My Honey

I feel in love with this stamp set from Rogue Redhead the minute I saw it!  Unfortunately, I'm too lazy to cut rubber unless I have a card in mind.  I had hoped that I could stamp a horse's backside for my anniversary card to my husband, but all my horse stamps feature the front of the horse.  This greedy liitle bear caught my eye, and I decided to use him instead.

As you can probably tell from all the silver, I have been married to Jim for 25 years.  I made the silver paper by painting white paper with silver paint - the brush marks give it an interesting texture. The bear and sentiment are embossed, and a quick silver bow was just enough embellishment.

Challenges:

• Cheerful Stamp Pad - 5 (bear toes)
• Truly Madly Crafty - animal
• Crafting when We can - monochrome
• Come and Get It - punch plus ribbon
• Craft your days away - grey (silver is sort of grey, right?)

Free digi - Season's Tweetings

It started out as a way to annoy my mother - I told her that I was going to use this sentiment with this image from Just Some Lines.  Terrible puns are a family tradition.

The image is super easy to cut out, and I whipped out some liquid applique to fluff up the birdie's hat.  The background - well, I used the sketch from Inspired by Stamping, but the papers are all scraps that were cluttering up my desk.  I really need to either clean more or stamp more, maybe both.

Would you like my sentiment?  I know I'm not the only person who likes birds on her Christmas cards.

Click for full size image.  I love sentiments that I can color to match my image!

Other challenges:

• Quirky Crafts - Christmas in July
• Sentimental Sundays - things with wings
• 2 Sisters - Christmas plus an animal
• Hiding in my Craft Room - lots of layers

Warm wishes (for winter)

Still cooking up Christmas cards - sometimes I feel like I'm making the same card over and over, and that's when I need a sketch to shake things up.  I always like the sketches at Blessings Ink - they are never too fussy; there is just enough to keep the eye moving without looking cluttered.

Stamp is from a•muse studio; it is very convenient to have the sentiment and the image together.  There is a trick to cutting the swallowtail.  I used a square punch to get that clean symmetrical angle. I used marker watercoloring (still my fav) touched up with gel pens.  All paper except the base is scraps.

Challenges:
Crazy 4 Challenges - faux stitching
Mark's Finest Papers - Christmas in July
Phindy's Place - button
Whimsy Inspiration - punch
Clear it out - use red and green scraps

Season's Greetings

Still working on Christmas in July, which is the challenge over at Blessings Ink.

There are other Christmas in July challenges I'm going to submit this to such as:

• Hooked on Crafts
• Lollypop Crafts
• The Crazy Challenge
• Totally Stampalicious
• Creative Inspirations Paint

See, I'm not the only one who likes a head start!

Die cut tree

I used to hate working with felt, because it is impossible to cut neatly.  Not any more - Felt die cuts beautifully, or at least it does with this a•muse studio die!  I tried it with three kinds of felt, from stiff to fluffy, and the tree came out crisply with every one.  When you work with felt, you have to use glue, because tape just fuzzes up and pulls away.  Not a problem for me, as I love tacky glue, and the stickles were fun to use!

The background paper is scraps, and the sentiment is double stamped, first in black, then in gold.  It gives a nice glow to the words.  The pink dotted paper is actually a valentine leftover, but I just love pink and dark green together!  I made this card for the felt challenge at Blessings Ink and these others:

• Send a Smile for Kids - Christmas in July
• So Artful - glitter/sparkly
• Our Craft Lounge - die cuts
• DRS Designs - Christmas cards

Glitter Santa

I told my girlfriend Joyce that I wanted to work on Christmas cards, so she brought over her Christmas stuff and we played for a couple of hours.  One of the things she brought was some 2 inch wide decor ribbon with glitter Santas on it; she had no idea what to do with it.  The Santas were so cool, I thought they would make great focal images, so I immediately went to work figuring out how to get them on a card.  I ended up punching a hole in both the frame and the card base - the ribbon piece is sandwiched between the two.

The background paper probably isn't the best choice, but I really like the little sleighs.  the sentiment is from the a•muse studio nordic noel set.

Challenges:
Papercraft Star - embossing
Scrapbook Sisters - one stamp
Waste Not Wednesdays - forgotten stuff (santa ribbon)
Crafter's Companion- Christmas
Pretty Little Ribbon Shop - tag

Christmas in July

My mojo has been dragging, but I have decided to devote my July to getting a head start on my Christmas cards.  I have been a challenge coordinator at Feline Playful long enough to know that Christmas in July is a very popular theme, so I don't expect to have any problems finding challenges to play in.  However, even a grossly non-Christmas challenge can be used for a Christmas card.  The challenge here is Red, White, and Blue (from Blessings Ink) :

I used the reflected image on ice technique, and burnished the sky with distress inks.  Somehow I didn't gauge things quite right - my penguins are floating in the air!   My background paper was originally a pale green snowflake pattern; I used the same distress inks to bring the color closer to my sky color.

Challenges:

• Stamptacular Sunday - red, white, blue, and sparkles (I used Stargazers on the ice)
• Stamping Sisters in Christ - use something new (first time I've used this stamp set)
• The Paper Players - Christmas in July (of course!)

I resisted the urge to slap silver and white snowflakes all over, believing less is more, but I can always add them later, if I like. It needs something - any ideas?