Blue Snowflake

Today's card is based on the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.  I kept it very true to the sketch and used very subtle colors.  I heat embossed the large snowflake in Pool Party on Very Vanilla card stock and die cut it.  I adhered some Lost Lagoon washi tape on a panel of Pool Party card stock and mounted the large snowflake with dimensionals.  I punched a couple of small snowflakes out of Very Vanilla and added them to the panel.  A few rhinestones and a sequin are the final decoration before mounting everything to a Very Vanilla card base.

Happy Stamping,

Dana

Jolly Retro Flakes

Today I'm playing along with the color challenge at Stamp Ink Paper Challenge.  The other day I was looking through the drawer where I keep my dies (originals, bigz, etc).  I tend to forget them as they are in a drawer.  All of my thinlits and framelits are out where I can see them.  At any rate, a die caught my eye.  It is an older Stampin' Up snowflake die and one of the images is kind of a retro star.  When I saw the bold colors in the challenge, I thought this could be a fun combo.  I cut out a number of the snowflakes in Cucumber Crush and Watermelon Wonder and positioned them on a white panel.  I die cut "Jolly" in black glimmer paper and also created a thin frame with the glimmer paper and mounted everything on a Watermelon Wonder card base.  I felt like something was missing so I cut a few small circles and layered them on top of the centers of the larger snowflakes.

Happy Stamping,
Dana

Soft Christmas Greetings

When I saw the CAS sketch at Can You Case It, I was excited to play along.  I chose to use snowflakes rather than stars on my card.  Apparently, I have a lot of snowflake images and it took a while to find the right scale to coordinate with the sentiment I wanted to use.  I love the retro feel of this sentiment.  I stamped and heat embossed it in Island Indigo.  The snowflakes were stamping in Pool Party, Mint Macaron and Pistachio Pudding.  I wasn't sure if there would be enough contrast with this color, but I LOVE the end result.  I splattered a little watered down glue and added some glitter.  Oh how I love the look of glitter, but not I'm not sure I'm down with the after effects.  I have a very festive floor around my craft space :)

Happy Stamping,
Dana

Thanksgiving Meets Christmas

My wishes for a very Happy Thanksgiving to my US friends and a perfectly wonderful day to my non-US friends!

Today I'm sharing 3 cards. The first two are based on the color challenge at Fab Friday.  These are lovely colors for a Thanksgiving card.  My first attempt was using a technique I learned many moons ago and I have seen it come around again recently as Joseph's coat technique.  I added an embossed panel that reminds me a bit of a blanket, a die cut sentiment and a few borders.

While the first card was pleasant, I didn't get the contrast I wanted so I took another go.  I chose to use a lot of white and add punches of the featured colors.  I started with a Blackberry Bliss card base in which I strategically placed squares of Cajun Craze and Hello Honey.   I die cut the squares with rounded corners from the main panel in which I stamped the sentiment.  This panel was mounted to the base with dimensionals.  The leaf was stamped in the 3 challenge colors, fussy cut and placed on the corresponding colored square.

My 3rd card was inspired by the challenge at CAS-ual Fridays.  This week's challenge is precious metals.  I thought why not go big.  I embossed a red metal sheet with a terrific 2 sided embossing folder by Spellbinders.  The design leave little room for embellishment, perfect for a CAS challenge.  I added a strip of silver glimmer paper to the top and bottom of the card to tie in with the sentiment which was also die cut from silver glimmer paper.  A silver rhinestone dots the "I".

Happy Stamping,
Dana

Nordic Skates

Today I am submitting my card to Pixie's Crafty Workshop as everything but the card base were snippets (even the bit of stitchery cotton was a left over bit).  It's been way too long since I played along.

I love the skates I used on this card.  Skating makes me happy but it's been many moons since I have skated, I may need to change that.  I selected the red patterned paper as it reminded me of a Nordic sweater and highlighted the bit of blue in the paper as my accent color.  I love red and light blue together.

