Simon Says..........CAS Christmas

It's time for a new challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge blog!

This week our theme is CAS Christmas, and the Design Team are using products from Memory Box.  They make the most gorgeous detailed dies - I was lucky to snag a pretty wreath die called Catalina Wreath.  Here are 2 cards I made using it.

supplies: red and green cardstocks, My Mind's Eye My Story patterned paper, Catalina Wreath, cut 3 times, 2 greens and a red, Simon's Christmas Blessings die, gold foil paper, gold sequins

This next one is not at all Clean and Simple, but I thought this patterned paper in the background went so nicely with it, I shared it with you anyway.   Love the country look of it!  I paper-pieced the flowers onto the green wreath, and added little white pearls in their centers to mimic the flowers in the paper, then popped the whole wreath up above the card surface to help it stand out a little more.  I paired it with one of my most favorite Christmas sentiment sets from Hero Arts, now sadly discontinued. The dotted letters just seem to go along with the whole style of the card.

supplies: white, red, and green cardstock, Catalina Wreath, cut in green and red and paper-pieced, white pearls, Simple Stories Cozy Christmas patterned paper, Hero Arts Miracle of the Holidays, and Red Royal ink

Now it's your turn - I can't wait to see what you create!  Heidi has provided another $50.00 gift voucher

to the amazing Simon Says Stamp store for 1 lucky random winner of this week's challenge!

Do you use Instagram?  If you do, we'd love you to add #ssswchallenge to your challenge entry uploads so we can see them on there, too! 

MasterBoard Background Building

On World CardMaking Day, Shay challenged us to make a MasterBoard, then divide it up into 4 sections and make at least one card utilizing it.  I don't think I've never done anything like this before, and it turns out, it's fun to do!  Warning, this is a looooooong post!

Here's the MasterBoard I started with, made by stamping a leaf in various distress inks all over an 8 1/2 " X 11" piece of ivory cardstock:

I cut this into 4 equal parts, and then added something different to each panel.  Here are those results:

Now the next step is to take each panel and make it into a finished card.  Here are all of them together:

And separate shots of each of them:

I used Winnie & Walter's scalloped rectangles from their Audrey Cutaways on this one, and lifted the smaller of the 2 above the card after cutting out the sentiment. 

This is my least favorite of the 4, and I definitely need more practice with partial die-cutting.  I also added some dry embossing to this one and my Winnie & Walter product is their Autumn cutaway from Big, Bold Seasons.

I overstamped the panel with a big wood stamp that has all these words of Autumn, and added W&W's Big, Bold, and Happy cutaway and the word from the Big, Bold Seasons stamp set.

This one stands out from the others because of the blue stencilling I added.  The tag is from W&W's Audrey Cutaways die set.

Thank you, Shay, this was really fun!

Make it Masculine!

Here's a card for another of Winnie & Walter's World CardMaking Day challenges, this one Julie's Make it Masculine.  I used some sure-fire colors that men usually like and made a plaid.

supplies: pool and navy cardstock and inks, Winnie & Walter's Scenery: Stripes stamps, Lil Inker's Boxed Up Birthday Greeting and Stitched Stars dies

Have a good week!

Quilted Autumn

I finally ordered and received PTI's Quilted Autumn stamp set and matching dies, and played with them as soon as they came - here are a couple of cards using them.  I used blue backgrounds on each one because a big part of fall to me are the crisp blue skies highlighting the gorgeous fall colors:

This first one is a mix of Doodlebug design papers and a favorite Hero Arts sentiment, sadly discontinued (from Made with Love).   The "warm wishes" is a perfect match for a quilt pattern, I think.

The next one was influenced by our recent trip to what we in Ohio refer fondly to as "Amish Country": Holmes County, Ohio, just a hop, skip and a jump down the road from us.  My husband and I spent a gorgeous fall day there on Friday, stocking up on bulk-food items, enjoying the beautiful scenery and a meal at one of the home-style restaurants.  It was decorated with lots of Amish-style quilts, which are always done in solid colors.  My sentiment on this one is a Simon Christmas die set, Christmas Blessings, and I used a Tim Holtz Kraft-Core pad for my solid papers.

