Clearly Christmas

What beautiful colors in the inspiration for us at the Curtain Call challenge!

And since it's called CLEARLY Christmas, I wanted to use something clear on my card.  I remembered a digital image from Jane's Doodles that I had previously printed out in several sizes on vellum, and that's where my card started.

I colored 3 of the vellum poinsettias with green and blue markers, and stacked them together after cutting them out.  They were attached to a MFT stitched tag, which was stamped with a (now discontinued) The Craft's Meow sentiment from Holiday Poinsettia.  The tag was attached to a card base embossed with Cuttlebug's Victoria pattern, and I scattered some turquoise and green sequins.

I love the special look that vellum gives!

Thanks for stopping by!  

Simon Says..........Christmas!

If you're here for my part of the Paper Crafts & Scrapbooking Farewell blog hop, please scroll down one post or click HERE.

Happy December and welcome to a new month of challenges at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog!

This week our theme is CHRISTMAS and the team is playing with Stampendous products!  I have 2 stamps made by them that I just love for the Holidays!

This one features the lovely Snowy Postcard stamp, or should I say most of it.  I trimmed out the main motif of a peaceful country scene and framed it with a Floral Ovals die, then attached this to my backing of blue glitter paper.  I embellished it with a Spellbinder's Poinsettia, Simon's Merry Christmas die, and a sentiment from Simon's Holiday Hellos, stamped in Hero Arts Red Royal ink.   Other supplies: broken china distress ink sponged into the sky, Twinklets Diamond Dust along the rooftops and snowline, and gold pearls.

My next card features Stampendous' Winter Birds.  I think these guys are so cute I made a special order just for it when I saw it come into the store.

This is a big stamp!  So all you really need is a sentiment, which I found in Hero Arts Joy to All set.  I cut the sentiment apart to make it fit into the space I had here.  I colored the main image with watercolor pencils (the blues) and markers, sponged around it in tumbled glass, and added some glitter to the snowy areas and punched snowflakes, which are also coated with glitter.  Then the panel was trimmed and attached to a green card base

Now it's your turn - I can't wait to get some ideas for some Christmas cards from all of you!  As always, we'll have a $50.00 gift card  to the amazing Simon Says Stamp Store for the random winner of our challenge.

I'm entering my 2nd card into Merry Monday's Feathered Friends Challenge this week.

Thank You to PaperCrafts Magazine

Welcome to my little stop on the Blog Hop honoring Paper Crafts & Scrapbooking Magazine.  You should have arrived here from my friend Donna Mikasa's blog.

PaperCrafts was my first publication, back in 2012, so in thinking what I wanted to do for this hop, it seemed natural to revisit that first card, and I decided to use the same stamp and make a thank you card this time:

supplies: Memory Box Tree of Birds, Simon's Autumn Blessings, both stamped in gathered twigs distress ink, markers, twine, enamel heart, foam squares

I do remember that feeling when I received the happy mail from Susan giving me the great news, and after coming back down to earth, experiencing it all over again when I saw my card in print!  

Now off you go to the next stop at the talented Giovana Smith's blog and enjoy!

Blue Christmas

Here's a card I made with 2 challenges in mind, the current one at the Simon Says Stamp Flickr group, to use a stencil, and AAA Cards Blue Christmas.

supplies: Simon's MaryAnne Snowflake stencil, various blue distress inks, Simon's Holiday Frames die, Lawn Fawn Stitched Snowflake die, white glitter paper, white sequin

Thanks for visiting today - I'll have 2 posts for you tomorrow, hope to see you then!

Happy Die-Cember!

It's December, and that means a new release of dies at Simon Says Stamp!  We're calling it our DIE-cember event!  Each of the design team was sent one of the new dies, and here is what I made with my set, called Highlight Frames.

This set has 3 separate motifs, a heart, a square, and a circle.  Of course I grabbed the heart first and ended up using the negative die-cuts for this simple card.  My sentiment is from Simon's Just a Love Note stamp set.  

Now, to show you what the actual dies look like, here's my 2nd card:

This one uses the square motif die, cut 4 times from Audrey Blue cardstock, and arranged around the stamped sentiment from Simon's Happy Every Day stamp set, stamped in Audrey Blue ink.  And I added a left-over die-cut heart from the card above.

And here's a special sale for you for a selection of dies HERE for today and tomorrow only: 50% off!!

Simon Says........Anything Goes!

It's time for your favorite challenge - it's ANYTHING GOES at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog!

The design team are playing with all things Lawn Fawn, and so our little gallery over at our blog is filled with cuteness this week!  We'd love to see you using Lawn Fawn products, too, if you have them!

My card this week features Lawn Fawn's Winter Sparrows and their Scripty Joy die, along with Simon's Falling Snow stencil, Ranger's Texture Paste, some red pearls and red glitter paper (and I dotted my joy with a tiny heart from Simon's Holiday Shapes).

This was so fun to put together!  I made another card, too:

This one again uses the Scripty Joy die, and also their Stitched Snowflakes dies.  Other supplies: Hero Arts pool designer paper, Simon's Schoolhouse cardstock and Holiday Shapes hearts, white glitter paper 

Now it's your turn!  As always, we have a $50.00 gift voucher to the Simon Says Stamp Store for 1 lucky random winner of this week's challenge!  

And may I add to my American friends, I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving!  Aren't we lucky to have a holiday that makes us stop and think about our blessings?  I think we should expand it to about 3 or 4 times a year! 

It's Your Day

Here's my card using this month's Simon Says Stamp Card Kit, called Winter Sparkle - so aptly named!   I used the Liquid Platinum embossing powder and several motifs from the stamp set and went dotty for you!

