60 Years

My In-Laws celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary this month, and I wanted to make a special card for them.

 The symbol for 60 years is Diamond, so that was my focus.  I have no gem type stamps, so I looked for drawings of diamonds and found one that with the aid of a ruler I felt I could copy fairly well. 

After drawing it lightly with pencil, I colored it with colored pencils in shades of dark grey, light grey and silver.  I added strokes of Spectrum Noir sparkle pen to different areas of the gem.    I added the 60 die cut with Avery Elle Count On it Dies cut from DCVW glitter paper.  The sentiment comes from Hero Arts.

Underneath at each of the top sides and the bottom point of the gem, there are Chibi lights in white. I had a few hic ups along the way, primarily not realizing how bright those lights were and how much shadow they could create under the panel outlining every crooked piece of foam tape I had laid down.  I tripled my front panel by cutting more with the WPlus9 Sunshine layers die and that helped tremendously with the shadows.

Have a wonderful New Year !
As ever, thanks for stopping by!

Birthday Mouse

A quick post of a birthday card for a crafty friend who likes purple!

The image stamp is from Inky Antics.  Sentiment from Hero Arts. Scallop die WPlus9. Sequins Pretty Pink Posh.


Thanks for stopping by!

Hello Winter

Hi There!  My good friend Greta, sent me some die cuts last year. I have been saving them, and I put them on a few cards.  The die cuts were on white paper.  I heat embossed them with silver for my cards.  The sentiment comes from a CTMH set.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Sweet Holiday Wishes

Hands down, this is my favorite purchase for this holiday season.  I so love this set. I love decorated sugar cookies, or cut out cookies as some call them.  I have made them for the holidays since I was old enough to bake without supervision.

I still make them, but only once a year.  When we visit hubs family in Ohio during the holidays, I can almost always count on some iced cookies appearing on the counter at some point.  They are so good, and always remind me of the holidays, family and good times.  So when I saw this set at PTI, I had to have them. It was love at first sight.

There are so many layers to the set, I bought the dies and the stamps.  I confess to using the stamps only for the outlines on the cookies and for the sentiments. The remainder of the cookies are decorated and layered with die cuts.  They have HEFT, they have dimension.  They have many many many pieces.  I will only be making these for family because they are time consuming. Though I hope to get a jump start on next year :-)!

Don't they look good enough to almost eat?

Thanks so much for stopping by!

A bit of Watercoloring

I fell in love with this set from Stampin Up - Christmas Magic.  Here are two cards stamped on watercolor paper and colored with distress markers. 

 For the first one, I definitely went with all the lines, and added some trees to the background. The panel is foam mounted over a bit of glitter tape.

For the second one, I tried more of a no-line coloring style.  


Thanks so much for stopping by!

More Christmas Cards

Here are a few more Christmas cards.  These images are digi files from Power Poppy.  I first saw the wreath images over at 'my little stamping blog', and I was quite taken with them.

I brought them along with me to California for some quick cards. The images were a joy to color.

If this is laid out in a wonky fashion...my apologies.  I am using my IPad while traveling.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Merry Christmas.

Birthday in Pink

Hi a quick post while I am still traveling.  This card is for my fabulous MIL.  She loves pink and I hope she loves this card too.   The flower image is actually a piece of fussy cut fabric mounted on sticker paper to stop the edges from fraying.  The oval is a spellbinders die cut that was embellished with crochet stitches.

I added the sentiment with a vellum strip heat embossed in white.  All was mounted on a coordinating pink card base.


Thanks so much for stopping by!

Make a wish

I am on my way to California to visit my Dad for the holiday's.  I have kept back a few cards to post while I am gone. 

First up a birthday card for a friend that loves penguins. I usually send her flowery cards, so this year its a change up.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tis the Season

When I got this PTI Splits Tis the Season stamp and pulled it out to play with it, I wasn't sure what to do with it.  I was lamenting the fact that I had not bought the matching die.  So after stamping, embossing and coloring a few pieces of watercolor paper they sat, and sat, and sat.

