Challenges

I set out last night to make two more Christmas cards and knew they could both be more religious in nature than most of my cards. I purchased the Stampin' Up Peace to You set last year, but this is the first time I've used it. It was perfect for the recipients and I used the colors of the AAA Cards Challenge to use black, white and gold. That challenge ends in a few hours, so here is the second post of the day.

In keeping with the AAA Cards Clean & Simple design requirement (and always my preference) this is an easy card to mail. I did use some dimension behind the main panel, but decided to keep the card very simple and without embellishment.

Here you can see the gold frame easily, but the gold on the sentiment didn't photograph well. The sentiment is one of many I've used this season from Memory Box: Black Tabs: Merry Christmas.

In addition to AAA Cards, I'm sending this off to CAS on Friday which is also a color challenge: Black, White and One Other Color. And, of course to NBUS because this stamp had never been used before!

Today is my brother's birthday and exactly a week ago was my brother-in-law's birthday. I made two almost the same cards for them as I always do. This year the card began with a die I picked up at Buffalo Stamps and Stuff in November, the Honey Bee Birch A2 Coverplate. Then I added two of the My Favorite Things Delightful Deer which have shown up nearly every Christmas since I purchased the die. 

The background for this card was a piece of patterned paper from Altenew's Gel Printing Soft Washes. Before I started putting the card together I splattered some white ink for snow. In retrospect, I should have done it at the end. The birch trees were die cut from white paper and were ink blended with Distress Oxide ink. If you look closely you can see that the birch trees are backed with a darker gray cardstock. The sentiment is from Ellen Hutson's HB2U.

The deer were also ink blended to add some dimension, and the cute little red cardinal is from the Honey Bee set. I hand cut the snow drift and added a bit of glitter to the edges.

The only difference in the second card is the background which was created with a light gray cardstock and "snow splatters."

Because of the gray background, I didn't add a second layer to the trees.

I'm sending these off to the Double D Challenge (Christmas Animals) and The Four Seasons Challenge (Anything Winter.)

My hairdresser of 44+ years is retiring at the end of the month. My last appointment is this week, and I wanted to create a special card for her. Her birthday is on Christmas Eve, so the inside messages wishes her a Happy Birthday, a Merry Christmas, and a Happy Retirement! She'll not be sitting still on retirement. She's a marathon runner (has run the Boston Marathon an amazing 15+ times!) and a triathlon competitor as well. And yes, if you saw her, you'd be sure she started her career as an infant! 

I fell in love with the Folk Snowflake by Pinkfresh Studio as soon as I saw it, and although I did not need another snowflake stamp this one hopped right into a shopping cart along with the coloring stencil and die. I have no regrets, and you'll be seeing more of this elegant snowflake very soon. I found the glittery background in my stash. I had used Nuvo glitter paste with My Favorite Things Basket Weave stencil but for some reason had never used it. I die cut a large circle from it, added a piece of vellum behind it to soften the color of the blue card base. 

After embossing the snowflake in silver, I used three Pinkfresh Studio inks with the stencil to color it. I added some dimensional tape to the back of the snowflake. For the silver embossed sentiment (also from Folk Snowflake) I die cut three additional layers and stacked them.

This card is off to Inkspirational where the challenge is Add Glitter, to The Paper Players: Christmas, and the Peace on Earth Challenge: Anything Christmas.

Snowing here as I type this, but I don't think we'll see a lot of accumulation. The first several inches we had a week or so ago was gone within two days.

In the midst of creating Christmas cards, I needed to stop and make two cards for late November birthdays. Later this week I'll be back with cards for early December birthdays. Interestingly, there are two challenges now that are looking for fall inspired cards: The Card Concept: Fall Leaves, and Seize the Birthday Topping: Fall Items. I used only the theme from the Card Concept as neither of my cards showcase the colorful leaves in their inspiration photo.

The Card Concept always asks you to identify the style of your cards. In both cases, I think Clean and Graphic best describe these cards, although they are quite different. 

First the birthday card for my nephew:

This card was quick and easy to create: one die cut (Papertrey Ink's Bold Borders: Foliage,) cut with a lovely piece of specialty paper that was in my stash, and one stamp from The Greetery's Arched Sentiments.

You can see the detail in the die in this photo more easily, but the subtle color changes of the paper didn't photograph well.

The second card went to a friend of mine and is much more colorful. I started by embossing stamps from Altenew's Leaf Canopy with white embossing ink on black watercolor paper. I used my metallic watercolors to color each of the leaves in hues that reminded me of fall leaves. 

I used some deep gold text weight paper (again from my stash) to border the leaves, and adhered it to some purple shimmer paper. I used the same papers to create the banner sentiment which comes from Pink and Main's Special Day which I embossed in gold.

This angle captures the beautiful shimmer of the metallic water colors from the watercolor set by Paul Ruebens which I purchased on Amazon several years ago. 

It seems a lot more like fall than early winter here–very gray, very chilly and very wet. Altogether a great day to be creating or reading!

