FF Final!

Well, here we are at the end of the year, with the final Festive Friday challenge! I'm happy to be able to say that I only missed one challenge this year, so had 20 Christmas cards completed before December from this challenge blog alone, so why not end the year off right with one more?

 

This time, the challenge is to choose your favourite challenge from throughout the year to create a new project. Easier said than done with so many great options to choose from, but I'm clearly crazy for snowflakes, as anyone who's seen my craft stash can attest! I also have quite a variety of snowflake Christmas ornaments, a set of 3 for each room, and a bunch more on my tree.

I happen to have just received this new clear set from SU, with cute snowflakes in a hand-drawn look, so was anxious to try it out. I'm so glad that SU is finally jumping on the clear bandwagon. I definitely prefer clear stamps, especially for greetings so I can see where I'm stamping.

 

I love the look of white stamping on craft, so thought why not try it on a cork sheet for a touch of the unexpected? It didn't show up that well at first, so I added embossing powder. I didn't know if embossing on cork would work, so now we all know, it does.



I also embossed the word "greetings" in green Zing powder, and stamped "Christmas" and "to you" in red. Some green satin ribbon and rhinestones give a bit of polish to an otherwise simple and "casual" card.  It's hard to tell in this pic that the rhinestones are green. I never seem to be home in the daylight lately, so sometimes have to resort to using the flash.

Thanks for stopping by,
T

Supplies
SU: endless wishes, white craft ink, poppy parade ink,
PTI: adhesive cork sheet, rustic white cardstock, green rhinestones

other: leaf Zing powder, detail white Stampendous embossing powder, Versamark ink, Celebrate It satin ribbon

FFC21

Hi there, time for another Festive Friday challenge. Usually at this time of year I'm scrambling to get Christmas cards done, but this year I'm wondering if I need anymore cards! Thanks to Festive Fridays, I've been staying on task throughout the year and not leaving it 'til the last minute.

 

This time around, the challenge is a holiday project in aqua, white and red. I was also inspired by Make it Monday at PTI to throw some glitter into the mix to make this ornament sparkle! I actually started off this card by die cutting the lattice at the bottom and hadn't really decided what the focal point would be. It was just a happy accident that the lattice coordinated so well with this ornament stamp. I just needed a sentiment to finish things off. I couldn't resist using one of my new One Liners dies. I love the punch of red.

 

Thanks for stopping by,

T

 

Supplies

SU: white, poppy parade and pool party cardstock, pool party and poppy parade ink, ornament keepsakes set and die, hung up on the holidays, heat and stick powder, dazzling diamonds glitter

Other: one liners die (PTI), piestra tile die (Memory Box), Versamark ink, detail silver embossing powder (Stampendous), Scotch foam tape

MIM #139

 

Hi there,
I made a card today for the week's Make it Monday challenge, to use a stamp in a different way, to create a square frame. Unfortunately, I don't have any of Dawn's Boutique Borders sets yet, which work beautifully for this technique, so I had the think "outside the box" to build my box! I dug through my stash, and thought this book stamp from All Booked Up would work because it has one flat edge.

I tried stamping the book both with the flat edge out, then in, to see which I liked better.

Both worked, but having the flat edge on the inside made the frame larger, and I need to stock up on baby cards, and thought this ark scene (Two by Two from SU) would work well with the book theme, and fit nicely in the larger frame.

I stamped the frame and ark with sepia Versafine ink on rustic cream cardstock, then colored the image with SU watercolor wonder crayons and blender pens/aqua painter, then mounted it on a harvest gold card base.

Thanks for stopping by,
T

LIM 144

Hi there! Just popping in for a quick post for the Less is More challenge, a dark background with a splash of color, inspired by this photo:

I used smoky shadow card stock from PTI as my card base, and some scraps of patterned paper for some color on a quick and simple card. I also die cut the sentiment from patterned paper with a Memory Box die.

 

Thanks for stopping by,

T

FFC20

 Welcome to a Festive Friday challenge, this time a holiday project that includes a wreath. I knew right away that I needed to pull out this Framed Out #9 set from PTI that I ordered last year, but have never used! It's was beyond time to remedy that situation, so I inked it up with chartreuse, one of my favourite greens. When die cut, the wreath is a nice scale to use with this Memory Box window die. I cut a small piece of clear sheeting that came with a PTI stamp set and put it behind the window frame to give it a glassy appearance.

You can't really deck the halls without a little bling, right? I added some tiny rhinestones to the wreath as berries, and colored them with a Copic to pick up the color of the ribbon and greeting.

