August AJ Page-A is for Adventure

Hello friends! Wishing you a happy weekend! We’ve had a heat advisory in our area all week, so I’ve been staying indoors organizing, cleaning and crafting! Hope that you’re taking some time to enjoy your weekend even if it’s just for a moment of time.

I can’t believe we’re at the last weekend of August, because it’s time for the monthly Art Journal Page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month. I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” August prompt of “LETTERS”:

Thinking of YOUR stash, what do you come up with from the prompt? I think as crafters, we probably all have some type of lettering in our stash! I have stamps, stickers, chipboard, wood, stencils, ephemera, etc so I knew this would be a good opportunity to pull out something. And if that doesn’t work for you, I suppose you could take the prompt literally, and attach an actual written letter or make one up yourself to add to your AJ page. Lots of ways to interpret a prompt which makes it easy to come up with a plan to inspire you. So this is what I came up with.

For the background: I started with a 6″ x 9″ Strathmore Acrylic paper with pre-punched holes at the top and stenciled some crackle paste over my Tim Holtz alpha stencil and let dry. I then took some Distress Oxide sprays in the colors kitsch flamingo, salvaged patina and speckled egg and mixed with sprayed water to let the the colors run over the stenciled areas. After it dried, I used the Tim Holtz Grunged stamp set and stamped more letters over the background with black archival ink. The edges were blended with dark gray ink and then I splattered the page with gold and white paints with a fan brush. Lastly, I took some white gold metallic wax and went over the stenciled letters.

The film strip came from the Whimsy Stamps Slmiline Film Strip die cut out from black cardstock. For the three image sections, I found some packaging with maps images on them and cut it out with the same die. Since the packaging had a slick surface, I painted it with clear gesso so I could stamp over it. After it dried, I stamped the three panels with the TH Grunged stamp set in the same colors of Oxide inks as the background and then stamped the travel images with black archival ink from an old Stampin’ Up! set called “Traveler”. To finish is off, I used an old chip board letter “A” from my stash, painted it black and added some more of that white gold wax along the edges, found a TH “small talk” sticker to go over it and then I drew some lines around it and sponged it to make it look grungy. I finished it with more ephemera I found in my stash from Tim Holtz and Stamperia… and decided to call it done.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you’ve found some inspiration with my project! Enjoy your day!

Challenges I’d like to enter my page for:

Art Journal Journey – Where in the World? (travel theme)
Crafting Happiness – Any type of craft
Creative Artiste – #96 Anything Mixed Media
Paper a la Mode – No Cards – I was inspired by grungy things
Crafting From the Heart – No Cards – Anything Goes
Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes

July AJ Page-Always Look Up!

Hello friends and happy weekend! As we finish off another really hot day…probably for most of the U.S. right now, I do hope you’re staying cool and enjoying the rest of the month of July. We’ve been in a heat advisory in our area for the last few days, but hopefully it will cool down soon. In the meantime, I will be crafting inside!

It’s time for the monthly Art Journal Page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month. I know she will have some wonderful inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” July prompt of “STRIPS/STRIPES”:

I don’t know why this makes me giggle, but it does! I thought the best way to create the “STRIPS/STRIPES” prompt would be to pull out some more of those never-ending stash of pattern papers! So I pulled some out for the strips at the bottom that I cut out with a hillside border die and one of the pieces happened to have stripes on it which worked out for both! I thought it would look great for the field that the cow WAS on.😆

For the background: I started with my usual piece of 6″x 9″ pre-punched at the top from Canson Watercolor paper and made a galaxy background with watercolors. I had fun making a mess with it! I let it air dry underneath some heavy books to keep it flat as it dried. Once dry, I splattered some Copic opaque white with a fan brush over it.

This is where I added the strips of cut papers at the bottom. Before I cut the green layer at the bottom, I ran it through my printer to create the quote on my computer. I sponged the edges of it with green ink. I also sponged some black ink around the edges of the galaxy background too. The striped paper was painted with a light green ink and then splattered with a darker green color as I was trying to mute it a bit. The “fence” behind it was cut out with white cardstock and placed behind the striped strip piece.

