Peace and Joy

It's time for a new challenge over at the Sunday Stamps blog and this week we have a fun sketch from Amy!

For my card I used a set from My Favorite Things that has been in my collection for a while but yet has never seen ink. Sadly I have way too many sets like that and I really need to break them out and play with them, no matter how old they are.

I stamped the large sentiment in blue and then cut out some MFT snowflakes to go along 2 of the edges. I also stamped little snowflakes around the sentiment in 2 different shades of blue. The paper is from one of the hot buy pads from Michaels.

Head on over to the Sunday Stamps blog to see what the rest of the team came up with and then play along with us, we'd love to see how you interpret the sketch!

You're a Rare Find

This week at The Friday Mashup we have a color challenge. I think I got most of the colors. I'm having a week from hell and I have to say my mind wasn't fully into this challenge, as I'm trying not to stress and blow a gasket over what I'm dealing with right now. Anyway....

I grabbed some items from Lawn Fawn to create my card. Yeti's are always good for a snowflake card! I embossed the Navy card stock with a falling snow folder and then used Lawn Fawn large stitched snowflakes in a slate gray to accompany the yeti. The yeti was colored in with gray copics.

Head on over to The Friday Mashup blog to see what the rest of the DT came up with and then play along with us!

• Create a project featuring at least 3 of the colors above and Neutral of your choice. 
• or Create a project featuring Snow/Snowflakes. 
• or Mash it up! and create a Snow themed project using the colors above.

Snowflakes for Tis The Season

This week at 'Tis The Season we have an inspiration photo. It was a hard one for me, I think all the white threw me off. I sat there looking at the photo for days and had no clue what I was going to do and then I saw the sketch from Jingle Belles and what a perfect combo! I immediately started grabbing DSP and snowflake dies and boom, card is done :)

Make sure you head over to the 'Tis The Season blog and see what the rest of the DT came up with, and check out Jingle Belles too!

Winter Thanks for Friday Mashup

Welcome to the first Friday Mashup challenge of 2015! Heidi is our hostess kicking the year off and she wants to see winter projects with snowflakes on them.

I used the Holiday Home set and my snowflakes are on the DSP I used. This card is going to be used as a thank you card for some gifts we received for Christmas. Since my usual card critic moved to AZ I grabbed my 16 yr old son and asked his thoughts. He said it needed more snow so I added Dazzling Diamonds to the roof of the house and the yard. I think his sister got to him because that is definitely what she would have told me also :)

My layout came from the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches. After adhering it all to the Cherry Cobbler card stock it still seemed blah to me so I ended up doing some paper piercing around the edges of the card and DSP layers.

Head over to The Friday Mashup to check out what the rest of the DT came up with and meet one of our new design team members!

Stamps: Holiday Home

Paper: Sahara Sand, Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White, Trim the Tree DSP

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Blendabilities(Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive, Crumb Cake), Garden Green

Accessories: 2 1/2" Circle Punch, Paper Piercing Kit, Dazzling Diamonds, dimensionals

Jeweled Snowflakes for 'Tis The Season

It's our last challenge of the year over at 'Tis The Season! I love making Christmas cards the entire year and this challenge helped me get my pile nice and big, which meant I was all prepared when it came time to mail out cards. I love it when that happens!

This week we have an inspiration photo. I was inspired by the snowflakes, as I love snow, but we're having another crappy winter here in Alaska with warm temps and very little snow. Needless to say this does not make me happy. Anyway, I grabbed the Endless Wishes set and stamped some snowflakes in Versamark on a Smoky Slate card base and then used Smoky Slate and Lost Lagoon to stamp snowflakes on a Whisper White panel. The sentiment was stamped in Lost Lagoon.

My layout came from last weeks sketch at Freshly Made Sketches. 

I hope you'll come by 'Tis The Season and play along with us. In order to let folks enjoy the holidays the challenge will run for 3 weeks instead of 2!

Stamps: Endless Wishes

Paper: Smoky Slate, Lost Lagoon, Whisper White

Ink: Smoky Slate, Lost Lagoon, Versamark

Accessories: Silver Stretch Cord, Banners Framelits, Big Shot

Diamond Dust Christmas for Friday Mashup

This week at The Friday Mashup Sara is our hostess and she has a color challenge for us as well as a technique. The colors we are to use are Island Indigo, Garden Green and Rich Razzleberry. The technique is the Diamond Dust technique.

I haven't done this technique in a long time but I love it because it is so sparkly and pretty and what better technique to use for a Christmas card! I also love these dark, rich colors so I had no problem converting them into something for the holiday season. I used the Endless Wishes set and stamped snowflakes in the challenge colors. I then covered the image panel with Versamark, put some heat and stick powder over it, used the heat tool to heat it up and then added the Dazzling Diamonds. 

