Hip-hippo-ray

 

I had a wonderful Christmas with my family, I hope you did too!  I didn’t get any “craft” related presents, but I’m buying myself some new things when Sale-a-bration is on so that I can get some free sets as well.  I just have to wait 26 more days! I did get a great present though, a brand new camera.  It’s actually a family present, that’s how I’m justifying the cost of it to myself.  Anyway hopefully there is a noticeable difference in my photos of my family and my cards.  I will be so upset if it wasn’t the cameras capabilities, but my capabilities as a photographer!

I haven’t made any cards since my Christmas lot and it felt weird to not have something to focus on.  So I went looking for card challenges again to motivate me.  There was a great sketch at Stamping 411 again, I really love that site.  It was a square card and I am really enjoying making square cards at the moment. I also found a new challenge site called colourQ and decided to play along with their chosen colours for this week.  They had so many gorgeous samples I had to give these colours a try.  It was kraft(crumbcake),  basic grey, black, old olive, vanilla  and white.

 

 

The spotty background is made using a new technique called inset embossing.  It is so simple to do and looks very effective.  All I did was punch out some black and grey circles of different sizes and glued them onto a square of naturals ivory cardstock.  Then I ran it through the big shot using the square lattice folder.

When I had this piece made and looked at all the colours I was using together I just knew it would make a great “man’s card”.  But just look how it ended up!!!!  I decided to go back to one of my favourite old sets that I haven’t used for a long time , Pun Fun and make something gorgeous and cute instead. 

Ingredients :

Stamps : Pun fun

Card : black, crumb cake (kraft), naturals ivory, basic grey, old olive, watercolour paper

Ink : stazon

Other : watercolour crayons, aquapainter, mistletoe ribbon, dimensionals, big shot, square lattice

Peaceful mistake

Wow!  I just won another challenge, can you believe it?  It was from SU-Only Challenges for my Joy card.  I feel so honoured to have been chosen in their Top 3.  I’m lucky they don’t give awards for how many cards you make, just whether they’re nice or not!
This is another super quick and easy card I made using the Petals a plenty embossing folder.


I’d say it’s the ribbon that kind of “makes” this card. The stripy ribbon looks very nice “ruffled”.  All you have to do to get this ribbon effect is to put sticky strip on your card and then kind of make little mountains with the ribbon and push the ribbon down onto the tape to make the valleys. I hope that description made sense.
Ingredients :
Stamps : Occasional greetings
Card : whisper white, shimmer white, real red, old olive
Ink : stazon
Other : big shot, petals a plenty embossing folder, real red ribbon, dimensionals, clear embossing powder, sticky strip

The poinsettia background has the slightest hint of pink on it. It was from playing with my brayer on the last poinsettia card, I tried it again (so a third time with cherry cobbler) but I thought it was too pale. So I left it but didn’t throw it out because it did still look pretty and I used it to make this card.
So this one is a “making something good from a mistake” card.  It’s great when that happens.    
Kathy                

Mojo poinsettia

I made another Christmas card using my punched poinsettia flower.  I used the sketch from this weeks Mojo Monday challenge.  I have never entered this challenge before, there are so many gorgeous cards in it to look at.
I used a new stamp set too.  I had been thinking about buying the Teeny Tiny Sentiments set but had resisted but then Stampin Up had it at such a great price this month I just had to get it.  I have only used the Merry Christmas stamp from it so far, but I really like it.  I think the sentiments will be a very useful size.
I’ve also used the Petals a Plenty embossing folder again, but this time I brayered some Cherry Cobbler ink onto the folder first, then put the whisper white card in and ran it through the Big Shot.
This is the first one I did.


This one is done the same way but without reinking the brayer.  So it has given it a lighter, more pinkish look.


I sprayed both the poinsettia and poinsettia background with the frost white shimmer paint too.
Ingredients :
Stamps : Teeny tiny sentiments
Card : cherry cobbler, old artichoke, whisper white
Ink :  Cherry cobbler
Other : big shot, petals a plenty embossing folder, polka dot embossing folder, gold brads, 5 petal punch, organza ribbon, brayer, frost white shimmer paint

Yes I’m still making Christmas cards and I still haven’t posted any yet.
Kathy

JOY

One of my cards won a challenge this week – my Barrel of Monkeys Christmas Card. This was my second win at Just Add Ink and I was really thrilled.  It’s so much fun to play along with challenges, you should give it a try.
Well I found a new site this week called SU-Only Challenges.  Their design team has come up with some gorgeous creations, follow the link and take a look.  This weeks challenge is to create a clean and simple Christmas card and this is what I came up with. 



