Papertrey Ink Blog Hop - Nov. 2018

Hello friends.  Playing along with this month's Papertrey Ink Blog Hop and here is the inspiration photo we were given:

It's fun, it's festive, and it's pretty...BUT I struggled with it, and up until later yesterday I didn't think I was going to play along.  And the reason I struggled is such a goofy one, but I am not a big fan of BLUE!  I love the red & white, the stripes, the little bits of greenery, but blue is just not a favorite of mine unless I'm doing snowflakes or a sky.  Hey I told ya it was a goofy reason, but what can I say?!  Just not a blue fan!  But then I got to thinking about how I always take these challenges so literally and I really don't need to do that...just pick one or two things that jump out at you from the photo!  So I went with the red and white color theme, the red & white stripes, and the little bit of greenery and came up with this:

 
I had just received my latest order and HAD to include the Bold Borders: Polka Dots die and then cut out a rectangle for the center using Pure Poppy Bitty Big striped DSP on a diagonal.  The JOY I die cut from the Bold Borders: Flurries once in white and once in Pure Poppy to offset with the white.  I am totally in LOVE with the Poinsettia from the Pleasing Envelopes set and used that to draw the eye to the other corner opposite of the JOY.

Although I'm pretty sure this is not what they had in mind when they posted the inspiration photo, I'm really pleased with the way this card came out!  The 2 pinecones are pop dotted for some dimension and I also added a few Pale Gold Nuvo Drops to the center of my Poinsettia!

Now I need to go hop along and see how every one else interpreted this photo, and who knows...maybe someone will change my mind about BLUE!!  You can check it all out and play along right HERE.

Thanks for stopping by today ... I love it when you do!

25 Days of Christmas Tags 2018 - Days 20, 21, 22, & 23

Hello friends.  Hope all of my American friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday!!  We were blessed to have all 3 of our girls home (and their families!) and my 86 year old mother...was a wonderful day!!

I'm still playing along with Tracey's 25 Days of Christmas Tags challenge, and have tags from days 20, 21, 22, & 23 to share with you.

Day 20 was sponsored by CAS-ual Fridays and I was inspired by Nora Noll's lovely water colored tags.

I used a CAS-ual Fridays tag die to cut out my tags and then smooshed them with Distress Inks before adding the Mistletoe from Stamplorations Christmas Medley set.

Day 21 was sponsored by Lawn Fawn and I was inspired by Lynette Lundquist's adorable red & turquoise tags!

I used Lawn Fawn's RAWR and Winter Alpaca stamp sets to create these fun little tags.

Day 22 was sponsored by Waffle Flower and I was inspired by Tracey's cute, CUTE and whimsical tag all done in red & white!

LOVED Tracey's layout and design and used a combination of sets for the small tree, candy canes, and stars that were embossed in white.  Loved the little white buttons Tracey added to resemble Santa and his red suit!!

Day 23 is being sponsored by Lil' Inker and I absolutely LOVED Lindsey M-p's beautiful shaker tag with the jingle bell in place of the "o" in the JOY!

My joy and jingle bell die cuts are both from Lil' Inker and the tree's are stamped from SU!'s Winter Woods set.

The link for this challenge will be open till Dec. 3, so play along for a chance to win lots of great prizes!  You can check out all the inspiration right HERE. 

Thanks for stopping by today ... I love it when you do!

25 Days of Christmas Tags - Days 16, 17, 18, & 19

Hello friends.  Still playing along with Tracey's 25 Days Of Christmas Tags challenge and I have 4 days worth to share, so hunker down!

Day 16 was sponsored by Ellen Hutson and I was inspired by Tracey's and Emily Midgett's sweet tags!

I loved the light green background in both of Tracey and Emily's tags and my sweet snowman is one of the first stamps I ever bought back in 1999 from a company called Stamp City.

Day 17 was sponsored by Avery Elle and I LOVED Jamie Gracz's adorable tag using the Polar Peek A Boo Pals stamp set!