My layout came from the current sketch challenge over at Sunday Stamps. The film die was a bit bigger than I remembered and it covered up the strips underneath a bit more than I would have liked but overall I am still happy with how it came out!

I hope you'll come by The Friday Mashup and check out all the great projects from the rest of the design team, and then play along with us!

This week's Mashup Challenge is:

• Create a project using the "Diamond Dust Technique" Tutorial Here. 
• Create a project using the colors "Island Indigo, Garden Green & Rich Razzleberry (or similar colors if you don't have these exact colors). 
• or Mash it Up! and create a project "using the colors above and the Diamond Dust Technique".

Stamps: Endless Wishes

Paper: Rich Razzleberry, Island Indigo, Whisper White, Garden Green DSP, Rich Razzleberry DSP

Ink: Rich Razzleberry, Garden Green, Island Indigo, Versamark

Accessories: Big Shot, On Film Framelits, 1 3/8" Circle Punch, Island Indigo Bakers Twine, Heat and Stick Powder, Dazzling Diamonds, Heat Tool, sponge, dimensionals

Staying Tradtional for Jingle Belles

I was happy to see the challenge over at Jingle Belles. This week they are all about red and green, the traditional colors of Christmas. I am totally a traditional type of gal. I love red an green Christmas cards, they just make me so darn happy!

I sat for a while staring at my supplies, trying to figure out what to do. For someone who was so excited about the challenge I had zero mojo flowing through me, so irritating!

I grabbed some polka dot paper and snowflake dies and got the wheels turning. I ended up taking the die and cutting out the shape in the middle of the Old Olive polka dot paper. Then I put some Real Red polka dot paper in the back of the snowflake shape. I then cut a smaller snowflake in Old Olive and put that in the middle of the larger one.

I then cut out the 'Merry' in Real Red (the photo makes it look a lot darker than it is, it actually goes quite nicely with the polka dot background) and adhered that at the bottom of the card. For a little sparkle a added some rhinestones here and there. The photo doesn't do the card justice, its really pretty in person!

Make sure you head over to Jingle Belles to check out the challenge and play along!

Supplies used(all supplies SU unless otherwise noted):

Stamps: none

Paper: Old Olive, Red Red, Polka Dot Parade DSP(retired)

Ink: none

Accessories: Big Shot, Expressions Thinlits Dies(retired), Festive Flurry Framelit Dies, Rhinestones

"Twinchies" for Jingle Belles

I'm getting my card in at the last minute for the latest Jingle Belles challenge, whew! While the Lower 48 deals with record cold we're having record warmth here in Alaska and I do believe it has fried my crafting mojo (send my cold back Lower 48, you don't appreciate it like I do :P )! I spent all day yesterday pulling out stamp sets and paper to try and get a card going for this challenge and I didn't like a darn thing I was coming up with. I had to leave for work and since I work nights and by myself I have a lot of time to think, so I gave this challenge more thought over night.

What's the challenge you ask? Well, Stef and Lauren would like to see either "inchies" or "twinchies" on our cards. I had never heard these terms before but they are pretty easy to figure out. I pulled out my 1" inch square stamp and tried a few things with that but again, disliked all that I came up with so I put that punch away. Then I cut some 2" squares out of Very Vanilla, sat there looking at them for a while and kept drawing a blank.

This afternoon I grabbed the stamp set Festive Flurry and tried that with the 2 inch square....finally, something I was happy with! I cut some small snowflakes in Cherry Cobbler and then stamped the same snowflake again in Bashful Blue(retired). I then layered the blue snowflake on top of the red one, with the snowflakes sitting on the 2 inch squares. For my middle snowflake I stamped a larger snowflake in Cherry Cobbler and then another small one in Bashful blue, layered them and popped the snowflake up between the 2 on the squares. For a little extra "oomph" I added some small pearls in the middle of each top snowflake.

 Glad I got this challenge done!

Supplies used(all supplies SU unless otherwise noted):

Stamps: Festive Flurry, Christmas Messages

Paper: Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla, Festival of Prints DSP(retired)

Ink: Cherry Cobbler, Bashful Blue(retired)

Accessories: Bashful Blue ribbon(retired), Basic Pearls, Big Shot, Festive Flurry Framelits,  sponge, dimensionals

Going in Circles for TTS7

Happy 2014! I hope everyone had a fun but safe time ringing in the New Year. My family snacked on food all night and tried to watch movies between the numerous power outages we had as high winds and rising temps caused trees and wet snow to take down power lines around the area. We lose power quite often so we're used to it and we just grab the flashlights and carry on.