It is very clean and simple.                                                                   No ribbon, no “extras”!                                                                         Just the square punch, 1 colour (NQN) for the images and another (crumb cake) for sponging the edges and that’s pretty much it.
Stampin Up sell square envelopes now, yippee!! They measure 14x14cm. so I bought some and made this card to fit.  The envelopes are beautiful and I can stamp on them too to make the card seem even more special.

Ingredients  :
Stamps : Winter Post, Elements of style
Card : crumb cake, very vanilla, NQN
Ink : NQN, crumb cake
Other : square punch, big shot, timeless type junior alphabet

It’s time now to write on all of these Christmas cards I’ve made and actually get them posted! 
Kathy

Dreaming of a white Christmas

I must really be dreaming of a white Christmas with all these skaters and snow flakes on my cards this year.  It has snowed in Hobart on Christmas day a couple of times but just on Mount Wellington I think, not actually in Hobart exactly. So it is extremely unlikely.  Even that is amazing though, when most of Australia would be in the 30 – 40C. range on Christmas day.  Someone in our local government even suggested Hobart build an outdoor skating rink, how fantastic would that be!!! (Not that I’ve ever skated in my life and probably never will, but my kids would love it).
I think snow would just add even more to the “magic” of Christmas.  Although I remember my Dad saying that I only wanted it to snow because I’d never had it, that it’s just dirty and cold and you have to shovel it off the path all the time. He grew up in Ireland and obviously didn’t appreciate snow and instead really enjoyed our hot Christmas in Australia.  I’d like to keep imagining that it is beautiful and magical though, so I will. 
Anyway back to Christmas card making……… this one uses another wonderful sketch from Stamping 411. It is this weeks challenge and there are a lot of beautiful samples to admire.



Ingredients :
Stamps : Occasional greetings, winter post
Card : black, confetti white, white, baja breeze, retired dsp
Ink : stazon, frost white shimmer paint
Other : pearls, hodgepodge hardware, photo corner punch, mat pack, piercer, whit pen, scallop trim border punch, organza ribbon, clear embossing powder

I managed to capture the shimmer paint a bit better with this photo.  You can see at the top of the main image how its shimmery and shiny, or looks darker (like the bottom of the piece) depending on how the light hits it.  I used stazon for the words but also clear embossed it, so it really stands out.
Wishing you a magical Christmas, no matter the weather.
Kathy

Barrel of Christmas Monkeys

I wasn’t going to do any challenges this week so that I could  concentrate on mass producing Christmas cards instead. But Just Add Ink have a challenge to use “critters” on a card and I couldn’t resist. I thought I’d use my monkeys again but in a different way this time.  Aren’t they cute!  It kind of reminds me of when we used to play Barrel of Monkeys.
Our local card shop sometimes has packs of hallmark envelopes for sale which I buy occasionally if they have any interesting sized ones. (Of course I never buy cards anymore so this is about the only business they get from me!) These ones were long and skinny and red.  So I made this card to fit and it measures approx. 9cm x 20cm.  It does mean I can’t get 2 cards from a sheet but the size is fun and perfect for my hanging Christmas monkeys.



Ingredients :
Stamps : Party Hearty, Fox and friends
Card : Real red, white, wild wasabi
Ink : wild wasabi, early espresso
Other : rhinestones, big shot, white pen, timeless type junior alphabet, brights dsp stack

Hope you’re further along with your Christmas card making than I am.
Kathy

Joyful Monkeys

I had a look at the sketch challenge at Stamping 411 this week and it really inspired me to get creative.
You probably don’t immediately think of monkeys when you think of Christmas do you!  I don’t normally either, but I really love these little guys and I wanted to give it a go, they are so fun to play with.
If you haven’t ventured over to Stamping 411 (you should) they have all the dimensions for the card already done for you, which in theory would make life easier wouldn’t it, BUT, I don’t follow the directions!  When I saw the 3 rectangles I knew I wanted to give my joyful monkeys a try.  So I stamped and cut them out and was very happy with it but then realised that mine was not really going to be the same as the sketch because there was meant to be a lot of room underneath them. Their rectangles must have been a lot smaller. There was no way I wasn’t going to use my cute monkeys though!  So here they are, greatly inspired by the sketch, but a “little different” in more ways than one!



Ingredients :
Stamps : Party Hearty, Fox and friends
Card : wild wasabi, real red, white
Ink : early espresso, wild wasabi
Other : big shot, polka dot embossing folder, timeless type junior alphabet, rhinestones, mistletoe ribbon, clear rhinestone brad


Kathy