Inkspirational #149

Inkspirational has a photo image to inspire us for this challenge.

One "out of the box" card under my belt and now I'm back to my old literal interpretations. 

I stamped the bottles from Altenew in Delicata gold and then watercolored them with the same gold and Seedless Preserves Distress Ink.  Some gold spatters and die cut sentiment from MFT and the card is done.  I decided this would make a nice anniversary card.

Thanks for dropping by.  I'm up to my ears in gift card holders for my grandchildren.  I'll post them when I'm done.

Addicted to CAS #126

Kylie is the host for Addicted to CAS and she chose this as our Code Word.

Everyone loves a little sparkle and I have plenty on my card.

Unfortunately you can't see it all.  Not only does the star sparkle but the tree from C9 is from sparkle paper too.  And then there's the WOS on the word 'sparkle'. 

How will you make your card sparkle?  Whatever you do, you have the chance to win a $10 gift voucher from Happy Little Stampers.

Merry Monday #268

I thought I was in trouble.  Merry Monday wants a Santa hat on our cards this week.  My supply of Santas and hats is limited so for once I thought out of the box.  I mean way out.

I used a stitched slope die from SSS to cut red and white paper to make a hat and fur and stitched circles for the pom pom.  I knew I wanted to use Ho Ho Ho as my sentiment but I didn't have a stamp so I used a 'holiday' die from PTI and did a little surgery that left me with just the 'ho'.  That's it.  A completely die cut card. 

The weekend is upon us so I hope to get some a little more crafting done.  Maybe some sympathy cards since I depleted my supply with cards for my daughter-in-law whose father passed away and her mother.  I also sent one to a dear classmate who lost her grandson in a car accident.  It's been a sad week.

Thanks for dropping by.  I hope your weekend goes well.

Less Is More #357, CAS Watercolor December, and HLS Watercolor

Although my Christmas cards are done I keep making them for challenges like Less Is More who want a red and green card.  I mean that says Christmas to me.

Since I watercolored this PB image with Distress Oxides I'm also sending my card to the CAS Watercolor Challenge where the theme is Anything Goes and Happy Little Stampers Watercolor where the theme is Christmas.

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

CAS(E) This Sketch #249

CAS(E) This Sketch is going retro this week.  This sketch

was originally #104 back in January of 2015.  At that time I made this card.

It's pretty much exactly like the sketch.  No stamping - just a border punch, die cut and patterned paper.

Today I have this one.

It's definitely more masculine with only stamping using CP/SOA for the design and HA for the sentiment.  The paper looks cream compared to the other one but they are both white.  Must be my photography. ;)

Catastrophe this morning.  My little Christmas tree fell over scattering ornaments all over the floor.  Unfortunately the one I can't replace is the one that broke - a personalized glass hand bell that was given to my by the bell choir director a number of Christmases ago.  My husband has now tied the tree to the wall.  I would much rather get a bigger, sturdier tree.

Thanks for dropping by.  Another week is half over.  I hope all is going well for you.

Addicted to Stamps and More #271

It's time again for one of your favorite challenges at Addicted to Stamps and More.  Anything Goes.  I have a card I made a while ago but haven't posted.

The greens and berries are from CPD and the sentiment from CF.

Even though it's a busy time of year, I know we'll have a lot of entries in the gallery.  Will you be one of them?

Fusion -Red Christmas

I love the photo inspiration at Fusion.  Plaid is my favorite Christmas color. ;)

I made my own with my C9 plaid background.  It took a while to get a good impression and when I was happy with it guess what happened.

Yup.  I was inking up the line stamp and dropped the cube.  What to do?  What to do?  I kept on going and then like a makeup artist I covered the offending blemish.

I like it better this way than my original plan.  The greens and berries are Altenew and the sentiment HLS.

Thanks for dropping by today.  I love it when you do.

Time Out #97 - Inspired by Words

Here are the words that we are to be inspired by at Time Out.

I stamped a little girl from Penny Black when I was at Michele's and when I saw this darling picture of my great granddaughter Hannah

the two came together like this:

I went a little lighter with the DI/Zig watercoloring but she was my inspiration for the color choices. I wanted to use a sentiment stamp that I had but the font was too large and it was meant to look like a dirty typewriter so I generated the same sentiment on the computer.  I am grateful for this lovely child every day and what better way to celebrate all that is good than with a bluebird of happiness.

Thanks for dropping by today.  I hope your week is off to a great start.