Here is a close up of the skates to try to show the shine of the shimmer paper I used.  I had just enough to get these two skates out of my scrap, it was meant to be!

Happy Stamping,
Dana

Merry Ornament

The challenge at Uniko is Christmas with an optional twist of a CAS creation, just what I was looking for as my other cards lately have been a little fussy.  I heat embossed the ornament in gold.  Merry was cut 3 times and layered to give it some dimension and Christmas was stamped in green.  I dug out the old Stampin' Up set Perfect Plaids again to create the green stripes. Thin strips of gold foil paper were added to repeat the gold in the ornament.  The "M" in Merry gets a little lost in the photo, but the card is quite lovely IRL.

Happy Stamping,
Dana

Joy in the Forest

My card today is based on the sketch at Pals Paper Arts.  I just received the Stampin' Up Wonderland stamp set and was excited to use it. I stamped the pines in Mossy Meadow and a few times over the top with white craft ink. I cropped the panel and layered it on a trim Cherry Cobbler border and edged it with a zig zag trim of Tip Top Taupe.   I mounted it to a Mossy Meadow card base.  The reindeer was stamped in Tip Top Taupe and then die cut.  He was mounted to the panel with dimensionals and I added a bronze pearl for his eye.  I die cut 3 Cherry Cobbler circles and topped them with Whisper White die cut letters.  They were added to the card with extra thick foam squares.  I love how the white letters pop on the card.

Happy Stamping,
Dana

Blue & Gray Christmas

I'm excited to play along at City Crafter Challenge, it's been a while since I have had an opportunity and I always enjoy their challenges.  I was drawn to the winter barnyard scene in the inspiration photo and thought this lovely stamp of a wintery house would be a good choice.  This was another card that took a lot of twists and turns.  It ended up with more gray than my original plan but I'm on a non-traditional Christmas color roll so it works for me.  My nod to the silver is the silver embossed sentiment and trio of rhinestones.  I've been doing a lot of heat embossing lately, maybe it's the Christmas card spree?  I had gotten away from it for quite a long time, but have really enjoyed the effect lately.

Happy Stamping,
Dana

Chocolate at Christmas

I love blue and brown together so when I saw the inspiration photo at The Challenge I knew I wanted to play along.  I hadn't fully formulated what I wanted to do, but I thought it would include snowflakes.  I have enjoyed using non-traditional colors on Christmas cards this year so this would fit right in.  I tucked that away and was working on the sketch challenge at Mojo Monday.  While considering the elements I wanted to use, I decided to use a snowflake for the circle shape in the sketch.  So the stars aligned and I realized this would be a great sketch to use with the colors I planned for the inspiration challenge.

I used Chocolate Chip, Baja Breeze, Not Quite Navy and Whisper White for my colors.  The brown panel was dry embossed.  The sentiment and snowflake were heat embossed.  Everything was layered up and a rhinestone was added to the snowflake and a lovely snowflake charm added to the flags.

Happy Stamping,
Dana

Wine Tag

I recently came a across a challenge called Nacho Average Challenges.  The name just made me giggle, isn't it awesome?  They had a color challenge this week but I must have missed the close time to link up my project.  Oh well, I had fun with the colors and they were the inspiration I needed and that's why I do this. (Update: I was able to load my project to the linky - yeah!  For some reason the tool wasn't showing in my browser, so I switched browsers) I was drawn to the colors as I thought they would be perfect to accent the bottle of wine I plan to bring to Thanksgiving dinner for our hosts.  It's a Malbec, so I thought the Rich Razzleberry would be a nod to the wine color plus the bottle has accents of Early Espresso.

I stamped the wood grain pattern in Early Espresso on Very Vanilla card stock.  The leaves were heat embossed in Old olive and Rich Razzleberry then fussy cut.  The sentiment and acorn were heat embossed in Early Espresso.  I did sneak in a touch of Delightful Dijon to highlight the acorn.  Everything was layered up with a touch of jute and some card stock layers.  I'm so glad to have this done ahead of time and not rushing around on Thanksgiving trying to embellish the bottle.

