All the girly elements

I don't do super girly too often, but this one has all the elements -- pink, fairies, ribbons, charms, pearls....
The image is from Fairie Song Art Stamps. She is colored in pencils, with her skirt paper-pieced.  There's some Spica glitter pen o her wins and stars, and the wings are tipped with teeny pearls. Ii used an out-of-the-box cut to fit her in the oval.
The sentiment is from The Alley Way Stamps, stamped on vellum. I used pearls to hide the adhesive.
I've bee want to try a "junk bow" for a while and had all the elements for this card.  It's snippets of four different ribbons, secured with some embroidery floss, with a charm hanging from it.

I'm entering these challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday -- girly
Inky Impressions #199 -- dots or stripes (how about both)
The Paper Shelter #193-- fairies
Crafting for All Seasons #97 -- girly girls
Crafty Ribbons 114-- ribbon, pearls, charm
Loves Rubberstamps 141 -- anything goes
Word Art Wednesday 173 -- anything goes
CHCN patterned paper March -- patterned paper

It's cold enough for penguins

(The title of the post is all I'm going to say about the weather here....)
Crafty Ribbons Challenge asks us to make a card that was at least 90 black and white.  What's more black and white than penguins?  I just added the tiniest bit of orange to brighten it up.
The sketch is STAMPlorations #28, with a strip of dotted ribbon running down the edge of the plaid panel.  I added a button and some orange embroidery floss.

I'm entering these challenges.
STAMPlorations #28 -- sketch
Crafty Ribbons #113 -- black and white
Inky Impressions #197 -- cute and cuddly
Creative Inspirations #301 -- buttons
The Paper Shelter #191 -- animal
Papertake Weekly -- Bingo (ribbon/die/button)
CHCN Patterned paper Challenge -- use patterned paper

A bit of paradise

The temperature is hovering around freezing, and it's anybody's guess where it will be when we get precipitation tonight, but "wintry mix" is probably in our immediate future. Who wouldn't be dreaming of  a sunny day at the beach?
I combined Crafty Ribbon's theme of nautical and Simon Says Stamp's theme of a piece of paradise and got this. The digi image is colored with pencils.  The quote is stamped in brown ink on kraft paper.  The ribbons have an ombre-blue effect and have frayed edges, so they look sort of weathered and beachy.
I'm entering this card in these challenges:
Crafty Ribbons 112: Nautical
Simon Says Stamp Monday: Piece of Paradise
Word Art Wednesday #170: Anything Goes
Creative Inspirations #300: Anything Goes

Just a few flake

Here's another Christmas card, using a blue color scheme.
The centerpiece is two snowflakes, one cut from snippets of vellum, the other white cardstock, layered on a dark blue square.  (The die is a little Sizzix one I picked up at the craft consignment sale, and truth is it's seen better days.) Behind that are four squares of my favorite snowflake paper (also snippets, I'm down to just a little of that pattern).

The sketch here is from Catch the Bug; I finished the card with some snowflake ribbon and a sentiment in Night of Navy.

I'm playing in these challenges:

Clear it Out -- blues and ribbon
Crafty Ribbon -- monochromatic Christmas
C.R.A.F.T #288 -- Christmas
Catch the Bug -- Holiday Chaos sketch
Die Cut Divas -- Snow/Christmas
Simon Says Wednesday -- Christmas
Pixie's Snippet Playground #154 -- use snippets

Scoring saves the day

It happens to me all the time -- I  finish the card, then think "this would look so much better if I had embossed that panel." Happened again when I made this card -- that green panel was so flat and BORING, but it was too late to emboss it without possibly tearing everything up. Then I had a great idea -- if I can't emboss it, I can at least score it.  Quick, simple and it made a difference. I really need to remember to emboss more, but now I know I can save some cards with a few score lines; my genius moment for the day.

The card features Prickly Pear stamps and matching die I picked up for a song at the craft consignment sale.  They are stamped in Burgundy and popped up over a panel that features a patterned paper of ornaments. The printed paper actually gives a sense of depth, and with the Pop Dots, this card has some
dimension in real life. The ornaments are "hanging" off burgundy colored cording. The ribbon running under the ornaments says "Merry Christmas" in silver -- it was hard to photograph well.

