Four challenges

I liked this week's Ismaki sketch so much that I did a second card. Thanks again Manue! I created this card also to fit with the Created by Hand challenge (which is to use Christmas and music), the Crazy Amigo challenge (to use "hands"), and Arty Girlz (to use favourite colours; I always love black and gold together).

The image is from a 1921 Good Housekeeping magazine. The music stamp is Inkadinkado, the sentiment stamp is Hero Arts and the Christmas tree stamp is from Susanne Canon's beautiful hand calligraphy over at Quietfire Design. I used the Martha Stewart Lace Doliy border punch over Swiss Dots cuttlebugged gold cardstock, and embellished the Nestabilities scalloped circle with Kaiser pearl beads.

Thanks for visiting me today. I wish you a creative week!

Ismaki Challenge # 41

I always look forward to Monday mornings now, partly because I'm retired and no longer have to fight through rush hour traffic (lol), and partly because I look forward to starting a week of card creating challenges with Ismaki as the first! Manue has created this week's Ismaki challenge sketch.

It was delightful to work with, THANK YOU Manue!

The design team's cards are really wonderful; hope you'll stop by over there to see them. "Our Isa" didn't do a card for this week's challenge, and although I'm missing her lovely creations, I imagine she's just a little busy getting ready to move from the UK to Canada next month! I look forward to catching up with her when her move is complete, and she's settled in to her new Canadian home in Toronto wih her husband and their children. It will certainly be an adventurous Christmas for them all!

The sketch is here too, just below my card. I used a limited edition Santa produced by Sherry Graves of the Stamp Shack, and given to me as a very treasured gift by my friend Kim. I LOVE this stamp,and will use it often for my Christmas cards. Thank you again Kim!

Thanks again for taking the time to visit my blog.
I wish you a happy, creative day!

Saturday's Workout Challenge

This week's challenge for Saturday's Workout is to use a split negative technique. Here's my offering, using stamps from Impression Obsession and Quietfire Design. Thanks for visiting!

Art Creations, Crazy Amigo and TGIF Challenges

So there's a new challenge in blogland! Over at Art Creations, there'll be an image posted every week by Wil, Hermine, Femmy and Pepeetje, and we're to use the image in our creations. This is the current image; there's a much larger version over at Art Creations for you to download and use.

As soon as I saw this beautiful, pensive woman, I knew I wanted to create a card for a friend who's struggling with some of life's unexpected circumstances. I've submitted this piece for the TGIF challenge this week too, where the theme is "Vintage," and for Crazy Amigo, where the theme is the moon! I decreased the woman image, made her a little more subdued, positioned her inside the window, then positioned a moon image as a reflection in the window. After printing, I distress inked the whole piece, wanting a subdued, vintage look, used the sentiment from Quietfire Design, and added platinum UTEE in the top right area of the window frame.

This one really had me working outside my comfort zone...always good. Thank you so much for visiting; have a happy, creative weekend.

Challenges

My daughter and her husband have blessed our lives with four happy, healthy, and very busy little grandsons, and when I saw this new Quietfire Design stamp, I just had to do a card to send along. I know this will give their parents a chuckle.

It was designed to fit several challenges too: Arty Girlz (where the challenge this week is to use quotes), Wednesday Stamper (where the challenge is snowflakes), Created by Hand (where the challenge is Christmas tags...I incorporated mine into a card again), and the weekly Cuttlebug challenge, where we're to use crayon resist. I'm not sure whether you can even see my resist, but it's on the snowflake Cuttlebug embossed layer, with light blue crayon, then oversprayed with very light blue Ecoline ink mixed with Winsor and Newton Iridescent Medium. I punched the snowflakes from blue velvet paper, then applied double sided tape to the reverse of the punched areas, and sprinkled Martha Stewart blue glitter over the tape. I used the Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Two dies to cut and emboss each layer, and the Stampin' Up scallop punch for the border.

Thank you so much for visiting today!

Wednesday Stamper Challenge

This week's Wednesday Stamper challenge is snowflakes. I used this new snowflake-shaped Christmas stamp from Quietfire Design, created with Suzanne Canon's beautiful hand calligraphy, and used a flocked flourish paper as one of the circular layers, to pick up the flourishes in the stamped image. I used Krylon gold metallic ink to paint the silver snowflake, and used the same ink to edge some of the layers.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today.

Created by Hand Challenge

This week's challenge over at Created by Hand is to create a Christmas tag. I did the tag, then decided to mount it on a card. :) This one uses one of the new Christmas stamps from Quietfire Design with a simple Versamark-and-clear-embossing-powder-resist technique and blue chalk ink. The circle and scallop are cut and embossed with Spellbinders Nestabilities. I rubbed a little Encore Silver ink around the edges of the foiled paper. The dark blue paper is velvet flocked. All the new Christmas stamps at Quietfire Design are 20% off till Sunday...go see them, they're GORGEOUS! Thanks for visiting today!