MERRY Christmas!!!

Only a few more days until Christmas! I finished my shopping and mailed out my cards last week. I've got my wrapping done, but still need to do some more baking. I wanted to take a few minutes this morning to wish you all a VERY MERRY Christmas!!!

Here's the pile of most of my Christmas cards as I was getting them ready to go out in the mail. I shared the card using the Christmas Cheer set here. As you can see, I also made two other designs as well. (I get bored making too many of the same card) Here's a closer look at the card using Merry Crittermas.

I used the Jolly Jingles Jumbo wheel on the background and then layered the different punched out shapes to make this card fairly quick & easy. Can't get enough of those snowflakes from the Northern Frost Die. I'll tell you more about my third card on a future post, but right now I need to get out to the grocery store to pick up a few ingredients for my cookies.

Thanks for visiting me today, and again, I wish you a wonderful holiday season!

Deck the Halls With Good Cheer

Well, I certainly have not been a very good blogger the past few months, have I? I have been making time to get creative with my stamps, inks and papers, but I guess just not taking the time to post. Here's a card I designed for a Christmas Card Class I had recently.

Since I used this design for a class and they were making multiples of each card, I had to come up with a quick way to add color... So, the whole image was inked in Soft Suede, and then the ink from the reindeer's nose and "Happy Christmas" was removed using a Q-tip dampened with Stampin' Mist. Those areas were then re-inked using a Cherry Cobbler marker. Subtle color was added to the rest of the design using Stampin' Pastels. Details such as the berries on Santa's crown were colored using the pastels and a Blender Pen.

This old fashioned Santa image goes perfectly with the vintage designs in the Deck the Hall papers from the Holiday Mini catalog. The ribbon used is Cherry Cobbler Seam Binding. I LOVE this stuff! It is so soft and easy to work with, and has a nice sheen to it.

I like the way this turned out, and it was fairly quick & easy. I think I may make more of these to send out as one of this years Christmas cards...I really do need to get crackin' on that!

Cherry Good Cheer

On my last post I shared a card I created using Mojo Monday's last sketch challenge. I don't think I mentioned that there was an option to do a square or a round version, but since I liked the sketch so well I decided to give the round sketch a try. This time I used one of my favorite Christmas sets...Good Cheer.

I used the Bigz Scallop Circle die to cut the base of my card. There is a little trick to that, so I'll explain how I did that: I started with a piece of Crumb Cake card stock cut to 9-1/2 x 4-3/4". Which was then scored and folded in half at 4-3/4. I positioned it on the die so that the fold was below 3 scallops, so that when it is cut you will have a scalloped card that opens and closes. I then cut another Scallop circle out of Cherry Cobbler so that none of the scallops were missing. That was adhered to the top of my base.

The Always Artichoke layer was cut with my Coluzzle and stamped using the holly branch image from this set. The wonderful old-fashioned Santa & reindeer image was stamped in Basic Brown ink on Very Vanilla. I watercolored it using my aqua painter and inks. Since the image ended up being rather large for this shape of card, I cut it out and layered it onto a square of Cherry Cobbler that I had stamped with holly. I then inked all the edges of my layers with Chocolate Chip ink for a vintage look.

To finish off the vintage look I used a bit of Chantilly Lace and embellished it with a "poinsettia" created by stamping the flower image from the Level 1 Hostess set Punch Potpourri and punching it out with the Boho Blossoms punch and adding an adhesive pearl to the center. Here is the sketch I used for this card and if you scroll down you can see my square version.

On my last post I had a comment from a new visitor to my blog which read in part, "Your card is great. While it may be pretty self explanatory, I sure wish you gave more details about the steps it took to make your card in your blog post."

Since the poster did not leave an email address nor do they have a blogger account, I have no way to contact them to find out what question(s) they had about my card, so I'm addressing it here. I always try to give the basic recipe or explain anything "I think" needs to be explained. However, many times I'm sure there are steps I assume stampers already know and skip them as not to bore everyone or in my rush to get a post published I may skip things as well. (sorry!) Many times I may show a technique that I have already explained before, so that I don't have to repeat myself I rely on "labels" (shown at bottom of post).

Just wanted you to know that I am always happy to answer any questions my readers may have regarding my projects, so feel free to email me directly (click the "contact me" button on right) or post your question & email address along with your comment.

I hope you are all enjoying a wonderful weekend! Thanks for stopping by to visit me today.

Christmas Cheer

I heard a heartbreaking story about an adorable five year old little boy who is in his last stages of a 2 1/2 year battle with cancer. This year his family is celebrating Christmas early, and Noah loves to receive cards, so I got busy and made him one I hope he will like. I just loved this old fashioned image of Santa and his reindeer from the instant I saw it.If you want to hear more about this story here is the link. If you would like to send Noah a card, here is his address:

Noah Biorkman
1141 Fountain View Circle,
South Lyon, MI 48178 USA

His family has asked that if you would like to, you can also include $1 inside Noah's card which they plan to donate to the Make-A-Wish Foundation and to U of M for Neuroblastoma research. They have already received thousands of cards and gifts from around the world.

I inked the stamp using my Colorbox petal point chalk inks (which SU! unfortunately retired several years ago.) These inks worked perfectly in that I could easily color the area on the stamp in the colors I wanted without it drying too quickly and then I could still watercolor the other areas without the ink bleeding like it would if I had just used my markers.

Stamps: Good Cheer, Christmas Punch (hostess set)
Card stock: Ruby Red, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip & The Write Stuff Specialty paper
Ink: Colorbox petal point chalk inks, Old Olive & various for water coloring
Accessories: Aqua painter, Boho Blossoms punch, Earth Elements brads, Chocolate Chip & Old Olive grosgrain ribbon, mat pack, piercing tool

Thanks for stopping by and if you send a card to Noah, thank you for that as well!