The challenge Christmas Craft Creations is to “add a hat.” I actually bought the Colorado Crafts Christmas Hats stamp specifically for this challenge when I was at Buffalo Stamps and Stuff a couple of weeks ago. It’s not something I’ve ever done before, but I thought it would make good Christmas cards for my grandchildren.

I started by lightly stenciling some clouds on a white panel with My Favorite Things Clouds and added some snow drifts with Papertrey Ink's In The Meadow: Snow.

I cut the images with my Scan 'N Cut and colored them with Copic markers. I then arranged the trio in the snow and splattered white ink to add snow to the whole panel. The final touch was to add some glitter to the tops of the snow drifts.

The best spot for the sentiment was on the bottom snow drift. It's another one from Reverse Confetti's Christmas Card Greetings which is turning out to be a real workhouse this year. Sadly, Reverse Confetti is now out of business. 

In addition to Christmas Craft Creations, I'm sending this off to a new-to-me challenge, Krafty Chicks Challenge where the challenge is "All Occasions," and to Tic Tac Toe where either the far left column or the top row across work for this card.

A lot of things came together with these two cards. After receiving the Altenew Festive Greenery, 3-D Embossing folder and stencil I decided to challenge myself to come up with some different designs after creating two pretty traditional designs I posted here. Shortly afterwards, I watched a video by Ardyth where she created a two-fer using circle dies and decided to give it a try. Before I finished, the Just Us Girls new challenge appeared: CAS and In a Circle.

The first card definitely goes to the JUGS Challenge as well as the challenges listed at the end of the post which fit either/or/both cards.

I die cut a circle from one of the stenciled panels, attached an ornament hanger from The Greetery's Jumbo Curiosity: Round Ornament, and tied a gold bow on it. The sentiment is from Memory Box.

To add a bit of interested to this very CAS card, I die cut a panel with Pinkfresh Studio's Rounded and Braided Rectangles and attached it all to a white card base.

I added the stencil panel to a red card base and then inlaid the red frame and white circle with the sentiment from Penny Black's Happy and Bright collection.

There are, not surprisingly, a lot of holiday themed challenges in the works. I'm sending these off to Inkspirational: Seasonal and Time Out: Winter Holiday.

When I made the card for the current Color Hues Challenge I made a second one, and inlaid the leaves in green metallic paper–couldn't do that for a two-color challenge. But I forgot to add my Color Hues card to The Colorful Options Challenge (RED), so I wanted to get this one posted as well.

Since I gave more detailed information here, I won't go over it all again. The lovely ornament is from The Greetery, The Jumbo Curiosity Ornament: Round. All the papers for the ornament are metallic, and the sentiment is a premade one from Memory Box.

It's been raining all day (and cold) so it doesn't seem like Christmas is right around the corner, but I know how fast the time flies, so I need to be focused the next couple of weeks if I'm to have the cards, baking, and gifts wrapped in time for the holiday. I'll be glad to take the day off on Thursday to celebrate Thanksgiving with Tracy's family. I'm the "pie lady" so I do have to make three pies, but that's far easier than roasting a turkey and getting all the elements of a traditional dinner together. 

Here's the lovely moodboard for this month's RED challenge at Colorful Options.

The Paper Players have the perfect color combination for holiday cards:

Recently, Altenew notified me that I had reward points that ought to be used. It didn't take long for me to order their Festive Greenery 3D Embossing Folder and Stencil set. It seemed like the perfect time to break it out, and after playing with some possibilities I ended up with two cards. 

This card is pretty much the way Altenew shows it in the layering stencil guide. I use Simon Says Pawsitively Saturated Cherry ink for the berries and two new Pinkfresh Studio ink colors: Spruce Tips  and Lush Forest. I trimmed the edges so I could add a thin gold frame before adding it to a red cardbase.

The sentiment is a prefoiled one from Pinkfresh, Foiled Sentiments 4 Holiday which I adhered with dimensional tape. I added just three gold pearls as a final accent.

For this card, I embossed Evergreen cardstock from Concord & 9th. I wasn't sure how it would work, but I lined up the first stencil for the berries and ran a VersaMark clear embossing pad across the berries. Then I sprinkled some Zing Red Glitter embossing powder on the berries and heat set them. Aside from red glitter on the desk and on me, it worked out great.

It sometimes happens that a mistake is the first step in creating a card with a different design. I over-trimmed the long edges of the panel but didn't want to cut it down any more. In my stash where I keep folded cards I didn't end up using for a project I found one with an off-set front panel. It worked out perfectly for the embossed panel to which I again added a narrow gold frame. The sentiment is the same style as the one above, but this one I gold foiled on black cardstock which I liked much better for this card than the versions on white cardstock.

This card was finished yesterday, but it gets dark so quickly now that I had to wait until this morning to photograph it. Thus I am getting these into the challenge just in the nick of time.

I'll be sending another card over to Darnell's NBUS Challenge. Another new item used (rather quickly this time!)