THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Went through all my cards that were on my blog (92 posts) this year and chose my favorites - there certainly is a definite link between most of them - flowers and blue!!  I don't always post all the cards I create - probably make three or four times as many.  

Thanks to everyone who has visited my blog this past year - your comments make my day!  Wishing everyone the best in 2018 and happy stamping!

MAGIC SLIDER GIFT CARDS

I was looking for an interesting way to give gift cards to my grandkids for Christmas when Jennifer McGuire came up with some fantastic techniques - so ordered the Lawn Fawn Magic Slider die and I was in business.  Since the theme for A Blog Named Hero's challenge this month is holiday or winter these fit in perfectly - after I got the hang of it, they weren't hard at all to do.

For the snowman card I used HA's Vintage Christmas Wishes stamps and the tree is HA's Color Layering Christmas Tree.  The snowflake card uses the Snowflake Confetti die and a discontinued HA snowflake die.  The background is a piece of alcohol inked yupo paper.  Silver Nuvo drops were added to the front also.  Jennifer's video clearly explains how to make these fun cards.

There is still time to enter a holiday or winter card at ABNH and be eligible for a great prize.

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

PEACE

Yesterday Loll posted a lovely card that inspired me to use a piece of alcohol inked yupo paper I had on my desk.  

 

 

I heat embossed the little trees in white and hand cut a piece white to fit underneath, stamped the sentiment in a dark blue and added a few nuvo drops in silver.  

 

On this snowy (in Nebraska anyway) Christmas eve, sending wishes of peace, love and joy...

 

 

PEACE POINSETTIA

The challenge at A Blog Named Hero this month is a holiday or winter themed card.  The HA peace poinsettia has always been a favorite of mine - it's no longer available but check out this one from HA.

Embossed the flowers and leaves in gold and colored with copics.  Gold embossed the sentiment also, added a few Nuvo drops and mounted on a color coordinated cardstock.

Create a holiday or winter card and enter here to be eligible for a lovely prize. 

Thanks for visiting and all your kind comments.

UPCYCLED CARDS

I have had some very pretty commercial Christmas cards in my stash for some time and the other day decided to see what I could do with them.  

 

The two deer cards started out as a trifold card which I cut apart - the trees and the large deer are from the original card - I added snowbanks, the black deer, card base and the Nuvo drops snowflakes.  The glitter holly is the upcycle part - I cut out a branch, arranged it all on a card base, added the red berry Nuvo drops.  In the second photo, the bottom left card was just mounted on some fun foam and then added to the card base - I added the glitter dots.  The ornament card just had the vellum sentiment added, and the embossed part of the top card was put on a gray card base and I added the glitter snowflake and gold star in the center - sentiment is on the inside on that one.

 

That's all for today - thanks for stopping by.

 

 

BAMBOO ROSE

Had a bunch of these bamboo roses stamped and embossed sitting on my desk and decided to use them on a card for Case This Sketch #250.

 

Watercoloured piece was done with some Kuretake watercolours and then die cut with the MFT wonky rectangle.  Colored the roses with copics, added them to the corners along with a little sentiment and some clear dots.  

 

I had worked on my Christmas letter all afternoon which is always a trying adventure with pictures and a little text - was using Mac Pages for the first time as the MS Word on my old laptop didn't transfer over to the new Mac.  So a quick and easy CAS card got me over my frustrations!!!

 

 

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

 

 

MISTLETOE AND A TAG

Yesterday I had a good day of creating - a friend asked me to make a "cozy" tag for her gift exchange and I still had not created a card for Altenew's holiday class that I took a few weeks ago.  Started off with those two and then made a bunch of "upcycled and odds ends" Christmas cards (will post those when I get them all photographed).

 

I used basically the same colors for my mistletoe as Julia did in one of her demos.  Then just added my red die cut sentiment - pretty easy card.  I think Cindy C. sent me the cute little stamped coffee pot and cup - colored them with copics, added the sentiment and snowflake die cut, red and white twine - done and dusted.  

 

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

 

 

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.