And finally, I used the stamp set and stamped some patterns on the die-cut elements:

The dotty background is a BoBunny double dot paper, the sentiment is from Winnie & Walter's Big, Bold, & Blessings, and I embossed everything with a circle-pattern Darice embossing folder, to make it look even more like a quilt.

Gold

I think this will be my final card for World CardMaking Day, but I hope to continue on with some other challenges tomorrow.  This final card was made for Lydia's "Use Gold/Metallics" challenge at the Winnie & Walter blog today.  I kept it simple and let the gold be the star........I've always loved a gold and cream combination.

supplies: cream and gold foil cardstock, Winnie & Walter Big, Bold &You, Big, Bold & Extras, and Big, Bold and Happy for sentiment, embossed in gold embossing powder, Essentials by Ellen Bold Blossoms dies, and heart dies from Winnie & Walter's Audrey Cutaways, gold watercolor splatters

Welcome Autumn

Here's another card for World CardMaking Day.......this one works for 2 of Winnie & Walter's challenges,Vanessa's Watercoloring and Gayatri's Sketch, and I'm sharing it for Kathy's 30 Day Coloring challenge, and entering it into Virginia's View All Things Colored challenge, too.

supplies: kraft cardstock and watercolor paper, Winnie & Walter's Big, Bold Seasons cutaways and stamp set, Simon's One With Nature leaves, Spectrum Aqua markers and water, sequins

After coloring one of the larger leaves, I cut it out, glued on the autumn die sentiment, and popped them above the card.

WCMD color challenge

Happy World CardMaking Day!  It's rainy, chilly and dreary here in NE Ohio, a perfect day to stay inside and create!  I hope to make lots of cards today - there are certainly lots of inspiration out there today in blogland!  This card is an entry to Heather's Color Challenge at the Winnie & Walter blog today.  She asked us to make a card using aqua, mint, yellow and kraft.

supplies: kraft, Audrey Blue, Mint, and yellow cardstocks, W&W Audrey's Cutaways dies, Taylored Expressions  Leafy Vine embossing folder, retired Memory Box Twig Wreath die, cut twice, Lawn Fawn Stitched Leaves die, sponged with Hero Arts Mint Julep and Butter Bar inks, Wplus9 Doodlebuds "blessed" die, Paper Smooches flower sequins

I love wreaths, especially at this time of year, so I pulled out this discontinued twig wreath and layered away.  

I'm going to be lazy today and not link my products, except for the company which is sponsoring the challenge.  I think you can get there just the same by googling the description of each item. 

See you again soon!

Black & White

Here's a card for this month's Memory Box challenge: Black & White.

I used their Bella Bouquet die, music paper from Lawn Fawn, and a discontinued sentiment from The Craft's Meow, black and white pearls 

Happy World Card Making Day!  

A Little Something.......

Here's a card for the Throwback Thursday challenge at WPlus9.  I was inspired by Maureen's second card, May Your Blessings be Plenty, and pulled her layout and colors from it.

supplies: kraft, ivory, 2 greens, gold, brick red cardstocks, Wplus9's Quilt Cuts 2 die and sentiment from their Blanket Stitched Blooms set, heart button, and twine

It is always a good day when I get to play with something quilt-related, and I really enjoyed putting this little one together.  I love these autumnal colors, too!  Thanks, Maureen, for a fun afternoon!

Thanks a Lot

I have been wanting Paper Smooches' Best Buds set forever, and was finally able to snag a set recently.  And when I saw the colors at the current Color Throwdown, these were the first things I thought of to use for my entry.

supplies: Paper Smooches Best Buds, markers to color, Simon's Stitched Rectangles and Die-Namics Blueprints 20 dies, Doodlebug woodgrain dp from their Happy Harvest pad, orange and kraft cardstock

Here are the fun colors for this week:

Just for You

If you're here to see my sample cards for the current Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge, please click HERE.