The kit includes a lovely array of cardstock, including a beautiful silver matte one from Bazzill, plus 2 embossing powders, a fun stamp set, and some gold and silver sequins. 

Today there's a blog hop at the Simon Says Stamp blog, featuring top designers using this kit, with a Simon Prize pack available at each stop!  Don't miss it, there is some great inspiration there!

Scramble #98

Over the weekend we had another Scramble at the Hero Arts Flickr group, and our hostess Theresa chose snow as her theme - we could do anything that had snowflakes, snowmen, a snowy scene, etc.  Here's the card I made.

I've been wanting to try a masking technique to make a snowy scene, and this was my chance.  So I tore a piece of thin cardstock and placed it about 2/3 up my panel, then sponged on some blue and purple distress inks, also masking off my moon with a die-cut circle.  Then I removed my mask and moved it a little further down the page and stamped 2 trees (Hero Arts Classic Evergreen) and used some tumbled glass distress ink to make some shadows.  I continued down the card with my mask, adding shadows, and finished with a fully stamped tree and my sentiment from Avery Elle's Let It Snow.  Then I taped my Falling Snow stencil over the panel and added some Texture paste.  And when that was dry I attached my panel to a white card base and added a couple punched snowflakes (Wplus9's Seasonal Sentiments die).

I think I have lots of room for improvement with this technique, but for a first try, I'm pleased with the results - and I have another Christmas card ready!

CASE-ing Debby Hughes

I recently came across a card that Debby Hughes made which I think is just amazing!  I think that about most of her cards, but this one really touched me.  I love snowflakes to begin with, but Debby has taken this one over the top, in my opinion, and I just had to make it, too.  As you can see, I didn't change much, just the background color from kraft to blue, and my snowflakes are different, but the layout is Debby all the way.

supplies: white and seaglass cardstock, white glitter cardstock, vellum, Simon's Falling Snow stencil, Ranger Texture Paste, Simon's Holiday Frames die, Penny Black Snowflake Trio, clear sequins

Thank you, Debby, for your awesome inspiration!  This is one card I'm not sure I'll want to part with!

Color Throwdown #319

The colors and inspiration photo at Color Throwdown this week are too cute not to play!

Having just received these Wplus9 Quilt Cuts dies, I thought I'd bring them into the mix, and did another of my literal translations:

supplies: navy and white cardstock, Doodlebug Designs cardstock in greens and pinks, Darice Dots embossing folder, Simon Says Stamp sentiment from Handwritten Sentiments, stamped in navy, Signo white gel pen.  

If anyone knows if that hat exists for sale, I'd love to have it for my granddaughter!  

Merry & Bright

Challenge #6 is up and running through November 26 at the Simon Says Stamp Flickr group, and there is a GREAT prize for the random winner of it!  We are to use dies, preferably Simon ones if we have them, and if not, use a Simon stamp or stencil on your entry.  Here's my card:

This uses these Simon products: Eliza Snowflake, Christmas Blessings die, and a sentiment from their Christmas stamp set.  I also added a vellum panel embossed with D'Vine Swirls and some silver and white sequins.  My dies are cut from a beautiful blue and a white glitter cardstock.  

The winner will receive THREE brand new dies from the upcoming Die-Cember release at Simon Says Stamp, plus some Neenah Solar White cardstock and a pack of Simon's own colored cardstock! What are you waiting for?!  Get creating!! 

Simon Says.........Thanks/Thanksgiving

Hello!  It's time again for another challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog!

This week our theme is Thanks or Thanksgiving and the design team are using Simon's exclusive products. 

I stamped the wreath from a Simon/Clearly Besotted set called Autumn Blessings 3 times in 3 different inks, then fussy-cut it out and trimmed it with a twine bow and a wood veneer heart dipped in red ink, then popped it above the surface of my card.  The sentiment is also from the same set, and I added some of Simon's new Fall sequins.

And another really CAS card, using the 2nd wreath in the same set, stamping it several times in 2 green inks:

I used another of the sentiments and some darling dangling hearts from Simon's Like Your Style set, both stamped in Simon's Lipstick Red ink.

Now it's your turn!

We have a $50.00 gift voucher for the random winner of our challenge.

And you can spend it on anything you'd like from the fabulous Simon Says Stamp Store!  

I'd like to enter my first card into AAA Cards current challenge, which is also a Thanksgiving theme.

More than One Tree

At the Less is More blog, they're asking us to use more than one tree to make a card.  Here's my entry.

supplies: red and white cardstock, pine tree stamp from Mark's Finest Papers All is Calm, Impression Obsession birch tree and cardinals dies, The Craft's Meow sentiment from Winter Fibi & Lilly (now retired), Simon's Falling Snow stencil and a Signo Uniball pen, Hero Arts Red Royal, Versafine Olympia Green, and broken china distress inks, 

I'd also like to enter this into the Inspiration Journal November Challenge "Happy Holidays".

Christmas Quilt tag

I just got some dies and wanted to give them a test run - what better way than to make a tag?  I have been inspired by Tracey's 25 Days of Christmas series on her blog, and decided to join in the fun!

The tag itself is a MFT DieNamics Stitched Tag.  The quilt block is a Wplus9 design from their Quilt Cuts 2 - I have wanted this FOREVER, but it has always been sold out; finally scooped a set up!  I pieced it using papers from Lawn Fawn's Snow Day collection, and my sentiment is a Hero Arts one from 2009, called Holiday Sayings.

This was just as much fun as making a real quilt, and LOTS faster!  Also entering this into Inspiration Journal's November challenge: Happy Holidays!