That's all for today. Thanks for stopping by!
T





Supplies
PTI: Framed Out #9 stamp and die, Holiday Lights sentiment, diamond impression plate, simply chartreuse ink, plastic scrap, white card stock
SU: Baja breeze, pool party core'dinations and white card stock, tangerine tango ink, organdy ribbon
other: Memory Box window die, Recollections rhinestones, R14 Copic marker, Scotch foam tape

MIM#138/Muse#41

Hi there,
I didn't think I would get any time for stamping this weekend, but I finally had some time in front of the tv this evening, so decided to put a card together by combining some elements from this weeks Muse challenge, along with the in-laid die cut technique Betsy demonstrated on Make it Monday last week. This is a card that would be easy to mail because the in-laid die cuts make it pretty flat, except for the puffy snowflakes created with liquid applique.

Thanks for stopping by,
T

P.S. Here's a look at the projects that were the jumping off point for my card.

Muse #40

Hi there,

Well that weekend flew by! We went to a Halloween party, and conquered a few domestic chores, and did some reading. I had thought I would spend some time stamping, but ran short on time and was only able to accomplish playing along with the Muse challenge.

 

Here is a look at the gorgeous Muse, created by the ever talented and entertaining, Darnell.

Isn't it pretty? I loosely followed the layout and color scheme, and definitely wanted to include some paper tearing because it been ages since I've done that, and it's kind of fun. You never really know what you're going to get, and it's virtually always way cooler than you thought it would look.

 

Luckily I grabbed a shot from earlier today when it was still light out, before I had decided what sentiment to add. This light highlights the texture, and the colors are more true.



That's all for now.
Thanks for stopping by,
T

Supplies
PTI: rustic white and limeade ice card stock, limeade ice ink, rustic burlap impression plate
Other: orchid opulence ink (SU), everyday sayings (HA), meadow (Inkadinkadoo), satin ribbon (Michael's)

PTI October Blog Hop

Hi, if you are here, you are probably taking a tour through the October blog hop hosted by Papertrey Ink. Hope you are having a blast and finding lots of eye candy and inspiration! I plan to do a little idea shopping later myself.

This is the perfect time to gear up for Christmas, and I love to make hand made tags for all of my gifts. It's a great way to make your wrapping look "finished" by adding that little personal touch. I usually make tags that are like tiny cards so you can add names to the inside. I used my Christmas Poinsettia set and dies to make poinsettia shaped cards by scoring the cardstock and folding it in half, and making sure the die was hanging over the folded edge just a touch before running it through the Cuttlebug.  The challenge was to make a set of at least 5. I'll be needing more than that, but made 5 different colors for now (pure poppy, raspberry fizz & berry sorbet, plus pink pirouette and rich razzleberyy from SU), and will make multiples of certain colors once I know what wrapping papers I will be using. Also, these are a little sophisticated for the nieces and nephews, so I'll probably make a few "kid friendly" ones too. Winter Penguin might be fun!

I'm certain that I bought "To:" and "From:" stamps at some point (I even think I remember it being at Archiver's in Mall of  America) but can not figure out where those got to, so I scoured my stash and found the words I was looking for in an appropriate scale in my Wonderful Words: Hello set. I just needed to mask them off to isolate the "to" and the "from".

I may also decide to add glitter to some of these, but will wait to see if silver or gold will coordinate better with my wrap. I think this raspberry one is my favourite.

Enjoy the tour.
Thanks for stopping by,
T

FFC19

Hi, it's late, so just stopping in quickly for a Festive Friday challenge post. The theme for this week is "whimsical". I guess I'm not that whimsical, because I didn't find a whole lot in my stash that would work well with this theme! Most of my Christmas sets stuff is of the pretty variety. I found a whole lot of snowflakes, and they didn't look very whimsical. I did come across this striped sweater stamp set that I bought last year, but hadn't used yet, so I pulled it out and tried stamping some different color combinations.

 

I liked these greens and purples, and thought they would be a fun way to give the greeting some color and texture, so at the very least, I accomplished the goal of using never before used stuff (NBUS!). I added some cute miniature tinsel and "hung" some ornaments from it, and gave them a little sparkle with some 2-way glue and glitter.

 

Off to bed!

Thanks for stopping by, 

T

 

Supplies

SU: white and lovely lilac card stock, lovely lilac and orchid opulence ink, tinsel, hung up on the holidays stamps, dazzling diamonds

PTI: limeade ice ink, wonderful words: Christmas set and die

Other: 2 way-glue, Scotch foam tape

CBC#5

I am beyond excited that I just received my first ever order from Clearly Besotted on Friday, so was able to play with some new stamps this weekend, and join in on the current challenge.  Much more enjoyable than the time I spent outside with frozen fingers trying to finish relaying paving stones before the snow flies! My hubby is still at it, but I have packed it in for today, just in time to get some day light photos.

