Tangle Tuesday

Hey all! Welcome back to Tangle Tuesday!! Last week was a bit busy and I missed my TT posting. Today I am getting my holiday cheer on. This cute "Gnome for the Holidays" was inspired by a class by Loretta West at the Colour Garden Studio.

This was a fun project and the possibilities are endless! I hope all of you are getting your holiday on!

 

Hanging for Christmas

Happy Christmas everyone! Never too early to start your planning for next year. So how about joining us for The Christmas 24 Challenge. Join us every two weeks for a Christmas challenge and have a start on your holiday cards with 24 cards.

Today's theme for Christmas card is:

Heat or Dry Embossing

My  card uses something old and something new. The new is the Hero Arts "Nordic Holiday Bold Prints" stamp and the old is the Tim Holtz "Retro Ornament Dies" which I used as a stencil and for the die cuts. 

I love how the subtle embossed white background pops beneath the stenciled ornaments.

You have two weeks to play along for the Christmas 24 challenge of heat or dry embossing. I can't wait to see what you come up with! 

 

 

Holiday Cheer

Happy New Year's Eve everyone!! Today we say good by to 2018 and welcome in 2019. I had an eventful year what with graduating and all. I am looking forward to seeing what 2019 brings.

Todays starts a new year of challenges over at Inky Paws. I was thrilled that Jennifer at Newton's Nook asked me to stay on for the next 6 omths at Inky Paws. The first challenge of the year is a color challenge.

What fun colors huh?!!? I created one of those all over stamping cards using the Newton's Nook's "cup of cocoa". I had such fun coloring in all those beverages!

Of course there had to be some glitter just because God is good and glitter is great! The sentiment from Newton's Nook's "ornamental wishes" was the perfect fit.

Head on over to Inky Paws and join in this fun color challenge. We will chose a RANDOM entry to win a $20.00 Newton's Nook store gift certificate. Our favorite entries from each challenge will be highlighted the following Monday, so all entries have a chance to be featured on the blog.

The deadline to enter today's challenge is Friday January 11, 2019 at MN CST. The winners will be announced on the following Monday at Inky Paws.

The most wonderful time of the year

 

Thanksgiving is early this year. Does that mean we have an extra week to get ready for the Christmas  holiday? I sure hope so. I am kicking off Thanksgiving week with a Christmas card. Expect to see quite a few holiday cards in the next several weeks.  Why? Because it is the most winderful time of the year to be creative!!

There is still time to play along with us at Inky Paws. We are having a fun and festive color challenge. I went with a brighter green for this week's card.  I used the Festive Forest set from Newton's Nook for my card today. I stamped the trees in red and green and added a bit of glitter to the swirls.

The stars on the trees were clear, but a bit of copiccoloring and I had matching color stars. How soon do you start your holiday cards? I always say I am going to start during the summer, but I really can't get in the mood till Thanksgiving. 

Head on over to Inky Paws and join in this Christmasy color challenge. We will chose a RANDOM entry to win a $20.00 Newton's Nook store gift certificate. Our favorite entries from each challenge will be highlighted the following Monday, so all entries have a chance to be featured on the blog.

The deadline to enter today's challenge is Friday November 23, 2018, at MN CST. The winners will be announced on the following Monday at Inky Paws.

PS- DH loved his birthday card that I posted from last week.

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. 

Go to your happy place

Every year I get away to the Pocono mountains in Pennsylvania  for a crafty weekend of stamping, good food and good times with my best buddies. My buddy Judy aka "the angel" has a house in the "Nos" right on a gorgeous lake. Every year the weekend seems to grow and this year all of us will be there.

To get everyone psyched, I will be sending out this card. My card reminds me of one of the views from the porch.

My card fit into three challenges so I am submitting this to Time Out Challenges where the challenge  is:

'Holidays with the Optional Twist of No Stamping' 
(stamped sentiments allowed)

 I am submitting it to my friend Kylie's Happy Little Stamper CAS challenge   

where the challenge is:

I am also sending this out to a new challenge to me: The Sisterhood of Crafters

CLOSE TO NATURE

What does that mean to you?  

This is a perfect challenge since that's what we have going in to the NO's- a sisterhood of crafters and the theme couldn't be better!!!

I used the British view of holiday- our idea of a vacation here in the states.

