Cheers

Even though the Penguins in Paradise from My Favorite Things are summer and tropical this one makes a cute Christmas Cheer image.

The DPs are strips from my stash. The sentiment is from More Merry Messages from SU stamped with Lucky Limeade and Pool Party. The snowflakes from a couple of different sets are also done with Pool Party. I sponged on some  Pool Party to make a little ice berg and then stamped the penquin on that and colored with colored pencils. Some glitter glue makes the ice berg sparkle. Looking at the picture now, I think the penguin is a little tilted. Maybe he has imbibed in too much Christmas Cheer. LOL!
The layout is inspired by the sketch from Case This Sketch

Thanksgiving

I don't send Thanksgiving cards. But since the craft show I am doing is really close to Thanksgiving I thought a few cards for the occasion might sell.
And The Kraft Journal challenge this week is Thanksgiving.

I started with a Kraft cardstock base. Ran it through Big Shot with a Tim Holtz woodgrain impression plate and sponged on a little brown. The green vine is a Tim Holtz die.  The little leaves are in a miniature's set that I found at a yard sale so there is no label. They are stamped in SU inks. Sentiment is The Angel Company. Inside I did a computer message and stamped the leaves in a border.

Curious Kitty

I was puzzled how to incorporate the colors mint, teal, pink, and white of the Newton's Nook challenge into Christmas theme. None of my Newton Christmas stamps seemed to work.

I finally decided on a birthday stamp and colored the packages in pink and teal. My cat loved to play with the ribbons whenever I was wrapping Christmas gifts. He would even try to untie the bow once it was under the tree. The mint is used in the background with a SU stamp border,too faint to read in the picture, but the border image says do no open until Christmas. The pink scallop is done with Fiskar edge punch. Then it is all tied up with teal/white twine. I think some little girl will love this card.

JOY

Lots of sparkly joy on my card for today's sketch at Tuesday Morning Sketches

The DP is Lawn Fawn's Let's Bokeh in the Snow. I love the look of bokeh but I seem to make a mess of it so love even more when I can find paper with the effect already done. Joy is a SU die cut from red glitter paper. That is centered over a vellum punched circle. The gold cord was a remnant laying on my desk so I grabbed it to accent behind the joy. Then 3 stars punched form gold, silver, and red glitter paper add even more sparkle.
Here is inspiration sketch

And a twofer today. My blog friend Cheryl sent me how to instructions for spinner cards. See her really cute Halloween one here. So I tried one using the same Tuesday Morning sketch inspiration.

Will this get easier after some practice? Don't try a definite orientated picture first. I had mine about ready to mount and discovered the tree on the back side was upside down. So had a do over. This certainly was not a quick and easy card. So I will probably save this one for the grand kids. They will like the spinning part. I think they will be impressed with Nana.

Oh, and thanks to Debbie for choosing my card last week as her favorite. It featured the bokeh paper in green.

Gingerbread Man

Remember that story--run, run, fast as you can. You can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man?  I love gingerbread men. They are so cute. And I love going to look at the displays of gingerbread houses. Although I don't make one myself--waaay toooo much work! So I settle for doing gingerbread theme cards.
The 3 vertical rows on this sketch from The Paper Players, are definitely a challenge for me to get lined up precisely.

So it took a couple of tries but here is what I came up with.

On the first attempt I inadvertently turned one of the strips upside down so of course the red stripes did not line up. I used SU's cherry cobbler cardstock, sentiment, and window word punch. The GB man is from Sarasota Stamps. I found it in a BOGO bin at a nearby stamping store. I stamped it on SU's Baked Brown Sugar paper, colored with colored pencils, sponged on some white for sugar, and cut it out. The red candy stripe is from The Paper Studio. And the lollipop is from Lawn Fawn's Sweet Christmas. Inside, I used another SU sentiment and added another lollipop.

Hope I didn't give you sugar overload!!

Treat Bag

I don't know about you but I have to call a halt to creativity to do some cleaning and straightening frequently. Today I found a Petite Cafe Bag from SU among the scattered supplies. I decided I have to decorate it, can't give a gift in a plain brown bag after all. That project fit very nicely with this sketch from Freshly Made Sketches

All the designs are from Lawn Fawn colored with colored pencils. I added some puffy snow on the house roof top. And of course you have to have a coordinating tag with any gift. Now I am ahead of the game when it comes time to package up those treats for friends.

"Fleece" Navidad

I am frantically making Christmas cards in preparation for a Craft Fair in a few weeks. And my craft space is cluttered with all things Christmas. So when I saw this challenge from Global Design Project

I wondered how could I make it Christmas. Then the sheep image inspired this card.

