Saturday, November 26, 2011

O Christmas tree...

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving - and we're moving on to Christmas with this week's challenge at Our Creative Corner! Our hostess this week is Wendy Janson and she has challenged us to make a card with a Christmas tree. My card for today is another one for my Christmas card buffet - it's a CASE of this card, which I thought was really cute. The card buffet stampers loved it too, so thanks to Debra Currier for the inspiration!


I wanted to introduce my stampers to the pennant punch and stamp set, and what better way than through an adorable Christmas card. It's a quite simple card - the cute snowflake embossing folder, Cherry Cobbler, Lucky Limeade and Soft Suede card stock (plus naturals white for stamping), DP from the Simply Scrappin' kit in the holiday mini, and the tree image with a sentiment from Perfect Pairs. If you are wondering what I used to make my scalloped "circle" it's actually two of the big flower on the Island Floral die, overlaid to make a circle. I like to get creative with my tools for card buffets so I don't have to use anything on more than one card, so this was my way of using a die I wouldn't have otherwise used at Christmas.

That's it for me this week - I still have more card buffet cards to show you and I hope I get time to do just that in the coming week! I hope you'll join in and make a Christmas tree card with us this week and be sure you take a peek at what the rest of the designers on our team came up with. I'm sure it will put you in the holiday spirit!

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Gold and Blue Christmas

I'm back as promised with another card for my Christmas card buffet. This one is for the challenge this weekend at Our Creative Corner, which is an inspiration challenge:


The elements I chose to incorporate from this picture are the patterned tablecloth, the cream background, the golden bird on the table, and the pops of blue and black. This is what I came up with:



I started by cutting out the lattice (twice) with the Big Shot - it's tone-on-tone Very Vanilla. It takes two lattice cutouts to cover the card base, but you only need the end of one of them. I wrapped gold cord (retired, shh) around the panel and then put my bird in the center. You may not be able to tell but I used the Bright Hopes stamp set for the gold embossing. The tree image is large enough that you can stamp and emboss and then punch out the elements from the black and Pacific Point card stock. I used three of the branches and then added the gold berries. I made these by taking the Versamark pad straight to the vanilla card stock, embossing the whole thing gold, and punching them out with the dots on the cupcake punch - you can also use gold card stock. The sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes and is punched with the word window and modern label punches. That's it! I like the clean design, and I didn't want to add anything else because it does take some time to assemble all the punched pieces.

I'm going to get back to work churning out those card designs - thanks for stopping by today, and don't forget to visit the OCC blog to see the inspired creations from the rest of our wonderful team!

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

It's that time of year...

Christmas card buffet time! I am actually doing the buffet twice this year, but with the same 10 cards, and *blush* I'm going to be CASEing a lot. Here's the first one, which is a CASE but one that I played around with some. The original card was shown at the Louisville regional and posted by Linda Heller (among others I'm sure). Here is my version, using the Paper Players color challenge of Always Artichoke, River Rock and Riding Hood Red:



I love that we now have a tool for making easy scored backgrounds! I used 1/2" score lines and sponged the River Rock panel with artichoke ink. Actually I sponged everything, LOL. Once you start it's hard to stop! The image from Bells & Boughs was colored with blender pen and reinkers so I could shade a little bit. I used one of the circles from the Pennant die for the layer behind my image. The rest of the card is pretty simple: a sentiment from Four the Holidays, vanilla and artichoke layers, RHR card base, three gold brads, and some artichoke seam binding.

I promise to show you another card buffet offering with my OCC challenge on Saturday. I can't guarantee I will make it back this week to post any of the others, but I will try! Thanks for visiting!

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Real Basic Pumpkin Pie

No, this isn't a cooking blog - you are in the right place! For the challenge this week at Our Creative Corner our hostess Wendy Janson asked us to feature pumpkins or the color Pumpkin Pie. I pulled out my Color Coach and found this cool combo of Pumpkin Pie, Real Red and Basic Gray. I tried to make the PP the main color, I really did, but I don't think it quite comes across that way. Oops! I should have known that the red would want to jump out, but I didn't have time to switch any elements around. The fun layout comes from the Mojo Monday sketch for this week.


I decided to put my sentiment in the rectangle spot and chose a large one that could pull that off. It's from the hostess set Happiest Birthday Wishes. I colored it with markers then added a rhinestone (colored with a Sharpie) for the dot on the I. The designer paper is Real Red and retired Pumpkin Pie. My flower is 8 layers if you count the rhinestone - I used the Blossom Party die and another flower die that was in a mini and I'm blanking on the name of it... sorry! The plain white background features the Elegant Bouquet embossing folder, and to anchor the bottom of the card I added three (retired) PP buttons with more colored rhinestones glued to the centers.

Mmm, now I'm thinking about pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving is not far off! I hope you'll get in on our early celebration and pull out your pumpkins this week! Be sure you also visit the OCC blog to see what the rest of the team came up with!

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Is Razzleberry manly?

Not a question I ever thought I might ask, but there you go! This week for the challenge at Our Creative Corner, our hostess Tui Nathan asked us to make a masculine card - and if we were up to the challenge, to make a masculine card using nonmasculine colors. I wanted to give it an honest try, even though I admit - it was difficult and I'm not sure I succeeded! Tell me what you think...


Yeah, I don't think this would pass the masculine test in my house. I feel like I've seen other cards tagged as masculine that were more feminine than this, though! Well, this is my card and I'm going with it. I used generation stamping to create the leaf panel with this image from Just Believe. The sentiment is PTI. I made my little tabs for the jumbo brads with the modern label punch, and the designer paper in the background is Early Espresso (stripe) and the razzleberry print from Pocketful of Posies. Add some sponging on the edges and that was that! I do like the card, even if it's not too manly, LOL!

We hope you will take on our challenge - try those nonmasculine colors out and see what you come up with! Be sure you also visit the OCC blog to see the rest of the creations from our team!