warm wishes

 hello lovely stampers!

Hope you all had a lovely holiday season - it's been a relaxing time here which has been very enjoyable!

Today I have a card for the CAS colours and sketches challenge #450 milestone celebration challenge, congrats to the CC&S team!

I chose sketch challenge #428 from July 2021 and wanted to use a newly purchased stamp set from MFT.

I couldn't resist having the cool bear in the square shape - such a cute image, and the CAS design really puts him on centre stage!

I die cut the centre square using an Hero Arts Infinity Squares die from red card. Then I stamped the image from MFT Cool Day on white card and paper pieced his sweater, Santa hat, mug and hand from various coloured papers, and glued them in place. Then this image was die cut using the next smaller size square die and glued onto the red square. The sentiment from the same stamp set was stamped directly on the card panel and the squares popped up on foam tape above. The panel was lastly adhered to a red card base. 

Such a sunny day here made the shadow quite strong! Thanks for stopping by!

Edit: Thanks to the lovely team for awarding my card as a winner for this challenge!

joy

 hello again stampers!

This is my last week as Guest Designer for the Just Us Girls Challenge and I've had such fun! This week is photo inspiration week #612.

This photo reminded me of a country kitchen - all the shopping bags with Christmas goodies, I couldn't resist making a Christmas card. I was inspired by 3 things: the subway tiles across the centre of the pic (they are fab!), the leafy wreath on the bench, and the brown bags with Christmas goodies and a tiny pop of red.

Since I wanted to include a wreath but I have no wreath stamps, I chose to make a square card. That way, I can use the Misti and leaf stamps and just rotate the card 90o, stamping 4 times to create the circle. I began by stencilling the brick pattern using Darkroom Door Brick Wall stencil with distress oxide ink. Then I used Paper Rose Solid Flowers and Leaves stamps in my Misti to stamp the wreath. I also used a Darkroom Door Circle stencil to align where to stamp to get a circle shape. I used 2 different stamps from the set, to give a loose, leafy wreath. Some shiny red dots were also added. 

The sentiment was stamped using Altenew Warm Blessings in my Misti, with memento tuxedo black and also versamark, then it was heat embossed for a lovely shine. The sentiment was punched with a circle punch, and also punched from red card. These were slightly offset, then popped up with foam squares on the card panel. Lastly the card panel was adhered to a Kraft card base.

Come join in the fun with Just Us Girls, and stock up your christmas card stash! We're looking forward to seeing your designs! 

Thanks to Vicki and the lovely team at Just Us Girls Challenge for having me as their Guest Designer this month. I have really enjoyed all four challenges! 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

be merry

 hello stampers!

I'm thrilled to be the Guest Designer for the Just Us Girls Challenge for the month of November - and this week is word week with challenge #609 - Merry.

Like many of you, I am slowly building up my Christmas card stash so took the opportunity this week to make another Christmas card.

I began with some new designer paper I received with the loveliest colours - pretty and fresh with a modern Christmas feel. I was inspired by a sketch from Donna Lewis that I thought looked like a present with ribbon! The paper pieces were mounted on shaded spruce card and then adhered to a card base making sure the design was kept in the right order. 

I stamped the sentiment using Altenew Warm Blessings with my Misti using memento tuxedo black and also versamark, then heat embossed it. The sentiment was also mounted onto shaded spruce card and popped up on foam tape on the card panel. A few stars were fussy cut and also adhered with foam tape around the sentiment.

Come along and join the fun this week at Just Us Girls challenge - we'd love to see your 'merry' cards!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

magic

 hello crafty stampers!

The lovely ladies over at Just Us Girls challenge have a new challenge this week - Trend Week and they have chosen for us to create a shaker card.

I was reading and watching a few youtubes about the edge to edge shakers and thought that would be fun to try.

I started by heat embossing the sentiment from Darkroom Door in white, then blended distress oxide inks over and around the embossing. A few white ink splatters were added too, then the edges of the panel were inked in black. The clear plastic was placed over the panel and glued onto the back then the little sequins added and the last edge sealed up. Lastly the card was adhered to a black card base.

Such a fun technique and a Christmas card for my stash too! 

Thanks for stopping by!

gingerbread

 hello crafty stampers!

I don't know what came over me today but I made a Christmas card.  And it's only July! I may have to lie down for a bit until the sense of efficiency wears off and the usual procrastination returns. My friend told me a joke the other day: 

"Hey I've got the cure for procrastination!"  

"Great, just put it on the counter and I'll get it later."  lol

The lovely sisters at the sisterhood of snarky stampers have a new challenge #189 X is for Xposed

My goodness, Edna, saucy!  

I do wish I had a bigger stamp collection, but alas no sauce.  So Christmas themed it is...

