Christmas Violins

At JAI this week the challenge is to make a Christmas card using a non-traditional Christmas set.  The design team have come up with a lot of wonderful ideas so please take a look and why not try this challenge yourself.



I wanted to make a unique Christmas card for my daughters’ violin teacher.  Unfortunately Stampin Up don’t have a violin stamp so I went looking and found this one.  It looks a lot like both of my girls, who have long hair and freckles so I just had to use it. Unfortunately though, because I turned the small one to face her big sister it has made her left handed (which she isn’t) but the card just worked better that way.

Ingredients :
Stamps : Four the holidays, (The Greeting Farm digi) Chibi Violin
Card : real red, shimmery white, vellum cardstock
Ink : stazon
Other : blender pen, aquapainter, watercolour crayons, square punch, mini library clip, dazzling diamonds

I Googled the sheet music for ‘We wish you a merry Christmas’ and printed it on to vellum card.  This is on top of a piece of shimmery white. 
The girls are on shimmery white too and I used a variety of watercolour wonder crayons and ink pads with an aquapainter and blender pen to colour them.  I dressed them in red and green to try to make the card look more “Christmassy”. They are cut out and attached with dimensionals to give the card some depth.
I love the shimmery white card stock, it is so great to colour on and looks beautiful too.
I wanted this card to be special.  It’s for an amazing lady who is a wonderful and caring teacher for my girls.
I hope she likes it :)

Kathy

Club Penguin

At my stamp club last week the hostess asked if we could make a little Christmas treat box.
And this is what we made.


I got the pattern for this box from Brenda Quintana.  It’s here if you’d like to try making one too.
You wouldn’t be able to fit a lot in it but it is a very cute little box and you can even hang it from the tree as an ornament.

Ingredients :
Stamps : confetti, tiny tags
Card : marina mist, black, white, peach parfait
Ink : black, versamark
Other : owl punch, white embossing powder, tag punch, linen thread, white taffeta ribbon, bashful blue taffeta ribbon

Everyone loved the little box and they loved making the little penguin too.
He is just so cute!

Kathy

They’re baaaack

At Just Add Ink this week we have a wonderful sketch from Bronwyn to inspire us.

 

                               

 

I decided to make another Christmas card.  I don’t enjoy making the same card over and over again so I love using these challenges as a way to build up my supply of Christmas cards. 

 

 

“They’re baaaack”!

The gorgeous ribbon flower that is.  I decided to see whether I could use a flower that wasn’t a poinsettia on a card and make it look “Christmassy” and of course I had to choose this sort of flower :)

I used a leaf from French Foliage with it and I think they worked really well together.  I used old olive ink on river rock card and clear embossed them.  They look great in real life.

I stamped and embossed clear the Merry Christmas with cherry cobbler.  The cherry background has also been embossed with the stripe embossing folder and it really added a lot to the card but unfortunately you can’t see it much in the photo.

With the addition of my favourite ribbon, cherry seam binding, I think my Christmas ribbon flower experiment was a success.

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : four the holidays, french foliage

Card : vanilla, river rock, cherry, naturals ivory

Ink : versamark, cherry cobbler, old olive, crumb cake

Other : big shot, stripe ef, vanilla satin ribbon, cherry seam binding, antique brad

 

The rest of the design team have created some gorgeous cards using this weeks sketch.  Please take a look and use our sketch as inspiration too.

 

Kathy

Dashing

 

This is the last of my stamp-a-stack cards.

I kind of cased myself with this one because I made a Christmas card last year that is very similar.

 

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : Dasher, contempo christmas

Card : olive, cherry, white

Ink : cherry, river rock

Other : 5 petal punch, pearls, olive taffeta ribbon (ret.), big shot, petals a plenty ef.

 

Everyone enjoyed making this card.  The 5 petal punch makes a beautiful poinsettia and who doesn’t love Dasher?  He’s gorgeous!

 

Kathy

Rock and roll ornament

 

This is another card we made at the stamp-a-stack last weekend.

