Winter Fun and Spring Flowers

First up a card for the Shopping Our Stash challenge "Winter Fun":

I chose a stamp I've had for ages of old-fashioned winter sports with women having to skate in skirts and a child on an old-fashioned wooden sled. It's coloured with coloured pencils on kraft and bordered with red and mounted on a teal card base - to my eye, they are kind of old-fashioned colours that suit the image.

My second card is for a friend's birthday.  She loves blue and she loves flowers.  It's for AAA Birthday challenge "anything birthday goes":

The image is coloured with coloured pencils. I stamped the text around it in a blue / grey ink but unfortunately there was some leftover red ink on the text stamp that changed the colour in a couple of spot. I then added blue / grey sponging around the edges.

I used the thin frame die to cut into my panel and then cut the thin frame out of blue cs and put it into the gap I'd made.

I stamped and heat embossed a white sentiment on dark grey cs and trimmed it into a banner.

Shopping Our Stash challenge "Winter Fun"

 

AAA Birthday "anything birthday goes"

 

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Inkadinkado
Ink - Versafine Clair Nocturne
Paper - kraft, red, and teal blue cs
Size - A2
Accessories - coloured pencils

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Penny Black bluebells, Wendy Vecchi text, Memory Box sentiment
Ink - Archival Jet Black, SSS Barely Blue, Hero Arts Soft Sky, ColorBox white
Paper - white, blue, dark grey cs
Size - A2
Accessories - coloured pencils, white embossing powder, SSS thin frame die

Group of Seven Cardmakers - Creative Heat Embossing

Throughout Covid, I've been meeting monthly with a group of crafty friends on Zoom to try out new techniques, revisit older techniques, as well as to discuss art products we might not have used before, or that we have but don't remember what to do with them.

We decided to share our experiences on a blog and that blog is called:

 Group of Seven Cardmakers.

This is our Group of Seven:

Bonnie (Stamping with Klass)

Brenda (Inkspired to Stamp) 

Christine (It's a Card Day's Night)

Darnell (djkardkreations)

Julia (Create with Me)

Loll (Stamping with Loll)

Susan (Cardmaker's Garrett) (me)

This month we are trying out a technique Loll discovered on another blog: the Creative Heat Embossed Backgrounds technique.  Detailed instructions are over on the Group of Seven post.

 

Here is my card and I have to preface this by saying that I'm not totally happy with it.

 

I applied Versamark ink randomly to navy blue cs and then sprinkled randomly with white glitter and silver glitter embossing powder.  Then heat set it.  I die cut a circle from my results, then layered that on a silver mirror cs circle, and topped it with a snowflake die cut from the same silver mirror cs (and die cut twice more from scrap white cs to glue together to give more dimension to the snowflake).

I will probably try some of the other options our Group of Seven cardmakers used - Bonnie's second technique of splattering with water and heat embossing the powder on top of the water (who knew that would work?) and Loll's second technique of heating the embossing powder on a griddle.  I really like the results they got with those techniques.  As for the technique I used here of random swiping with Versamark, I probably won't chose to use it.

 

Supplies:
Ink - Versamark
Paper - white and navy cs, silver mirror cs
Size - 4.25" square
Accessories - snowflake die, circle dies, Stampendous Silver Tinsel and Judikins White Diamond embossing powders

One Tree and a Recycled Owl

Christmas Cards All Year Round wants one of something or a tree.  I decided to do one tree.

I inked up the tree stamp with green Distress mini inkpads, spritzed lightly with water, and stamped on watercolour paper. When dry, I stamped the stars and sentiment. I popped that panel up on fun foam on gold shimmer cs and added that to a red shimmer card base.

My second card is one I made to welcome home one of my closest friends who has been away for two months.  She gets back January 31st - can't wait to see her!  It times perfectly with the Inkspirational challenge "Welcome".  My friend loves owls and she is also really adamant about recycling and reusing as much as possible.  I received the most beautiful owl card at Christmas so decided I'd recycle it into this card for her.  The card also has stars on it and my friend runs Southlands Therapeutic Riding Society, more commonly known as STARS, the program where I volunteer a few days a week, so an owl plus stars just couldn't be passed up!