I used an old stampin up stamp for the background, and another old stampin up stamp for the sentiment. The gingerbread were fussy cut from paper. They (surprisingly) have a lot of character...and some winky snark. She has def been exposed! I wonder if all gingerbread are this cheeky, or just the girls?

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

stamps: stampin up very merry tags, lots of joy

ink and card: stampin up real red

make a wish

Hello fellow stampers!

Surprised myself by managing to make a card today after just finishing one yesterday. Obviously my priorities are all straight...

The Paper Players presented a lovely challenge this week Color Challenge PP#521.  Silver, black and white were the colours and wow, do they bring the drama. Love it.

I think this is the last Christmas season card I'll most likely be making this year, given it's only 11 days to Christmas, but I do love any opportunity to use the Dasher stamp. He loves the drama too. 

I decided on a snowy white scene, set off by black night sky and a bright silver moon. Simple and elegant. I did cut a few layers of windswept snowdrifts to add a little interest, but the focus is squarely on Dasher.

A world away from me with our hot summer days at the moment, and I can only dream of snowdrifts and a bright silver moon. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

cardstock: basic black, whisper white

ink: Memento tuxedo black

stamps: Stampin' Up! Dasher, Altenew sentiment strips

for you

 I was inspired by the CAS(E) this Sketch #399 challenge design this week as it forced me to think non-symmetrically!  Doesn't sound too hard, eh? I don't think I realised that most of my cards are symmetrical.  I hope that I'm growing as a card designer, so creating more cards like this can only be good for me, right?

So my rambling ideas and thoughts led me at first to be thinking of Santa with the big black belt which would form the horizontal.  But I couldn't flesh out what the white part would be so eventually I decided I wanted to do something a little more... how to describe it... artsy? 

I came up with the idea of a shadow forming the black horizontal then found myself thinking of a full moon, shining in through an open window, casting a shadow from a Christmas present - Christmas is just around the corner after all. The present had to be a big rectangular box, with the shadow elongated out from it.  Quite the challenge to position the moon to achieve this! Now I am no physicist and the shadow angles had me befuddled for quite a while, but after googling how to draw shadows, and working out the shapes formed from a box, I came up with a shadow design I was happy with.  

The box itself is 5 layers of cardstock just slightly offset, to make it appear 3 dimensional, then popped up on foam dimensionals. The moon was stencilled in whisper white ink, then a slightly smaller whisper white cardstock circle glued on top, finished off with lashings of wink of Stella for a little sparkle.

Simple shapes, bold colours, and a clean card, but showing a little montage with more depth than you get from an initial glance. I like that. A little story is lurking there somewhere.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Stampin' Up! supplies:

cardstock: night of navy, gray granite, real red, basic black, whisper white

ink: basic gray, whisper white

Wink of Stella, black & white twine

stamp: Altenew sentiment strips (part of)

Edit: Thank you so much to the CAS(E) This Sketch team - I'm thrilled to get an Honorable Mention for this card in the challenge!

tis the season

 Hello lovely friends.  I've got a Christmas card today. The wonderful people at The Paper Players presented a challenge this week that I found intriguing. "Use up all those little scraps" they suggested, so I did! 

Of course atm I have lots of Christmas paper scraps, but I decided to use neutral paper with a christmas stamp - just to keep you guessing! lol 

I mounted the papers on 3 layers of black cardstock, the same card as the card base. These were then arranged on whisper white card, to give the impression of shadow and make them pop! 

The sentiment was stamped on 3 layers of whisper white also. I finished it all off with rhinestones to add a little sparkle.  It is Christmas after all...  I hope I managed to make a smart and elegant card.

Thanks for stopping by!

Edit: Thank you so much for the "A Cut Above" recognition for my card! I enjoyed participating in the Paper Players challenge and am thrilled that you liked my card. Look forward to the next challenge!

Stampin' Up! supplies:

cardstock: whisper white, basic black

paper: neutrals designer series paper

ink: memento tuxedo black

stamp: retired stamp set

basic rhinestones

 

sentiment stamp: Altenew warm blessings

very very very merry

 

Happy Saturday!

I saw this retro CAS on CAS(E) this Sketch #397 and knew I had to do a card.  Such a fun idea lends itself to so many variations, it was hard to choose!

So... given I've been doing Christmas cards lately, and given my meagre stamp collection, Christmas trees won out as the flavour of choice. I love the repeating pattern idea as I immediately think of a surprise ending!  (is it just me?) 

Introducing very, very, very...and merry!

It was like a wallflower bursting into bloom!  lol what a standout after the stock standard green trees. I did get a chuckle out of that one. very very very merry.

stamps: Woodware 

ink: Stampin'Up! Garden Green and Real Red

card: Stampin'Up! Garden Green and Whisper White