Happy Stamping,
Dana

Merry & Bright

Boy did I have to work hard for this card.  I had many failed attempts but finally landed on something I liked.  The sketch over at CAS(E) this Sketch is fabulous, but for some reason it just wasn't working for me - technical difficulties with water coloring.

I started with a yellow splatter, in an attempt to avoid water coloring :).  The pine boughs and pine cones were each stamped twice and heat embossed.  The sentiment was also heat embossed.  Finally everything was layered up on a yellow card base with a slim red border.

Happy Stamping,

Dana

Round 2 for CAS Colours & Sketches

Here I am again playing along with the challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches.  Apparently I can't follow directions.  Part of the sketch was to use an aperture which I totally missed on my first card.  I considered using this "dec. 25" image on my first card so that is where I started with this one.  It was heat embossed in Cherry Cobbler.  I layered a scrap of patterned paper on a bit of Old Olive and added to a white panel and used a coordinating punch to create my aperture.  The panel was added to a card base with some fun foam for stable dimension and a few epoxy dots were colored to coordinate.  I love the simplicity of this card.

Happy Stamping,
Dana

December 25th

Happy Birthday CAS Colours & Sketches!  They are celebrating their 150th challenge and 3 year blog birthday - congratulations!  The challenge is to use the sketch and include at least one 1, 5, or 0 on your card.  I wanted to use some Dec 25th patterned paper and make a rather graphic card.  I played on the circle element on the patterned paper by using 2 polka dot embossing folders, rounding 2 of the corners and of course the circles for the "25" to call home.

Happy Stamping,

Dana

Simple Curve

I was very excited to see the sketch challenge at Fusion Card Challenge.  A few weeks ago I got together with some friends for a card making weekend and one of the gals had an amazing embossing folder.  I took the opportunity to crank a few through the Big Shot to use later.  I thought the curve of the embossing folder worked beautifully with the sketch.  I let the embossing folder do all of the heavy lifting on this card.

The embossed piece is Very Vanilla, I embossed a sentiment in gold on Cherry Cobbler and die cut it.  I added a few gold foil borders and added to a Cherry Cobbler card base.  I had to work really hard to get these photos.  I played with backgrounds, lights on, lights off, exposure, etc.  At least you can see the gorgeous dry embossing.

Here is a close up of the sentiment.  At least you can see that it is embossed but the picture doesn't really do it justice.

Happy Stamping,
Dana

JOY!

I really like the colors in this weeks The Challenge and am squeezing in an entry just under the wire.  I particularly like that silver is included in the mix as I wouldn't naturally pair that with kraft but it is stunning.  Take a peek at the design team and challenge participants submissions and you'll see what I mean - stunning!

I wanted to include a strip of a diagonal striped paper along the left in red and silver.  I created this one by using a VERY old Stampin' Up stamp set called Perfect Plaids, I would guess that I purchased this in the mid to late 90's.  I used Cherry Cobbler and silver embossing for the stripes.  The Joy was embossed in Cherry Cobbler on white, layered on silver glimmer paper and finally a scrap of Cherry Cobbler CS.  The main panel is Crumb Cake and is dry embossed for a little interest.  A Cherry Cobbler band of ribbon and a bow were added.  I used a silver brad to secure the bow as I wanted a third silver element for balance.

Happy Stamping!

Dana

Winter & Peace

I am sharing 2 cards with this post as I really wanted to play along with two challenges that end today.  The Paper Players has a fun color challenge and Can You Case It has a terrific sketch challenge.  I had great cards mapped out in my mind for both challenges.  Somewhere along the line, both cards ended up drastically different.

