Merry Monday #78 - Birds

Good morning friends.  Playing along with Merry Monday's today, and the challenge is to use any type of bird in your Christmas card.

Isn't that a pretty inspiration picture?  We feed the birds in the wintertime and I love the coloring of  cardinals against the white of snow...SO pretty!  Anyway, on to my card!  I have been wanting to use one of my new SU! stamps and this seemed like a good opportunity to combine the stamp, the chalkboard technique, and the bird punch (SU!).  Take a look:

Don't you LOVE this background paper?!  This is one of the designs in SU!'s "Season of Style" paper stack and the whole reason I bought the pack...it's just SO festive looking!  And I think it worked great as a background against my sentiment with the chalkboard technique.  I traced the tag shape from SU!'s "Chalk Talk" stamp (didn't have the $ to buy the die) on black cardstock, and then stamped this stamp with VersaMark and white embossing powder.  I then stamped off again with white Stazon ink and also sponged around the edges and all over the tag to give it the smudgy chalkboard look. I also used SU!'s new Stampin' Chalk Marker to make my lines around the edges of the tag...wish I would have bought a bunch of these markers as it works AWESOME!!  I used SU!'s bird punch with Cherry Cobbler cardstock, and sponged around the edges with Smoky Slate ink.  For the bird's wing, I embossed a little of the small flourish from SU!'s "Priceless" stamp set in white to make it mimic the chalkboard look.  I also colored a pearl with a black sharpie marker for the bird's eye.  I finished with a seam binding ribbon that I colored with a Copic marker (R39).  Quite a simple card, but I really like how it turned out! :0)

Make sure you stop by and check out all the beautiful cards and inspiration over at Lesley's site here. 

That's all for today friends.  Have a wonderful Wednesday and thanks so much for stopping by...I love it when you do! :0)   

More Halloween Flip Cards

Good morning friends.  Just a quick post today to share a couple more Halloween Flip cards I made using SU!'s Thinlit Circle Dies and a couple $1 stamps from Michael's.  Take a look:

Both cards used just scraps of Halloween paper and even scraps of colored cardstock for the circles...can't get any more economical than that! :0)  I also forgot to take a picture of the flip side of the Haunted House card...I just used another scrap of Wisteria Wonder (SU!) cardstock to cut out another circle, and then stamped Happy Fright Night from PTI's "Halloween Sweets & Treats" and added a small punched out bat in black cardstock.  Both cards super easy and quick to make and lots of fun to "flip"! :0)

Thanks so much for stopping by today and have a wonderful Tuesday! :0)

Festive Friday Challenge #18 - Element Theme

Good morning friends.  Hope you all had a great weekend.  A little wet here in my "neck of the woods", but it made for some great stamping time!  And as a result, I finally got a card made for the latest Festive Friday challenge.  It's a element theme this time - to use a star:

A star?  Christmas?  Should be easy, right?  For some reason I had a hard time with this one, and I think that's why it took me so long to come up with a card for this challenge.  But inspiration finally hit and I really, REALLY like the card I came up with!  Take a look:

Make sure you click on the picture to enlarge it so you can see the 3D look of the stars.  I have seen a few cards lately where they have had snowflakes and ornaments hanging from tree branches, and so I thought, why not stars hanging from a branch?  I also wanted to try a technique I had seen awhile back where you score all the angles of the star to make it look 3D (you can check this out on Betsy Veldman's blog here ).  I started by stamping the pine branch (PTI's "Peaceful Pinecones") and sentiment (PTI's "Winter Hills") on kraft cardstock, and then embossed using PTI's Herringbone plate to give the background a little definition.  I poked a couple holes through where the pinecones should be stamped, and then threaded gold cord to hang the stars from.  Before scoring the star shapes (Spellbinder star dies), I stamped them with a flourish from SU!'s "Priceless" set with Cherry Cobbler (SU!) ink.  I used pop dots under the stars to make them stand out a bit and then finished with a few gold sequins and a white card base.  Not really a quick card, but I love the look of the 3D stars hanging from the pine branch and that made the time put into this card worth it! :0)

That's all for today friends, but I'll be back with more inspiration tomorrow.  Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful Monday!  (It's so cool here today I feel like I should go make a loaf of bread! :0)

  

Merry Monday #77 - Color Challenge

Good morning friends.  Adding to my Christmas card stash and playing along with Merry Monday's color challenge today.

