Christmas gift and tag

Part of the fun with giving gifts is to wrap them prettily. At least it is if you aren't in a hurry, and don't have too many gifts. Which usually during Christmas is never the case... But this time I managed to take some time to wrap this gift up prettily and even make a handmade tag for it. The Stampin' Up White Christmas stamp set is great to make quick and easy tags and cards. This tag was so quick to make. First I used the tag topper punch to make the tag. I then stamped the trees, the cute polar bear and the bird using Early Espresso onto Crumb Cake card and used my white gel pen to draw some snow on the trees and the ground, and some snowflakes in the air. I love the cute polar bear, and I don't care that polar bears are not supposed to be in the woods, I just love the cute scene, and will keep on using it no matter how unrealistic. 

I wrapped the present using Stampin' Up paper and added some red ribbon and a star. To finish off in style, I added a big bow from Stampin' Up Pretty Presents Designer Bows, which are ready die cut pieces you can use to assemble a bow. 

I would like to link up with the following challenges: 
Crafty Cardmakers and More - Snow 
Crafting for All Seasons - Christmas, anything but a card
Sweet Stampin' - Merry Christmas
My Time to Craft - Last Minute Christmas Makes
Challenge Up Your Life - Polka Dots
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Winter Wonderland

Card: Stampin' Up Crumb Cake
Stamps: Stampin' Up White Christmas, Good Greetings
Ink: Stampin' Up Early Espresso, Signo white pen
Other: Stampin' Up Scalloped Tag Topper Punch, Pretty Presents Designer Bows, Festive Designer Kraft Paper, red and white bakers twine and red gift ribbon and star from my stash

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

Modern Easter card

This card is completely copied from an amazingly lovely thank you card made by Pootles. I love the colours she used and I think Gorgeous Grunge is such a great and versatile stamp set. It was one of the Easter cards I sent this year, a bit different but I thought it worked quite well. But it would be easy to modify it to work for pretty much any occasion.

I'm not very good at CAS, so this card definitely was a challenge. And looking at it, I'm constantly tempted to add more stuff to it. But I will keep it as it is, and let it be simple and elegant. I stamped three stamps from the Gorgeous Grunge in Wild Wasabi, Smoky Slate and Early Espresso. I stamped the cute little bunny from the Perfect Postage stamp set. I punched a scalloped square from Wild Wasabi cardstock and then simply matted everything onto Early Espresso cardstock and attached to Whisper White carstock. Perfect entertainment for a relatively short weekday evening crafting session, but I do love to play with Gorgeous Grunge.

Inks: Stampin Up Wild Wasabi, Early Espresso and Smoky Slate
Cardstock: Stampin' Up Whisper White, Early Espresso and Wild Wasabi
Stamps: Gorgeous Grunge and Perfect Postage

Madison Avenue thank you card

I got out of bed ridiculously early this morning as I seem to have managed to catch a bit of a cold. Lying down made my sinuses feel like they were exploding. So I was up long before the sun, and what better to do on a Saturday morning at ridiculous o'clock than to catch up on some card challenges and get inspired!

This time two challenges caught my fancy. The Freshly Made Sketches #127 got my the inspiration neurons firing and I decided to combine it with the Stampin' Royalty #219 colour challenge which this week was So Saffron, Pistachio Pudding and Early Espresso. Another colour combination I wouldn't have picked myself, and completely out of my comfort zone.

To me the colour combo seemed quite retro, and to me the most retro stamp set ever is the Stampin' Up Madison Avenue set. I love it, but hardly ever get around to using it. I also have the matching embossing folder which I think I haven't used at all so far. That's pretty much how this card came together. I used the stamp-a-ma-jic to align the stamps for the flower and to place the little sentiment from the Tiny Tags stamp set.

Cardstock: Stampin' Up Early Espresso, So Saffron, Pistachio Pudding, Craft UK kraft card
Ink: Stampin' Up Early Espresso, Pistachio Pudding
Stamps: Stampin' Up Madison Avenue, Tiny Tags
Paper: Stampin' Up Tea for Two DSP
Other: Embossing folder Vine Street, Scalloped Tag Topper Punch, butterfly brad from my stash