I so wanted to copy Jamie's tag with the 3 star cutouts but after checking her blog I see that she used a GIANT tag (4 x 5 1/4) to fit all three star cutouts and I don't have that big a tag...hence only 2 of the critters peeking out on my tag!  I love the reindeer with the lights all tangled up in his antlers too, so I had to ink him up too!

Day 18 was sponsored by Neat & Tangled and absolutely LOVED Elena Roussakis adorable red, black, & white snowman tags!

Elena's tags reminded me of chalkboard tags, so I used Avery Elle's Winter Woodland Wonders stamp set and colored up the snowman and birdie for my tags.

Day 19 was sponsored by Jillibean stamps and I was inspired by both Tracey and Joyce Mehrberg's beautiful purple backgrounds and penguins.

I made a purple plaid background using Concord & 9th's Plaid Background stamp and then die cut a couple penguins from SSS's Penguins...love how these turned out and my granddaughter's favorite color is purple, so guess whose gifts these tags are going to be attached to?!!

Over a week left to play along, and LOTS of inspiration to get you started!  Check it out right HERE and then play along!  

Thanks for stopping by today ... I love it when you do!

CAS Mix Up Nov. 2018

Hello friends.  Playing along with this months challenge over at CAS Mix Up where they are looking for embossing folders used on your cards.

Here's what I came up with:

I used 2 different embossing folders, die cutting, Color Bursts, and stamping...BUT, my stamping is on the inside!  I just couldn't bring myself to add anything else to the outside of this card, so the stamped sentiment on the inside will have to do!!  My Color Burst panel was actually made a long time ago and was in my stash box, but I believe the color I used was Crimson and I had run it through a brick embossing folder.  I know it doesn't make much sense to have a family of deer up against a brick wall, but the contrast of the black silhouette against the Crimson color and surrounded by all the white was just to perfect to not use!  The die cut is using an AliExpress die I received as a gift last year (thank you friend!!) and the snowflake embossing folder I used is from Darice.

This challenge is open till the 24th and there is so much BEAUTIFUL inspiration from the DT, so check it all out and play along right HERE.

Thanks for stopping by today ... I love it when you do!

Twofer Challenge #11 - Wreath

Hello friends.  Playing along with this month's Twofer Challenge and Darnell would like us to use a WREATH in two different ways.

Here's what I came up with using SU!'s Painted Harvest stamp set:

For those of you familiar with the Painted Harvest stamp set, you know it's not a wreath at all but meant to be a sunflower!!  However, when this stamp set first came out, many clever people started using it as a wreath by changing up the colors to greens instead of yellows and oranges, and voila!  A wreath!!

And of course I chose the obvious like most people and made a Christmas wreath, because well, you can never have enough Christmas cards at this point in time!!  I stamped the wreath/flower on my white card base with a couple shades of Gina K green inks and then added some red Nuvo drops for the berries.  It seemed rather plain even after I added the top layer using MFT's Peek-A-Boo Rectangle Die and my sentiment using PTI's Penned Elegance: Christmas in Cherry Cobbler ink.  I wanted to add a bow, but a few months back I did some major purging and threw out most of my ribbon thinking I never use it anymore...BIG MISTAKE!!  But then inspiration struck and I pulled out some dark red tulle that I use when wrapping gifts and made a tiny bow...

I tied the tulle in the middle with some gold thread and used a glue dot to adhere it to my wreath...it was the perfect finishing touch!!

After the Painted Harvest set had been out for awhile, another clever person figured out how to make a Hedgehog using just half of the flower and it was absolutely ADORABLE...just check out Painted Harvest on Pinterest and you'll find all kinds of them!!  So anyway, I got to thinking about the Hedgehog and what it would look like if I changed the colors, and when I thought about blues, I thought about my grandson (he's 18 mos) and how we call him a little monster and my little "boo"...