CASology #277 and AAA #104

I can't believe it's December already.  Where did November go?  Where did the year go?  Christmas is fast approaching and although I have enough cards for my mailing list I can't stop being inspired to make more.  Today's card is for CASology whose code word is 'Round' and AAA Cards who just asks for 'Christmas'.

Wreaths are round so I cut this one from CP/SOA from watercolor paper and gave it a touch of Distress Inks with a little Inktense pencil shading.  I cut another layer from cardstock but it wasn't enough so a final layer was cut from coaster paper.  I wanted it to look like it was hanging from a door so I embossed SSS stitched rectangles and squares into my white cs.  Not that doors have stitches 😀 but I don't have any plain rectangles. It's barely visible here but IRL looks perfect.  Joy was cut from gold shimmer paper.

I hear label pasting calling my name so I'm off to get the cards signed and stuffed.  Once they're out of the way I have a few challenges that have inspired me.  I may just color while watching a Christmas movie tonight.

Inspired By All the Little Things #75

I am overjoyed to tell you that I am the featured designer on Inspired By All the Little Things this week.  As you may know, Darnell has taken over some of the administrative duties of the challenge and is responsible for recruiting designers.  When she asked me to be her guest it was an offer I couldn't refuse.  Here is our inspiration photo.

I don't have any skate stamps but as you'll see in my interview, I'm trying to break the habit of taking photo challenges too literally.  Here's what I came up with.

I knew I'd use the PTI snowshoes in place of skates since they both are winter sports equipment but it was the blue and the background that had me stumped until I received my Concord and 9th plaid stamp.  Bingo!  The perfect solution. A snippet of blue cardstock with a heat embossed sentiment from PB finish off the card nicely.

How will you be inspired by the photo?  I sure hope you'll join us for this week's challenge.

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!

Less Is More #356 and 25 Days of Christmas Tags - 12

From Christmas tree lights to Rudolph's nose, a lot of things shine at this time of year.  My shining example for Less Is More is a candle.

The PB image was watercolored with Zigs and framed with a NBUS die from Altenew that I chose with my winnings from Dies to Die For as part of The Flower Challenge's birthday celebration.  The die is stacked three layers thick with the top one embossed with a woodgrain folder.  This was mounted on some Fog cardstock above the sentiment from C9.

I have one last tag for Tracey's 25 Days of Christmas Tags.  Again I have an owl tag because that's the only Christmas Lawn Fawn image I have.

Are you seeing a trend here?  You should see my house and all the owls that reside here. ;)  The tag is actually an ornament die from CF.  I was inspired by this tag from Chari Moss on day 12.

Last night I got out all the tags I have made and began turning them into cards.  I went through patterned papers and embossing folders until I had a match for every tag.  Today I will put them together and be ready to get them mailed.  I think I said earlier that I send out about 45 cards.  I updated my mailing list last night and it is at 75.  How did I ever make that mistake?  It's a good thing I have leftovers from last year and all those tags.

Thanks for dropping by.

Inkspirational #148 and 25 Days of Christmas Tags - 10

Inkspirational  wants a neutral Christmas card and I wanted to use my PB pinecone so it was a match made in heaven.

There are a few things I would have done differently but it's done and not too bad.  You can't really call this no-line coloring because there isn't much color. ;)  I stamped the image in Frayed Burlap DI (next time I'll chose a lighter color) and then watercolored it with Gathered Twigs, Ground Expresso and Vintage Photo for the berries which doesn't show well in the photo.  I used Antique Linen for the background.  I'm not sure I like that choice but it had to be a neutral.  The sentiment was heat embossed with Liquid Platinum.   I tried to splatter some white for snow but nothing would show up, not even acrylic paint.

I'm glad I got a chance last night to make a tag for Tracey's 25 Days of Christmas Tags.  The inspiration is over and there are only two days left to enter.  This one was inspired by Tracey's tag on day 10 when Winnie and Walter were the sponsors.  Here's Tracey's cute little snowman.

My only Christmas W&W stamps are owls so I used one for my tag.

The weather has been warmer than normal here and yesterday my husband suggested we hang our big Christmas bell.  These are bells that used to hang around the park in the center of town for years until they got new ones and sold off the old ones.  I prefer the older style and so do many other people.  When any of these bells become available they now command a high price. You have to understand that Ken's not into Christmas at all so this really took me by surprise but I jumped at it and we got all our outside decorations done.  And it isn't even December yet.  (Big smile)