BLUE POINSETTIA

Ellen Hutson's 11th Anniversary celebration is going on this week and she wants to know our favorite EH stamp.  I love all the mondo flowers and at this time of the year the mondo poinsettia is certainly my favorite.

Before I visited my daughter in Texas last month, I stamped a bunch of card fronts so I could color with my Prismacolors while she and John were at work.  Finished the card by adding a sentiment and little Nuvo dots to the flower centers.

Thanks for stopping by today and so enjoy your kind comments.

CASEing MICHELLE LUPTON

The challenge at A Blog Named Hero this month is to copy/CASE one of our designers.  I chose a card from the very talented, Michelle Lupton.

 

I took her design and made a Christmas card.  Embossed the various HA snowflakes in white and watercoloured with some distress inks.  The sentiment is from a very old HA set and embossed in silver.  Although it is not visible in the photo, I made the card very shiny with some Perfect Pearls.

You'll find all the ABNH design team here - click on the team member's name and you'll be linked to her blog where you'll find inspiration galore.  Choose a card, start creating and then enter your card here and be eligible for a great prize!

Thanks for stopping by today and love to read your kind comments.

BEFORE AND AFTER

After Christmas last January, I bought some tags on clearance (had been $8 for 8 and I paid 70 cents!).  I thought I could use them as actual tags or just for the vellum and the background cardstock.

ORIGINAL TAG

 And here's my transformed tag:

I removed the sentiment tag and cut it down to use as a base for my tree.  Die cut the MB Elyse Tree and decorated it with some gold Nuvo drops and a little glitter star I cut from the sentiment piece.  I made my tag usable for a gift card by adding a little pocket on the back.

There were pink tags in the set so also made a pink one.  These will be for my two granddaughters in England.

Think these will be good for a few challenges - Muse Christmas Visions #89 (snow - my tree is white so covered with snow) and Tracey's 25 Days of Christmas Tags #15. 

Thanks for visiting today and love to read your kind comments.

JOY

I have been wanting to try my hand with coloring with colored pencils and finally gave it a whirl.  Inspiration is from Yana Smakula's card using a black background.

Used my Prismacolors on the EH mondo poinsettias which were first embossed with gold.  The sketch is from the new challenge at Freshly Made Sketches - turned the sketch on its side tho.  Added some Nuvo gold drops, a glitter sentiment and mounted it on a white card base.  

I am entering this in the Freshly Made Sketches #313 challenge and also CAS Mix-Up (glitter, stamping, embossing, die cut, pencil coloring).

Thanks for stopping by - love to read your kind comments.

POINSETTIAS AND CHALLENGES

I combined both the CAS Mix-Up challenge (glitter) and the CAS Watercolour challenge (holiday) in my card today.

I stamped the poinsettias with Versamark and embossed in gold.  Watercoloured them with my Zigs (light carmine and tea rose) and a little water.  Next cut the panel down and die cut the sentiment out of the front of the card and also some gold glitter paper.  Mounted the panel on more glitter paper and inlaid the glitter letters.  Added some gold Nuvo drops in the flower centers and a few gold glitter enamel dots and done.

My Mix-UP includes stamping, glitter, watercolouring, embossing.

Thanks for stopping by and love to read your kind comments.

 

CHRISTMAS ROSE

In September, Michelle Lupton asked me to join in her Christmas challenge - there would be a word around which the card would be created.  So, of course, I agreed to play and a few days later here comes the word "edible".  Yikes, me with all my flower stamps and not a stamp or anything with cookies or gingerbread men or regular stuff that one would normally eat!!!!  But some flowers are edible - and I found a great site that explained how flowers are used in haute cuisine.  Here's what it says about roses:

Roses (Rosa rugosa or R. gallica officinalis) – Flavors depend on type, color, and soil conditions. Flavor reminiscent of strawberries and green apples.  Sweet, with subtle undertones ranging from fruit to mint to spice.  All roses are edible, with the flavor being more pronounced in the darker varieties.  In miniature varieties can garnish ice cream and desserts, or larger petals can be sprinkled on desserts or salads.  Freeze them in ice cubes and float them in punches also.  Petals used in syrups, jellies, perfumed butters and sweet spreads.

I ended up making two cards - couldn't decide which one to post, so here are both of them.  For the first card, I watercolored some Altenew bamboo roses, added them to a HA wreath with "joy" in the middle and some Nuvo clear glitter drops.  For my second card, I used a rose stencil and watercolored very lightly with some pinks and yellows.  Die cut two wreaths which I layered and added the little sentiment.  Very non-traditional colors, but I'm happy with the result.

Thanks Michelle for asking me to join you in this challenge - am anxious to see your card and all the ones from others you have challenged.  You can see Michelle's card here.

So pleased you all stopped by today and love to read your kind comments.

CASEing LISA STEIN

The challenge at A Blog Named Hero this month is to copy one of our designers.  I chose a card from the very creative, Lisa Stein.

I loved the simplicity of her design and how she designed the overall background.

Lately, I have been challenging myself to create backgrounds using a variety of stamps.  So I gathered lots of snowflake stamps from different Hero Arts sets and arranged them on a piece of watercolour paper in my MISTI.  Since there were so many (and from different sets), I had to stamp several times to get a good impression on all of them.  White embossed and then did the watercoloured background.  Used one of the circle infinity dies to cut out the circle, added the negative piece to a white card base and popped up the circle with some fun foam.  The sentiment was stamped in black ink and heat embossed with clear powder.  Added a few clear dots, rounded two corners and done.  Isn't Lisa's design wonderful?  

You'll find all the ABNH design team here - click on the team member's name and you'll be linked to her blog where you'll find inspiration galore.  Choose a card, start creating and then enter your card here and be eligible for a great prize!

Thanks for stopping by today and love to read your kind comments.

SPLISH SPLASH

Loll Thompson has a little challenge on her blog to create a card using her splash technique.  My card is totally "Loll" - design and splashing - although I think I splashed a little more that she does!

I used distress inks in salty ocean and stormy sky and dried the colors in between.  The splashed piece and a mat were cut with HA infinity dies.  The iris came from my friend, Greta.  I'll put this in my stash and add a sentiment when I need it.

Thanks for stopping by and love to read your kind comments.