Thankfully the winds died down and the power has stayed on so I am able to post the first challenge of 2014 for 'Tis The Season. In case anyone missed it I started this blog with my good friend Holly and it's all about Christmas. I love to make Christmas cards and what better way to get ahead for your 2014 Christmas cards!

We've got a sketch challenge this time around and we're going crazy for circles, along with the optional trimming of snowflakes. Our challenges are open for 2 weeks so you have plenty of time to play along with us! I hope you'll come play along.

Supplies used(all supplies SU unless otherwise noted):

Stamps: Snowflakes(retired), Teeny Tiny Wishes

Paper: Island Indigo, Whisper White, Winter Frost DSP

Ink: Pool Party, Island Indigo

Accessories: Various circle punches, Modern Label Punch, sponge, dimensionals

Merry Circles for Merry Monday

This week at the Merry Monday sketch is all about circles. I ended up making 2 cards for it. They both use the same DSP but on one card I utilized stamped images and the other one is strictly DSP.

The first card I used the reindeer from the retired set Holiday Lineup. The faces on these guys just crack me up! The circles from the sketch made me think of the spotlighting technique so I kind of had that in mind when making this card with these images.. I used Xmas Red Stickles to give the middle reindeer a bright and happy nose! The center circle is popped up with dimensionals, as are the 2 circles behind it.

Supplies used(all supplies SU unless otherwise noted):

Stamps: Holiday Lineup(retired), Seasons Greetings(retired)

Paper: Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, Merry Moments DSP

Ink: Black StazOn, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Chocolate Chip, Real Red, Garden Green

Accessories: Xmas Red Stickles, dimensionals, sponge, various SU circle punches

My 2nd card focused on the snowflakes from the DSP. I used different circle punches to highlight the various snowflakes. Like the first card the largest circle and the 2 behind it are popped up for dimension. I thought the bottom half of the card looked a little plain so I drew in some stitching along the edges and Chocolate Chip candy dots

Supplies used(all supplies SU unless otherwise noted):

Stamps: More Merry Messages

Paper: Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, Merry Moments DSP

Ink: Old Olive, Chocolate Chip

Accessories: Chocolate Chip Candy Dots, sponge, dimensionals, various SU circle punches

Also, I didn't get the card done in time, but I did use last weeks Merry Monday sketch for a card, HERE.

Fresh Merry Snowflakes

I'm not one of those people that can sit down and get a card done in less than 10 minutes. I tend to over think things and so I'll sit at my desk, looking over challenges, colors, etc and trying to get it all planned out in my head before proceeding. Of course that doesn't always work for me either, lol. However tonight's card came along quickly and without any real stress,  it was a nice feeling! LOL

I combined 2 challenges for this card.....the color challenge over at Merry Monday to use Cherry Cobbler, Always Artichoke and River Rock, and the sketch challenge from Freshly Made Sketches. The snowflakes are from the Snow Flurry Bigz die and I used Always Artichoke brads in the middle to secure the pieces together. Always Artichoke was also used as a backing for the River Rock panel going across the middle. I thought that the panel looked a bit plain behind the snowflakes so using Versamark I stamped a snowflake from the Snowflake Soiree set.

I guess Mother Nature approved because it started to snow just as I finished the card :0)

Supplies used(all supplies SU unless otherwise noted):

Stamps: Snowflake Soiree, Greetings of the Season

Paper: Cherry Cobbler, River Rock, Always Artichoke, Be of Good Cheer DSP

Ink: Cherry Cobbler, River Rock, Always Artichoke, Versamark

Accessories: Big Shot, Snow Flurry Bigz Die, Always Artichoke Brads, sponge

Snowflakes for Friday Mashup

Did everyone have a good holiday? We had a great time opening gifts Christmas morning, and then we went as a family and volunteered at a big dinner held in Wasilla called the Friendship Dinner. It was our first time volunteering at the dinner and we had a blast! We met a bunch of new people and I was wished "Merry Christmas" more times that day then in my whole life, and I loved it! We agreed as a family that we'll definitely be doing it again next yr.

I'm still on vacation so I've been lounging around the house since Christmas Day and got today's Friday Mashup card all done. I have to say that the challenge....using snowflakes and the colors provided....had me using a few not-so-family friendly words. Not because its a bad challenge but because we have almost NO snow here! We were supposed to get snow on Christmas Day but had high winds instead, and that causes a drying effect in this area. Last winter we had the snowiest winter on record and I guess we're being punished for that this year :/

The challenge comes from Amanda and like I mentioned above, we are to use snowflakes and the following colors: Pool Party, Midnight Muse, Whisper White and Basic Black. I had a bit of a time incorporating the black and then decided to use it in the form on ribbon on my sentiment piece. The sentiment panel is popped up with dimensionals and in person stands out quite nicely, it doesn't look blended with the paper like it does in the picture.