I used a square die to cut out the main image of the owl and to cut out a piece of silver mirror cs that matches the shiny silver leaves and stars in the image. I also die cut some tiny silver stars from the same cs.

I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment on the bottom of the card, attached the mirror cs at an angle, layered the owl image over it, and glued on the silver stars in random places around the edge.

p.s. Cards with mirror cs on them are so hard to photograph - apologies for the reflections in the angled silver sections!

Christmas Cards All Year Round - "A Partridge in a Pear Tree - use one of something or a tree"

Inkspirational Challenge - "New and / or Welcome"

Supplies for Card 1:
Stamps - Art Impressions tree, PTI sentiment, SU star cluster
Ink - Distress Iced Spruce and Evergreen Bough, Delicata Golden Glitz, Memento Rhubarb Stalk
Paper - watercolour paper, gold and red shimmer cs
Size - A2
Accessories - fun foam

Supplies for Card 2:
Stamps - SSS sentiment
Ink - ColorBox silver
Paper - white cs, silver mirror cs
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - commercial Christmas card, Spellbinders square dies, silver detail embossing powder, tiny star die

Gold Owls and a Silver Moon

A card for the Tic Tac Toe Challenge - I chose the left hand vertical line that says White Cardstock, CAS Design, Gold / Silver Embossing.  And the Inkspirational Challenge wants to see something new - the owl stamp is new.

I stamped the image on white cs with Versamark and carefully added silver embossing powder to the moon and gold to the owls and branch.  I coloured in the berries with a red marker and added a red sentiment and red border.

Tic Tac Toe Challenge

Inkspirational Challenge

Supplies:
Stamps - Crafty Individuals owls, unknown sentiment
Ink - Versamark, Memento Rhubarb Stalk
Paper - white and red cs
Size - A2
Accessories - red marker, gold and silver embossing powder

Winter Scene with Sheep Two Ways

A bunch of challenges inspired this card.  The top left image of the sheep on the Four Seasons challenge started me off as it reminded me that I have this stamp of a lovely winter scene with sheep.  It even comes with the sentiment built in.  And then two challenges wanted sparkle or glitter, and another wanted a snowy day.  See below for the challenges.

I stamped on white cs and coloured the image with coloured pencils.  Then added sparkle with a quickie glue pen and glitter to all the snow lines.  Instead of bordering it with black cs, I took a fine point black marker and a ruler and simply made black lines around the edges.  Keeps it nice and flat for mailing!

 It's also a perfect image for watercolouring so I did a second one using watercolour paper and paints:

To my eye, I don't see much difference between the coloured pencil version and the watercoloured version.  I like using both mediums so can't even say I prefer one over the other!

Challenges:

Four Seasons Challenge "winter"

 

Once Upon a Time "The Snowy Day"

 

Stamping Sensations "add some sparkle" to a stamped focal element  - I added glitter to all the snow lines

Sparkles Christmas Challenge "add glitter accents" - I added glitter to all the snow lines

 

Supplies:
Stamps - Sheena Douglass Country Christmas
Ink - Versafine Clair Nocturne
Paper - white cs for the first card; watercolour paper and cream cs for the second card
Size - 6x4.25"
Accessories - coloured pencils for the first card; watercolour paints for the second card; glitter, black fine point pen

Inspired by My Pyjamas

My friend Darnell entered a challenge I wasn't aware of - Shopping Our Stash.  They have such a fun current challenge - Pyjama Day (make a project inspired by our favourite pyjamas).  

I was inspired by my very cosy flannel pyjamas covered in sweet little sheep, many of them wearing patterned sweaters:

I had the perfect stamp in my stash.  I stamped and watercoloured the image, and framed it with a pierced dot square frame die.

Shopping Our Stash "Pyjama Day" 

Supplies:
Stamps - Inky Doodle sheep, unknown sentiment
Ink - Versafine Clair Nocturne
Paper - watercolour paper, cream and red cs
Size - 5" square
Accessories - watercolour paints, pierced dot square frame die