For the flying saucer and alien, I used an UFO die set from Whimsy Stamps and cut it out with several different specialty papers like holographic, silver glitter, green metallic, black glitter, vellum and acetate (for the front window of the saucer). I popped it up with foam tape over a die cut piece of vellum that I’ve colored with a yellow marker and sprayed with shimmer spray…hard to pick up in a photo, but you can barely see it. I attached it over the background by using my Xyron sticker machine, so you can still see through it.

I glued the “confused cow” from the MFT The Whole Herd stamp set within the “beam” vellum. The hillside borders that I cut the bottom strips with came from MFT as well.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today and been inspired in some way! Thanks so much for dropping in and don’t forget to look up!!😆

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Come Fly with Me!
Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes except cards
Creative Artiste – Anything Mixed Media
Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
Crafting Happiness – Any Type of Craft
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes Using Paper
Through the Purple Haze – Anything Goes

Cowboy Courage and Dad Jokes

Hello friends! Hope you’ve had a great Fourth of July weekend and staying cool through this really hot week too! I had planned on scheduling a post or two while I was gone last month, but time just didn’t let me get there and I’m a bit behind, but I wanted to share a couple of masculine cards I made for some men in my life for Father’s Day:

Up first is this card I made for my dad. He’s a huge John Wayne fan and so I thought it would be fun to print out one of his famous quotes for a card. After printing it out, I stamped the large rope lasso image around it from the Whimsy Stamps Cowpoke clear stamp set. I printed the quote over a piece of kraft cardstock and stamped with chocolate colored ink with the rope frame and colored it with Copics. I also cut the other images from the same stamp set over White Copic Blending Card and colored it with Copics. I just fussy cut them out with scissors and placed them over my card front with some foam squares. I cut a section of the horseshoe out so that it “appears” as if it’s hanging around the lasso and glued it over each side of the lasso.

I thought it would be fun to add some more details to mimic the boots by die cutting the loopy stitched borders from the Whimsy Stamps Straight Edger Die Set and then I ink blended around the edges with chocolate ink. I also did this with the envelope you see behind the card too.

He really liked this one! I remember as a child sitting with him sometimes and watching those really old “cowboy movies”. LOL

The next card I made was for my husband…

This card was PERFECT for him! Most of the time, the kids would always tell him that his jokes were NOT funny, but the fact that HE thought they were so funny is what made them laugh! 😂 And then he would claim that they were laughing or smiling, so he knew they liked them!😄

So, when I saw this Dad Jokes stamp set from Lawn Fawn, I knew it would be a good one to have on hand for cards with him. I kept this card a simple one with a grassy stitched border and then I used one of those woodgrain papers from Lawn Fawn and also die cut the LF Father’s Day Border using the same woodgrain paper for it.

I positioned the little chicks to the side with the *crickets* sentiment above them and then the other one laughing while the little chick with the tie is telling the “dad joke”. I popped up the speech bubbles with foam squares. You will also see that I’ve stamped another “dad joke” on the envelope with some ha ha ha next to it as well.

**Side note: My husband’s favorite “dad joke” from the stamp set was…”What’s brown and sticky?…A stick!“** He had to tell that one to the (adult)kids of course! 🙄

Hope you’ve enjoyed my masculine cards today or had a smile! Thanks for dropping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

The Male Room – Monochrome (Top card only with brown tones)
Alphabet – ‘G’ is for Giggle/humorous card (Second card only)
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Corrosive – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes using Paper

Making Condolence and Get Well Cards

Hello friends! I hope that you’re having a great start to your week and are staying safe and warm in your world.

Today I’m sharing a collection of creations that I never seem to have in my stash because it’s never really something that I think about when creating…and I always seem to be making them as needed rather than having a few on hand. Even though, a couple of these were needed, I decided to make duplicates to have on hand this time around.

As you can see, this is a pet sympathy card I created, and one was needed to send to a friend that had recently lost her special companion. For anyone that has lost a pet knows how this feels and I wanted to be sure to send something special her way. It’s always great to have one on hand when needed.

