Snow day

As much as I love the holidays, I am glad they are behind me. This was a tough Christmas, I got a wicked cold and then when I should have been recovering, I got a GI bug. I am hoping to be on the mend from that soon. In the mean time, I took the opportunity of not being at work to join in the fun over at the Inky Paws challenge.

The challenge this week is a color challenge. Olive, lavender, cream and teal.

 The cream was a bit tough, so I cheated and just added a cream border on my card. I did try using some cream neuvo drops  on the snow stencil. it looked to busy, not to mention, I had this idea to use a snow marker too. What was I thinking?!!?

I restarted and kept the next very CAS. More my taste anyway. I used Newton's whispering pines set and  the snow stencil.

 I hope you all are having a great holiday, Happy New Year! Check out what the DT at Inky Paws came up with!

Foxy Holidays

Have you ever had a stamp set that you were absolutely jonesing to get? Last year to late to when I saw Newton Nook's "Sweater Weather". I had to have it but waited till this year and took advantage of all the sales over Thanksgiving.

I mainly got it for the cute little kitty that reminds me of my Pinkie. But the fox has captured my heart. So when I saw the challenge at Inky Paws I pulled out Sweater Weather.

Anyone who knows me, knows sketch challenges are the most difficult for me. I feel too boxed in and tend to take them to literally. But I stepped out and used a circle for the main element because I saw Diane on the DT didn't go with the rectangle. I felt I was given a license to switch it up. Thanks Diane!!!

Another first for me was using embossing paste with a stencil. I had to search for it in my studio! LOL. The first container was totally dried out, but I hit pay dirt on a second jar. Thank God us stampers have to have more than one of everything!!!

I embossed NN snowfall stencil and while it was wet, I sprinkled it with glitter. The snowflake element was a wooden shape that I just put some white ink on.

The sentiment is from the "Sentiments of the Season" set from NN.

Hope you are all having fun getting ready for the holidays! Take some time to check out the challenge at Inky Paws and join in.

Masculine holiday

I am getting in that holiday mode. The carols are going to tuning up on Paandore the day after Thanksgiving.

I am working on my prototypes for my cards this year. I usual have 5-6 designs because I get bored easily mass producing the same cards. At Inkspirational that had a great challenge that got my juices flowing. You are to make a Christmas card using neutral colors.

BAM!!! I ran and grabbed my Tim Holtz treeline die and BAM, this card came together. I added the star because it just needed something else to make it stand out. I have quite a few guys to send cards to and this is going to be the go to card for that gender.

Head on over to Inkspirational for this fun challenge. 

That bites!

It's Monday and that means another Inky Paws Challenge over at Newton's Nook. Today's challenge is to add sparkle to your design.

Well.... I suppose the obvious is to go with a holiday theme card, but I decided to up the ante on the theme by randomly picking a NN stamp set and challengeing myself to use that set.

Rut ro! I pulled Shark Bites!! How was I to bedazzle a shark? Well..... by doing just that sparkling the shark itself.

I kept the card very CAS to really make the shark stand out. I gotta say, I think it is effective. What about you?

I know just who is geeeting this card and won't he be surprised by the sparkle and shimmer! Head on over to Inky Paws and check out the DT sparkle!

Santa Paws

 

It's that time of the year when I become the most creative- the holiday season!! I am starting to work on my holiday card designs and Newton's Nook is playing a starring role this year.  I have been messing around with this design concept. Originally the element was a rectangle, but I justwasn't feeling it- this is after I made about 6 cards!! I tried it with a circle and loved it.

I am entering this card over at the Inky Paws challenge. This week's challenge is a color challenge using Holly red, pine cone tan, fir green, and black. A color challenge certainly takes the stress out of figuring out colors! And I think Santa Paws looks awesome!! I loved this color combo and will definitely be using it again.

If you look close you can see that I glitterized all the snow. As usual it is much more impressive in person.

I am entering this in the color challenge over at House of Cards. HOC was the first challenge blog I was on, so it's kind of nostalgic to be joining in the fun as a spectator. 

I hope you will go check out the awesome challenges at Inky Paws and House of Cards join in.

Give thanks for cats!

My friends at Newton's Nook are hosting a fun sketch challenge. Since I have been dropping a bit of cash at my new fav company, I decide to play along.

