Candy Cane Wishes

Are you tired of Christmas Cards yet?  I pulled out a bunch of random images, tags and embellishments and put them out on my craft table to inspire me to use them.  This was another tag that I saved from several years ago.  It's had to see but I stamped the snow banks by outlining them in Broken China.  I just masked using a bit of torn copy paper to get the effect.  About half way up the card I started blending Broken China with Tumbled Glass and then the top third is blended with Stormy Sky.  I love the effect, very wintery.  The sentiment is from Cornish Heritage Farm's Christmas Expressions.  I couldn't find a small pom-pom to hide the hole  at the top so I curled up a bit of red pipe cleaner and hot glue gunned it on top.  

Challenges this Card Meets:

Mark's Finest Papers - Recycle a Christmas Card.  (I used a tag, hope this counts.)

Christmas Card Challenge - Week #6

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Santa's Gone into Hiding

Crafty Hazelnut's Extra Christmas Challenge - Anything Goes

Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes
Fab'n'Funky - Winter
CASology - Winter
Creative Card Crew - Snow and Ice

Yuletide Glow

Don't you just love it - days before Halloween and I'm on a Christmas craze.  DH stopped me from showing the kids Miracle on 34th Street, wanting to contain the crazies for as long as possible.  They haven't started to make their lists yet and he doesn't want to encourage them yet.  I think I prefer the diagonal design I did yesterday but this is fun too.

Challenges this Card Meets:

Daring Cardmakers - Let There Be Light

Christmas Card Challenge #47

Fussy and Fancy - Anything Goes

Stamptacular Sunday - No Rules (Anything Goes)

Twinkling Tangles

It's funny, my kids may never remember Christmas lights like this since we've used LED since they were very small.  For a CAS card, this was quite time consuming since it involved two step colouring the lightbulb and the base.  I only had the one bulb so it was colour, stamp, clean, redo for the whole thing.  The cord was hand drawn.  I think it turned out fabulous though and can't wait to try with other layouts.  

It was funny, I was making this with a friend.  She made 30 cards that night.  This was one of the three that I completed.  I tend to get distracted.  But it was such a nice night.

Challenges this Card Meets:

Daring Cardmakers - Let There Be Light

Christmas Card Challenge #47

Fussy and Fancy - Anything Goes

Stamptacular Sunday - No Rules (Anything Goes)

O Holy Night

My brother was horrified.  He popped by today and saw me making Christmas cards.  What else is a girl to make in October?  After a long stamping break - two weeks is forever as far as I'm concerned, I wanted to start simple.  I have decided that I love Kraft.  This is the first card I've done with it.  I would definitely do changes but I love the simplicity without the start effect of white.  I have got to order some.  The image is a Heartfelt Creations one that was embossed in white and then I used the matching die cut.  This set is growing on me all the time.  I then sponged over the embossing and distressed the edges.  The ribbon is recycled from a Christmas tag.  The sentiment is from Cornish Heritage farms.  Next time, I would have put this on a panel to make it pop but I still think this is a great guy Christmas card.

Challenges this Card Meets:
Speedy TV's - Distressing

The Crafty Bloggers' Network - Anything Goes

Use it Tuesday - Use Your Scraps (All of it! The kraft was from a friend.)

Fab'N'Funky - No Designer Paper

Joan's Garden - World Card Making Day (If not entering, please vote for me.)

Shaking Things Up

Wow, this is not what I originally had in mind.  I really wanted to play with my new Memory Box die so I pulled out some tree images.  My SU's "Lovely as a Tree" was too large for the window so I used this image from Mark's Finest Papers and stamped it twice; once in Always Artichoke and once in Old Olive.  I know, the second tree is hard to see in this photo.   I then made a shaker box with an acetate sheet, some microbeads and old bits of Ez Mount.  I always have a love-hate relationship with using Ez Mount for shaker cards.  On one hand it's very cheap since I use the bits that would have been otherwise too small to use. It's also quite thick so I can use chunky items in my shaker.  On the other hand, the EZ Mount is thick so my card is very thick; mailing it is  not an option.  It also doesn't look nice if someone was to look down the side.  I know, I know, I'm probably the only one that would look and critic the construction but still....

Not sure how I'm feeling about this card.  I think the men in my life would like it, nothing girly and it has something more than just looking at it going for it.  Shakers are always the most favourite in this house.  It's not exactly festive nor traditional for a Christmas card  though.  What do you think?