I’ve used this wonderful stamp set from Whimsy Stamps called Furever in Our Hearts. I started by ink blending the background with distress inks in Candied Apple, Carved Pumpkin, Squeezed Lemonade, Mowed Lawn and Blueprint Sketch on a piece of Neenah Solar White. I sprayed the panel with water and used a towel to blot up the water droplets. I then took some white shimmer paint mixed with water and splattered it over top with a paint brush.

I cut out the panel with a Lawn Fawn Cross-stitched die. I used my Brilliance Black pigment ink to stamp the paw prints and sentiment over top of it so that it would show up over the background. I die cut a couple of clouds out (MFT I think) and lightly sponged the bottom of them and placed them over the areas I wanted with popping up the one cloud using foam tape at the top of the paw prints. I layered this panel onto a piece of black cardstock and then layered them both over a white A2 sized top folding card base. I finished it off with a few sparkling clear sequins.

Another card that I needed was for someone that had recently been through a surgery, and I actually didn’t have any more “get well” in my stash… again, so I decided to create a duplicate of this one too. This set of cards along with the set of cards below actually were the results from the previous OOAK event I had attended, and these were part of a class I had taken. So, this class actually came in handy!

All of the papers including that beautiful die (from Memory Box-Verdant Leaf Collage), Get Well Soon die, and dewdrop water droplets came with the kit. I subtly changed up the design given for the class by adding black paint splatters and changing up the die cut lettering and the layering of the papers. I really liked doing more of that ink blending and then having it fade to the white for a soft look. The outside woodgrain frame was popped up with foam tape.

And here’s the second set of cards created within the same class using the same Memory Box die and ink blended colors. I changed up the layout with these as well by making the card base black (instead of white like shown in class) and instead of the sentiments used in class, I created my own version with the Whimsy Stamps Deepest Sympathy clear stamps and the WS Sympathy Heartfelt and Condolences die set. I also added the black paint splatters to the ink blended panels like on the set above.

I thought these sets made for some really nice cards to have on hand when needed. I’m not sure that I would’ve actually sat down to make up these types of cards in production if I hadn’t have taken the class, so I’m glad I did.

Thanks so much for stopping in today! Hope I have inspired your crafty inspiration in some way! I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges:

Crafty Calendar – Anything Goes
Happy Little Stampers – Anything Goes with Dies
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Stamping Sensations – Anything Stamped with optional add a die
Addicted to Stamps and More – Make Your Mark
Watercooler Wednesday – All About Occasions
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes using paper

Having Some Halloween Fun!🎃

Hey friends! I know it’s well into October and so you may be wondering where in the world have my Halloween posts been? Today was gloomy and foggy out…and it’s getting evening, so it was a good time to post! If you know me, then you know I love all things Halloween, but I’ve actually been in the background lurking with my Halloween projects! Bwhaa!! I just haven’t had time to sit and make a post for them yet. The reason for that is, of course, I’m taking too many classes and doing events that I’m like a “mad scientist” in the background with all of the crafting things, but haven’t been sharing them! So, I’ve decided to set aside some time to create a post with all things Halloween! (Don’t worry, there will be more special ones coming too!)

Now isn’t this one a cutie?! I’ve received this free digital image especially from the Whimsy Stamps World Card Making Day Event on Facebook that they usually hold every year and have some fun games and challenges. This image was created by Crissy Armstrong of course and she even did a cute little tutorial with it, so I had to color it up!

I’ve used Copics for the coloring and even made a shadowy creepy black/gray grass along the bottom of the pumpkin. The hat buckle was colored with a gold gel pen. The sentiment came from an older Whimsy Stamps candy corn set I had in my stash. For the background, I’ve used my favorite Whimsy Stamps Spider Web Frame background stamp to go around kitty. I then used a couple of different Distress inks to sponge around the edges and then spritzed water over it & blotted it up with a paper towel to make it even “creepier” looking. I layered it over an orange layer from my stash and then placed this over an A2 sized top folding card base. I also die cut a bat from an old freebie from Whimsy Stamps years back to glue at the top of the scene and covered it with a glitter brush pen. Super fun!

