Its finally Friday night and normally I would be sitting down with my feet up watching Netflix but I'm trying to catch up on Christmas cards (still...) and I haven't organised the kids Advent Calenders for tomorrow, so have to do that as well. And the weekend is jammed packed with tennis, shopping, cleaning, gardening and more jobs than I can poke a stick at. I can't wait for my Christmas holiday!!!!!
The current Simon Says Stamp Flickr Challenge is all about 'Christmas/Holiday Creations'. I have so many cards that I've created and most of them have been made with the one stamp set, so I have MANY cards to link to this challenge!!
This set of cards show off the stamp image that immediately caught my eye when I saw this stamp set and I could instantly imagine it on my cards:
These cards are all made with the SSS and Gina K 'Stamptember' stamp set 'Joy of the Season' and I absolutely love it!!! As soon as I saw this tree stamp when they released the set I knew I had to get my hands on it and I'm so thankful for my wonderful friend Coni sending it to me!
My cards of late have been simple(ish), quick to make and easy to make more than one. I started off with these by stamping the trees using inks from Waffle Flower and Hero Arts and using the co-ordinating dies to cut them out.
To create the background I used Distress inks 'Picked Raspberry', 'Chipped Sapphire', 'Cracked Pistachio' and 'Salty Ocean' with water and a paint brush to flick all over the card fronts. I also flicked over some gold paint from Gansai Tambi which looks much better in real life.
Once the paint had dried I adhered the trees on top. I heat embossed the sentiment with Wow! 'Metallic Gold Sparkle' Embossing Glitter, fussy cut them out and popped them on foam tape, along with some gold sequins from Neat and Tangled.
I'm also going to link this to the Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge where their theme is 'Anything Goes'.
And will also link to The Cats Pajama's Tuesday Challenge #352 where their theme is 'Winter Holiday'.
I have 50 more cards to fill out for charity and better put the advent calendars together before I hit the sack......although the way I'm feeling I might pass out before they are finished. At least the kids are old enough to know how busy I am and that I will get them done before the end of day tomorrow. Why do I make things so hard and put so much pressure on myself??????? And did I mention I still have to put up the Christmas tree and decorate the house???? Help me........
Take care
Shona
Hi everyone!! I'm popping in with a very quick post today to remind you all about our current challenge theme at TIME OUT!
Our theme is 'Black and White plus one colour - Optional Twist: One Layer'. This is one of my favourite challenges as black and white really makes that colour pop!!
Our Sponsor for this challenge is Happy Little Stampers who are giving a $20 gift voucher to the random winner chosen from those who 'twist'!!
For my cards, as I'm totally immersed in Christmas card making, I decided to use one of my favourite Christmas stamp sets that my friend Coni sent to me. I've used it on so many cards it a wonder the stamps still work:
Lately when I make a card I've been trying to make more than one at a time, especially for Christmas cards. I'm so far behind with having enough and getting them out on time its driving me nuts!!
I started off by stamping the snowflakes from the Simon Says Stamp - Stamptember collab with Gina K Designs 'Joy of the Season' with Versafine black ink all over the card bases. I chose to use yellow and red for the 'one colour' as they stand out so much against a b/w background. I die-cut a circle of red and yellow CS with a Couture Creation circle die and popped it up on a piece of foam.
For the sentiment I used a smaller circle die (from the same die set) on some plain vellum and heat embossed the sentiment (from the same stamp set) in white. I added little dots of Gina K Connect Glue behind the words and pressed on to the coloured circles. To finish off I added sequins from Neat and Tangled.
I'm going to link these to the Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge where their theme is 'Anything Goes'.
And will also link to The Cats Pajamas Tuesday Challenge #352 where their theme is 'Winter Holiday'.
You have until Wednesday December 5th to link your projects to the TIME OUT challenge and if your needing any ideas, pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team and our fabulous Guest Designer Joanna of Jo-Jo's Spot have created to inspire you. Look forward to seeing you all in the Gallery!!
Take care
Shona
Do you go thru stages with your card making of mainly stamping or die-cutting or using stencils?? I love die-cutting and creating fiddly cards but of late I've been gathering up my favourite ink pads and stamping till there's no tomorrow. Love my MISTI, its the best tool ever (apart from my Cuttlebug) and I don't know what I'd do if either of them broke!!
The colours for this months Altenew Inspiration Challenge are definitely traditional Christmas colours but not ones I use very often. I also don't have any Christmas stamps or dies from Altenew but as I'm in Christmas card mode I decided that if I use this colour combo, I could use any floral stamps for Christmas:
Luckily I had the exact colours of the challenge in my Altenew ink pad stash, so I grabbed 'Crimson', 'Velvet', 'Evergreen' and 'Forest Glades' and my MISTI to stamp out this design.
Using Altenew 'Vintage Flowers' I stamped across the card, turning it around and stamping the exact same way from the other direction. Made it alot quicker and easier to create the design.
Once I was happy with it I used my Altenew 'Caps Bold Alphabet Dies' to die-cut 'Xmas' from the card front and also twice more from black CS. I glued the black ones together and into the die-cut areas and then glued the top layer slightly up and over to show the black. To finish off I added sentiments from Altenew 'Frosted Garden' and some sequins from Neat and Tangled.
Really happy with how this turned out, wish I had made some more at the same time!!
I'll be back tonight with some more Christmas cards to share with you. Unfortunately I don't think I'll get them all out in time for them to reach all my International friends but will be good to know they are on the way.
Take care
Shona
