Christmas for a Best Friend

Sneaking in under the wire for the Christmas Kickstart Challenge "Make One for a Loved One".  I made this one for my best friend.

I recently did a crafty Zoom call with friends and we worked on brayering.  This was one of my brayered backgrounds.  I stamped the trees and their attached sentiment in Staz-On, added a Tim Holtz "Merry Christmas" peel-off to the top, and bordered in black.  Final touch was gold peel off stars on all the stars in the trees of the stamped image.

Christmas Kickstart Challenge "Make One for a Loved One"

 

Supplies:
Stamps - Verses "Good Friends are Like Stars" stamp (trees and sentiment all in one)
Ink - Stazon black, various blue and orange Distress inks
Paper - coated cs, white and black cs
Size - A2
Accessories - tiny stick-on gold stars, Tim Holtz Christmas sentiment peel-off

Sleigh in Two Sizes

A few years back I bought both Tim Holtz stamp sets that included the horse drawn sleigh as I couldn't decide which size I liked the best.  Today I'm posting cards using both sizes of the stamp.  The cards are slightly different sizes but are both 6" across so you can see the different sizes in the stamps.

First up the bigger version of the stamp:

This is an A6 card, slightly larger than the A2 I usually make.  I stamped and heat embossed the image in white on black cs. Then scattered Frantage chunky embossing powder randomly over the panel and heated it from underneath so that it wouldn't blow away. For the snowy ground, I scribbled with a Versamark pen and then added Frantage to that and heated it. Instead of stamping a sentiment, I used one of the Tim Holtz Christmas quote strips I bought ages ago but have never used!

The second card is similar but uses the smaller version of the stamp and is a mini slimline size. 

Same technique but I added a white heat embossed sentiment that came in the same stamp set.

Challenges:

Card 1:

Christmas Craft Creations - Black & White + One Other Colour

Jingle Belles - Use an Animal on a Holiday Card

Christmas Cards All Year Round - Something that Starts with S or T - I have S for Sleigh

Card 2:

The Male Room - A Black and White Masculine Card

Supplies:
Stamps - Tim Holtz
Ink - ColorBox White
Paper - black and white cs
Size - Card 1 - A6 (6x4.25"), Card 2 - mini slimline (6x3.25")
Accessories - white embossing powder, Stampendous Frantage chunky white embossing powder, Versamark pen, red Tim Holtz Christmas quote strip (card 1)

Presents Under the Tree and a Cat in the Tree

The ABC Christmas Challenge is asking for "U is for Under the Tree".   Jingle Belles theme is "Animals on a Holiday Card".  I have a great stamp I haven't yet used that has presents under the tree and a naughty cat climbing up the tree.

I stuck to my favourite technique of stamping and watercolouring, and then trimming the panel, bordering it with black cs, and popping it up on fun foam on a red card base.  I went over all the ornaments with Glossy Accents for a little bit of shine and texture.

Challenges:

ABC Christmas Challenge - "U is for Under the Tree or V is for Vocabulary"

Jingle Belles - "Animals on a Holiday Card"

Rudolph Days - "Anything Goes Christmas"

NBUS Challenge - "Something Never Used"

Christmas Card Challenge - "Something that Starts with S or T" - I have a tree.

Supplies:
Stamps - Colorado Craft Co.
Ink - Versafine Clair Nocturne
Paper - watercolour paper, A6 pre-folded red card
Size - 6.25x4.5"
Accessories - watercolour paints, fun foam, Glossy Accents

A Snow Globe

Sneaking in under the wire for the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown challenge "Snow Globes".

The snowman is stamped and coloured with coloured pencils.  The snow globe and sentiment are stamped and heat embossed and die cut with the co-ordinating die.  I also die cut the snow globe out of thick sticky-backed foam, added a piece of acetate between the foam and the top snow globe, filled it with a variety of glitter and microbeads, and then stuck the snowman to the back of it.  The whole piece is on a snowflake embossed background.

52 Christmas Card Throwdown

Supplies:
Stamps - Taylored Expressions snow globe, Old Island Stamp Co. snowman, Penny Black sentiment
Ink - Versafine Clair Nocturne, Encore Metallic Blue
Paper - white cs
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - clear embossing powder, thick sticky-backed foam, clear acrylic sheet, Embossalicious snowflake embossing folder, coloured pencils, Martha Stewart tinsel glitter, Recollections micro beads, Art Glitter Blue Rain glitter

Reindeer for a Guy

Cardz 4 Guyz wants a masculine card featuring any animal.  I'm trying to get lots of Christmas cards made so went with reindeer.

