Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Classic Christmas

It's the most wonderful time of the year - and Christmas is coming up quickly! I'm back with another of my club Christmas cards. The inspiration for this card came from a card I found in an old Stampin' Success magazine (that's the publication SU sends its demonstrators, and it's always amazing). I'm submitting this for the Pink Elephant inspiration challenge.

 
I used a very traditional color scheme: Real Red, Old Olive, Crumb Cake, Baked Brown Sugar, and Whisper White. The image is from the hostess set Warmth & Wonder, colored with markers to omit the "noel" sentiment. I wanted to add this cute little banner (the die comes with one of the flip card thinlit sets) and the sentiment from More Merry Messages. Behind the cardinal I punched a wide oval and layered that onto a window frame die-cut, which is pierced with the piercing template.
 
For my background I used Crumb Cake card stock embossed with the poinsettia folder, over a label die-cut that I cut into two pieces in order to spread the color across the whole card base. The embossed panel hides the cut so it's easy-peasy! I added two very thin strips of red card stock and two candy dots as embellishments. I often keep my Christmas cards mostly flat so they are easy to mail, and this one works perfectly!
 
Thanks for visiting and I hope you are enjoying the beauty of the holidays this week!

December Paper Crafters Sampler

The last collection of the year is available now through Paper Crafters Sampler!

 

Here is a sneak peek of my card for this month's sampler:


You won't be disappointed by the wonderful projects available this month!

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Merry Little Christmas

Hi there! Are you in the Christmas spirit? I have to confess I had a bit of a tough time getting going, with Thanksgiving being right before everyone seemed to just fall into Christmas. But once we put up our tree, and we got some snow on the ground (just a little - not too much, yet) I started feeling that Christmas glow.

I'm making more Christmas cards this week for my club to stamp this weekend. They really enjoyed the last round and I'm looking forward to sharing more designs with them. This is the first one, and it was inspired by a card I saw in last year's holiday catalog. I'm doing three challenges with this card: Mojo Monday sketch, SUO Challenges (nontraditional Christmas), and CASology (snowflakes).


I'm not sure how I ended up with these colors - I wanted blue and chose Night of Navy, then in looking for something to put with it I just landed on Soft Suede. I think I like it! The main panel is from the holiday stamp set called Merry Little Christmas. I colored it with markers, then cut it out with the Chalk Talk die, then finally added the ornamental accents with the Stamp-a-ma-jig. It was easy to center them using the die-cut shape as a guide.

I hunted through everything I had looking for something to layer behind my tag. In the end I'm featuring a new product that will be available in January in the new spring catalog. It's called a Tag Topper punch and we have two coming out - the other one does a traditional angled tag. I just punched both ends to make a shape that fit my stamped panel. The card stock going into the punch is cut at 2" (actually I found I needed to shave just a hair off of that) and for this piece I cut the length at 3 3/8". Pretty sweet - I love finding little tricks to get my layers!

Another new product in the spring catalog is the scallop embossing folder. For the rest of my card I used navy dotted paper, two Festive Flurry snowflakes (I decorated one with the chalk marker), natural trim, white baker's twine, and a navy button. One more tip for you: to keep my white snowflake from sticking off the edge of the card, I cut a notch in one of the points and then hid that behind the ribbon.

What do you think of the nontraditional Christmas look? Of the two other cards I have planned as of now, one will be more traditional, and the other one ... won't! I like to mix it up sometimes! But you'll have to check back for those. In the meantime thanks for stopping by!

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Happy birthday, Mom!

My wonderful mom had a birthday yesterday so I had to wait until she received it (which I hope is today!) to post her card. I made this with two SCS challenges: Featured Stamper and Inspiration. The card I chose to CASE for the featured stamper Linda is this one. From the Horchow site for inspiration, I picked this bedding - classic and elegant, and both my mom and I love blue, so it was perfect! I'm also entering in Dynamic Duos for this week's challenge.

Here is my card:


When I saw the inspiration photo I immediately thought of this retired DSP in Midnight Muse, which I used for the large scallop circle. The flower image from You Are Loved (also retired) seemed to coordinate perfectly. Based on the inspiration piece and the DSP I chose, I put the Midnight Muse with Crumb Cake and Very Vanilla. I used the polka dot and finial press embossing folders for texture, and I pulled the stripes from the inspiration photo in with the punched pansy. I added a Crumb Cake button and Midnight Muse dahlia with a linen thread bow. The sentiment comes from PTI's Ruby Rose set.

Happy birthday Mom - I love you and I hope you love your card!