This card is for these challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge:  Ornaments
Die Cut Divas November Challenge -- Holiday spirit
Crafty Ribbons #106 -- Christmas with Ribbons
C.R.A.F.T. 285 -- Christmas
Really Reasonable Ribbons #106 -- Winter holiday with ribbons
Word Art Wednesday #158  -- Anything Goes

For a friend

First off, has Google been tampering with Blogger?  I can only see one blog post where there should be a whole scroll of lovely blogs you people have posted.  There's a "see more" button, but it's not working. If anyone knows if there's a way to fix it, or if you're having the same trouble, please let me know.

This card is for a friend who is having knee troubles. Bad knees run in my family, so she has all my sympathy for what she's going through. I pulled out a couple of old Stampin' Up sets for this. The flower is a two-step, and I think that might be the best I've ever done at lining up the two stamps.

The green layers are Coredination paper -- I embossed with Swiss Dots and sanded the dots. Frankly, probably not the best EF to use for that particular technique. The bottom layer looks black, but it's actually a deep purple that matches the deep purple spots on the ribbon.

I'm entering in several challenges

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday -- friends
Crafty Ribbons #94 -- ribbon with spots
Loves Rubber Stamps #108 -- Spots and dots
Creative Inspiration #270 -- add a bow
Sketch Saturday #315 -- the sketch
Pixie's Snippet Playground #130 -- All the papers are from the cut-up snippets file.

Antique car

I don't know why, but I love antique cars. I think it would be fun to actually ride in one (though probably not very comfortable). This image is from Rubbernecker, and I thought it would make a good Father's Day card.

The image is black embossed, and I learned that EP and OMS don't play nice together. It could be because I colored the image immediately after embossing it, so possibly the powder didn't totally set up (?), but the OMS caused it to smear and mess up my pencil coloring. (I'll have to do some testing with images that were embossed a while ago to see if that hypothesis holds up.)

I chose all the colors out of the background paper. The blue strip is embossed with a Sizzix folder. The sentiment is simply computer-generated, die cut and mounted with another circle of the same size that is offset a little. Tan grosgrain ribbon seems masculine enough to me. I did some sponging with distress ink around the main image because the white was just too stark.

I would like to enter the card into these challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge:  Travel/vacation
Crafty Ribbons #90, Drive Time
Simply Create Too #63: Father's Day
Word Art Wednesday #133, Anything goes
Sister Act #58, Anything Goes
Die Cut Divas May -- Die cuts plus an embellishment (ribbon and glitter pen)

Caged Bird

I got this bird and cage die on clearance -- after everyone else was tired of it, probably. This is the first time I've used it on a card and I sort of went all Tim Holtzy, with lots of ink applied DTP and layers of stamping. (Well, OK, Tim would have lots more color and lots more stuff on it....)

For the background, I stamped text in Versamark and applied clear EP on it. (My clear EP is getting a little dirty and probably needs to be replaced....) The edges of that panel are sponged in Creamy Caramel.  The cage and bird were die-cut with cream paper. I applied some copper-colored ink directly on the cage, and added a brown ribbon on top. For the bird, I stamped a music score stamp in Creamy Caramel and a darker sepia and applied the sepia ink around the edges. I also stamped the two layers of white flowers with the musical score.

The card is for the following challenges:

Really Reasonable Ribbon #93, Monochromatic with Ribbon
Crafty Ribbons #85, anything goes with Ribbon
Feeling Sketchy #87, sketch
Simon Says Monday Challenge, Winged Things
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge, Animal Antics
Sister Act card challenge #53, Anything goes.

Fairytales

This is a fun project I found on Splitcoast called a slider card. Basically, it's a pocket card with a twist. The ribbon goes all the way to the bottom of the pocket and when you pull on it, the card slides out.

Both the fairy and the sentiment are from Fairy Song. I colored the fairy with pencils, then covered her wings
in very pale yellow superfine glitter. I don't think the photo captures how pretty it is. I also used Stickles on her lantern and on all the stars in the sentiment.I decorated the bottom of the sentiment card with punched border strips that match the colors on the pocket.

I'm entering this card in this challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday, Glitter
Totally Papercraft #211, Beautiful Borders
Crafty Ribbons #81, Anything Goes with Ribbon,
Papertake Weekly, Challenge, For a girlie
Created with Love #78, Girly
Word Art Wednesday #124, Anything Goes