I started to work on my Thanksgiving cards.mI have at least 30 to make, because I always give each one of my staff a Thabksgiving card to let themknow how much I appreciate them. I needed a fun card that guys might like... so... Newton saves the day. I used the "Autumn Newton" set.

At first I was going with some crazy complicated die cut card and then thought, silly girl, that is so not you- keep it clean, keep it simple!! I pulled out my washi tape which I havent used in a months and the card just came together. The two cats are my Zephry(the gray one- now over the rainbow bridge) and Pinkie (the spunky 18 year old calico). 

I also made the card with kraft.

What are your thoughts? White or kraft? I can't decide.

The Inky Paws challenge runs through Friday November 3 at MN CST if you can find the time to join in.

So glad to be posting and sharing after my blogging drought!

Skeletons in the closet

 It's been quite awhile since I have posted. Life has just been too busy. I am sure you can all relate. I had a few days with nothing going on so I got into my studio to play. I haven't spent aday experimenting and getting inky in years. I had an idea in mind from a card that I saw on Pinterest that I forgot to pin (of course). Anyway it was with using an acrylic block to stamp a watercolor background with.

I started out by using distress inks, but the colors were just not vibrant enough. I then decided to sprinkle some color burst powders on the block and heavily spritz the block. Sure enough, I got just the vibrancy I was looking for. Messy but well worth it.

It just so happened that Just Us Girls was having a challenge using acrylic blocks to stamp with.
Naturally, I had to enter.

I haven't done this kind of artsy fartsy stamping  forever. I tend to be CAS these days. But who knew- you can be artsy and CAS, don't you think?

 I would like to say, you will hear from me again soon, but don't hold your breath. School, work, families and holidays are all conspiring to steal my time.

So until another time, happy creating!!

The sky's the limit

This is the time year where graduations abound. My BFF told me she was going to her granddaughter's graduation from preschool. Preschool!!!! I then found out there are graduations not only from preschool but kindergarten, elementary school, middle school. Geez, you can tell I don't have kids! 😀 Well if all these graduations are going on, you are going to need a bunch of congrats cards. I figured I better get a stock in.

CAS(E) this Sketch and Addicted to CAS both had a challenged that when I saw it, I knew exactly what I was going to do. Sometimes it happens like that. You just grab your stamps and 20 minutes later you have your creation done.

Die cuts seem to be a buzz word this week. Both The Male Room and Just Us Girls are looking for us to use them in our work.

 

I used Lawn Fawn's Blue Skies. I sponged the blue sky background and added the clouds and hot air balloon, all colored with copics.  Die cut them. (what would we do without dies?!!) The sentiment and gems were added and voila- the card was done.

These are some really fun challenges. Click on my links and play along too.

Pinkalicious

School started last night, but I am still going to keep crafting. I don't thinkthis class will be quite as challenging as my last. 

I created today's card for the challenge at Addicted to CAS. They want you to use pink! Well that is a no brainer. My Mom's favorite color was pink. She loved it so much that my brothers and I knew she had to be buried in a pink coffin!!! Who knew there was such a thing!

Anyway I digress. Not only did my mom love pink, but my crafting buddy Margarita says all the time- "Pink is the most beautiful color in the world!!". This card is for her, especiallty since she has a birthday coming up next week.

The flamingo and sentiments are from a no longer available set from Reverse Confetti. Are flamingos no longer popular? I seem to be a day late and a dollar short with these stamping trends!! 😀

I used a new Tim Holtz stencil for the background. It seems to be my go to stencil lately.

I even finished the inside of the card. I liked this card so much I made it in turquoise and might it in yellow.

There is only one day left for this pink challenge at Addicted to CAS, if you have time check it out!!

You are unique

 Massive computer problems today, some how I lost ALL of my photos. I will be on the phone with Apple all afternoon. In the mean time I managed to backdoor my photos for today's posting from here to there to there to get them in blogger.

Before all this craziness happened, I made this card for the MIX-IT-UP challenge going on over at Ellen Hutson's blog.

Ellen is asking us to mix it up using stamps from Essentials by Ellen and Reverse Confetti. Two of my more fav companies!!

For today's card I used these sets from Essentials by Ellen: Wish Big and Bokeh Dots. From Reverse Confetti I used this tag die and the Fabulous Flamingos- unfortunately it is no longer available.

This was a great challenge and if I didn't have to spend the afternoon on the phone with Apple, I might have tried making another card. Please check out this awesome challenge.