 

It took my mind a little bit to wrap around all those colors, but the more I looked at it, the more I loved how festive it looked!  My card is definitely not as bright as the picture, but I went for more of a clean and simple look and I really like how it turned out!  Take a look:

If you click on the picture, it's a lot easier to see that I really did use all 4 colors.  I stamped the wreath (PTI's Wreath for All Season's) in Always Artichoke (SU!), and then added a small holly that I die cut (PTI's Holly Jolly) with Certainly Celery cardstock (SU!).  I added 2 pink and 1 red pearl to the holly and had all 4 colors in one simple element.  I added a white layer of cardstock that I cut a circle (off centered) in and pop dotted to add a little more visual interest to the simple wreath.  I finished by adding my sentiment (PTI's "Fillable Frames #9) to the bottom and red and white twine to the top.  Clean and simple, and I'm definitely going to make more of this one! :0)

Make sure to check out the rest of the entries here...there really are some beautiful cards this week! :0)  Thanks so much for stopping by today and have a wonderful weekend!

MIM#134 - Repeat and Lift Technique

Good morning friends.  Haven't played along with Papertrey Ink's Make it Monday challenge in a couple weeks, but really wanted to try out this one.  Nichole showed a great video on how to make a very simple but dramatic shadow card using a "repeat and lift" technique.  You are basically using a word stamp and stamping it repeatedly, and then using the same word in a die cut to "lift" the word away from the stamping.  I used PTI's "Wonderful Words: Hello" stamp set and die for 2 cards...did one with Pool Party and Pumpkin Pie inks, and then did another with just Pool Party for a monochromatic look.  Both my cards are a complete CASE of Nichole's card, but why mess with perfection?!!  Take a look:

The top card definitely gives more "pop" using 2 colors, but I like the simplicity of the monochromatic one too.  My background paper is Echo Park (Dots & Stripes) and then just a button on each to finish them off.  Easy AND fun!! :0)

That's all for today friends.  Busy day and I should probably make an anniversary card for hubby...26 years should at least rate a handmade card, right?! :0)  Have a wonderful Thursday and thanks so much for stopping by...I love it when you do! 

Candy Corn Banner

Good morning friends.  Today I'd like to share a banner project with you that I made this past weekend after seeing the one  Melissa Phillips made on her blog.  My photo's aren't the greatest, but I think you should be able to get the main idea! Take a look:

This was SO much fun to make!  A bit time consuming, but now that I'm an empty nester, I have more time for things like this.  I did not have the banner die that Melissa used, but I just cut 5 pieces of white cardstock at 5 1/2" x 6" and then made a pencil mark in the center of the 5 1/2" end, and then used my cutter to make the 2 diagonal cuts to form a triangle.  You can make these any size you want, this is just what I came up with.  Then came the fun decorating part...just choose scraps of yellow, orange, and white to make it look like candy corn.  I added lace, buttons, chevron strips (PTI die), stars (Spellbinder dies), pumpkins (smallest oval Spellbinder die), flower (PTI die), seam binding ribbon (colored with Pumpkin Pie marker - SU!), and hemp cord to link the 5 triangles together.  I also sponged all the edges with Baked Brown Sugar ink (SU!) to give it a bit of a vintage look. 

Thanks so much for stopping by today and taking a look, and I hope I've inspired you to try a banner of your own.  These can be made for any occasion and my youngest liked mine so much she requested I make her one for her dorm room with her school colors (FSU).  Make sure you check out Melissa's blog for her great picture tutorial on how to make these banners.  Lots of fun and well worth the time involved! :0)  Have a great Wednesday!!    

Sunflower - Take Two

Good morning friends.  Quick post today, but wanted to share another card I made with SU!'s BIG "Sunflower" stamp.  Last week's card was all earth tones, but look at how quickly you can change the tone of a card by simply adding another color:

I apologize that my lighting wasn't the best the day I took this photo, but I think you can get the idea of what I did by adding the blue sponging (SU!'s Pacific Point) around the sunflower, matting with black, and then using blue for the card base.  Really makes the sunflower pop, doesn't it?  The sentiment is from PTI's "Mums the Word" stamp set.

Told you it was a quick post today!  Stay tuned though and I'll be back with more Halloween and Christmas inspiration later this week.  Have a wonderful Tuesday! :0)