I kept to shades of brown as that suits a masculine theme.  I created the background by sprinkling three shades of Bister powders on mixed media cs and spritzing with water. When dry, I stamped a small holly stamp in Tea Dye ink across the top.

I then stamped the two reindeer with Walnut Stain ink and heat embossed them. I added a die cut sentiment, bordered with dark brown, and used a white card base.

It's great when I can adapt a challenge to a Christmas card as I really need to work on my stash for my sale at the end of November!

Supplies:
Stamps - Studio Light reindeer, Art Impressions holly
Ink - Distress Tea Dye and Walnut Stain
Paper - white, dark brown, and mixed media cs
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - Brown, Natural, and Yellow Bister; clear embossing powder, Tattered Lace sentiment die

Berries and Flowers

A couple of cards for you today.  First up for Christmas Craft Creations "Black & White + One":

A very CAS card and quick to make - stamped, watercoloured the berries bright red, bordered with black, popped up on fun foam, and Glossy Accents added to the berries.

And for The Flower Challenge "Use a Shape":

This uses up some odds and ends so it's also going over to Pixie's Snippets Playground.  The piece behind the flower is from my leftovers box - it had been sprayed with a few different sprays. Behind it is a scrap of dark pink shimmer cs.  And on a scrap of watercolour paper, I stamped and watercoloured the flower, then fussy cut it and popped it up with foam tape.  I finished it off with some tiny flower embellishments that matched the colours in the sprays.

Challenges:
Christmas Craft Creations "Black & White + One
 

The Flower Challenge "Use a Shape"

  

Pixie's Snippets Playground 

  

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Magenta chickadee, Rubber Soul sentiment
Ink - Versafine Clair black
Paper - white and black cs, watercolour paper
Size - A2
Accessories - red watercolour paint, Glossy Accents, fun foam

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Tim Holtz peony, unknown sentiment
Ink - Ranger Archival Jet Black
Paper - watercolour paper, dark pink shimmer cs, white cs
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - watercolour paints, various sprays, Simon Says Stamp tiny flower embellishments, Spellbinders peony die cuts, foam tape

Cozy Snowman

I'm a bit of a stick-in-the-mud about traditional Christmas colours but I always make an exception for the Jingle Belles challenge when they do their fund-raising challenge for breast cancer.  Stephanie and Lauren who run the challenge each donate $2 for every pink Christmas card to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Here's my snowbaby staying cozy in her pink hat and scarf:

Stamped on watercolour paper, watercoloured, trimmed with a hemstitch square die, layered over pink cs, and added fun flock to the pompom and brim of the hat.

Linking up with:

Jingle Belles "Pink Christmas"

 

Christmas Cards All Year Round "Something that Starts with S or T"

Penny Black Saturday Challenge "Anything Goes" 

Supplies:
Stamps - Penny Black
Ink - Versafine Clair Nocturne
Paper - watercolour paper, pink and cream cs
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - watercolour paints, Spellbinders square hemstitch die, fun flock

Red Berries, Gray Stems

Marcia, this month's host of CAS Christmas, is asking for Gray and Red on your Christmas cards.

I went with red berries, gray stems, and a grey card base.

Using my MISTI, I inked up the stems and berry tips with a Weathered Wood Distress marker and the berries with a few different red Distress markers, spritzed lightly, and stamped onto watercolour paper.  The red bled into the grey a bit so I let it dry and then used the grey marker again to stamp the stems and berry tips again - it covered up a bit of the red bleeding but not all of it.  I stamped the sentiment with Weathered Wood ink, popped the panel up on fun foam on a grey card base, and went over the berries with Crystal Glaze.

You have until October 24th to enter your card.  There's lots of inspiration over at CAS Christmas from the rest of the Design Team.

Supplies:
Stamps - Penny Black berries, unknown sentiment
Ink - Distress Weathered Wood
Paper - grey cs, watercolour paper
Size - 6x4.25"
Accessories - Distress markers, Nuvo Crystal Glaze, fun foam

Foil and Snowflakes

Recently a few of us played with foil over Zoom.  One of the techniques we tried was dry embossing foil cs and then sanding off some of the raised layer to reveal the core colour of the foil cs.  See this video by Jennifer Maguire.

I enjoyed the technique so much that I used it to create a card for a couple of October challenges that call for snowflakes.  Here's my card:

I embossed a piece of blue foil cs with a snowflake swirl embossing folder and then sanded off the raised area.  It revealed a silver colour under the blue so I added it to a silver shimmer card base and die cut a couple of snowflakes and a Tim Holtz sentiment circle out of the same silver shimmer cs.

