Christmas Ornaments

This is a quick card inspired by this week's Freshly Made Sketch and Colour Throwdown colours. I'm also joining the Christmas Card Challenge where Anything Goes. I think I have more than enough Christmas cards by now, so I'm hoping I can move on to non-Christmas themes again soon. And it's only two more weeks until I go back home for a long visit over Christmas, which will mean no crafting and probably a bit of a quiet time here on the blog. But it's good to take a step back from time to time and re-charge the mojo batteries. And there is still two dreadful weeks of work to get through before that. Like a whole day meeting in London today, making it really late before I get back home, hence unlikely to find any crafting time... Sigh! Oh well, less moaning and more crafting!

Card: Stampin' Up Whisper White, Real Red and Crumb Cake

Stamps: Stampin' Up Ornament Keepsakes, Papermania 12 Days of Christmas Word Banner

Ink: Stampin' Up Pool Party, Real Red, Crumb Cake

Paper: Stampin' Up All is Calm

Other: silver ribbon from my stash

Happy New Home

Today I happened upon a new challenge, which I liked the look of. It's called Cure for the Monday Blues (don't we all just need a little bit of that every now and then?). I was inspired by the colours in the rug of the inspiration photo. I really wanted a DSP with those colours but I didn't have any. So in the end I decided I will just make my own DSP by drawing lines freehand using markers. I like the look of the slightly wonky lines. I was also inspired by the feel of "home" of the inspiration picture, so that's why I decided to make a new home card. I used the lovely layout over at Sweet Sunday Challenge. I'm also linking up at Just us Girls where Anything Goes this week.

Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Stampin' Up Coastal Cabana and Blushing Bride

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Critters Ever After, Papermania Urban Stamps 12 Days of Christmas Word Banner

Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black

Colouring: Stampin' Up markers Daffodil Delight, Coastal Cabana, Blushing Bride and Soft Sky

Other: Lawn Fawn dies Critters Ever After, Cole's Alphabet, Stitched Journaling Card

Bloom with Purple

This week the colour combo over at Colour Me...! is so fantastic, I had to play with it almost immediately. The colour combo, along with the picture over at Stampin' Royalty were my inspiration for this card. It was fun to take a break from the Christmas crafting and create something completely different. I used the sketch over at My Favourite Things. Last but not least I'm entering over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where Anything goes. 

I created the background panel by stamping the lovely large flower from Bloom With Hope in Versamark and heat embossing in clear powder. I then inked the card using distress inks, and spritzed some water to create that lovely splotchy look. I adhered two strips of lace, one which I had coloured with the same Blendabilities I used for the focal flower. To finish, I added some stickles to the flower. I also did some stamping and inking inside the card.

Card: Stampin' Up Rich Razzleberry, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamps: Stampin' Up Bloom With Hope
Ink: Tsukineko Versamark and Memento Tuxedo Black, Tim Holtz disters inks in Dusty Concord, Peacock Feathers, Seedless Preserves and Victorian Velvet
Colouring: Stampin' Up Blendabilities Rich Razzleberry
Other: lace from my stash, Ranger Tim Holtz distress stickes Dusty Concord

Snowman tags

You can never have too many tags in the run-up to Christmas, right? And if you happen to come across a challenge that encourages your obsession to create even more tags, it's not much you can do except get busy in the craft room. The current Card Concept challenge is to create a tag or a card with tags on it, combined with snowmen or snow. I used the great colour combo over at My Favourite Things. I'm also entering my little tags over at Sweet Stampin' Christmas where the theme is Snowpeople and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge where Anything goes.

I love the Stampin' Up White Christmas set, the trees are just so graceful and beautiful, and I love the way the cute little snowman is looking up to the snowflakes falling from the sky. I can see this set getting plenty of use for many more Holiday seasons. I also love making tags with the Scalloped Tag Topper punch, so easy and I like the shape of the tags. 

Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm white card
Stamps: Stampin' Up White Christmas
Ink: Staz-On Jet Black, Stampin' Up Soft Sky
Colouring: Stampin' Write markers in Real Red, Pear Pizzazz and Smoky Slate
Other: twine from my stash, Stampin' Up Scalloped Tag Topper Punch, Ranger Ice Stickles Crystal Ice

Fairies

The most recent issue of Cardmaking & Papercraft came with a fairy stamp set. They really weren't the kind of stamps that go with my style of card-making, but they were free, so I thought why not give them a try. I was inspired by this weeks great sketch from Mojo Mondays. I was also inspired by the fun challenge over at Daring Cardmakers, which is "Something Old, Something New". Obviously the fairy stamp is my something new, whereas the rest of the card is my something old. I used a Dovecraft DSP called Princess Fairytale which I have had for ages but hardly ever used, so I thought it would be perfect for this challenge. The stamps were also perfect for the new challenge over at Shopping Our Stash where the challenge is to use something you got for free. I'm also entering this card over at The Pink Elephant where Anything Goes. 

Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm three shades of blue and white card

Paper: Dovecraft Princess Fairytale DSP

Ink: Stampin' Up Pistachio Pudding and Wild Wasabi

Stamps: The Fairy Collection (free with current issue of Cardmaking & Papercraft)

Retro in green and brown

What a perfect combination of challenges, Retro Sketches and Retro Rubber. I absolutely adore the current Retro Sketch, so great for using up leftover pieces of DSPs. The colour challenge over at Retro Rubber was much more difficult for me. I'm not very good with green, but I had a nice selection of Stampin' Up DSP leftovers to use which turned out great for this challenge. Unfortunately it's impossible to take any photos in daylight these days as it's dark before I leave in the morning and dark when I get back in the evening, so the colours in the photo don't look quite as good as they do in real life. I guess I will have to wait until March or April before my photos stop being completely hopeless. In addition my iPhoto seems to have gone nuts, so I can't even edit the photos until I get the problem sorted. Sigh.

The idea behind Retro Rubber is to use your old, possibly long forgotten stamps. The stamp I chose to use is quite old, among the first stamps I bought back when I first started stamping. I haven't used it that much, but it's a pretty little stamp. A lot of the papers I used are also quite old, so they might well make the retro category. I also did a bit of stamping inside the card.

Card: Stampin' Up Very Vanilla and Crumb Cake
Stamps: Hobbycraft Clear Stamps Thistle, Paper Smooches A Little Lovin
Ink: Stampin' Up Baked Brown Sugar
Paper: Various scraps of Stampin' Up DSPs
Other: Stampin' Up Basic Pearls

Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge - Christmas Elves

It's that time again, a new challenge at Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge. This time we are challenging you with Christmas Elves. Our sponsor for this challenge is Bugaboo and there will be a pick of digis for the winner so get your elfin' on and join us with your elf-y creations. Head over to the Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge for lot's of elf-tastic inspiration from the DT, and don't forget to visit our sponsor. Bugaboo has the greatest digis, and there are so many elves to choose from.

I have used the cute Elf Candy Cane digi stamp from Bugaboo. I coloured him with Copics and added some accents with a white gel pen. I used Christmas crafting paper called Gingerbread Lane and matted everything onto red cardstock and finished with a large red bow and sentiment stickers in gold as I didn't want to force in a larger sentiment as I liked the layout as it was.

I'm entering the card in the following challenges:
Sparkles Christmas Challenge - Christmas candy
Christmas Stampin' All Year Long - Anything goes
Jingle Belles - Christmas Feast
Addicted to Stamps - Make your mark


Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm white card, red cardstock from my stash, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamps: Digi Bugaboo Elf Candy Cane
Colouring: B00, B04, B06, C1, R20, R24, R46, Y15
Paper: Jennifer Ellory Gingerbread Lane DSP
Other: Red ribbon from my stash, sentiment stickers from Hobbycraft, Signo gel pen, Ranger Ice Stickles

Bloom with Hope meets Tea for Two

Today's card is a quickie that I made using a pretty DSP and a flower from my "things I started but never finished" box. It's always nice to find a place for all that stuff you can't make yourself throw away, but don't have any real use for either. The inspiration for this card is the colour combo over at Color Throwdown and the sketch at Just Add Ink.

Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm white card, coloured 240 gsm card dark blue, Stampin' Up Strawberry Slush
Stamps: Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler, Stampin' Up Bloom with Hope
Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Memento Tuxedo Black
DSP: Stampin' Up Tea For Two
Colouring: Stampin' Up Blendabilities Old Olive and Melon Mambo
Other: Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder, Ranger Distress stickles Crushed Olive

Northern Lights

Funnily enough, I have never seen the Northern lights, although I'm from Finland. They are primarily visible in Northern Finland, and I have only spent short holidays up there, and been unlucky in never happening upon them.