 

I used the rock and roll technique on the ornament from Tags til Christmas with wisteria wonder and elegant eggplant.  I also coloured rhinestones with a green permanent marker and it was a pretty good match for the wild wasabi branches the ornament hangs from.

I used the edging from the organza ribbon to hang the ornament from the tree and tie a little bow.

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : Tags til Christmas, tiny tags, contempo christmas, lovely as a tree

Card : wisteria, eggplant, white

Ink : wisteria, eggplant, wasabi

Other : rhinestone, organza ribbon, tag punch, ornament punch

 

Kathy

Post stack

 

I held a Christmas stamp-a-stack on Saturday and it was another successful, fun day stamping with friends  :)

This is one of the cards we made.  There was no clear favourite for “Best Card of the Day”, but this one did get lots of votes.

I wasn’t entirely sure whether a subtle, vintagey, Christmas card would be appreciated or not.  But I did have lots of other bright ones for the ladies to make so I thought I would give it a try.  Luckily they actually really liked this one a lot!

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : Winter post, four the holidays, vintage vogue

Card : crumb cake, vanilla

Ink : suede, crumb cake

Other : big shot, framed tulips ef, square punch, pearls

 

I have only just bought the Four the Holidays stamp set.  It’s lovely, but funnily enough the “Season’s Greetings” sentiment was the one I wasn’t fussed about, yet it’s the one I reached for immediately for this card.  It just worked perfectly.

 

Kathy

Furry friends

 

The challenge at Just Add Ink this week is to just add a tag or a bookmark. Please take a look at all the wonderful creations the team have come up with.

I created this card for my good friend Rita.  Unfortunately she’ll see it on my blog before she gets it in person but I know that being a fellow stamper/blogger/design team member, she will understand :)

 

 

Rita and I met online when we were on the Splitcoast Creative Crew together. We started emailing each other regularly and one time I told her how disappointed my girls were that we didn’t get this set (Furry Folk) in the Australian catalogue.  They had wanted me to buy it for them for Christmas and then I had to tell them that I couldn’t.  Well she bought it for my girls and I and sent it all the way to us inside a little box filled with other goodies and lots of love. I am so very grateful to have found such a kind and caring friend. I feel truly blessed.

I know Rita likes to read, so I thought I would make a bookmark card for her with the set she bought us.  I used one of her favourite colours, not quite navy, and I know she loves the rickrack from the Tasteful Trim die so I added that too.

The photo below shows the bookmark when it’s taken out of the card.  The sentiment is from an old set called Sweet Serendipity.  I won it at the first Stampin Up Regional that I attended a few years ago.  I have kept it for sentimental reasons and I thought that it was just perfect for this card.

 

 

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : Furry folk, sweet serendipity (ret.), woodgrain, tiny tags

Card : NQN, shimmery white, vanilla, bashful blue, celery, pink pirouette, white, subtles dsp stack

Ink : stazon, white, suede, river rock, espresso, regal rose, mustard

Other : big shot, tasteful trim, little leaves, boho punch, tag punch, circle punches, bashful blue taffeta ribbon, cropadile, white brad. linen thread, aquapainter, corner rounder punch

 

It took me a long time to get the animals and the holes in the tree all lined up and the words in the right place so they couldn’t be seen from the front.  It shouldn’t have been that hard!  I had the idea of how I wanted it to be in my head, but I’m not very good at working out that kind of stuff.  Luckily I know that Rita will overlook mine and the cards imperfections because she’s such a nice person!

I hope you like your card Rita and thanks for being such a great friend :)

Kathy

Stockings for stack

 

I have another Christmas stamp-a-stack happening on Saturday and this is one of the cards we will be making.

I used my new Stitched Stockings set and coordinating punch to make this clean and simple Christmas card.

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : Stitched stockings

Card : olive, real red, white, brights dsp stack

Ink : real red, olive

Other : big shot, timeless type junior alpha, stockings punch

 

Hopefully it looks like “JOLLY” and not “JOY” with 2 stockings stuck in the middle.  I guess it works either way :)

 

Kathy