Now I want to enter this into the annual Whimsy Stamps 31 Nights of Halloween that they do every year! Check out the event with lots of Halloween inspiration & fun if you’re interested! I always love to play along, and I think Whimsy Stamps has some of THE best products for crafting Halloween!

And this is another card I made for the Whimsy Stamps WCMD Event challenge using a fun Autumn/Halloween mood board. (The event is over, but it was super fun!) The first thing about the mood board I noticed was all of the orange and fun jack-o-lanterns that popped out at me. Plus, this was another cute freebie digital image given to us during the event.

So I colored up this dragon using mainly orange tone Copics with a “candy corn” effect. I also used it for the die cut sentiment at the top that was cut out from the Whimsy Stamps Boo die set. Hard to tell in the photo, but I covered it with the glitter brush pen too. I popped up the “dragon guy” over a piece of the Whimsy Stamps 6×6 Haunted Paper Pack cut with the Whimsy Stamps Zig Zag Stitched Rectangle Dies. It was all layered over a white A2 top folding card base. I also added some yellow Stickles to the pumpkin’s face.

And since I’ve been doing so many classes, I thought I’d just create another gallery full of Halloween projects that I’ve done. I have actually been working on some books and journals as well as mixed media projects and not sure if I’ll get them finished up before Halloween as I’ve been busy, but it’s always fun to get creative and messy especially for all things creepy and spooky! 💀 Hope you enjoy! – (If you’re viewing this on my website, just click on the photos to enlarge them to see)

This was a fun one I made using a sketch for the Inky Stamper’s World Card Making Day Event! I had to pull out the Spider set and stamp up the eyeballs for the background! The spider was die cut out over the circle with an added wobbler on him! So fun!

Whew! Was that a lot of Halloween or what?! Many of these things just give me a big chuckle and I just think they’re so fun especially now that I’ve looked back on them. Although many of these projects were created earlier this Summer, I thought it would be a good time to share them with you. #MakeHalloween365 I still have more Halloween up my sleeve soon, so stayed tuned!

Thanks so much for stopping by this evening and I hope you’ve enjoyed my Halloween projects here! HAPPY CRAFTING

Challenges:

Crafty Animals – Anything Goes with animal
Pearly Sparkles – Autumn and/or Halloween
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes with coloring
Critter Crazy – Anything Goes with featured Critter
The Crafter’s Cafe – Anything Goes
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
Two Old Bats – Anything Goes Halloween
Crafty Calendar – Halloween

Christmas Cards, Projects and Cookies…ready for Santa!🎅

Hello friends! We’re here! We made it to Christmas Eve!😀 My cards have been sent out, my cookies are done and delivered as well as my other little gifts. This is quite a long post, so grab your hot cocoa or whatever your favorite beverage is and a Christmas cookie or treat and let’s see what I’ve been doing this past week:

So, starting with my Christmas cards, I usually make around 40ish cards each year give-or-take and I only like to make a handful of them at a time for not only boredom of the same design, but for product depletion as well.

So back in July, I purchased this really adorable card kit from Taylored Expressions (included was the Frosty Background Cling and Clear Combo set + more.) that came with coordinated colored envelopes as well as the seals. So, I made a set of four different colored designs in two of each one. The snowmen were popped up with foam squares over the backgrounds and I added some fun Snowflake bits that were included with the kit as well.

Next up is another set of cards I made using some more gorgeous products from Taylored Expressions. I’ve used the Seasonal Sprig stamp and die combo along with the stencil to color them in with. Some of these I ink blended the backgrounds, so I just used cardstock with a watermark effect and a white heat embossed sentiment. I used the die to cut an extra frame behind the stamped one for added stability. I made 4 of each design shown here for a total of 16.

I then made another set of four using the same products, but for these I gold heat embossed the image and sentiment and then used some watercolor for coloring it in with. I also got some of these coordinating envelope seals to use on about 10 of the 16 cards. (No longer available in store.) I’ve also partially ink blended the background behind the frame on these as well.

