A little rain

Here's a card to cheer someone  up a rainy day.  I added a few touches of yellow to add a ray of sunshine.
The layout is the current one from Sketch Saturday (#329). The cute image is from Crafty Sentiments, colored in pencils.  There is paper glaze on the puddle the bunny is standing in, and the umbrella is paper-pieced with a hound's tooth patterned paper that picks up the colors from the cloud-and-rain patterned paper. I used white gel pen to doodle around the edges.  The bow is made from crinkled seam binding*.  The blue glass beads are on a small stick pin.

* To get the crinkled look, simply wet a length of seam binding, scrunch it up into a tight ball (I tie mine with a bit of string) and let it dry.

This card is for these challenges:
Sketch Saturday #329
Clear it Out -- use gray (papers are stash item)
Whoopsi Daisy -- two or more patterned papers (clouds and hound's tooth)
Word Art Wednesday #151 -- anything goes
Sister Act #76-- Anything Goes
Inky Impressions #178 -- anything goes

On the production line

When I first started making my own Christmas cards, I did it production line style. Then I realized I wasn't really enjoying it and decided I needed some variety in my cardmaking for it to be fun. However, since I was using the same image three times in this design, I figured it would be just as easy to stamp a few more and make a second card, qualifying for Sarn's Rudolph Day Challenge.  And it turned out I had just enough snippets to turn out two cards that are virtually identical.

The tree (from some cheap little unbranded set I picked up at HL years ago) is colored with pencils, with the star colored with a glitter pen.  There are two layers of glitter garlands on the tree -- I started with Diamond Stickles but once they had dried, I thought they were not obvious enough and added Silver Stickles. (Christmas cards need obvious glitter, right?).

The patterned papers (all snippets) are from an Echo Park stack.  The panel that runs the width of the card has thin red satin ribbon along the edges.

ETA: Whoops, I meant to put a sentiment in the lower right corner....  I'll do that before these get mailed.

I'm entering this card in these challenges

Rudolph Day, September
Pixie's Snippet Playground #143
Word Art Wednesday # 151, Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday, Anything Goes
Inky Impressions #178, Anything Goes

It's flocking time

I've mentioned before I have one pot of Flower Soft, and  use it to make flowering trees on spring cards. I realized today I follow the same pattern with my flocking -- I use it in fall cards, for the center of sunflowers. I think I need to find some other images to use it with....
The image on this card is from Mark's Finest Paper, colored with pencils and with that lovely brown flocking.  The leaves are cut from Spellbinder's die called Little Leaf Sets.  The dotted paper is from my mind's eye, and the closely matching baker's twine is Martha Stewart. The ribbon behind the leaves and  twine has a tiny checked pattern.

I would like to enter the card in these challenges:
Crafting for All Seasons #86-- colors of autumn
Paper Shelter #174-- ribbon or twine
Creative Inspiration #281-- Going Dotty
Cuttlebug Mania -- die cuts
Clear it Out -- polka Dots
Crafy Hazelnut's patterned paper challenges, September  -- anything goes with dp
Word Art Wednesday #150 -- Anything Goes

A touch of fall

Energized by a touch of fall in the air (after a Saturday that was so blazing hot we spent about an hour at a festival and decided to leave rather than risk heatstroke), I made a fall card. I used a technique from the latest Technique Junkie's newsletter, creating a quilt pattern from snippets and then embossing it. I love this bad of fall-patterned papers so I wanted to make use of every bit of it.
The sktch is the current Sketch Saturday sketch, #327.
The sentiment is from Mark's Finest Paper, stamped in Colorbox Chalk maroon ink. I used copper paper for the die-cut leaves.  The maroon strip along the left edge is actually the leftover from a scallop border.
I would like to enter this card in these challenges
Sketch Saturday, sketch 327
Pixie's Snippet Playground #142
Simon Says Monday -- Rock the Techniques
Whoopsi Daisy -- autumn colors
Word Art Wednesday #149, Anything goes.

Dragonfly dance

Mrs. A, owner of The Butterfly Challenge, asked us to bring other winged creatures this time around for an Ugly Bug Ball.  Since I have several dragonfly stamps (remember were dragonflies were everywhere?) I decided to bring them.
The dragonflies (Inkadinkadoo) are silver-embossed on black paper, and matted on a white panel. Behind that panel is a piece of polished stone, which is actually a snippet that's been sitting around since who knows when. It's made with various Ranger alcohol inks, and some silver mixative. (It fits the make your own challenge at Simon Says).  
I sponged some Bliss Blue on white prima flowers and pierced around the lower right edge of the main panel.
I would like to enter the card in these challenges:
Butterfly #14, bugs with wings
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday, make your own background paper (polished stone)
Simon Says Stamp Monday, Stamptember
The Paper Shelter #173, embossing of any kind
Pixie's Snippet Playground #141 (everything is a snippet, including the polished stone, black and white)
Word Art Wednesday #149, anything goes
Creative Inspiration #280, Anything Goes

Loving those leaves

Autumn is my favorite time of the year. Of course, here in the Southeast we are a long way from autumn, but at least I know it will come, eventually.
I truly do love leaves as an art element, about as much as I like flowers. I have a good number of leaf images, and over the summer I bought the Spellbinder's Little Leaf set. (Got it from the vendor I worked for at a scrapbooking show -- it's been discontinued.) I also bought a fall-themed stack of 4x6 patterned paper  (K&Co. Tim Coffey Fall Mat pad), so I was ready to tackle a fall card.  Both these items count as Never Been Used Stuff, so I was excited to see Darnell announce her second NBUS challenge.
Since the leaf paper is so pretty, I didn't want to use an image to compete with it; I just used this sentiment from Rubbernecker.
I sat down with my basket of snippet papers and started die-cutting until I had a huge pile of little leaves in various fall colors. I picked out some that complement the pattern paper and used them to embellish the sentiment panel. (You'll probably see others throughout the fall.)  The copper ribbon hides the seam between the two pieces of card stock and gives the card a little shine.

I am entering the card in these challenges
NBUS #2 -- Leaf dies and paper stack are NBUS
Really Reasonable Ribbons #102 -- fall colors and ribbon
Die Cut Divas -- Something new (leaf die)
Whoopsi Daisy -- leaves
Pixie's Snippet Playground 140 -- snippets (all those leaves)

Boldly to go

       Miss Carter, who taught 11th grade honors English when I was in high school, was a stickler for grammar. The Star Trek motto, she said, should not be "to boldly go where no human has gone" but "boldly to go ...." so as to avoid the split infinitive. I distinctly remember making a sarcastic comment that "boldly to go" sounded like a deli order.
       So, today I went boldly, encouraged by the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge to "be bold".  For me, combining a ton of orange and yellow is pretty bold.
       The sketch is Sketch Saturday sketch 232, which I pulled out for their current challenge to pick a previous sketch. (I substituted an oval for the circle but otherwise followed pretty closely.)
       The butterfly (Stamps on Fire), is black embossed, and I used an out-of-the-box cut on the wings before cutting the oval. The ovals are up on pop dots.
        The sentiment is from CTMH and stamped with Memento black ink.
        The yellow card stock is embossed with a Sizzix folder run thru the trusty Cuttlebug, and the swirly pattern sort of has a similar feel to the print on the orange paper.  A few gel dots finish the card.
I'd like to enter these challenges:
Sketch Saturday #325
Butterfly Chalenge #13, butterfly and sentiment
Cuttlebug Mania, Anything embossed
Simon Says Stamp Monday, Be Bold
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday, Use a Stamp
Word Art Wednesday #148, Anything Goes
Loves Rubberstamps #119, Anything Goes