I have been missing in action for most of the last month, due to personal reasons, and so I've missed playing in some challenges that I usually participate in.  One of them is Winnie & Walter's monthly Rerun challenge.   But I have a few hours left to enter, and so here is my card for it, inspired by Lydia Evans card where she chose some of the smaller elements in the set.

I don't have the This Awesome House stamp set that is being highlighted this month, so I used a small twig, the cardinal, and a sentiment from the Winter Wonderland set.  I love wreaths, and it was fun to make this little twig one, using 2 shades of brown distress ink.  As I always do, I traced a circle lightly in pencil first, stamped my twigs, and then erased that circle.

Thanks for stopping by!

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

It's time for a new challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge blog!

It's that time of the month - Anything Goes!  My teamies and I are using Clearly Besotted products this week, but you can use anything you'd like and make whatever pleases you - show us your best stuff!  

supplies: cream and Hero Arts Latte layering paper, Clearly Besotted Autumn Flowers clear stamp set, Hero Arts Butter to Orange Ombre and Soft Apricot, Ranger's Cheese Puff and Lemon Twist, andVersaFine Vintage Sepia inks, My Favorite Things Blueprints 20 dies, Studio Calico wood buttons, May Arts Natural Twine

(I'm sorry to see that the stamp set I used is now discontinued; I've linked to other Clearly Besotted stamp sets that would work equally as well with a little tweaking for this card.)

supplies: Cream cardstock, Clearly Besotted Boo to You clear stamp set, Cheese Puff and VersaFine onyx black inks, patterned papers from Doodlebug and Bella Blvd.

Now it's your turn - I can't wait to see what you create!  Heidi has provided another $50.00 gift voucher

to the amazing Simon Says Stamp store for 1 lucky random winner of this week's challenge!

Do you use Instagram?  If you do, we'd love you to add #ssswchallenge to your challenge entry uploads so we can see them on there, too! 

A Hello for Fall

I'm sharing a card that I made for a challenge, but never posted.

supplies: May Arts Natural Twine, Simon's Cream cardstock as card base, papers from Basic Grey Vivienne paper pad, Hero Arts Hello die, and a Doodlebug flower button

Hope you have a great week!

Simon Says........No Designer Paper

It's time for a new challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge blog!

Our theme this week is "No Designer Paper", and the Design Team are using Taylored Expressions products.  I fell in love with one of their embossing folders, and made you 2 cards.

supplies: Taylored Expressions Leafy Vine embossing folder, white cardstock, cracked pistachio distress ink, Memory Box Grapevine Wreath die, kraft cardstock, Wplus9 Folk Art Florals dies and Hand Lettered Hello stamps, Audrey Blue ink and cardstock, May Arts twine, Spellbinders circle die

Using the faux letterpress technique, I inked the flat side of the embossing folder with distress ink, then inserted a piece of white cardstock and ran the whole thing through my cuttlebug.  That piece was attached to a kraft card base, and then I added the die-cut and stamped elements to it.

And since we are officially now into the Autumn season, I couldn't wait to pull out some fall colors.

supplies: Taylored Expressions Leafy Vine embossing folder, 3 colors of Core'dinations cardstock, kraft cardstock for card base, Simon's Christmas Blessings die, Lawn Fawn Stitched Leaves die, cut from various Tim Holtz Shattered kraft core cardstock, sequins

 I embossed a panel of each of the 3 colors, sanded them lightly to bring out the secondary color in the papers, then cut them vertically into thirds and then those strips horizontally in half,  and re-assembled them so that the pattern continues across the card.  Then I die-cut some maple leaves and my sentiment and added them atop the embossing, along with a sprinkling of sequins.

Now it's your turn!  I can't wait to see what you make!  We have a $50.00 gift voucher to the Simon Says Stamp store for one lucky random winner of our challenge!

Do you use Instagram?  If you do, we'd love you to add #ssswchallenge to your challenge entry uploads so we can see them on there, too!