Here are some cards that I’ve actually made a total of 8 similar designs using the large wording background dies from My Favorite Things. I’ve used the “Sending Christmas Joy” and “I Really Miss You” dies for all eight of these, but only after I stamped the backgrounds. I used the MFT Knitted Sweater BG stamp and the Alley Cat BG stamp for a couple of backgrounds before I die cut them. Then I used the die cut letters to place into the other backgrounds on the cards to get that look. So it was like creating 2 cards with one cut and filling it all in. (For the Alley Cat background stamp, I ink blended the background and stamped it as a watermark effect over it and then took the “left over” ink from that to stamp it again to create an additional BG.) I then cut out each of the panels with the MFT Wonky Stitched Rectangle die and placed over a white A2 sized side folding card base. The penguin image is from the MFT Holiday Penguins set and the bird on the other one is from the MFT “Tweet Holidays” (Not found in store.)

And then of course you don’t want to waste any backgrounds you’ve made, so you make more cards! I’ve used a couple more images to personalize the design for people too. I combined the sets Newton’s Nook Whispering Pines and the Lawn Fawn Winter Skies. I think I took a set from them to create a sentiment to fit my cards as well. (not sure from which set.)

For the other card, I took this cute image from the Whimsy Stamps Gnome for Christmas stamp set, colored him up with my copics and cut him out with the coordinating die to pop him up over my card.

And then for these set of 4 cards, I’ve just die cut a snowflake from some glitter paper and glued in the center of the “O” on each design and popped up a sentiment over that with foam tape stamped and die cut from the Taylored Expressions Mini Strips – Holiday and Mini Strips die.

And as you remember in a previous post those “recycled Crystal Light containers” that I make, I made another set of three of them here. This time, I’ve used this snowman stamp. I just used my scissors to fussy cut those cute snowmen out as they were pretty simple to do and then I popped them up over an ink blended tag using the stencil over them. I used coordinating cardstock and silver heat embossed the sentiment strip at the bottom and of course added my “snowman soup” poem on the back of the containers. I’ve also added a layer of silver mirror cardstock behind the tags.

And I made a couple of these darling ornaments from a fairly “new to me” company that I was actually introduced to with product during my time as a {Cupcake Inspirations} sweetie DT when they sponsored a challenge a while back. P.S. There are a few more days left to enter their current challenge of “SNOWFLAKES” if you want to pop on over to join us too!!

But I was so taken with this darling image and kit from Inky Stampers from this Snow Much Fun Kit. You get the snowflake ornament (with string), the stamp set and die, papers, wobbler, along with glitter to complete it too! Well, I wanted to make more than one, so I grabbed another set of Snowflake Ornaments from the store and just added my own papers and glitter from my stash to make it.

Whew! I’m ready for that “Looong winter’s nap” now!!🥱 I hope you’ve enjoyed my post today and it has brought you some inspiration and/or a smile somehow! I have received some beautiful Christmas cards and I so appreciate them and have them all displayed by being pinned around my garland in our pass-through in the living room/dining area. I think after a bit of rest, I need to finish up my projects for the “Bugaboo Christmas Chaos” that I halted in the middle for to finish up Christmas projects….so I’ll be back soon with that.

In the meantime, I wish a MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!!🎅

Snowflakes for {Cupcake Inspirations}

Hello friends! Happy Monday! Hope that you’ve had a wonderful weekend and are ready for Christmas to come! This Friday will be Christmas Day and I’m happy to have everything finished and ready to deliver the cookies and presents to family and enjoy the time with my husband. Hoping that next year will be looking much different too! Are you ready for Christmas or just ready for the year to be finished? 😉

Today is the start of a new challenge over at {Cupcake Inspirations} with the theme of “SNOWFLAKES“! The only difference for this challenge is that it is only lasting for ONE week instead of the noraml 2 weeks. Also, this will be my final post as a design team member for them as well. I have really enjoyed being apart of this team as what’s better with crafting than with a cupcake inspired theme, right?!🧁😋 So I’m sure I’ll be inspired to play along with the challenges in the future as I have been! Hope you’ve enjoyed my creations for this challenge. Here is my “snowflake” cupcake inspired project for today:

I thought it would be appropriate to create a New Year’s themed card for this challenge as I don’t really need to make any more Christmas cards, but sometimes I forget to send out a Christmas card to someone and don’t realize it until later, so that’s when a New Year’s card can come in handy! LOL!

