Thin Framed Cardinal and Mixed Media Christmas Lights

Christmas Kickstart wants to see a frame on the card.  I did a very thin circular frame around my cardinal.  And Stamping Sensations has a twist of Christmas in July.

I stamped the image and watercoloured it.  I die cut a thin circle out of the panel with the SSS Thin Circle Frame die and watercoloured it the same red as the cardinal. I trimmed the remaining outer part of the panel into a square, attached it to a piece of fun foam, then carefully glued in the thin red circle frame, and then finally added in the circle with the image. Those thin circle die cuts are very flimsy to deal with!

Inkspirational has a different kind of challenge - feature products from 2 or more stamp companies.  This card uses products from several different companies - Mama Elephant, Simon Says Stamp, and Impression Obsession stamps, Tim Holtz and Carta Bella stencils, Versafine, Distress, and Delicata inks, and Tim Holtz and Cosmic Shimmer pastes.  Mixed media is a great way to use different brands together.

On a piece of heavy cs, I brayered different shades of blue ink and sprayed with some mica spray, stamped with a snowflakes background stamp in darker blue, stamped a few bits of tiny stars in gold, and stenciled some larger stars and snowflakes with grit paste.

I stamped some small sentiment stamps on two of the edges with the dark blue ink, and went around the edges with a shimmery blue paste.

Because one of my small sentiments says "love the twinkle lights", I die cut some lights out of gold mirror cs and added them on top, along with a sentiment strip.

 
 

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - SU Christmas Cardinal
Ink - Versafine Clair Nocturne
Paper - watercolour paper, off white cs
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - watercolour paints, SSS Thin Circle Frame die, fun foam

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Mama Elephant long sentiment, SSS small sentiments, Impression Obsession snowflakes and stars background stamps
Ink - Versafine Clair Twilight, various blue Distress inks, Delicata gold
Paper - white cs, gold mirror cs
Size - A2
Accessories - Mama Elephant sentiment strip die, Distress mica stain Frosted Juniper, TH grit paste, TH star stencil, Carta Bella snowflake stencil, Cosmic Shimmer blue opal past

Spring Bluebells and Two Christmas Cards

Since it's spring, I'll start with a spring card.  Shopping our Stash Challenge is asking for Spring or Easter, and the Four Seasons Challenge wants Spring.  And since the bluebells are a Penny Black stamp, I'm linking it up to the Penny Black Saturday Challenge.

The Scilla are starting to bloom in my garden so this seemed the perfect stamp.  I stamped  and heat embossed in gold, then coloured with coloured pencils.  With Tea Dye ink to give a vintage feel, I stamped the definition of spring in a couple of places, sponged  around the edges, and stencilled some splatters.  Then stamped the flower name and cut it with a narrow label die and added it to the top.  The panel is popped up on fun foam for some dimension.

Moving on to working on my Christmas card stash.  Double D wants to see Cute Little Animals and Jingle Belles want us to be inspired by one of the cookies in this image:

I saw the cookie on the left near the bottom with the tangle of lights and thought of the stamp I have with a cute little dog all tangle up in Christmas lights.

I watercoloured the image and went over the lights with Glossy Accents. I trimmed with an old Spellbinders label tag, and bordered with green and added to a red card base. And I found the perfect sentiment that refers to lights! 

And finally Christmas Craft Creations wants to see Designer Paper on our cards.  I love colour coordinating DP with the colours I use in my focal image. 

The image is stamped and coloured with coloured pencils and popped up on fun foam for some dimension.

   

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Penny Black Scilla, Purple Onion spring definition
Ink - ColorBox gold, Distress Oxide Tea Dye
Paper - white cs
Size - A2
Accessories - gold embossing powder, coloured pencils, splatter stencil

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Penny Black dog, SSS sentiment
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black
Paper - watercolour paper, red and green cs
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - watercolour paints, Glossy Accents, Spellbinders label dies

Supplies for card 3:
Stamps - Penny Black sentiment, unknown owl stamp
Ink - Versafine Clair Nocturne
Paper - white cs, dp
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - coloured pencils, fun foam

A Naughty Dog for a Child

Playing around on a rainy day making a CAS card with a dog that would be suitable for a child.  I think this very naughty dog tangled up in the Christmas lights would amuse a child (I have to say it amuses me!).

I stamped and heat embossed the image on white cs, then coloured with coloured pencils and fussy cut it. I glued it to a piece of white cs.

I die cut the opening in the red card base, taped the white cs behind it, and had the plug on the image coming out of the opening.

It's going over to two challenges:

Christmas Kickstart - "Christmassy Canine Companions"

And the Paper Players CAS Challenge "Cards for Kids".

I really enjoyed making this card!!  Might have to make a few more like it!

Supplies:

Stamps - Penny Black

Ink - Versafine Onyx Black

Paper - red and white cs

Size - A2

Accessories - coloured pencils, MFT peek-a-boo window die, clear embossing powder

An Overdose of Gemstones!

I borrowed my friend Loll's Twinkling Tree stamp recently and stamped several panels with it.  When I saw the new Addicted to CAS challenge "Sparkle", I decided that I could use gemstones on each of the twinkling lights on the tree.  Little did I realize it would use about a packet and a half of gemstones and would take a very long time to add each little gemstone.  Even using my very fine-pointed tweezers, my hands ached at the end of it.  Here's the result:

Luckily I'd stamped it on Gina K heavyweight cs (and used the same as the cardbase) as all those gemstones need a heavy cs!

The tree and sentiment are stamped in brown and I used a matching brown cs as a border.  The gemstones are from Recollections - they come in a packet containing both red and dark red in three different sizes that nicely fit the little circles on the stamp.  And I like the mix of the two tones of red.

It's an unusual colour scheme for me - outside of my normal colour choices - but I like the end result, and it sure does sparkle in real life!

Supplies:

Stamps: Penny Black Twinkling Tree, Old Island Stamp Co. sentiment

Paper: Gina K cream cs, brown cs

Paper Size: A2

Ink: Wendy Vecchi Potting Soil

Accessories: Recollections red gemstones

My first card for a Design Team!!

I was so thrilled to get my first ever blog up and running a few weeks ago with lots of help from my wonderful (and very generous) friend, Loll Thompson (of Stamping with Loll).  She taught me all the basics and I got a couple of posts done and then my computer died.  I'll be getting a new one soon, but meanwhile I'm using an ancient iPad which is very limited.  So Loll is kindly stepping up again and helping me get this posted and linked to Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge.

I'm thrilled to have been chosen to be on the Design Team for the Christmas Card Challenge at Happy Little Stampers.  The theme for July is "tree".

I used a Penny Black stamp called "Twinkling Tree".  I love the way it reminds me of a small tree in my front garden that I decorate with colored lights every Christmas.

I stamped it, then colored in the "lights" with markers, then went over them with Glossy Accents. My "twinkle" word die seemed perfect.  I cut it twice out of dark gold cs and layered them.  I used the same dark gold to border the focal image.

Please come and join us at Happy Little Stampers and add your Christmas tree cards!


I'm going to enter this into two other challenges that are currently running at Happy Little Stampers, this month's Sketch Challenge and the CAS Challenge - Stamping.

Supplies:  Penny Black Twinkling Tree stamp, Tim Holtz word die, white and dark gold cs, markers, Glossy Accents, Ranger Archival Jet Black ink