Lots of Red

Crafting with a timer. That is the 10 minute craft dash challenge from Pretty Pink Posh. Thinking time doesn't count. Which is a good thing as coming up with an idea if often a lengthy process for me. Frequentlly occurs in the middle of the night when I can't get back to sleep. This weeks dash was to feature red. And I have lots of it. This fell right into my plans of starting on Valentine's. This one took 9 min. 11 sec.because I had to do the lower punch scallop twice to get it right.

DPs are strips of leftovers from SU Christmas papers. Stamp is from Stampabilities. Punches are EK. I think that larger punch resembles tops of hearts.And I see now that it needs a little leveling. Well we could say my heart is just getting bigger with love!! Right?!  I used this sketch from Freshly Made Sketches  

Snowman

The Paper Players challenge is "snowmen". I love the image of this happy snowman. Looks like he  has his shopping all done!

I'm sorry I can't give much credit here. I borrowed the stamp from a friend and stamped a bunch of these images. Then returned the stamp to her so I don't know who makes it. I colored the image with colored pencils and gel glitter pens. The snowflake IP is from Cuttlebug. The sentiment is one of my very first stamp purchases long ago. 

Heart

The Playdate Cafe challenge colors for the week are black, white, and maroon. I have my Christmas cards done so thought I would do some Valentines for Operation Write Home. The deadline for Valentines is Dec. 31.

I found this cute b/w heart sentiment paper yesterday at Hobby Lobby so it fit right in with the challenge. I didn't want to cover up much of the DP with ribbon so did just the 2 loops with a sheer maroon. The sentiment stamp is SU.
 

Love is in the air

I am done with my Christmas cards, well at least making them. I still need to write notes and mail them. So for the challenges at  Simon Says Stamps and Freshly Made Sketches I decided on a Valentine.  I apologize for the pic. Had to use the scanner, camera needs repair.

So the scanner did not pick up the rich shimmering red of the background. That is Crayola Color Wonder mini magic metallic paper. The markers are clear and will only work on the special paper. I had it for my grandsons last week. They showed me that you could color the paper solidly and have this cool shimmer look. The DP strips are leftovers from SU Christmas papers. The sentiment is also SU. The doily is just the cheap Dollar Store variety. Here is the sketch I used.



Layers of Christmas Greenery

I am back after a visit from my daughter's family. As my craft room is also a guest room, I had to put everything away so my grandsons would have a space to sleep--I tend to scatter things out on the bed--and everywhere else also. LOL!!

Loved having them here--grandsons are 4 & 7. They actually inspired part of my card today. I bought them an art set from Crayola called Color Wonder. It comes with markers that applied to the paper create colors. There was a magic mettalic pad in the set. They showed me that if you color the paper solidly you come up with gorgeous shimmer paper. So I colored this one with the blue marker. The picture doesn't do it justice.
Other supplies: Kraft cardstock, Dark blue cardstock, DP scrap, Hero arts evergreen stamp, sentiment from an old Christmas greeting set. Tim Holtz distress dark green ink, Color Box royal blue ink.
Here is the inside.

 

This is for challenges from: Papercraft Star (holiday greenery), Tuesday Throwdown (lots of layers)

and I used an old sketch from Simon Says Stamps. 

 

Thinking of you masculine

I have 2 cards to show today for the challenge at Simon Says. I tend to prettify my "thinking of you" cards. Sometimes I need to send one to a man. So I made 2 masculine type cards for this challenge.

The first one is on SU summer starfruit. Cuttlebug IP folders on the wood grain and the circles. The ticket is Tim Holtz. The anchor is a $1.00 bin special at Michael's. Sentiment is Studio G.
The second one is on white cardstock with layer of SU Midnight muse. Other papers are from scrap file. The sailboat is Inkadindadoo. The eyelet punch is Martha Stewart. The sentiment is the same as the top one only done in 1 line.
 

Santa

I wanted to do some Santa cards so turned to the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches



Santa stamp from SU, colored with colored pencils, highlights with clear star gel pen. You can't see the clear well in this picture but it gives a little shine to the snow parts. Snowflake punch from Martha Stewart. Ribbons from my shoebox of scrap ribbons.  Admit it you all have one--we crafters never throw anything away. It just might be exactly what you need sometime.
I backed the Santa with a silver glitter circle. I started to assemble and couldn't buy all that smooth white background so ran it through the Big Shot with Cuttlebug snowflake IP. There was a little clear space at the bottom so I added the Happy Christmas from SU. Just looks like a happy card.

 

Happy Christmas

What a challenge with this sketch at Mojo Monday this week. 

I have literally struggled with this one all day. I sat down in the craft room early this morning to start. I knew I wanted to do something Christmas. I would get out some papers and maybe even go as far as making cuts. Didn't like it. So I would get up and go away. I think I did that about 3 times. Finally I got it!! Found just the right combo. Love when a plan finally comes together.

So here is my card

 

The DP is from SU. I just had a couple of small scraps left and they were exactly what I was looking for. The snowflakes--if you can call red & green ones snowflakes--are a Sizzix die. I alternated the red & green ones and used a deminsional between each. Happy Christmas is SU. I added sparkle with clear glitter glue.

Whew! that wore me out. I think I'll go watch some election results and probably fall asleep in my recliner.

 



 

 

3 challenges

I am really behind in my challenges this week so I am doing some combining.
A Blog Named Hero: use punched image
Pals Paper Arts: colors of crumbcake, vanilla, red
Cas-ual Fridays: masculine project

I didn't have crumcake so I used Kraft for card base. Just slap on a strip of Duck Tape, a strip of drywall tape, and a bandaid. There you have your background. How easy. I did the sentiment on computer, punched it out with scalloped square and sponged on red border.

I think if you are sick, a little humor can be good for cheering you up.

There 3 challenges done this week!

 

SHINE

Time for another Cas(E) This Sketch already. I think I am really going to enjoy this site.



Last week, I kind of struggled with what image to use--guess that's why its a challenge! You think?! Well this week it only took me a few seconds to look at my stamps to decide what 3 images to use.

Disregard the black, that is merely for background. The card is simply white cardstock. I turned the design upside down. Wouldn't be too effective otherwise. The kites are from SU. I cut them out and popped them with dimensionals. The twine is from Tim Holtz. The kites really look like they are blowing in the wind. Sentiment is one of the $1.00 bin specials at Michaels. I have astigmitism so don't always get things lines up--especially if my glasses are a little askew. So I guess we can say the SHINE is blowing in the wind also.



I think this could be a great encouragement card. I used the same images in another way for a good luck card for my son and DIL before their running of the Chicago Marathon. Did some good--they were both awesome!