Buttons, ribbons, and Christmas, oh my

Alright I have to ask the question. When was the last time you added ribbon or buttons to your creations? I can tell you for me, it has been a really long time. But there is something about buttons, ribbons and Christmas that just go together.

The new challenge at Christmas 24 is:

Buttons and Ribbons

Here is the perfect opportunity to use up those we rolls of ribbon that Ellen Hutson sends to you with you crafting order. Or if you are like me, you have a bin filled with buttons that you just couldn't part with.

My card today features the layering Christmas trees from  Hero Arts. The ornaments on the tree are wee little buttons from my button stash.

So dust off your button box or dig out those scraps of ribbon and join us for our "button and ribbon" challenge at Christmas 24.

White out

Happy New Year everyone!! Here's to another decade! 2020!! Woot Woot!!! The new year brings a new challenge at The Rainbow Card Challenge. This month The Rainbow Card Challenge is featuring white. A perfect color for the cold and snowy days of January.

My card is very minimalistic, but evokes a cold snowy day.

While the lighting is kinda strange in this photo, it does show case some of the glitter and dimension in the card. I kinda like the photo.

Thia photo really shows the glitter on the snow and the trees. Inlove the simple beauty of this card and think it will be a keeper for holiday cards 2020.

You might bhave thought that this month's music inspiration would be non other than White Christmas, but I have to say, I am done with the holiday music. So instead I am featuring "Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum.

Get out your white paper and white ink and show us a white card. You have all month to play along at The Rainbow Card Challenge. 

Challenge redo 2018

My card that I submitted to the Inky Paws color challenge last year (LOL) has been bothering me. Each time I look at it, I wasn't not happy with it but could not put my finger on what was bothering me. 

While spending 2 hours at the dealership today waiting for car maintenence I just decided I didn't like it. When I got home, I went up to my studio and tinkered around with several changes. I have to say I REALLY like this version. I mixed the colors up a bit and created demension. All of which seem to make this design stand out more.

Not sure if you can submit more than one card to the Ink Paws challenge, but I would like the design team to see my improved design.

I am getting this in just under the wire with only 17 hours left in the challenge.  Check out the challenge, there are many awesome submissions.

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. 

Winter wonderland

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great holiday so far. I had a fabulous one. This was the first year I was ahead of the game. The tree was up and decorated, my cards were done and mailed and gifts made 2 weeks before Christmas!! Unheard of!!

So with Christmas 2016 under my belt, I decided to get back to blogging a bit. This card was a last minute card that I made with a Tim Holtz die that I forgot I had. I decided to use the negative for this simple but elegant holiday card. I only sent this card to one person and will be using this idea for my cards next year.

I entering this into my alma mater  Happy Little Stampers, the "anything goes with dies" challenge.

 Another fav challenge site, Shopping our Stash is looking for "winter themed, but not not Christmas related" Do you think the star on the tree will disqualify me?!!?

Donna from Cards in Envy asked me to post my card for their "celebrate the  season" challenge. How could I resist?!!?😀

I am hoping to spend the next few days doing some serious stamping before school starts back up.

Check back in soon,

where have I been?

I'm baaaaaack........

OMG!!! Where has the time gone and where have I been and what have I been doing? I haven't blogged since August!! This is the longest drought that I have ever had since I first started blogging.

Life has so gotten in the way of my creativity. I have been in a stamping slump. Despite the purchase of a bunch of cool new stuff, it has taken awhile to get my mojo back.

Usually a look at pinterest or challenges helps. I just had to let it go and wait. Today inspiration hit. Shopping Our Stash had a challenge with "trees" as the theme. You could go anywhere with that one. Since the holidays are just around the corner, I decided on a Christmas card.

The trees are a bit subtle, my friends at SOS my choose to disqualify me, but all I know is their challenge gave me mojo back!! Thank you SOS!!!

I used this Hero Arts stamp for the trees.  Where the moon is on the stamp I added a bit of bling.

The deer hanging in front of the trees are also Hero Arts.

Add any saying and you have a quick and easy OLC. Just perfect to get the creative juices flowing again!

Hopefully, I won't let so much water flow under the bridge before I blog again!!

The Male Room, Challenge #Christmas or Seasons Greetings

It's hard to believe but Christmas is only a few weeks away! Geez, it seems that once Thanksgiving has gone Christmas just shows up. I gotta say though this is my most creative time of the year. the mojo starts working overtime and the ideas just keep spilling out of me.

I always take the 2nd or third week off to make my cards gifts and to shop. It is favorite vacation. This week at the Male Room we are hosting our last challenge before 2016. The theme is Christmas or Seasons Greetings. That is a pretty wide open challenge, so no excuses folks! let's see your creations!

