A Tree for the Sparkles Challenge

I'm behind on my Christmas cards that I need for my November sale so really must get going - and the various Christmas card challenges are a huge help.

Today I'm doing the Sparkles Christmas Challenge "Include a Tree".

I created a background of various green alcohol inks on Yupo.  Trimmed it down to leave a border from the white card base.

I die cut the Tim Holtz tree twice, once from white and once from gold cs.  I glued the outline to the background and then had the fun of getting all the little gold pieces into the right spots - good thing I love jigsaw puzzles.  The sentiment is cut out of the same gold.  The panel is popped up on fun foam for dimension.

Thanks for coming by on a July day to look at a Christmas card!

Supplies:

Ink - various green alcohol inks

Paper - white and gold cs

Size - A2

Accessories - Tim Holtz tree and joy dies, fun foam

For a Wedding

Addicted to CAS's challenge is "Wedding".  Perfect as I need a card for a friend's daughter's wedding in August!

I went with gold and white and hearts:

I made a very CAS shaker card using gold glitter in the shaker and a gold embossed sentiment.

I die cut the entwined hearts out of my top layer, placed acetate on the backside and then glued the hearts back in place on the acetate. I added foam tape all around the opening, put in lots of chunky gold glitter pieces, and then added it to the card base.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps - Memory Box sentiment

Ink - ColorBox gold

Paper - white cs

Size - 4.75" square

Accessories - gold embossing powder, entwined heart die, gold glitter shaker filler, acetate, fun foam

Winter Snowflake

It is quite warm in Vancouver today as I write this post so it seems very strange to be thinking about snowflakes!  But that is the July challenge for CAS Christmas.  Bonnie is hosting it and I think she chose it because it's much hotter where she lives so maybe the thought of snow helps to keep her cool!

I enjoyed making my card but did not enjoy photographing it - I had to try several times to deal with the shimmery cream cs and the pearlescent embossing paste.  Here's the best I could do:

I used a really old Dreamweaver snowflake stencil that I haven't touched in years.  I taped it down on white cs and used the Dreamweaver Pearlescent paste through it.  I had some creamy shimmer cs that matches it really well so die cut the two sentiments and created the card base from it.

When the paste was dry, I trimmed it with a stitched square die, then played around with the placement of the two sentiments for ages - having "winter" on the top and "snow" on the bottom makes more sense linguistically, but just didn't look right stylistically!  I finally glued them on and popped the panel up on fun foam on the card base.

Here's a close-up to show you the lovely sparkle of the Pearlescent paste and the shimmer of the cardstock - so happy I had something that matched so well!

Please come and join us with your clean and simple cards featuring a snowflake or two (or more).  There's lots of inspiration over at CAS Christmas from the rest of the Design Team and July's Guest Designer, Jane (Onions and Paper).

Supplies:

Paper - white cs, cream shimmer cs

Size - 5.25" square

Accessories - Dreamweaver snowflake stencil, Dreamweaver Pearlescent paste, Simon Says Stamp "snow" and "winter" dies, Lil Inker stitched square die, fun foam

Blueberry Bouquet

Special Event

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DARNELL!!

Please join us in celebrating Darnell's Birthday!!

One more part to this special event.
The team has made special cards for Darnell's birthday,
along with our Guest Designer Leslie,
and several Featured Designers (friends from the retreat).

During our retreat, Darnell (Dolly to us) was up early one morning
and decided she wanted some frozen blueberries.
Somehow she spilled almost the whole, Costco-sized bag of
blueberries all over the floor.

Bonnie snapped these pictures.

See the swipe of blueberries on the right photo??  We couldn't find a broom so we grabbed
a large piece of card stock to pick up the berries.  As they thawed, the blueberry juice
"smooshed" on the cardstock in a lovely design that looked perfect for card making.

Well, without Dolly knowing, we kept that piece of blueberry smoosh and cut it up.
Each Designer has used one piece in making Dolly's birthday cards. :)

The theme for this month is "Bouquet of Flowers".  Please make sure that your card depicts a bouquet of flowers - a single branch or stem does not count as a bouquet, nor does a flower garden.  It can be just a bouquet or it can be in a vase.


Here's what I created with my piece of blueberry smooshed cs:

I used my Inktense watercolour pencils to colour the image. They give me more control for the fine lines of the bouquet's wrapping paper and also to keep some texture on the cat's fur.  I added a simple vertical sentiment and popped the panel up on fun foam.

You have until July 24th to enter a card featuring a bouquet - please be sure it is a bouquet and not just an image of flowers.  There's lots more inspiration over at CAS Watercolour - the cards made by the Design Team and by our talented Guest Designer, Leslie (Running with Scissors).

Supplies:

Stamps - Penny Black cat, Rosie's Roadshow sentiment

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black

Paper - white cs, including the piece with some blueberry stain on it

Size - 5.25" square

Accessories - Inktense watercolour pencils, fun foam