I have seen the lovely Northern Lights technique here and there in the Blogosphere though. Most recently I found this amazing card from Heidi over at Running With Scissors Stamper, one of the DT for The Friday Mashup. In the same post there is a link to this tutorial on Splitcoaststampers. Just google "northern lights" and you will find the most amazing inspiration photos. Seriously, the colours are just unbelievable! I was particularly inspired by the below photo from the National Geographic web site, which acknowledges it as "Photograph by Alaska Stock Images". 

I haven't been trying out this technique as it looked quite difficult, and I thought I wouldn't get it right. But I was so inspired by Heidi's card that I thought I would just give it a little test, so I got my Distress inks out for a play. Mostly it resulted in disaster after disaster, my fingers were black and I was losing my patience. But then somehow I managed to produce two panels which weren't completely horrible. I thought after putting all that effort in, I might as well make them into cards although they are far from perfect.

These cards were inspired mainly by the card I referenced above, and two challenges: The Friday Mashup where the theme is "It's all about weather" and Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where the theme is "To the moon and back" or use something from space or the universe. 

For my first card I used the sketch over at My Favourite Things. I die cut the letters for Merry from one of the failed attempts at the northern lights, so at least the failed attempts didn't go completely to waist. I used the deer from the Stampin' Up White Christmas stamp set. I'm also entering the card at Clear it Out where anything goes, and Winter Wonderland where the theme is to Add a Sentiment.

I also made a second card using the current Freshly Made Sketch and the Lawn Fawn Critters from the Arctic die along with a DSP from Stampin' Up called Sweet Sorbet. I'm also entering this card over at Crafts for Eternity where the theme is "Furry Friends".

Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm white card, coloured 240 gsm kraft card black, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Joy to the Woods, Stampin' Up White Christmas

Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Memento Tuxedo Black, Tim Holtz Distress Ink Black Soot, Chipped Sapphire, Mustard Seed, Peacock Feathers, Pine Needles, Seedless Preserves, Worn Lipstick

DSP: Stampin' Up Sweet Sorbet

Other: Lawn Fawn dies Critters in the Arctic, Stitched Hillside Borders, Cole's ABC, Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder, Ranger Ice Stickles Crystal Ice, Tim Holtz Idea-ology Paper String, White Gel Pen

Masculine Open Sea

It's been a crazy hectic week with no time to play in the craft room. After enduring an hour and a half of crazy traffic to get home from work I finally had some time for crafting. I'm not quite up to date with all the current challenges out there, but I did like the colour scheme over at Colour Me...! this week. I also went for a rather literal interpretation of this week's CAS(E) This Sketch. I'm also linking up with Red Rubber Inspirationals where the theme is to repeat the same stamp at least three times. For my background, I actually repeated the background stamp four times. 

For the card I used a stamp set from Stampin' Up called The Open Sea, and it makes a great masculine card. I stamped the background stamp in Soft Suede and the world map in Early espresso. The anchor is stamped in Tangerine Tango onto Crumb Cake cardstock and fussy cut, as is the compass. Last I stamped the sentiment from Bloom with Hope in Versamark and heat embossed using white powder. A bit of matting, and some stamping for the inside as well. I decided to keep it simple and not to add any embellishments to keep it masculine.

Card: Stampin' Up Soft Suede, Early Espresso, Tangerine Tango and Crumb Cake, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamps: Stampin' Up The Open Sea, Bloom with Hope
Ink: Stampin' Up Soft Suede, Early Espresso, Tangerine Tango, Tsukineko Versamark
Other: Papermania Seafoam White Embossing Powder

Pink feathers

This card is for my Mum who will have a rough few days coming up due to some health issues. I would appreciate any good thought being sent her way, I'll sure be sending out as much of that as I possibly can.

I'm really diggin' the Four Feathers stamp set. I love inking it up in various colours. I also love the current Retro Sketch. And I thought it made a great combo with the colours from the new The Challenge. I'm really getting into this whole clean and simple thing. 

Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamps: Stampin' Up Four Feathers and Just Sayin' 
Ink: Stampin' Up Blushing Bride, Smoky Slate and Strawberry Slush

Four Feathers in Sweet Sorbet

After much deliberation, I decided to get the Stampin' Up Four Feathers stamp and die set. It's one of those sets which I wasn't too excited about when I first saw it, but I have seen so many great cards with the set so in the end I realised how incredibly versatile it is. I also finally treated myself to the Lawn Fawn Stitched Journal card die, which I adore. I thought they made quite a great card together with a paper from the Sweet Sorbet set. I know the colours don't go with the season at all, but I need them to remind me that spring will eventually come after all this cold and darkness.

I am submitting the card to Addicted to Stamps and Crafts Galore Encore Challenge where Anything goes. I'm also linking up at Clean and Simple on Sunday where the theme is ribbon and twine and Clear it Out where the challenge is to use three of a thing (three feathers). 

Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm card
Stamps: Stampin' Up Four Feathers and matching dies, Lawn Fawn Critters from the Past
Ink: Stampin' Up Calypso Coral, Pistachio Pudding, Sahara Sand, Soft Sky and Summer Starfruit
Paper: Stampin' Up Sweet Sorbet 
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Journal card die, twine from my stash

Happy 100th CAS(E) This Sketch

There's a celebration going on over at CAS(E) This Sketch. It's their 100th sketch, and I had no idea what to do with the sketch. Then I thought of my unused stash of Washi tape and thought it just might work. Then a tag, a bit more Washi, some heat embossing and a few gems for a splash of colour. 

Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm white card, silver grey card from my stock

Stamps: Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler

Ink: Tsukineko Versamark 

Other: Washi tape from my stash, Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder, Papermania adhesive gems, Stampin' Up Scalloped Tag Topper

Retro rubber challenge and fusion

 

You will have to excuse me for publishing my Saturday blog post a few hours early to make a challenge deadline.

There is a new challenge blog on the block. It's called Retro Rubber Challenge and I happened upon it on one of the blogs I follow. I love the idea, it's all about using those old stamps you have. The first ever Retro Rubber challenge is to use your oldest stamp. I think one thing I can say is that I hardly use my oldest stamps as I used to buy quite cheap clear stamps. After some research into the subject, I started buying better quality stamps so I hardly use the old ones as they don't stamp nearly as well. But it's nice to go back to those old stamps from time to time, as they deserve some love too.

The stamp I have used for the background of this card is one of the first stamps I ever bought, I can't exactly remember which one was the first but this, along with a butterfly stamp was most certainly among the first ones.

The other inspiration for my card was the Fusion challenge, and the patterns on the cake reminded me of the patterns on my background stamp. I thought I would go monochromatic, inspired by the challenge pic. I used the sketch from the current Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge.

Card: Stampin' Up Bermuda Bay, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Dovecraft 110 gsm premium vellum
Stamps: Hobbycraft A6 Swirl Background Clear stamp, Stampin' Up Flower Shop and Petite Petals, Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler
Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Tim Holtz Peacock Feathers distress ink
Other: Stampin' Up Pansy and Petite Petals punch, Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder, Ranger Extra fine clear embossing powder, Papermania adhesive gems

 

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Poinsettia card

The inspiration for today's card is the first inspiration sketch for November from Viva La Verve. It also comes with a colour combo, so all the inspiration you need to create a card. With a colour combo of green, red and kraft, of course it had to be a Christmas card. I think I'm starting to build up quite a good stash of Christmas cards by now! I was also inspired by The Card Concept where the theme is Krafty Christmas, and I think the style would be Freestyle Collage.

I used a selection of papers from Dovecraft Back to Basics Christmas collection and matted onto beige cardstock. The poinsettia is a digi from Fred She Said (I have also used it here). I coloured the poinsettia leaves with Old Olive Blendabilities and Copics, and added a rhinestone in the centre. I stamped the sentiment inside the card.

Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Coloured 240 gsm kraft card beige
Stamp: Digi Fred She Said FSS-Poinsettia & Pine Boughs, Dovecraft Tis tthe Season S'Jingle
Ink: Stampin' Up Real Red
Colouring: Stampin' Up Blendabilities Old Olive, Copics R24, R46
Paper: Dovecraft Back to Basics Christmas 
Other: Papermania Adhesive gems capsule sunshine