Holly Upcycled

 Do you upcycle Christmas cards that you have received in the past? It is fun to take parts of them and make new "designer" cards, therefore the term upcycle instead of recycle.

The holly print is the upcycled part of of this card. It was a bit plain on its own so I added strips of gold foil on each side. The sentiment is Winnie & Walter. The holly die cut is Marianne Design. I punched out berries and winked them for some shine. A gold bow pulls it all together. 

Inside is a sentiment from Stampon' Up! and an additional holly leaf.

The sketch is by Andrea at Tuesday Morning Sketches

Snowfall

 I have Christmas cards on the mind so saw this design of Tuesday Morning Sketch

 with snowflakes down the side.

I recently saw references to "salt technique" on a blog. I gave it a try but not too successful. I did the watercoloring  and sprinkled sea salt on but didn't get the white spots that are supposed to appear. Guess I will need to practice a bit more.

So, I just have a SU Lemon Lime Twist watercolored background. The snowflakes are punched from a scrap of hot pink glitter paper that I purchased from Walmart a few years ago. The sentiment die cuts are SU. I layered them on black to give some dimension. The right side needed a little more balance so I added 3 pink sequins.

Here is a second try at "salt technique". This one looks a bit better. It has 2 colors of blue and a lavender watercolor backgrounds. The snowflakes are stamped and heat embossed with silver. The sentiment from SU. I wanted more shimmer so sprayed it with Glitter Blast. Glitter cards are really hard to photograph. It is really sparkly IRL.

Make a Mess

I am a champion of making messes. Not only in craft room but many other rooms in the house, especially the kitchen. So when this challenge from Shopping Our Stash SOS 429: Make a mess! came up I knew I should enter.

You may have to expand the picture to really see all the details. The background is the wet baby wipe technique with SU inks: pool party, tempting turquoise, highland heather. Using a wet baby wipe, dab it on an ink pad and lightly dab onto cardstock or watercolor paper. I dabbed off on a scratch paper first so the colors would be lighter. All this resulted in very inky hands. 

Next layer is an SU vellum square doily sprayed with clear glitter burst spray--best to do this outdoors. I used a box indoors but the valve got stuck open and I could not get it to stop spraying. Nearly asphyxiated myself before I got the box moved outdoors. Starting over! I had to wait a few days for a new can of glitter burst spray to be delivered. 

The strip of blue is from the scrapbox. I think it came from a Ms. Sparkle paper pad purchased at Joan's.  Large letter die cuts are from scraps of silver paper. The Christmas sentiment is an old one from SU on a die cut label sponged with pool party ink.  I added 3 clear sequins for more glitter. 

So there is my "messy" card that turned out quite nice. This definitely will be one of a kind--no mass producing.

Skating Fun

 I have been shuffling these 3 strips of paper around for about a week.  When tI saw his new challenge at Just Us Girls I took it as a sign I was meant to use them.

That adorable fun skating reindeer is a digital from Bugaboo Stamps. The die cut and sentiment are Stampin' Up!

Let It Snow

 Even though I am not too wild about being out in snow, I do love snowmen. The are just so adorable and make me smile.

This little guy is from a Recollections set that I picked up on sale at Michael's last year. The sentiment is in the same set. I stamped it on a scrap and fussy cut around it. The square vellum doily is from SU. Snowflake punch is from Martha Stewart. I added clear glitter glue to the snowflake to make it sparkle. The little snowflakes are from SU. I used Hampton Arts white pigment ink to stamp them all around.The shiny strip of paper is from the stash, as well as the snowflakes washi tape.

I used the sketch at Tuesday Morning Sketches

Also posting at Tuesday Throwdown challenge #465 Anything Goes

And playing for that great prize of sentiment stickers. at Pixie's Crafty Workshop

Pretty tone on tone

 I have a pretty feminine tone on tone retirement card to share today.

The cardstock is Soft Sea Foam from Stampin' Up! I used a soft green ink to get the tone on tone effect. Stamp sets: script background from Inkadinkadoo, leaves from SU Forever Fern. I die cut a circle and then embossed it with a SU embossing folder. The flowers are an old unbranded one, stamped in dark pink (Regal Rose)  and colored with Prismacolor pencils. Leaves are an SU punch, lined with Soft Sea Foam Stampin' Blend pen. The sentiment is SU. Accents are ribbons from the stash and 3 green sequins.

Playing along with The Paper Players tic-tac-toe challenge, using the middle row across.