The Paper Players color challenge is to use black, white, silver or gold and a color.  I imagined a non-traditional card primarily in black with touches of white, silver and Mint Macaron.  The dove was embossed in silver on black and the leaf image embossed in silver on Mint Macaron.  "Peace" was die cut from silver foil paper.  A bit of layering rounded out this card

My second card is based on the sketch at Can You Case It.  This card was a little closer to what I imagined.  Since the primary element in the sketch is the sentiment along the right side of the card, I decided to go big.  I really like the Winter Wonderland die cut, but a standard A2 card would be challenged to accommodate it.  I went a little larger with this card.  I stamped, silver embossed, layered and colored with marker the 3 snowflakes.  They were layered and each one was treated to a rhinestone center.  The white panel was layered on silver foil and adhered to a Lost Lagoon card base.

Happy Stamping,
Dana

Reindeer Games

The challenge at Just Us Girls is stripes.  I love stripes!  They can be fun and playful, classy and elegant, masculine, bold, delicate... well, you get the idea.  I have a lot of DSP with stripes but opted to go with thin strips of card stock to create my own stripes.  I randomly placed the strips along the right of the card and included embossed diagonal stripes as the base for the reindeer.  I liked the combination of stripes and how the swirls on the reindeer softened things up a bit.  I added a red bow to the reindeer to balance the red stripes and bring a little color to the other side of the card.  Just for fun, I added a rhinestone to the bow.

Happy Stamping,

Dana

Coveted Paper

I think I may have squealed when I saw the inspiration photo at Sunday Stamps!  I have some gorgeous patterned paper that is absolutely perfect for this challenge.  It is one of those papers that you take out and look at, maybe display it and occasionally caress it lovingly.  Maybe I left the cap off of my glue a little too long or perhaps there are a few others out there that feel like I do about paper.

I struggled with how to best showcase this lovely paper.  I was up north and had limited supplies with me, though I don’t know if it would have helped with my full arsenal at hand. I decided to go with an ornament die cut.  I cut multiples and layered and pieced and added a few pearls (which represent the white in the inspiration photo).  I had a fun clear embossed paper that I bought with the original patterned paper to use as an accent.  I fussed and fussed and couldn’t land on something I liked.  The patterned paper and the ornament fought each other and no one was the winner.  So my starting inspiration, the patterned paper, lost out this time around.  I am very happy with the resulting card and love the non-traditional colors for a Christmas card.  I may need to do some more playing around with the patterned paper and it deserves to be shown off and not hiding in a drawer.

Here is a picture of the card resting on the patterned paper of my dreams.  The colors are gorgeous and rich, the pattern elegant and has a lovely sheen.

Happy Stamping,

Dana

Poppies

Today’s card is based on the color challenge at TGIFChallenges.  I die cut the poppy image in both Soft Suede and Crushed Curry.  I hand cut the flowers and flower buds from the stems of the Crushed Curry piece.  I sponged them with Cajun Craze ink and glued them to the Soft Suede piece.  The image filled most of a standard card base and I explored a number of different options before settling on a simple sentiment and a few borders.  The scales were tipped by the fact that I need an anniversary card.

We might just need to move up north so I can take all of my pictures outside.  I guess I could take pictures outside at home too, I just sounds like more fun to move up north!

Happy Stamping,

Dana

Miss You

Today's card is based on the color challenge at Pals Paper Arts. I really like this color combination.  I wanted to keep the card very clean with a lot of white space. The diamonds were die cut in all three of the challenge colors and pieced together.  The sentiment was embossed in Calypso Coral. A very thin border if Calypso Coral was added before mounting to a Chocolate Chip card base.

Happy Stamping,
Dana

All Good Wishes

The challenge at Stamp, Ink, Paper this week is Clean and Simple Christmas.  I'm still busy working on my Christmas cards and decided to play along.  I embossed a whisper white panel with a Martha Stewart embossing folder. A Tim Holtz sentiment and border were added in Lost Lagoon.  A sprinkle of sequins complete the card.  Short and sweet tonight, still a lot of Christmas cards to complete.

Happy Stamping,

Dana