My card didn't turn out at all the way I planned, but I'm happy with the results anyway. At first, I was drawn to the yellow and orange tones in this inspiration photo, but somehow ended up with more grey and white than anything else.

I discarded a few bits and pieces, but I did really like the way these poppies looked in coral, so kept those and built the rest of my card around them.

I'm working on another card with some of the rejected elements. I hate to waste anything! I'm not 100% finished with this one, but here's a sneak peek.

I have more leftover pieces that may or may not end up in some more cards!

 

Thanks for stopping by,

T

 

Supplies

Stamps:  remember (CB), everyday sayings (HA)

Ink: cameo coral & mellow moss (SU), smokey shadow (PTI)

Cardstock: white & smoky slate (SU), smokey shadow (PTI), scrap of vellum

Other: Nestibilities circle die, Cuttlebug embossing folder, bargain bin ribbon

 

MIM #136

Hi there,
With Christmas not much more than 2 months away, I thought I'd take this opportunity to make a Christmas card for this Make it Monday challenge to add texture to a solid image. I don't have many large solid images, but thought this tree would be perfect for this technique.

After inking up the tree, I lined up the center of with the edge of my stamp pad and swiped the ink outwards, following the upward slant of the branches, and repeated on the other side. I chose an SU pad because I needed something with a long straight edge.

I wanted the textured tree to be the focus of the project, so I kept the rest pretty simple and monochromatic - white on white with some soft stone snowflakes, and a soft stone card base. All that was needed to finish it off was a sentiment in grey, and some glitter for a little sparkle.

I used a 2-way glue pen to add some Dazzling Diamonds to the center of each snowflake, and Dazzling Details glitter glue for the edge of the snowdrift and to the tips of the tree branches.

Thanks for stopping by,

T

 

Supplies

PTI: white and soft stone card stock, soft stone ink, in the meadow stamp and dies, winter penguin snowflake, holiday lights sentiment

SU: wild wasabi and smoky slate ink, dazzling diamonds and dazzling details glitter

Other: snowflake cluster (unknown source), Scotch foam tape

Muse #38

Hi, Happy Turkey Day! Yes, it's Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend, and I am full of turkey and pie. Luckily, I was able to squeeze in a bit of time to play along with the Muse challenge this week. I was really drawn to the bouquet of flowers Therese created with patterned paper, so decided to focus on that feature on my card. They are soooo pretty. Take a look.



I dug through my paper stash to find some coordinating papers in small patterns, and came up with this retired DSP pack from SU called Sunny Garden that I thought would work well.

Actually, I ended up going to town with the patterned paper and making every element out of it, aside from some the white panel, and a bit of green cardstock to hand cut some leaves.

Somehow, I ended up with a very symmetrical card, which is not my usual style, but variety is the spice of life, right?

Thanks for stopping by,
T

Supplies
SU: white and pear cardstock, sunny garden DSP, morning meadow sentiment, calypso coral ink, celery grosgrain, flower punch
PTI: mega gracious vases die, wrought iron impression plate
Other: Recollections adhesive pearls

MIM135

Hi! This week's Make it Monday challenge at PTI is an interesting technique, a layered emboss resist. I started with polka dot Chocolate Remix designer paper and layered the Faded Text Background from Stampabilities over top in Lavender Moon ink. Next, I embossed Turning a New Leaf in clear, then sponged over the panel with Limeade Ice and Simply Chartreuse ink to make the leaves pop. I didn't want to cover up too much of the panel, so I simply matted it with SU Perfect Plum cardstock and embellished it with a plum button and Vintage Cream satin ribbon and button twine. The last step was to add a "thanks" sentiment cut with a Memory Box die. Pretty simple, but this card has a lot of depth thanks to the layering, and would work well for a male or female, though my husband would say the purple is "girly"!

Thanks for stopping by,
T

*Note: All supplies from PTI unless otherwise stated.

FFC18

Welcome to another Festive Friday post. It was a beautiful day outside, and it's hard to imagine Christmas is only 2 months away, but I'm happy that I'm staying on track with my pre-Christmas prep. If I hadn't been participating in this challenge all year, I'd likely be struggling at this point in the year to kick start the Christmas crafting.

For whatever reason, this tree is not very photogenic! You'll have to take my word for it when it say it is much cuter in person. Anyway, the challenge was to make a holiday project with a star element, so I broke out the glitter paper and a star punch to make sure it was the "star" of the show.