Challenges this Card Meets:
SpeedyTV Tutorial Time Challenge - Shaker Card
Christmas Card Challenge - Week 42
Creative Card Crew - Tree
GE-We Hobby Challenge - Christmas Card
Simon Says Stamp - Emboss It (Gold Sentiment)

Christmas Blessings

I've unmounted all my wheels and have fallen in love with them all over again.  They are just so much more flexible now that I can use any ink on them and I can actually see where they will be stamped.  I should have done this years ago!  I even gotten half of one of my craft drawers back.

I love how this card turned out but I can't take the credit.  The layout comes from Susan Raihala's (aka.  Lateblossom).  I've tried to find the post but am having trouble with blogger at the moment.  I loved her one layer version.  I didn't have the nice pens though for bordering the image so I've layered a scrap of white card stock with my stamped image onto two small strips of real red.  I love the red bling on this card.  My LSS was blowing out red bling one year after Christmas and I bought the entire stock just so I'd have lots for this stamp.  And now I'll finally use it since I have rediscovered this pretty holly image.


Challenges this Card Meets:
Christmas Card Challenge #4
Creative Inspirations - Anything Goes
Everybody Art - Anything Goes
Mark's Finest Papers - Anything Goes
One Stop Craft - Winter Wishes
Paper Sundaes - Celebrate
Simon Says - Anything Goes

Snowy Collage

This photo doesn't do this image justice.  I love the fact this card looks so different than what I normally stamp.  It's really done in multiple shades of pink and raspberry, not red as it looks here.  I started with a very pale background Harlequin stamp.  I then layered on SU's French Script.  The snowflakes and sentiment are from Heartfelt Creations.


Challenges this Card Meets
Charisma Cards - Anything Goes
Christmas Card Challenge
Creative Inspirations - Anything Goes
Incy Wincy - Winter Wonderland
Mark's Finest Papers - Anything Goes
Papertake Weekly - Last Christmas Card of the Year
Stamping with the Dragon - Let it Snow

Peaceful Wishes

I love this snow globe image from Class Act Rubber Stamps, a Canadian company (YEAH!).  I've been wanting to play with it for ages.  Unfortunately, I realized that I don't have that many Christmas stamps that fit inside.  Oh no, I'll just have to go shopping!  The tree is the top of a larger stamp Flourishes.  The sentiment is from Christmas Expressions by Cornish Heritage Farms.  All the stamping was stamped in Versamark and then embossed in white.  I know that embossing is no longer "cool". But it gives such a clean look that I love it, especially for Christmas cards.  I know it seems dark but the dark panel is actually Night of Navy.

Challenges this Card Meets:
Crazy 4 Challenges - Snow
Creative Card Crew - Monochromatic
Everybody Art - Christmas
Incy Wincy - Trees
Mark's Finest Papers - Make It Masculine
Oldie But Goodie - Let it Snow (Tree image and sentiment are over a year old)
Paper Sundaes - Winter Wonderland
Stamping with the Dragon - Christmas
Stamptacular Sunday - Christmas
Totally Papercrafts - Christmas

Merry and Bright

Christmas is around the corner - how crazy is that!  I have been cleaning/decluttering for months and opened my card stash up to friends in the summer.  I just went to look for my Christmas cards and realized I've been almost completely wiped out!  Let me know when you get bored of Christmas.

This week's challenge at For Fun is a recipe challenge to use one image, two designer papers and three buttons or brads.  I found this challenging because I often don't use DP and rarely buy co-ordinating paper.  I have lots; it just doesn't co-ordinate.  The papers are scraps from my stash.  I love how the design elements on the DP give the illusion of a Christmas Tree.  It's really just the way I cut my paper.  The buttons and brad used up some stash in my odds and ends box and I had fun playing with my pearls and rhinestones.  The image is from Clear Dollar Stamps, our sponsor this week.  I've just found them and love their images.  I lucked out and won their new digi calendar in a blog hop this week.  Stay tuned for those images later.

I do hope you'll join us!

Challenges this Card Meets:
Cards for Men - Christmas
Christmas Card Challenge - Holly or Wreaths
Crafty Catz - Use a digi image
Paper Sundaes - Use a digi image

I'm on a Christmas Tree roll. Today I was inspired by a card I saw in the Winter 2011 Stamp It! magazine called Hppy Holidays card on p. 57. The creator had used Papertrey Ink's text stamp and masked a Christmas tree. It looked very clean and sharp. I wanted to CASE it. I tried using my French Script background stamp but it is so large and loose that the image wasn't really obvious. I decided then to sponge in my masked area with my green in order to keep the shape clean. It looked a bit stark to me so I added the sentiment at the top.

Let me know if you are getting bored of Christmas.

Challenges this Card Meets:

Chapel Road - Merry Christmas