tangled.

Thanks for dropping by.  How are you coming with your Christmas cards?  

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Online Card Class and Christmas Kickstart #56

I have taken a number of the Online Card Classes from Jennifer and Kristina but not recently.  I don't know what possessed me to sign up for their Holiday Workshop 2021 but the classes were great although I didn't do homework for all of them.  Then came bonus day 14 with Jennifer and I was so excited about using up scraps of ancient Christmas DSP that I went overboard.   If you didn't know, I am a quilter and I love putting 'bits & pieces' together, whether fabric or paper.  Hence the name of my blog.

I'm only sending one to their gallery and the same one to Christmas Kickstart but let me show you what I did.

These all involve making your own striped paper using scraps.  I started by cutting Stick-It to a size larger than the openings on my cards and applied the strips.  All the panels were cut with Waffle Flower A2 dies, one in color and one in white which was stamped with the sentiment.  For the ornaments I used a die from CASual Fridays and cut the topper in silver as well the chain from Poppy Stamps.  The stripes were taped behind the opening and the panels glued together on a top fold cardbase.

I did the same thing with a square die from MFT, adding a strip for the ribbon and a bow from Sugar Pea Designs.  If I do more of these I need a bigger, better bow.  The "piece" de resistance is the tree.

Here I glued the strips in a chevron and cut the panel with a die from Concord and 9th.  The tree was big enough to cover the entire card so no matteing done on this one, and I barely fit in the sentiment from Reverse Confetti.  

As you can see, once I got started I couldn't stop and I saved a bag of strips to make more when I have time.  

ETA:  Di from Snippets Playground saw my cards at Christmas Kickstart where she is the visiting elf and asked me to join the gallery there.  I'm more that happy to do so since I used so many snippets so make these cards. 

 

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Just Us Girls #610 - Trend Week

The Trend for this week at Just Us Girls hosted by Elizabeth is

This really is a BIG trend and although I don't make many slimline cards I love the look of them and they are great for certain images. Like this:

If this card looks familiar it's because I made a similar one earlier, embossed in gold with no coloring.  For this one I decided to use non-traditional colors although sometimes they can actually become tradtional too.  The ornaments are from STAMPlorations, stamped in black and clear heat embossed on Bristol so I could color with Zigs.  The sentiment is from Waffle Flower.

Need inspiration?  The Design Team and our guest Rachel Davis each have a slimline card waiting for you on the Just Us Girls blog.  Check them out and then enter a card in our gallery.  You could have a chance at being a guest designer.

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Just Us Girls #609 - Word Week

Nancy is the host for Word Week at Just Us Girls and this is what she would like to see on our cards.

This is such an easy word if you're making Christmas cards, which I did.

I recently got the ornament stencil from Pretty Pink Posh and made this colorful card using Disress Inks.   I masked off the center portion to leave room for my sentiment from Neat and Tangled, inked with light colors and added the design with a darker shade.  So easy that I ended up making four similar cards.  Here's the first one where I added Nuvo glitter paste instead of the dark color.

 

I opted for a die cut sentiment which is covered with WOS. 

Our guest designer for November is Rachel Davis.  She and the rest of the Design Team have plenty of merriment for you over on the blog.  I hope we see you there.

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CAS Christmas - Decorations

Here's my card for the CAS Christmas Challenge.

I thought these ornaments from SSS would make a great mini slimline card.  I heat embossed them in gold along with the sentiment from Waffle Flower.  Then the dilemma.  How do I make the strings?  I didn't bring a gold pen with me and I didn't have any long thing stamp so I tried an experiment.  I drew the line with my ink pen and adding the embossing powder.  It worked!  What a relief.

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Tag You're It! #100

Yes, it's true.  Tag You're It! is celebrating its 100th challenge.  This will be a special one as both teams will be making Christmas tags to coincide with the beloved Tracey McNeely's 25 Tags of Christmas.  Any tag you post on the TYI challenge blog can also be posted on Tracey's blog where there will be lots of giveaways.

For my tag I used a NBUS set from STAMPlorations.

I heat embossed them in gold on Neenah #110 and forgot that little bit of info when I began watercoloring with Distress Ink.  Fortunately it worked out by using little water and the colors came out vintage-y just like I wanted them.

I hope you'll join us for both the Tag You're It! Challenge and at Tracey's 25 Days of Christmas Tags.  There will be lots of wonderfully creative tags to inspire you.

Inkspirational #197

This may not be what the girls at Inkspirational had in mind when they posted the inspiration photo but this is what occurred to me in my flurry of making Christmas cards.

I incorporated the colors into Christmas ornaments from STAMPlorations with Distress Inks then added a blue background in a watery/stormy sort of way.  If I had to do it over again I would have mixed the colors a little differently and I may try another one just to see.

Thanks for dropping by.  I'm so glad you did.

Happy Little Stampers Christmas - May

The option for this month's Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge is circles.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do until I was looking for something else among my Christmas stamps and ran across one from SSS that I totally forgot about.  It was perfect for the optional twist.

I heat embossed two of the ornaments and the sentiment in gold and painted them with Distress Inks.  I added Pico Embellisher to the circles on the left ornament to give them more prominence.  Using a ruler and an embossing pen, I drew lines and heat embossed them to make hangers.

Please check out what the Design Team has done and then make another Christmas card for your stash.  We'd love to see what you create, especially if you use the option.

Time Out #123

I'm trying to get back into the challenge groove and today I have a card I made for Time Out.  They want a card in white, black and one color.

My extra color is the gold I embossed the SSS ornaments and the C9 sentiment with. 

This is a NBUS stamp set and I have several others that I got, taking advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  I'm considering them Christmas presents to myself.  😉

Thanks for dropping by.

Merry Monday #267

Colleen has a color challenge at Merry Monday this week  - blue, green with silver/white/vellum.  There are so many blues and greens that you can get a variety of looks with these colors.  I went with whimsical using chartreuse and aqua.

The trees are from W&W and the silver embossed sentiment from PTI.  I wanted a colored border and didn't have the right color of glitter paper so I took some Aqua Mist and embossed the edges with Sparkling Snow Glitter.

I mentioned the other day that I was making Christmas ornaments for my grandchildren, something I do every year.  A few of you wanted to see what I was doing so I thought I'd share.

Here's a close-up.

I cut up crayons into small shavings and melted them in glass ornaments using my heat gun.  It took a little maneuvering to move the wax around and keep from burning myself.  I used two colors and they wanted to melt together so I had to keep adding and heating and moving.

Thanks for dropping by today.  TGIF!