The inside of the card says "go to your happy place". We have a running theme of the Nos being our happy place so this card is perfect for our upcoming holiday.

 The masking was a bit tricky and took several tries to get the masking inside to line up with the outside diecut window.

Check out both of these fun challenges and join in!!

Year of the Christmas tree

I don't know if any of you have noticed, this year seems to be the year of the tree, Christmas tree that is. Everyone has tree stamps and some of them are really cool. Like this one from Clearly Besotted-Joy to the World. I have been just waiting for a few hours to play with this set and some of the cool new stitched dies I got during the Black Friday sales online.

Addicted to CAS is having a challenge using dots. I used this challenge word as my basis for my Christmas card. Instead of snow, I have a shower of falling dots. I layered my tree panel onto a card embossed with dots. I love the monochromatic pink that seems to be so popular this year. Addicted to CAS are also looking for new DT members so I am throwing my stamp into the ring. Wish me luck!

AAA Cards has one of my favorite ideas for a challenge, Blue Christmas. I love blue for Christmas cards.

Well I better get working on all the cards I have to send out this year. I think I need to make around a 100 cards. How about you all, how many cards do you make to send? 

Holiday Blog Hop at House of Cards

Hi everyone! Where does the time go? Can you believe we have come to the end of our third term at House of Cards? We are saying a fond farewell to some of our design team members and I am so thankful to those who are staying on. To say farewell and thanks, we are celebrating with a blog hop! 

This blog hop will run FROM DECEMBER 1 AT 6:00AM CST THROUGH DECEMBER 15 AT NOON CST, ANY CARD STYLE is welcome and please check out the gorgeous photo inspiration for the crafting challenge.

You should have arrived here from our awesome leader Mynn's blog. If you haven't and you would like to hop with us, please start at Mynn's blog and continue through the whole thing for the most chances to win.

Oh yeah, how could I forget- winning! Check out our amazing sponsors!

Here are all of our fabulous sponsors. Our team has used a variety of products from these amazing companies.

$50 gift voucher to shop

$10.00 gift voucher to shop

Gift card to the online store

Prize package of 5 stamps

$20.00 to their digital store

$20.00 gift voucher to shop

While these are all great companies, I went with this great reindeer image from Great Impressions. It just so fit the inspiration photo. The design is a taken from a card by Jennifer Maguire. 

Here is a peek in the inside of the card.

The saying is from Great Impressions too.

I hope you enjoyed my take on the inspiration photo. Now get hoppin'! Your next stop is my good buddy, Cornelia and I know she is gonna have something awesome to share. Don't forget to link up a project with us at House of Cards after completing the hop for an extra chance to win a mystery prize from one of our fabulous sponsors also!

Let it snow!

Thanksgiving is only a month away and that means Christmas isn't far behind. Now is the time to start thinking about all of your holiday crafting.

I always am thrilled when I come up with an idea that can be easily reproduced in a variety of ways. This blueprint with a tag on a plain card base can be made in any number of ways. I made a similar card featured on this blog posting.

My tag cards use two new products just released by Memory Box. The winter large snowflakes stencil and the die- let it snow clouds.

So how did I make these cards you ask? I free cut a tag shape and sponged  MenentoLUXE inks on to the tag with the snowflake stencil. I used summer sky, angel pink, pear tart and toffee crunch. Next I tried something everyone has been doing but I have been late to the party on this technique. I placed the stencil over the tag so the snowflakes are covering open spots and using the shimmer creative medium from Imagine Crafts.

I spread the medium through the stencil with a palette knife and carefully removed the stencil. while the medium was still wet I sprinkled glitter on the tag. While the tag was drying I die cut the let it snow die and just used the words.

 When the tag was dry, I attached the "let it snow" sentiment. Lastly, I adhered it to my base card with foam tape and added matching ribbons and some of the ever popular sequins. Why you ask? Because you can never have enough sparkle!

Here is another view, so you can appreciate the glittery snowflakes on this fun card.

I am entering these cards in two challenges featuring tags. First the word at Addicted to CAS is "tags".

Second, I discovered a new challenge site that is all about tags called Tag You're It! where these tags were the inspiration.

I hope you like these clean and simple tag cards. Let me know how you would interpret this blueprint.