For these challenges:

Christmas Cards All Year Round "Something that Starts with S or T"

Christmas 24 Challenge "Simply Snowflakes" 

Supplies:
Paper - blue matte foil and silver shimmer cs
Size - A2
Accessories - Cuttlebug embossing folder, TH snow circle die, Impression Obsession snowflake dies

A Horse with a Wreath

There is a new Christmas challenge called Peace on Earth.  So I decided to join in their first ever challenge with this card.

It was inspired by one of the images on their mood board:

I used an old stamp that hasn't seen ink for several years.  I watercoloured it, then cut it out with the SSS Thin Circle Frames die - it gave me both the image cut as a circle and the thin circular frame.  I decided to paint the frame with the same gold paint that I used on the brass decorations on the bridle.  I attached the image to the card base first and then carefully added the thin frame around it.

The sentiment is a wax seal that I made while at a friend's house.  Here's a close-up of it:

The wax seal makes a nice change for a sentiment.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Supplies:
Stamps - Serendipity horse
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black
Paper - watercolour paper, cream cs
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - watercolour paints, SSS Thin Circle Frames die, wax seal

S for Snowman, V for Vocabulary

Cards for a couple of "ABC" challenges.

First up, Christmas Cards All Year Round "Something that Starts with S or T" - I went with S for snowman.

Stamped, watercoloured, trimmed with a wonky stitched rectangle, and popped up on fun foam on a blue/grey card base.  I decided a sentiment would make it look too busy so put it on the inside.

On the other hand, the sentiment is a major feature of my second card.  It is for the ABC Christmas Challenge "V for Vocabulary".  I interpreted that as using quite dominant words on my card.

I stamped the long narrow image of ornaments and coloured with coloured pencils. Then trimmed the image and added it to the focal panel along with stamping a green vertical sentiment. I trimmed the panel with a deckle edge die and popped it up on fun foam, and finished by adding Glossy Accents to the ornaments.

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Serendipity snowman
Ink - Versafine Clair Nocturne
Paper - watercolour paper, blue/grey cs
Size - A2
Accessories - watercolour paints, MFT Wonky Stitched rectangle die, fun foam

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - unknown (Northwoods?) ornaments, Serendipity sentiment
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Archival Library Green
Paper - white cs
Size - A2
Accessories - coloured pencils, Glossy Accents, Spellbinders deckle edge die, fun foam

A Cake with Kisses

Seize the Birthday challenge is asking for cakes.  I have a new stamp that was a free gift with an order I placed with ArtSpecially.  So I'll also enter the card in Darnell's NBUS Challenge.

ArtSpecially is a Dutch company so I had to check the meaning of the word "Kusje" under the cake - it means kisses which makes perfect sense with the row of three "x's" under it.

I stamped it and coloured with coloured pencils, added a small birthday sentiment in pink, and popped it up on fun foam on a pale green dry embossed background.

Seize the Birthday

 

NBUS Challenge

 

 

Supplies:
Stamps - ArtSpecially cake, SSS sentiment
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black, Memento Rose Bud
Paper - white and pale green cs
Size - A2
Accessories - coloured pencils, fun foam, Sizzix embossing folder

A Metal Disc and a Single Dog

A couple of other challenges are about to end so more last minute cards.

For Cardz 4 Guyz "Use Some Metal", I used one of my Tim Holtz metal Christmas quote tokens.  And for Jingle Belles "Include Some Snow", I have dry and wet embossed snowflakes.

I created the tag by smooshing with Distress inks, stamping some script over it, stencilling some snowflakes with white embossing paste, and attaching the metal token with a brad

I added some ribbon to the top and looped it over a dry embossed background, and added a ribbon knot.

Here's a close-up of the token so that you can read the lovely quote:

And a second card, this one for CASology "One".  I have one dog on a very CAS thank you card:

I stamped, heat embossed, and fussy cut the dog (who looks much like mine). I mounted it t on the white card base, taping the feet right to the card and the head popped up a bit with foam tape.

I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment, die cut the frame die and popped it up on foam tape.

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - script stamp
Ink - various Distress inks
Paper - white cs, tag
Size - A2
Accessories - Tim Holtz sentiment token, brad, ribbon, TH snowflake stencil, white embossing paste, Cuttlebug embossing folder

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Stamp Gallery dog, unknown sentiment
Ink - Distress ozide browns
Paper - white cs
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - MFT pierced square frame die, clear embossing powder, foam tape