Make sure you head over to The Friday Mashup and check out all the other great projects from the rest of the design team and then play along with us!

1. Make a project using "Snowflakes".
2. Or Make a project with the colors Whisper White, Pool Party, Midnight Muse, and Basic Black
3. Or "Mash it Up" and create a "Snowflake Project with the colors Whisper White, Pool Party, Midnight Muse, and Basic Black".

Supplies used(all supplies SU unless otherwise noted):

Stamps: Snowflake Soiree, Lighthearted

Paper: Pool Party, Midnight Muse, Whisper White

Ink: Midnight Muse, Pool Party

Accessories: Big Shot, Framelits Apothecary Accents, Basic Black Ribbon, sponge, dimensionals

 

Sketchy Snowfall

Today's card was inspired by 2 challenges....Jingle Belles and Merry Monday.

The current challenge over at the Jingle Belles blog is to make a project that celebrates snow. No problem for me because I LOVE LOVE LOVE snow...heck, that's why I moved to Alaska and we even got our first dusting of snow this past weekend! I used my Polar Party stamp set and did my favorite thing to get the look of snow falling...I ran my image panel through my Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots embossing folder. I just love how that looks! I also added glitter to all the raised dots but its hard to see in the picture.

The sketch is last weeks challenge from Merry Monday. Because of my crazy schedule lately I wasn't able to play along last week but wanted to make a card with this sketch.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies used (all supplies SU unless otherwise noted):

Stamps: Polar Party, Teeny Tiny Wishes

Paper: Sage Shadow(retired), Always Artichoke, Whisper White, Wintergreen DSP (retired)

Ink: Black StazOn, Certainly Celery, Sage Shadow, Real Red, Crumb Cake, Daffodil Delight, Lovely Lilac, Baja Breeze, Only Orange

Accessories: Cuttlebug, Swiss Dots EF, Always Artichoke ribbon, Modern Label punch, sponge, dimensionals

Clean and Simple Christmas

And trust me, when I say clean and simple this weeks sketch is VERY clean and simple, and I like that!

I had a bit of a rustic, snowy day on my mind so I grabbed Crumb Cake cardstock and used some Sapphire embossing powder I've had for yrs on snowflakes from the Bright Hopes set. I love these snowflakes and I really like them embossed like this. For the sentiment I used Night of Navy and to keep the focus on the snowflakes I didnt emboss the Merry Christmas.

To give it just a bit of an extra touch I added the rhinestones between the snowflakes. I dont like the way it photographed...here in southcentral Alaska we're having a very windy and gray day and no matter where I took the photo it turned out a bit dark, ugh!

 Supplies used(all supplies SU unless otherwise noted):
Stamps: Bright Hopes
Paper: Crumb Cake
Ink: Night of Navy, Versamark
Accessories: Sapphire embossing powder, round corner punch, rhinestones

Snowflakes and Easels

Its Friday, and time for another Friday Mashup! The last week has been crazy and this is the first card I was able to get done...I need more stamping time!

This weeks challenge is brought to us by the talented Lesley. Here is what she says:

1. Make a project featuring "Snowflakes".

2. Or Make an "Easel Card".
3. Or "Mash it Up" and create an "Easel Card featuring Snowflakes".

I cant lie, I saw easel card and groaned. I've never made one before and I get nervous with cards that make me have to think, LOL. Luckily Lesley shared the tutorial on Splitcoast with the design team and I used that to get the easel card portion of the challenge done.

The snowflake part definitely makes me happy, as we are getting some small snowflakes falling in my area tonight! We drove to Fairbanks last weekend and I saw some snow along the way but I want it in my yard! LOL I am hoping it snows hard but I dont think its going to quite yet, we're still a tad too warm during the days, hovering around the 40* mark.

I used some of my favorite retired DSP and paired it with a set thats in the Holiday Mini called Bright Hopes. I love this set, it has such a wonderfully classic and elegant look to it. My snowflakes are popped up with dimensionals and I used Dazzling Details on them to give a little extra pop. I also used some Dazzling Detail inside the card on the extra layer that helps keep the front of the card in the easel postion. Added a little silver cord for a hanger and ribbon and voila, done!

Supplies used(all supplies SU unless otherwise noted):

Stamps: Bright Hopes

Paper: Sahara Sand, Ruby Red, Taken With Teal, Whisper White, Holiday Lounge DSP

Ink: Taken With Teal, Ruby Red, Crumb Cake

Accessories: Simply Scored, Scallop Border Punch, Elastic Silver Cord, Dazzling Details, sponge, dimensionals