I absolutely LOVE the fabulous slimline dies that Whimsy Stamps has! Such a huge selection of them and I spotted this gorgeous Elegant Snowflakes and Border die and thought it would make some really incredible slimline style cards no matter what color scheme you have in mind! I knew that I first wanted to try it out with some metallic mirror cardstock, and I was also inspired by these gorgeous Gilded Holiday papers from Whimsy Stamps with the snowflakes in gold and black colors. It looked elegant like the die, so I pulled out a strip to fit across the top, but because it’s 6 x 6, it didn’t fit, but I decided to piece the strip together anyway and I don’t really think you can tell that much until you look up closely to know that it’s there.

So, I then layered the gold metallic die cut piece right underneath the strip that was attached to a 3.5 x 8.5 black cardstock layer. There are also a couple of extra snowflake dies included with that border die, so I used them layered together (one in gold and another in black cardstock) on the right side of the slimline design.

To create the sentiment on the card, I used the Whimsy Stamps Happy Sayings Clear Stamp Set and gold heat embossed it along the bottom of the black card panel. I also took the Whimsy Stamps Happy Large Word die and die cut it out in black cardstock several times to layer together for thickness. Before attaching it to the card, I used a gold ink pad and brushed around the edges with it as well as the entire black card front panel before attaching all together. I then layered it over a white top folding slimline card base.

Here’s a closer view of the gold metallic die along with the gold heat embossed sentiment as well as the gold inked edges around the design. I’ve also decided to add some gold Drip Drops from Taylored Expressions in the center of some of the snowflakes as well as a couple of black sequins that I filled the centers with some gold Stickles with.

Of course I think it looks so much more elegant, shinny and sparkly in person as it’s hard to photograph and be able to capture all of the lighting that you see when you’re holding it in your hands!

Hopefully by sharing a few different angled photos, you’re able to see some of these details in this card design.

Please be sure to stop by the {Cupake Inspirations} Challenge blog and come join us with your “snowflake” creations this week and check out the inspiration from the design team whle you’re there! REMEMBER: You have only ONE WEEK to enter! Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Thanks for stopping by today and I’ll be seeing you soon with another post soon!

Challenges:

A Bit More Time to Craft – #130 Anything Goes
QKR Stampede – #410 Anything Goes
Watercooler Wednesday – WWC302 Anything Goes
Cute Card Thursday – Anything Goes
Creative Knockouts – #381 Anything Goes
Crafty Catz – #532 Anything Goes optional: Anything New (new die!)
Allsorts – Sparkle and Shine

Crafty Chefs Gnome Joy & FINALLY Finished Projects from Whimsy Retreat!🎉

Hello my friends! Are you getting all of your Holiday errands finished up? I’ve still got some cards to send out and get going on my cookies! I always feel behind every year…are you this way too?

So, while I was “making merry” literally, I thought I’d join in the December Crafty Chefs Group Challenge and see what I could come up with for it. This cute little gnome has been wanting to jump on my craft table for a while…

Isn’t he adorable?! He came from a stamp set that I had actually got last year around this time and just never had the time to pull it to play with before Christmas rush finished up. Note to self…I have TONS of those items this year, so plan EARLIER! LOL! It seems I always get closer to a deadline and then want to come up with all kinds of things I want to try…is it the pressure or what?!