The cute little sheep are called Lambie Pie from Sampabilities. I stamped it 3 times on scrap and fussy cut them. The Santa hats are clip art also fussy cut. The sentiment is via computer. The sheep are celebrating in the meadow background I created with water color paper and SU's Certainly Celery and Pool Party. It is all assembled on Cherry Cobble cardstock.

Bokeh Tree

I don't usually read my horoscope but it was next to the Sunday crossword and caught my eye. It says "There is no correlation between creativity and owning things. While it may help to have certain tools, who knows? It may hinder, too." HAHAHAHA! Whoever wrote that certainly does not know cardmakers!!

That was the opening of my blog yesterday but since this is for Tuesday Morning Sketches and a new group, I thought it worth repeating.
Today's card is more of the Lawn Fawn Bokeh in the Snow 6x6 paper pack. 

The tree is an SU punch. The sentiment is also SU. Hard to see but I used a clear star get pen on some of the circles on the tree. Just gives a bit of sparkle.
Here is the inspiration sketch

Bokeh Paper

I don't usually read my horoscope but it was next to the Sunday crossword and caught my eye. It says "There is no correlation between creativity and owning things. While it may help to have certain tools, who knows? It may hinder, too." HAHAHAHA! Whoever wrote that certainly does not know cardmakers!!

I am using more of Lawn Fawn Bokeh in the Snow paper. I love these designs. There are 4 colors with 2 snow patterns and a stripe in the 6x6 pack.

Tags were cut with Cricut. The images and the Merry Christmas sentiment are SU. Holiday Greetings is The Angel Company. I used a Martha Stewart punch for the snowflakes and coated them with glitter glue. The star is a Fiskar punch. I used a clear star gel pen to glisten the falling snow and at the base of the snowman and Santa.
Inspiration came from Mojo Monday sketch

Bokeh Snow

Pals Paper Arts has a great sketch for quick and easy cards

Lawn Fawn has a 6x6 pack designer paper called Bokeh Snow. There are 4 different colors. The designs are small snow, large snow, and stripes.  I found a coordinating blue paper in my file. This one is with the larger snow pattern and a strip of the stripe (say that 3 times really fast!) to anchor the vellum banner. The snowman is from SU's Snow Place. Isn't he just the cutest, happiest snowman? Made a little white bow with a 10 second bow maker to accent the top.

While I have the sketch in front of me and all the supplies handy, I did a twofer today

This one is with the smaller snow pattern. Merry Christmas from The Angel Company is embossed in white on vellum.

Merry & Bright

For the Just Us Girls challenge to use a stencil, I chose a Tim Holtz one called Burlap and sponged on some SU Real Red covering just the left side and across the bottom.

The 3 glitter stars are die cut and glued on with the red one popped up on foam strips. The sentiments outside and inside are from different SU sets.

A red punched glitter star adds additional sparkle to the inside.

One Design, Three cards

The sketch today from Freshly Made Sketches is so great for quick and easy cards that I had time to do 3.

The first is a serene Thinking of you.featuring Summer Silhouette from SU and a dragonfly (no label) on vellum. The sentiment is Studio G.

The next is the same sketch rotated for the Halloween challenge at The Kraft Journal.

The stamps are old ones without labels. I saw the witch sentiment on a blog a while back. Don't have a stamp for that so did it on the computer. The DP is from SU.

The sketch was perfect for doing another Charlie Brown tree card. See another version here.

I recently purchased these 2 stamps at Hobby Lobby. The strip with snowflakes is from my paper stash.

Birthday Numbers

At my age, we have to joke and laugh about our birthdays. So I am really glad that more companies are coming out with funny images and puns.
The numbers and birthday hat are from old SU stamp sets. The image is SU's Just Kidding. I did the sentiment on computer and die cut it with word bubble dies from SU.
Inside this one says "Of course, some of us have more numbers than others"
I used the layout from Tuesday Morning Sketches

Dragonflies

I love sitting by a pond watching the dragonflies flit about. They seem so serene. I even have a dragonfly logo on my business cards.  I haven't used them much so decided to pull one out for the Sympathy challenge at Just Us Girls

I used SU's Lucky Limeade and Pool Party to watercolor the background. Then stamped a silhouette of dandelions in black. Vellum seems to be a big trend right now and I really like that look so I stamped 2 dragonflies (no label on that stamp) in Lucky Limeade on a strip of vellum and then used the pointed end of a swab to fill in with some blue and violets. That was then attached by wrapping the ends to the back.With that you don't see any of the glue or tape used to attach the vellum. Gives a really clean finish. The sentiment is also from SU. Here is a close up of the dragonfly and the silhouette in the background.