Finally, after about a week I decided they needed to be finished, and it must have been the right time.  I love how they turned out.

I embossed a panel, first diecut with a wonky stitches die, with a Sizzix embossing folder.  My stamped and colored image was die cut with MFT's stitched Arch die.   I added a bit of glitter or foil tape as well.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

More Merry and Bright

Every once in a while a stamp set comes along that I cannot stop playing with. Usually for me it is a floral stamp set, I love flowers.  So imagine my surprise to find myself absolutely in love with Simon Says Stamp's Merry and Bright designed by Kristina Werner. They were deigned for  the December card kit.  I was happy to see that I could buy just the stamp set at the same time the kit was released.

I love the images, and I could color them all day long and all week long.  I have been coloring them alot and this is hands down my favorite stamp this season, maybe even this year!

I am submitting these two to Simons Flicker Challenge Make it a Happy Holiday.  

After coloring the images and matting them, I decided they needed a bit more sparkle...so I dug out the stickles.  I'd forgotten how much fun they can be!



Thanks so much for stopping by!

Sympathy

Sympathy cards-- I really don't like making them.  Usually it is because I need one.  The Father of a friend of ours passed away recently and I needed a card.  I think this will be my go to sympathy card in the future.

Do you have a go to style, stamp or design for a sympathy card? Do you keep some around, or do  you make them as needed?

Thank you for taking the time to stop by.

Penny Black Saturday Challenge

Hi There I took a wee break from the Christmas cards...still have several to make.  I let hubs go through my bin and pick out the ones he wanted send out...and somehow his list got bigger and my stash got smaller! So I still have more than a dozen to make. 

The Penny Black Saturday Challenge for December is Winter or Christmas Card.

I was looking at a wintery/holiday stamp set from Penny Black called Seasons Wishes. There are several Christmas sentiments and also the wintery one I am using tonight.  This card will be mailed to hubs while I am in California with my Dad for Christmas and he is with his folks. 

This card took a bit of effort.  The bird and branch stamps were both colored with markers and stamped several times onto a card panel. (The misti is so useful for this technique.) Then they were stamped with versamark and clear heat embossed. The sentiment was stamped with onyx black in and clear heat embossed as well.  Once the embossing was cooled, I loaded a Clarity brush with some Hero Arts Cornflower ink and I added the blue to the card.  I wanted a hint of sky without coloring the entire card panel. Lastly, I die cut the panel with a wonky stitched rectangular die.

I think hubs will love the card!

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Christmas Blessings

I saw the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches#265  and I took a bit of a liberty with it, but I am going to submit it anyway.

I love MFT's Stitched Arches Stack. It's such a unique shape.  And, if you ignore the bit of the circle below the banner in this week's sketch...its a perfect fit!

The scalloped and stitched die is from WPlus9's Sunshine Layers, the sentiment from Penny Black, the Church is from Simon's, and the blue card and the star is from Stampin Up. The embossing powder is Hero Arts Silver.



Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy your weekend.

Merry Monday 224 CAS on Sunday ATSM Wednesday Challenge at Simons and their Flickr Challenge 59

This week Merry Monday is looking for a Masculine card.  CAS on sunday is looking for a Christmas card. Addicted to Stamps and More is Make your Mark this week. And anything goes at Simons Wednesday Challenge.  

ETA:  Also adding all three to Simon's Flickr challenge 59 - Make it a Happy Holiday.



The last several cards I have made are all copic colored.  These are my favorite cards to make, and they fit several challenges.

First up this sweet lil reindeer for Merry Monday.  I fell in love with him and he looks great on that brown card base. I know the scallops are a little girly, but the color scheme and the lack of glitz put this on the masculine side of the column.


For CAS on Sunday, this card using the same stamp set, but a different image and sentiment set.

For addicted to Stamps this card fits, it is one of the first images I colored late last year and I actually liked my coloring.  I've been coloring so much more this year and I had to bring that stamp out again and color it up.

Its such a darling group of cuddle bugs!


And they are all going to the Wednesday Challenge at Simon Says Stamp.


 
 

 Thanks so much for stopping by!