Anyway, I’ve got him all colored up with Copics and then I used the coordinating dies to cut him out with that I’ve attached with foam tape over my “Joy Fold Card“. (This was part of the challenge for the Crafty Chefs this month and I followed along with a tutorial to a link *see link above* that was given, but I changed it up slightly by making it an A2 size.) For the card design, I’ve used these Sweater Weather Papers. I’ve added some shimmer metallic ribbon and also stamped some green snowflakes from the gnome stamp set and cut them out with the coordinating dies as well. I also found some green colored pearls to add to the centers of each one too! The ribbon, pearls/gems and color green were a requirement for the Crafty Chefs challenge.

The snowflake on the left side of the gnome is popped up and actually helping to hold the top flap down, so you have to pull it out to open the card.

So when you pull open the flap, open the inside flap, this is what you’ll see inside. I heat embossed the sentiment along with a couple of snowflakes from the gnome stamp set with white EP and colored up a gift package, cut it out with the coordinating dies and attached it to the green panel. I also took the white Ink Pad and rubbed it along the edges of the green panel before attaching.

Here’s this month’s requirements for the December Crafty Chef Challenge. I used them all except for the very last one. It’s been a long time since I’ve made a Joy Fold card, so this was really fun!

I’m also VERY excited to announce that I have FINALLY finished all of those projects from the Whimsy Stamps Virtual Retreat that I took over a weekend back in October! Yep, I guess I’m pretty slow! In my defense, I took extra time so that I could enjoy each minute of it all and go back to revisit posts and tutorials! There were 23 projects total, and I made a few extras along the way. Here are my last ones:

This was for kit 19 and a wonderful coloring tutorial from the one and only Crissy who also illustrated the image of course! The sentiment I added myself is from Lawn Fawn.

This was for kit 20 and I was so thrilled to finally be able to get to these adorable gnomes! Love this fun shaker design! I put my own spin on it with the embossing folder background, stitches, twine and snowflakes.

Last, but certainly not least is this fun mixed media project by Iris for the final project. We even got to make a customized envelope to house the slimline card. She had Christmas greeting on her design, but I wanted to make it a winter birthday card. Love how it turned out!

So that’s all I have to share for now, but I know I’ll be back again on Monday to share a reminder challenge post for you! I appreciate you taking the time to stop by to see what I’m doing friends! Hope you are staying healthy and happy! Enjoy your weekend!

Challenges (ONLY for Joy Fold Gnome Card):

A Perfect Time to Craft – #12 Anything Goes
A Bit More Time to Craft – #129 Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore – #82 December Anything Goes
Love to Craft – LTCCB53 December Anything Goes
QKR Stampede – #409 Anything Goes
Arty Divas – #32 Anything Goes
Crafty Creations – #416 December Anything Goes
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes + coloring

Shades of Blue at {Cupcake Inspirations}

Hello friends! Hope that you’ve had a great first weekend of December and are ready to roll on with the spirit of the Season! I know the world is a bit different, but it’s been great to get out the Holiday decorations and try to keep things as “normal” as we can be. We went out and drove through our local park filled with Christmas lights while sipping some Starbuks coffee and the baking of cookies always gets me in the spirit. What do you like to do around the Holidays?

Today, I have a new challenge to share with you over at {Cupcake Inspirations}:

The new challenge for the next two weeks is a color challenge in “Shades of Blue“! You need to be sure to use at least three different shades of blue when making your project. So any theme or occasion you can think of just use these colors! We look forward to seeing what you come up with for this challenge! Here’s my project:

I think my favorite colors to decorate with for Christmas are blue and silver! So I knew I wanted to pull out this GORGEOUS stamp set from Whimsy Stamps called Elegant Ornaments and have a play with it!

I started with a Bristol Smooth Watercolor panel and took the Whimsy Stamps Beaded Curtain Stencil and went over the top with some Blueprint Sketch, Salty Ocean and Tumbled Glass Oxide Distress Inks. I ended with the lightest color and faded it into the white. I took the lightest color and also went over the top of the panel too. I then cut the panel out with the Whimsy Stamps Zig-Zag Stitched Rectangle die.

I then took a couple of the ornaments along with the sentiment from the stamp set and heat embossed them where I wanted to place them with Ranger Liquid Platinum EP. I took my Zig CC Real Brush Markers and colored in the heat embossed ornaments and blended them together with a watercolor brush. I then stamped the “curved beads” images in navy colored ink and then heat embossed the strings to the ornaments so that it all looked layered.

