Mail for the holidays

Making faux postage stamps was popular early in my stamping career but at the time you needed patience and probably special scissors to get the edges right. Now, you can just die cut a postage stamp shape, which is exactly what I did here. After masking the edges, I stamped postage-sized images of a tree and an ornament, colored with pencils, then sponged around them. After removing the masking, they look so good. Suddenly, I understand why people like making them. It's fun and easy. 

This card is for these challenges:

Rudolph Days -- Christmas

Die Cut Divas -- Holidays

Simon Says Stamp Monday -- Tree

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday -- anything goes

Word Art Wednesday #623 -- anything goes

Pattie's Creations #212 -- use an image

 

Pretty poppies

 Mrs. A has another fun Butterfly Challenge up, this one calling for poppies and lots of layers. I don't usually do a lot of layers, so this was a bit of a challenge.

I started by picking out  this Penny Black Stickeroo, then went looking for coordinating snippets to use for my layering panels. I focused on finding colors that worked will with the background colors, letting the red poppies, well, "pop" in contrast. As you can see from the photo of the snippets, I found one that had already been border punched and decided to use it as is. I used the white snippet by applying the sticker to it, then trimming it down to leave a small white reveal around the edges, then used a corner rounder to echo the rounded edges of the sticker.

I also used the last bit of that darker blue snippet for the Thinking of You Sentiment (a stamp which I came across by accident; it's part of a set I haven't used in ages.)

I punched out the butterfly and realized the snippet I'd used had failed heat embossing on the other side, but I liked how the white sort of breaks up the colors and chose to use it as it.

This card is entered in these challenges:

Butterfly Challenge #189

Snippets Playground #467

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday -- Thinking of you

Pammie's Inky Pinkies #2345 -- anything goes

Word Art Wednesday #621 -- anything goes

Cocoa Christmas

 It's about time to be working on Christmas cards, isn't it? Here's my latest.

The central image is from Stamplorations -- a gingerbread man in a mug of cocoa. How cute is that? I've centered it on a die-cut doily and used a couple of fun pieces of Christmas patterned paper behind them. The sentiment is from Purple Onion, white embossed on red with a red gem.

This card is entered in these Challenges:

Die-Cut Divas -- Holiday cards

Double-Trouble #152 -- coffee/cocoa (met challenges 1 and 2)

Coffee Lovers blog hop -- cocoa theme

Word Art Wednesday #621 -- anything goes

Pammie's Inky Pinkies #2344 -- anything goes

Jingles Belles -- Hard Candy Christmas/Christmas treats

 

Butterfly joy fold

 

I love joy fold cards, but I rarely remember to do them because I forget how easy they are. Luckily, Mrs. A. asked us to make a joy fold for the current Butterfly Challenge, and I got reacquainted with this simple but lovely technique.

Because the Butterfly Challenge is also to make a monochromatic card this go-round, I started by collecting a bunch of blue snippets I thought would work well, from a Navy blue  to several blue and white prints.(see photo to right) I ended up using the two large solid-colored snippets for the base card and the second folded element, and just two prints to cover some of the dark blue. (I think the lighter blue is lovely and wanted to keep it uncovered.) 

My butterfly mage is actually a used postage stamp. I used to collect stamps off all the mail I got and recently looked at what I have stashed away. This stamp really stood out. I squared off the edges of the bit of envelope I'd saved and matted that on a small dark blue snippet. There's lace tape along the edge, and the sentiment "thinking of you" is stamped in navy.

This card is for these challenges:

Butterfly Challenge #188 (monochromatic blue, joy fold, lace)

Simon Says Stamp Monday -- thinking of you

Double Trouble  #191-- something/anything (Thing 1 and thing 3, circles on lace)

Snippets Playground #466 -- use snippets

CRAFT #696 -- anything goes

Crafts Galore Encore #117-- anything goes

Word Art Wednesday #619  --anything goes

 

Beekeeper's birthday

My BIL's birthday is coming up. He took up beekeeping a few years ago, so I decided to make a bee themed card for him. I came across these cool postage stamps featuring a bee on a flower and decided to use them as an interesting art element.  To create the card, I stenciled hexagons for a honeycomb background, mounted that on  gray card stock cut with a stitched die, and attached that to a black card. The sentiment is black embossed next to the postage stamps, then mounted on a black piece of cardstock. It's pretty simple, but it meets my idea of a masculine birthday card.

This card is entered in these challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday -- anything goes

Word Art Wednesday #619 -- anything goes

Stencil fun -- use stencils

Double Trouble #150 -- (no patterned paper, flower,, garden insect; plus entered at partner site)

Crafter's Cafe #302 -- flowers

Pammie's Inky Pinkies #2342 -- anything goes

Pink Christmas

 I love it when a couple of challenge themes work together to suggest a card. ABC Christmas and the Jingle Belles did that for me. ABC Christmas has the theme "U for Use it Up" and I went digging through my file of stickers and embellishments (some which have moved house with me three times). The Jingle Belles wanted pink Christmas, which led me to these sparkly pink and green stickers. All I had to do was arrange them on pink cardstock, matt that on green cardstock, add some sequins, and draw in a slim border. Presto-change-o, it's a retro pink Christmas card.

This card is entered n these challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday -- Christmas

ABC Christmas -- U for Use it Up (stickers)

Jingle Belles -- pink Christmas

CRAFT #694 -- nontraditional Christmas colors

Word Art Wednesday #617 -- anything goes

Pammie's Inky Pinkies #2340 -- anything goes

 

C.R.A.F.T Challenge #692

 

I am the guest designer for the C.R.A,F.T challenge this week, thanks to having been named a top pick for a previous challenge earlier this year.

This week's C.R.A.F.T. Challenge, #692, has a theme of wedding/anniversary. The sponosr is All Dressed Up, which offers some really cute digi stamps -- including this one, called Just Married. The winner of the random draw for this challenge gets two images of their choice from All Dressed Up.

Entries via the linky on the C.R.A. F.T. Challenge blog page are due by 6 p.m. GMT Wednesday, Oct 4.  Hope you can play along.

For my card, I colored the All Dressed up image with simple colored pencils and framed it with a silver stitched frame. The sentiment is silver-embossed of vellum, and a few heart-shaped sequins finish the piece.