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Guesting for November’s Woodblock Wednesday

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I’m so delighted to have been asked to guest for the November Woodblock Wednesday. I’m actually all set for Christmas cards, but one more is always good to have. I found this Memory Box Snow Globe in my holiday drawer and knew right away what I wanted to do with it. 

It took two tries to get a good impression of the stamp with the Dark Indigo ink from Papertrey Ink.  Ellen Hutson’s Essential Circles had just the right size to die cut the stamped image. Then I used the next largest circle to die cut a mat from Dark Indigo cardstock. 

Before I added the focal piece to the card base, I decided on the placement and embossed the stamped greeting from Savvy Stamps in white. Once I added the snow globe, I was pleased with the very CAS design, and opted not to add any embellishments. 

I’m looking forward to seeing what cards pop up in the gallery for Woodblock Wednesday. Thanks, Amy, for the invitation and the monthly challenge. 

I’m entering this in the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown Stash Challenge which is Stamps.

Cozy Wishes

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It’s not very often I start with a sketch, but when I saw the sketch at The Paper Players this week as well as the options for Festive Friday: Christmas Jumper Day, I knew I could put my newly purchased (on sale!) embossing folder to good use. I loved the texture and the design of Spellbinders Sweater Weather embossing folder.

Here’s the Sketch:

And the Challenge Board from Festive Friday:

You must use three of the items. Mine are: embossing folder, texture, knitting. Since the folder is a close-up of the knitted pattern, I didn’t think sweater would apply.

Sketches like these are very deceiving. It looks like a simple”cut and arrange.” Cut is easy, but arranging takes a bit or precision to be sure it all lines up nicely. I cut a piece of snowflake patterned paper from a very old paper pad by American Crafts as a background for my three sweater pieces. Once that was attached to a white card base I stamped and white embossed the sentiment from My Favorite Things, Itty Bitty Holiday, and die cut it with the MFT Itty Bitty Strips.  Even though MFT has sadly gone out of business, this stamp set was in my Christmas NBUS box, and of course the embossing folder is also NBUS. I could have used the “warm wishes” sentiment, but I had “cozy” in mind, and forgot that “warm wishes” was one of the elements for Festive Friday. 

Much to my surprise I do not own any very small snowflake dies, but I did have these pretty Glitter Snowflakes by Jolee’s Boutique in my stash. I added three Clear Drops Ice by Pinkfresh Studio as well.

This is off to The Paper Players, Festive Friday, and the November NBUS gallery.

Sending Hugs

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We were away for a week, and I came home to three packed days of commitments and lunches out with friends. Most of my limited crafting time has been spent working on birthday cards for three grandchildren who have birthdays before the New Year. I did, however, need an encouragement card in a hurry. Today’s card is thanks to a fabulous win at Pinkfresh Studio (the WHOLE October release!) It came just before we left for Wisconsin, and I had the time to foil and stencil several images before I left.

This is one of two images from the Moonlit Blooms Press Plate which I foiled in gold. The stencil makes ink blending so easy. That was done ahead of time. I added one of the new coverplates, Floral Lattice, die cut in white, and added an older frame from Pinkfresh, Notched Corner Frame.

Once the elements were assembled, I added a previously gold foiled sentiment from the Pinkfresh Perfect Sentiments set. Three clear drops from Pinkfresh finished it up.  Sadly, the gold foiled sentiment and the gold foiling on the image didn’t show in the photographs. I didn’t realize it until after the card was sent so I couldn’t retake the photos. Also, I wished I had used some dimensional tape behind the floral, but I’m sure another card will be in the works soon.

I’m entering this in the monthly Pinkfresh Studio Challenge which is always Anything Goes, but this card also matches one of the themes, Petals, as well. It’s also off to NBUS. With enough crafting time, I now have an enough  brand new Pinkfresh products to fill up a good portion of the NBUS Gallery for awhile.

Color Hues #122

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Mid-November and it’s time for a new Color Hues Challenge. Nancy has given us a beautiful combo that can definitely be used for holiday cards as well as many other occasions.

I’m always in need of a few more holiday cards, and couldn’t wait to put my recent Greetery purchases to use. I restrained myself and only ordered the Shortbread Shapes product suite along with the accompanying sentiment stamps. I created a shaped card inspired by Betsy Veldman’s beautiful samples shared during the new release.

Using Tropical Teal cardstock from Papertrey Ink, I die cut a panel and embossed it in the gorgeous 3-D embossing folder. You can see the wonderful impression it makes. Then I die cut the Shortbread Shapes Rectangle Label from silver paper I purchased at Broadway Paper in Milwaukee. The label die has beautiful stitching and embossing on it that coordinate with the embossing folder. The small teal rectangle is also part of that set, but the cream embossed detail was die cut from one of the rectangles included in the Shortbread Shapes Rectangle die, and then carefully placed in the embossing folder. 

I wanted a bit of sparkle so I die cut a banner from The Greetery’s Sentiment Suites Basics die (an oldie, but goodie) from silver glitter paper (also from Broadway Paper) and stamped the sentiment from the Simple Holiday Mini Sentiments in teal. The last touch were two silver pearls for the sentiment banner. 

We have two wonderful Guest Designers this round, Loll and Joanne and as always, you can find great inspiration from them as well as my very talented Design Team members. We hope to see you in the gallery.