This image panel was layered over a piece of silver mirror cardstock and then layered over an A2 sized side folding navy cardbase. Lastly, I added some blue sequins and filled the centers with some Nuvo Dazzling Blue Glitter Drops.

Here’s a closer look at the ornaments and how that pretty embossing powder looks. I noticed that the navy beads caught some of the EP when I heat embossed the strings to the ornaments, but I don’t mind that as I think it gives a bit of shimmer over them and gives more depth to it. The card looks very pretty and sparkly and I’m happy with how it turned out.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my “shades of blue” creation today and it has inspired you to pull out your blue colored goodies to play along with us! Please be sure to check out the {Cupcake Inspirations} Challenge Blog to have a look at the wonderful inspiration from the rest of the DT to help inspire you more!

Thanks so much for joining me here today and I’ll be seeing you soon!😉

Challenges:

Cute Card Thursday – Anything Goes
Dream Valley – #238 Christmas
Winter Wonderland – Anything Christmas Goes
52 Christmas Card Throwdown – Pick a Precious 2020 Challenge – February 52CCT6-20 3 shades of blue
Through the Purple Haze – #174 Holiday – Make it Blue
Crazy 4 Challenges – C4C564 Elvis “A Blue Christmas”
Merry Little Christmas – MLCCB29 December Anything Goes Christmas
The Paper Funday – #24 December Anything Goes optional: Christmas/Holiday
Crafty Calendar – December Christmas theme

Guest Design Post for Retro Rubber Challenge Blog

Hello friends! Really excited to share my post today as a guest designer for the new challenge over at the Retro Rubber Challenge Blog! One of the cards I had previously entered had been chosen as a top pick and I was also invited as a guest to participate for this challenge.

Please remember that when you enter your creation for this challenge blog that you MUST include a stamp that is at least one year or older on your creation

I was so inspired by the warm and cozy feeling of the image with the candle, so my thoughts turned to an older stamp set that I’ve had in my collection for several years:

Both the candle and sentiment came from a rubber stamp set by Whimsy Stamps called “Peace on Earth“. It is no longer available and I’m thinking it was circa 2010. There is ONE digital image available that derived from this set called “Peace Angel“. (If you were familiar with Whimsy Stamps as far back as I was, you may remember the whole set and that this candle image was included with it.) I obviously still love the set and won’t part with it! 😉

I’ve got it stamped and colored with Copics over the white panel along with the sentiment from the same stamp set in red ink. The ribbon on the candle was paper pieced with some old pattern paper in my stash. I also used the same paper to die cut a couple of stars for the corner.

The image panel was cut out with the Whimsy Stamps Zig Zag Stitched Rectangle die, layered with red cardstock and then popped up with foam tape over a grey woodgrain embossed panel that was also cut out with the same die set. I ran some white ink over the grey woodgrain piece to bring out the texture in it a bit more. I layered these panels over a red top folding A2 sized top folding card base.

I’ve also used the “Stampin’ Up! Pretty Pines Thinlit dies” for the accents along the edges of the image panel. I die cut the pinecone pieces as well as the pine branches and arranged them over my design. I took some Gina K Glitter Glitz Gel and added it over those die pieces as well as around the edges of the grey woodgrain panel and the top of the stars. Lastly, I’ve added a double twine bow in the center of the stacked stars.

Here’s a closer look at that candle image and how I’ve got it colored up and paper pieced on my design. I’ve also taken some Ranger Stickles icicle and added some in the center of the flame in the candle.

You can also see the “snowy glitter” effect from the Gina K Glitter Glitz Gel. It dries hard and doesn’t come off! I like how it has sort of an icy look about it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my creation today and have been inspired in some way! Please be sure to stop on over at the Retro Rubber Challenge Blog to take a peek at the inspiration from the design team and how they were inspired by the beautiful photo as well! Hope you will be able to join along in the fun too!

Thanks for stopping in friends and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges: