Let It Snow

Hello and happy Sunday evening to all,

No snow here in SoCal, but another foggy, gloomy day. Very damp and chilly. Luckily, that made it a great day to spend in my craft room.

I'm adding to my Christmas card stash using the sketch from this week's Freshly Made Sketches. These are fairly new stamp sets from Concord & 9th. The background is done with a turnabout set and the greeting is another snow themed set.

After stamping with the turnabout set, I cut the panel down using the largest Die-namcs Rounded Stitched Rectangle die. The greeting is cut out with a Die-namics Stitched Oval die and layered with an oval cut with a Spellbinders die. The ovals are popped up with dimensionals and embellished with Lawn Fawn wooden snowflakes. Finally, I added some sparkle using three light blue rhinestones.

The inside uses stamps from the Concord & 9th set called Snow Flurry.

Unfortunately, it's back to work tomorrow. Why oh why do the weekends go so fast?

Thanks for looking in,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Snowflake Turnabout and Snow Flurry sets by Concord & 9th
Paper: Blueberry Bushel and X-Press It Blending card stock
Ink: Gina K Turquoise Sea, Plum Punch, Blue Denim and Slate ink spots
Other: Die-namics Rounded Stitched Rectangle and Stitched Oval dies, Spellbinder Oval die, Lawn Fawn wooden snowflakes, blue rhinestones, Gemini Jr, Misti, dimensionals

Just For You

Hello stampers,

It's a gloomy Saturday afternoon here on the SoCal coast. Very foggy as I look out my craft room window. Regardless, I'm having a good time with my crafty supplies this afternoon.

I have a fair number of birthday's coming up in November that I still need to make cards for, so I thought I'd used this week's Retro Rubber theme challenge as my inspiration. The challenge is called Fall Harvest and the pretty sunflowers and the basket in the inspiration photo caught my eye.

Using some Neenah Desert Storm card stock, I stamped the images with Memento tuxedo black and colored them with colored pencils. The coloring technique that I used was to first color the images with either white or vanilla pencil, then colored over that with the browns, yellows and greens.

The basket image was stamped first. Using the masking technique, the flowers were stamped to appear like they are in the basket. After trimming the stamped panel, I layered it onto a panel of textured yellow card stock, then to the card base, also Neenah Desert Storm.

I didn't take a picture of the inside. It's very simple with just Happy Birthday as the sentiment.

Thanks for stopping in,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: all single wood mounted stamps
Fruit Basket - Lg: River City Rubber Works 1998
Sunflowers: Judith Stamps 1993
Just For You: Stampin' Up 2000
Paper: Neenah Desert Storm, TE textured yellow and SU Vanilla Confetti card stocks
Ink: Memento tuxedo black, Gina K Charcoal Brown, Polychromos colored pencils
Other: SU brown candy dots, kraft & brown Baker's twine

Autumn Greetings

Hello and happy Hump day,

It's been a little bit since I've posted on my blog. Work travel picked up and I've been in Chicago, Las Vegas and the high desert of CA since my last post. Las Vegas was totally unplanned and I was asked to go for the weekend, about 4 hours before I needed to get on the plane. Made for a frantic search for hotel and flights.

I arrived back home about 2 pm on Sunday and to relax, I made this quick card for Joanne's "apple challenge" at the Paper Players.

This is a clean and simple challenge and my card was certainly simple and quick to do. I guess the white space here is actually green, LOL. I did use a couple of dies, but kept the overall composition pretty simple.

The stamp is a super old one from Rubber Stampede, I think from the mid-90s. I stamped it on X-Press Blending card stock with Memento tuxedo black ink and colored the image with Copics. For the background, I used a few of the BG shades then dotted the colorless blender all over several times.

The inside is even more CAS.

The greeting is from Hero and the small apple is from Lawn Fawn.

I'm actually off the next two days and I think working at home next week. Yippee!

Thanks all for stopping in,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Wood mounted Apple stamp by Rubber Stampede, Greeting from Color Layering Fall by Hero Arts and small apple from Thanks A Bushel by Lawn Fawn
Paper: X-Press It Blending card stock, SU Gumball Green card stock
Ink: Memento tuxedo black and Copics
Other: Die-namics circle die, Avery Elle Burst die, Gemini Jr, foam tape

Hello

Yes, hello to all,

Friday evening and I'm waiting for dinner to be finished. Mr. Personal Chef and I are staying with friends in the Riverside area for the weekend. We've had Happy Hour and now Denis is making dinner of grilled shrimp with lemon linguini. We've had it several times before, and it's YUMMY!

I'm watching baseball, game one of the NCLS and it's NOT going my way! But, I love it because it's baseball.

I made this card last night for the current Retro Rubber challenge. This week they have Tic-tac-toe. I love these because of the versatility. The stamp and die are from Lil' Inkers. Since the rules are to use a stamp over a year old, I believe this set is from 2016.

I chose to use the top row of neutrals, texture, ribbon. The rose wreath is stamped using Memento brown and colored with neutral Copics, mostly dark ivory and ivory markers. I'm kind of a rookie with this technique, but I really like the look.

First I cut a piece of Very Vanilla card stock with the Rose wreath die, then stamped the wreath. The background is embossed with a Lil' Inkers die on Desert Storm card stock. The layers are Desert Storm card base, Very Vanilla, Desert Storm embossed layer, wreath. The Hello greeting is from the wreath die set. I cut it from Very Vanilla 4 times and glued them together. The top layer is embossed with clear EP.  Three SSS gold rhinestones makeup the embellishments.

We are having a thunder and lightening storm tonight. Very rare for SoCal and we are loving it! The thunder is right over the house and it's cracking loud! Rain is here and it's really coming down. It won't last long, it never does here.

Thanks and have a great weekend!
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Wreath of Roses set by Lil' Inkers
Paper: Neenah Desert Storm, SU Very Vanilla
Ink: Memento brown, Copics, VersaMark
Other: Lil' Inkers Wreath of Roses and Stitched Quatrefoil dies, SU clear EP, heat tool, Misti, Gemini Jr, Foam tape, SSS gold sequins, kraft and brown Baker's twine

Happy Halloween

Hello to all,

Karren has a fun sketch this week at Freshly Made Sketches. I took advantage to make another Halloween card using some cute Avery Elle sets. The sky stamp is actually from a holiday set, but I thought it would work well for depicting a spooky sky for this kitty and her pumpkins from the Bad Kitty set.

To make the sky I inked the stamp using three different colors of Tim Holtz Distress Oxide inks. First I used a light purple shade, then a darker purple shade, and lastly a dark blue shade. They mixed pretty well to make the night sky. It's stamped onto a panel of X-Press It Blending card sock which is glued on the inside of the card. The top of the card is cut with the sky's corresponding die so that the inside of the card shows through when the card is closed. All of the other images were stamped, colored with Copics, and cut out with the set dies, then arranged around the bottom of the cutout. A Lemon Spica glitter pen was used to color in the stars and the kitty's eyes. Her witches hat and collar are coated with a Nuvo clear glitter pen for more sparkle.

The inside has another pumpkin and greeting from the Bad Kitty set.

Thanks for stopping in,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Starry Scene and Bad Kitty sets by Avery Elle
Paper: SU Lovely Lilac and X-Press It Blending card stock
Ink: Memento tuxedo black, Copics, Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Wilted Violet, Shaded Lilac, Faded Jeans
Other: Avery Elle Starry Scene and Bad Kitty dies, Spica Lemon glitter pen, Nuvo clear glitter pen, Gemini Jr, Misti, dimensionals

You Are Wonderful

Happy Hump Day,

I'm experiencing a somewhat slow work week and I've finished my daily to do list for today. That gave me some time to put the finishing touches on a card that I started last night, take it's picture, and write up the blog post.

This card is made with the theme from this week's Paper Players challenge and the colors from this week's Sunday Stamps challenge. The challenges were perfect to blend together. Sandy is hostess at PP with a theme of Trees or Leaves and at Sunday Stamps, the color theme is Feeling Fall.

This turned out to be one of those cards that just didn't end up where my original plans tried to take it, but I'm happy with it's final destination. The tree was not part of what I had designed in my mind. I was just planning on the background stamping and the sentiment, but it looked pretty boring. The tree is a much better focal element.

