Believe

I have been making Christmas cards like crazy getting ready for my church's bazaar in November.

I finished this one yesterday. Little bear looks so astounded that Santa left him some gifts. It just fits the challenge at Just Us Girls

The DP is from BoBunny. The polar bear from Memory Box. The Santa sleigh is an old SU stamp. 

Believe die from Little Yellow Bicycle. The little boxes from a Newton's Nook set. 

Inside I punched a snowflake from the DP and coated it with clear glitter glue. I did the sentiment on the computer. 

Naughty Newton

Dear Newton, you certainly do have some 'splainin' to do. This is a great card for the kitty loving friends. When I had cats, it was almost impossible to keep them out of the Christmas tree.

 The kitten image is from Newton's Nook. The sentiment from Print Works Collection was found at Hobby Lobby. The papers are scraps from SU. A little trick: If I had used the next size up oval for a background, it would have been too big. So I die cut 2 of the same size ovals and offset them a bit. Gives an anchor without taking up much space.
The layout is this week's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches

Boy Birthdays

My grandson will be 12 soon. He and his family have been displaced by Hurricane Harry.  Thankfully, they had only minimal flooding and have been able to find housing and starting the clean up in their home. So many will be forever recovering from this devastation.
He was born just prior to Hurricane Rita. Fortunately as a newborn, his house was not affected.
I am just feeling bad that I am so far away and cannot go help them out.
So a very special card for you Andrew

I think pre-teen boys are so difficult to design cards for. This stripe paper from My Favorite Things paper pack makes just the right background. The "phone" is from a new SU set called Text Ya Later. It has lots of sayings & emojis. So fun!  Inside I did my own message and added more emojis.

I used the sketch layout from Freshly Made Sketches

Another boy card with the same sketch.

These images and sentiments are from Newton's Nook.

Seagulls

The Stampin' Up! stamp set Wetlands is a great one for masculine cards.

The tags are 2 inch strips with SU's tag topper punch on the top. I sponged the front tag with Crumb Cake and Pool Party before stamping the seagulls. The sun is from Swirly Bird. I like the look of double tags so used a Pool Party back one. I stamped the sea oats on the edge of it to peek out behind the front one. The wood DP is from ms. sparkle & co. paper pack from Joann's. The wood cross piece is from scraps. Raffia and twine tie up the 2 tags. The sentiment is also from Wetlands.
The inside has a computer generated sentiment with a sun and sea oats stamps accents.

The layout is this weeks challenge sketch at Tuesday Morning Sketches

Since I used a punch on the tag top, I am also linking up to Tuesday Throwdown challenge to use punches or dies.

Experimenting

I am experimenting with water colors for the challenge at CAS Mix Up

My choice here is die cutting. I used the trees from Impression Obsession.
I am still struggling to get good watercolor backgrounds.
The first one I think the colors are too intense, I didn't use enough water to dilute the colors. Ends up looking like a forest fire.

So then I tried the same 3 colors using watercolor pencils. More of a sunset but still not happy with it.

Back to the drawing board. This one I used only more diluted orange and colored the whole background. Then used a watered down red and dabbed it randomly on the background.

I think it looks like red leaves blowing around. Happier with this one.
So I am putting them up for a vote? Which is your favorite?