I used the same flower/wreath stamp in the shades of blue (Gina K inks again) and there was my little monster!  I added some eyes and mouth from an Avery Elle set called Sweetest and a couple paws from Avery Elle's Polar Peek A Boo Pals, and my perfect sentiment is from PTI's Sentiment Staples: Halloween.  And here is the little monster himself:

He's actually a blue Triceratops here for Halloween and my daughter said she couldn't get a very clear picture of him because he wouldn't stand still...loved knocking on all the doors and then running to the next house before anyone could come to the door and pass out candy!  Bahaha...he'll figure it out next year!!  But anyway, the inspiration for my 2nd card!

This challenge is open till the 24th, so you still have another week to join in the FUN!!  Check it all out right HERE.

Thanks for stopping by today ... I love it when you do!

CAS Watercolour Nov. 2018 Reminder Post

Hello friends.  Just a friendly reminder that you have just over a week to play along with us at CAS Watercolour this month.

We're looking for Christmas Florals and Greenery (NO tree's please!) on your CAS cards this month, so join in and play along with us!

I'm sharing a card today that uses Altenew's Festive Poinsettia stamp that my friend Michele let me stamp a few of to play with and came up with this:

It was a perfect image for me to get my Zigs out and use to color up this beauty!  I used yellow, orange, and red for the flower leaves, and a couple shades of green for the leaves and stems.

My Aqua Painter also helped me with moving and blending the color together a bit.  I did a little bit of ink splattering with black and then added my sentiment from Altenew's Blessings stamp set.  I also used a Gina Marie Designs Wonky Stitched die around the edges of my panel and then adhered to a white card base.  Just a couple iridescent sequins finished off my card.

We would love to see you in the gallery and help you get those Christmas cards done, so hop on over and see all the lovely inspiration we have for you from the DT and our special guest designer Maura this month, and then play along.  You can find everything right HERE. 

Thanks for stopping by today ... I love it when you do!

25 Days Of Tags 2018 - Days 13, 14, & 15

Hello friends.  Still having FUN being inspired and playing along with the 25 Days Of Christmas Tags challenge!

Day 13 is sponsored by Technique Tuesday, and I was inspired by both Tracey & Kim and their Christmas lights tags.

I don't own any Technique Tuesday stamps but I substituted PTI's Corner Adorner: September stamp set and came up with the brightly colored tags.  I also added a little bit of silver glitter paper like Kim did to bling it up even more!!  The DSP at the top is from Reverse Confetti's new Winter Solstice 6 x 6 pad.

Day 14 is sponsored by Muse Christmas Visions and I was inspired by 2 different tags from Kim Heggins and Kimberly Wiener.

 
These tags were inspired by Kim's BEAUTIFUL water colored tree's...I used SU!'s Winter Woods stamp set and inked up the stamp, spritzed with water, and then stamped on my tags.  Next I went over them with a WOS pen and it made it even more water colored looking plus added the sparkle!!

I was also inspired by Kimberly Wiener's lovely mistletoe tags and used a Stamplorations set called Layered Mistletoe.  I stamped my berries in white ink and then went over the top of them with a bottle of Smooch Pearlized Top Coat that I've had for like forever and it actually still worked...it's quite lovely IRL!!

Day 15 is sponsored by Stamplorations and I was inspired by Joyce Mehrberg's and Tracey McNealy's beautiful tags.

My tag on the left was inspired by Tracey and her lovely blended background.  Tracey had an angel on her tag, but I just really LOVE the Stamplorations Christmas Reindeer set...they are so whimsical and fun to use!  They're embossed in white and I also did some splattering with white acrylic paint.  The tag on the right was inspired by Joyce's tag on kraft using these FUN deer...just stamped them along with the sentiment and snowflakes in Soft Suede ink and then did some splattering on these too!

Make sure you check out all the inspiration and FUN and play along for your chance at some of the wonderful prizes that are up for grabs.  You can find all the info to play along right HERE.

Thanks for stopping by today ... I love it when you do!