The snowflake background is embossed in white, and the sentiment is embossed in silver on a strip of vellum. A couple of thin strips of glitter paper finish it off.

That's all for today.

Thanks for stopping by,

T

 

Supplies

SU: baja breeze cardstock, wintergreen dsp, star punch

PTI: in the meadow tree die, winter penguin snowflake, think big faves sentiment

Other: Michael's glitter paper, Versamark ink, Stampendous white and silver detail embossing powder, unknown snowflake trio

Muse #37

Hi there! Happy Friday and welcome to another Muse challenge post. I'm always happy when Friday rolls around because it means more time to spend playing in the craft room. Really, what it will mean this evening is spending a bunch of time cleaning up the craft room if I hope to accomplish anything in here this weekend! Why, why, why do I let everything pile up until it's like an archaeological dig? The answer, of course, is that I always end up working on something 'til midnight, then I have to quit and climb into bed if I ever hope to get to work in the morning, so weekends are for catch up, in more ways than one. Such is life!

Onto the project at hand. When I looked at the inspiring card created by Cindy,  I thought the soft, pretty look and color scheme would be really well suited to a wedding card, though I didn't end up adding a sentiment to my card either. I incorporated a script background, dry embossing and a flower element, though all a little different than hers. Those differences combined with the die cut shape and mat give the card a very different look, though it's very easy to see the inspiration behind each element came directly from her card. I added some sheer gold ribbon which picks up on the color of the script background and blends in nicely so it doesn't steal too much attention from the focal point, which is kind of soft and subtle.

Here's a look at the card that set this project in motion:

Thanks for stopping by,
T

Supplies
SU: love & sympathy stamp, whisper white cardstock, mellow moss and almost amethyst markers, pattern 1 texture plate
PTI: mat stack 5 and layerz dies, fine linen ink, wisteria cardstock
other: Stampabilities faded text background stamp, bargain bin ribbon

LIM139

Happy Tuesday! Just popping in with a quick post for a challenge at Less is More, based on this sketch:

I'm desperately low on baby cards, and this simple sketch seemed well suited to a baby card, and a perfect fit for this Two By Two stamp from SU that I had yet to use. I was nice to finally dust it off and put it to use. I had to dust off my watercolor wonder crayons as well! Actually, all of the supplies I used for this card were from SU with the exception of the PTI kraft cardstock. I handmade the banner and used the sentiment, which I had masked off when I stamped the rest of the image on the white card base.

 

That's it for today!

Thanks for stopping by,

T

Muse #36

Welcome to a Muse challenge post. This is one of my favourite challenges, and I've been absent for awhile, focussing on outdoor pursuits, but am excited to dive back in on this rainy, fall day.

 

If you've seen the card showcased over at Muse for inspiration, you may be wondering how on earth I got to here from there?

Good question! I started out with some lovely weed-type stamps, and did some silhouettes, adding white embossing and sponging on top like Karen M did above, but wasn't overly impressed with my results. I decided to change things up and try some leaves instead, a move that was inspired by this empty Kleenex box:

Once I had the silhouette background stamped, I couldn't bring myself to add embossing or sponging to it because it looked somehow "finished", so this is what I ended up with.

Although it does look entirely different than the original inspiration (and more like a Kleenex box!), it does have a similar layout, a silhouette background, and a butterfly element as a finishing touch. And I'm a little infatuated with it at the moment, so I'm opting to post it rather than starting all over again! Hope you like it , too.

Thanks for stopping by,
T

Supplies
PTI: turning a new leaf set, wonderful words dies, fine linen cardstock and ink
SU: bitty butterfly punch, silver, white and smoky slate cardstock, smoky slate ink
Other: scrap of white cardstock, Recollections pearls

FFC17/PTI Blog Hop

Hi there,

 

I hope you are getting lovely fall weather like we are seeing here in Manitoba. It was a gorgeous day, and it's a little hard to think about Christmas right now, but it's deadline day for another Festive Friday Challenge, this time a color challenge in navy, white and silver. I decided to combine that theme with the September PTI Blog Hop today, a wreath challenge.

I die cut a few layers of SU brushed silver card stock with the wreath die from MFT, and blinged it up a little with some silver ribbon and rhinestones from Michael's. I embossed a PTI Think Big Faves greeting in silver on enchanted evening cardstock, then dry embossed a background with their plaid impression plate, and adhered everything to stampers' select white card base. Pretty simple. I just wish I could capture the sparkle of the rhinestones in a photo!

 

Thanks for stopping by,

T