Lighting the Way

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One of my favorite dies from the Memory Box Joyful Season release is the Antique Lantern die. This is the last of the cards I created for the Memory Box blog but am posting on Instagram while we wait for the Memory Box Blog to go live.

I found some bronze metallic cardstock in my “scraps box” and used it to create the lantern as well as the frame I die cut with the Heritage Rectangle Frames. I ink blended on white cardstock the interior of the lantern as well as the candle, and added the frame and the lantern to a light gray card base with dimensional tape.

With the dimensional tape, I was able to arrange some evergreen boughs from the Pine Needles and Cones die and a poinsettia from Blooming Poinsettias around the lantern. The sentiment was die cut from Warm Wishes Stylish Script. I added some red ink blending to the bottoms of the letters for an ombre look which you see IRL, but sadly doesn’t show in real life. 

I hope your weekend is going well. Thanks for stopping by.

Two Cards for Memory Box

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At the beginning of August, I was invited to be on the Design Team for the Memory Box Company. It was quite an honor, and I accepted. But by mid-August Typepad had announced it was closing its doors and both Memory Box and I had to find new homes for our blog. 

I found the experience very stressful, but moving my blog to a new platform was nothing compared to a company that hosted three blogs on Typepad. Since all their posts involved photos and links to products, you can imagine that the transfer of the data was much more complicated. 

Before it closed down, I had published one card on their blog, but by the time I was comfortable blogging on WordPress I had forgotten all about the Memory Box card. I had two more posts scheduled for Memory Box, but those cards will go up once their new blog is live. In the meantime, here are two cards I’ve created for them. The first is the one that was published on their blog in early September, and the second is one I posted on Instagram yesterday. I would have had several cards posted by now so I’m posting a couple of them on Instagram while we wait for the new Memory Box blog. 

The first card is a shaker card, and I used the Tall Evergreen Trees die from the new Joyful Season release, a basic set of beautiful frames, Heritage Rectangle Frames, Basic Circle Dies, and the Snow Flurries Stencil.

I applied Moonstone Nuvo Glitter paste through the stencil to create a snowy background on dark blue cardstock, and added a silver moon created with one of the Basic Circle Dies. Then I die cut three trees using the Greenery Paper Pack by Memory Box, adding two of them directly on the background, and the middle tree with dimensional tape. 

The frame was die cut from silver metallic cardstock using the two largest Heritage Rectangle dies. I added a piece of acetate to the back and then two layers of dimensional tape to create the shaker window. From my stash, I added some pretty white snowflake and clear sequins to create the snowy shaker. 

The second card is a very CAS card, so much simpler to assemble. The ornament is from the Decorative Ornaments dies. There is one basic die and three lovely decorative dies to overlay on it. I opted to leave it plain this time, and cut it from red metallic cardstock. I add the ornament hanger in gold and the sentiment from the Peace, Love and Joy Stylish Sentiments, die cut from green metallic paper. 

The ornament was added to two of the beautiful Fan Stitched Scalloped Frames die cut from cream cardstock that I layered with dimensional tape. I added some pine branches from Pineneedles and Cones and some berries from the Berry Splash dies. For a bit of sparkle, I added some Rock Candy Glitter to the pine branches.

I have another card to post this week on Instagram, so will be back here again soon.

Gold Foiled Christmas Tree

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Just Us Girls has an Anything Goes Challenge to celebrate 15 years of challenge which adds up to the current challenge: #800! It’s one of my favorite challenges, and I wanted to be sure I got a card in the gallery. I chose the colors from the CAS Colors and Sketch Challenge: red, green and gold, but I’m not sure my card ended up being CAS enough for them. It’s CAS to me, so I’ll put it in their gallery and see. I’m also adding it to the Peace on Earth Challenge where Anything Goes. There’s also an inspiration board, but I didn’t use it this time.

The main image is a gold foiled Christmas tree that was a gift from The Greetery. I foiled it on green cardstock and die cut it with an arch from Ellen Hutson’s Essential Arches. I love her Essentials dies because they die cut the shape as well as a narrow border, so I die cut it a second time from gold metallic cardstock.

I mounted it on a red card base and added a single gold pearl to the star on the top of the tree. One of my favorite Memory Box Black Tabs: Merry Christmas was, once again, the perfect size.

Color Hues #121

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Sheri has chosen two late autumn colors for the new Color Hues Challenge: 

We took a drive a week ago to the Finger Lakes expecting peak foliage. Some areas were past peak—mostly orange and brown, and some were still quite green. I pulled out an older die set from Pretty Pink Posh, Fall Basket, which worked perfectly for this challenge.

I die cut all the pieces from scraps of cardstock in my boxes and then ink blended them for some dimension using three oranges and two browns. Once the pieces were colored, I assembled them in and around the basket on a dark brown Stitched Rectangle from Simon Says. 

The gold sentiment is from The Greetery, and added a touch of elegance to the arrangement. The stamped and gold embossed sentiment is from Papertrey Ink’s Color Pop: Autumn, a very old set. It was cut with one of Honey Bee’s Sentiment Banners. Once that panel was complete I added it with dimensional tape to a card base created with Woodgrain cardstock from Simon Says. The little acorn in the corner was also attached with a bit of dimensional tape. 

You’ll find lots of inspiration on the Color Hues Blog from our Guest Designer, Valerie, and the always amazing Design Team. You have until November 14th at 9 am to join us in the gallery, and I hope to see you there! 

I’m going to add this card to the Shopping Our Stash Challenge: Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice and to As You See It: Happy Harvest.