Today's card features some fun elements like that cute red nosed moose that I found at my local Paper Source. The trees are from HA's "stamp and cut holiday trees".  

What guy wouldn't like this whimsical scene!

 I will see you all again on Jan. 6, 2016 for our next challenge.

I am truly wishing all of you a blessed holiday season full of family, friends and some time for stamping and creativity!

Happy Little Stampers August Sketch Challenge

Oh goodness!! My first Christmas card !! I never start this early. I am definitely a last minute girl when it comes to my holiday cards. December 1, 1 am sitting down in my studio to make around 100 cards. 

  

When I saw the sketch challenge this month at Happy Little Stampers I just thought Christmas and this is what I came up with (after digging around to find my Christmas stamps!).  You did notice I turned the sketch upside down didn't you?

I used this set from Lawn Fawn, a favorite from last year. The embossing folder was extremely popular. Every time I tried to order it, it was out of stock. Much to my amazement I found it at the Heirloom Rubberstamp Convention. 

Please join in the fun over at Happy Little Stampers and see what the rest of the DT came up with!

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? 

Homework

Do you know the saying- "saving the best for last"? That's how I feel right now. My last class before I graduate was a one credit art class. The class was two days and involved a lecture on the Wyeth family and watercolor techniques, with hands on instruction. The next day we went to the Brandywine River Museum.

I have never taken any "formal" art classes and while this class was geared to the completely inexperienced person, the class was full of useful information on watercolor technique. By the end of the first class we were asked to choose a painting from either N.C., Andrew or Jamie Wyeth to replicate. This was rather daunting since none of us were really artists. I know my limitations so I chose Long Limb by Andrew Wyeth painted in 1998.

We were given a rather large sheet of watercolor paper to work from. The first thing I wanted to do was cut it down to card size! I didn't, but there was no way I was going to fill that 12x9 sheet of paper, so I just worked in the middle. I think I missed the yellow aspects of the original, but I think I at least achieved the same tonal qualities on my representation.

The next day we toured the Brandywine River Museum. I am fortunate to live in the back yard of the Wyeth's and to have a museum dedicated to the Brandywine School of Art within driving distance. Our teacher took us on a tour of the museum and talked about the various works of art and how to look at each of them. I thought I knew about art, but I learned how to really look at a painting from the movement to the use of color and perspective.

Half of our homework was to create another painting from a Wyeth painting. As usual I bend the rules. I decided to stick with "Long Limb" but to recreate it in the four seasons. I really wanted to pull out my branch stamps and leaves etc etc, but I stuck to my own art work. I used ink and watercolor  and brought it into my world by making a card set.

Here is a picture of the start of the process. The well loved and used watercolor set in the lower right corner I have had since I was a kid. I will be bereft when it is used up.

I began with creating the four season backgrounds.

Next, I laid in the branches for each season. I wasn't completely happy with how they looked, so I  pulled out my copic liner 0.1 and accented the work with ink. It just seemed to add the definition that the work lacked. 

Winter

Spring

Summer

Fall

I am pleased with all of them but summer. Summer just seems to lack the verdancy one sees in summer and the patch of flowers seems rather blob like. I have to remember I am new to all this and practice makes perfect. Winter I added splotches of paint by flicking paint onto the work to mimic snow. You can really see it in the photo, but I also added some Mr. Huey's white spray ink.

I hope you all enjoyed my watercolor explorations and might be tempted to try them yourselves.

Now off to write yet another paper!!

Abracadabra- it is a twofer!

Well, how about a twofer!! I am all about finding the most uses out of one stamp, die etc. Remember this post from Memory Box? When I received the Cosenza tree border die # 98855, I knew how else I could use it. But first things first. 

I made a set of hello cards each color featuring a different season with the cosenza tree border die cut from various MB papers. I die cut cosenza tree border outline # 98864 from brown card stock. I added a matching strip of washi tape and using the new urban alphabet dies to add the hello. Please check out this post to see the cards individually.

NOW FOR THE MAGIC!! ABRACADABRA! Just say the magic words- Memory Box!

Do you see the magic? Do see the twofer? All those left over pieces from the cosenza tree border, minus their trunks made perfect little balloons!! How fun is that!! A subtle sponging of starry nights stencil and this bonus card was complete.

There is relatively new challenge site out the in blog land called The Card Concept, it is similar to the House of Cards that I design for. Since my resolution this year was to try and participate in more challenges, I thought the Card Concept would be a fun one to try!!

The challenge for this week is birthday cards. I am entering this as a CAS card- main focal point lots of white space, very easy to recreate.