The background is stamped using the leaf images from the SU Rooted In Nature set using Soft Sky, stamped onto a card base of Heavy Whisper White. The tree ring stamp is also stamped using Soft sky and it's cut out with a Spellbinders circle die. The greeting is stamped using Tangerine Tango ink, stamped over several times using the Misti to get a very dark shade. I wanted to emboss the greeting so it would be shinny and stand out, so the last inked layer is VersaMark. It's heat embossed with SU clear EP. 

Once I decided to add the tree image, it was inked using SU markers in Soft Suede, Hello Honey, Crushed Curry and Peach Parfait. After stamping, it's cut out with the die from the set bundle. The circle behind the tree is another Spellbinders circle die and the leaf is made using another die from the set bundle. To pull the images together, SU candy dots were spaced around them.

I've used a greeting stamp from the SU Country Home set on the inside.

That's it from me for today. I'm heading off for an afternoon walk along the beach.

Thanks for popping in,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Rooted In Nature and Country Home sets by Stampin' Up
Paper: SU Heavy Whisper White and Taylored Expressions textured orange and gold card stock
Ink: SU Soft Sky and Tangerine Tango pads, SU Soft Suede, Hello Honey, Crushed Curry and Peach Parfait markers
Other: Spellbinders circle dies, SU Rooted In Nature dies, SU Brights candy dots, Gemini Jr, Misti, dimensionals, SU clear EP, heat tool

Joyful Wishes

Hello and happy late Sunday afternoon,

I hope your weekend was relaxing and fun. I just finished a 5K that starts about 1/2 mile from my house at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, CA. It's called the Surfing Madonna Fun Run and it's a Save the Ocean benefit run. I don't actually run, but walk it and by the time I walk from home and back, it ends up to be an 8 mile afternoon. I've been trying to get back into walking every day and this past week I did pretty good, clocking more than 14,000 steps each day.

On to the real reason we're here, to post a card that I made yesterday for this week's Freshly Made Sketch. Cecile has a fun sketch this week where the card is divided in half and has a vertical greeting element. Here's what I came up with.

I pulled out one of my favorite Avery Elle holiday sets, called Retro Ornaments, to make a Christmas card. The images are stamped using Memento tuxedo black and colored with copies.The sentiment banner is from Lawn Fawn and the patterned paper is very old SU DSP holiday paper with a retro look, which I thought matched the ornaments quite well. After getting everything glued down, I added some tiny clear rhinestones to the starbursts on the DSP and used a very liberal amount of Nuvo glitter pen on the white areas on the ornaments.

I used one of the set greetings and some tiny starburst images on the inside.

I actually had several ideas for Cecile's sketch and I may make them later for some of my holiday cards that I send out this year.

My evening plans include vegging and watching the Sunday evening baseball playoff game.

Thanks for looking in,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Retro Ornaments by Avery Elle and Winter Scripty Sayings by Lawn Fawn
Paper: SU Real Red and X-Press It Blending card stock, SU retired DSP
Ink: Memento tuxedo black, Copics, SU Call Me Clover & Shaded Spruce
Other: Nuvo glitter pen, clear rhinestones

Merry Christmas

Hi to all,

I have a quick post before I head off to work this morning of a card that I made last night after dinner. I've used the sketch from Global Design Project #158. It looked like a fun one so I decided to see what I could come up with.

Since I know most of the DT are SU demos, I used all, mostly, SU products from the Holiday catalog.

I had not inked up this set, nor used the DSP yet, and I think this one turned out pretty darn cute. In fact, I may make a few more I think.

The images are stamped with Memento tuxedo black and colored with Stampin' Blends. I cut them out with the set dies and popped the two elves and presents up with dimensionals. The greeting is from another Holiday set. I love this red sparkly twine too. The only product not SU is some Nuvo white drops that I used on the North Pole sign for snow and on the elves' hats. For additional embellishment I added some SU enamel snowflakes.

I'm off to work. Have a great day and thanks for looking,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Signs of Santa and Timeless Tidings sets by Stampin' Up
Paper: SU heavy Whisper White, Whisper White and Shaded Spruce card stock, Santa's Workshop DSP
Ink: Memento tuxedo black, Stampin' Blends, Shaded Spruce
Other: Signs of Santa dies, SU Santa's Workshop Enamel Shapes, SU Sparkly Red twine, Nuvo drops, dimensionals