Ready for Spring

OK, enough cold. I'm ready for spring. Luckily, several challenges this week let me indulge that urge. First off, Kim introduced pink along with Christmas red and green for this week's Off the Wall Craftiness challenge (OTWC 38) -- see inspiration photo below. And Etsy Inspired Challenge (EIC 119) this week looks at the beautiful pendants made by artist Ling Glass, which feature glass and delicate metalwork. I liked this one called "love stained glass pendant." Finally, this week's Teapot Tuesday challenge was to do something artistic or painterly, so I made a still life.

Stamp is an old one, purchased from the company now known as Sparkle and Sprinkle. Sentiment is by Impression-Obsession. It's colored with pencil and OMA. The Ling Glass pendant gave me the inspiration to use the heart-shaped clip, to which I added a little gingham ribbon. (Someone else liked that pendant too. It moved from "for sale" to "Sold" between the time I picked it out as an inspiration and the time I'm posting this card.)

Merry Christmas everyone.

Merry merry

It's time to get serious about making Christmas cards (and doing everything else Christmas -- I am so behind this year....).

I used the current Card Positioning System sketch (CPS196) for this card, which also qualifies for this month's SmArt-Word Challenge, "merry."

The flourish is from Autumn Leaves, stamped in Versmark and covered with Winter Wonderland (sparkly-white) EP. There are little green gel dots at the ends of some of the swirls. The ornament is by Stampabilities, done in StaZon and watercolored. I used a glitter pen to add some glitz to the ornament and ornament holder. The sentiment is taken off another stamp -- I used a marker on the part I wanted to stamp and hoped I got the placement right when I added it to the image.

Striped paper is from a Christmas stack from Hobby Lobby -- several people have told me they liked the appearance of crimped paper it gives.

This week's Off the Wall Craftiness challenge (OTWC 36) is a monochromatic challenge -- using shades of brown. (The inspiration photo is to the lower right) Actually, I like monochromatic brown, which is kind of a peaceful calming combination.

My monochromatic brown card will probably be a birthday card for my Dad. I've probably given him a shirt or tie in every shade of brown in the card -- he's a real traditionalist when it comes to clothes, so brown is right down his alley.

There's only a little stamping on this. The sentiment is from SmArt Works, stamped in Chestnut Roan (Colorbox fluid chalk ink). I've had that marbled paper for ages, and haven't wanted to cut it before, but it worked perfectly for this challenge. (And marbled paper is a pretty tradional design, too, along with the polka dots.)

Simple Cards

The theme for this month's SmArt-Word Challenge is "Simplicity." I had this idea for a CAS card for the holidays, and this was a perfect chance to make it. It couldn't be simpler, really. It's a one-layer card. The angel's dress is paper pieced with vellum, and there's a little piercing around the edges. I used glitter pen on the angel wings. That's it for embellishments.

Stamp credits -- sentiment is from Serendipity, angel is unknown to me.

Girly Christmas

This week's Off the Wall Craftiness (OTWC33) colors are springy pink and grass green. (See the inspiration photo below -- it sounds like Kim is trying to put winter off as long as possible.) Nothing says Christmas like pink and green, right? OK, I just have Christmas cards on the brain, but I also had this plaid paper that worked perfectly for the challenge, so I paper pieced the tree. The card is also for a VSN challenge calling for "floating sentiment" (the sentiment is popped up on pop-dots and "floating" into the main image.)

Once I'd gotten all that done, I needed something down in the lower right corner corner, and added a few ribbon tabs. And since it still needed something, a little paper piercing. (Seriously, I so rarely go into these things with a plan, it's amazing anything ever comes out useable.)

I kind of like it, non-traditional colors and all.

Let's try "elegant"

This week's Off the Wall Craftiness challenge (OTWC31) challenged us to use the "Halloween" color combo of orange, black and white. But Halloween is history now, so I got as far away from Halloween as I could. Instead, I went elegant, focusing on the black and white with just a hint of orange. (And elegant realy seems more fitting for the inspiration photo at right, especially the chandelier.)

The flourish is from Purple Onion Designs, embossed with black detail EP. The layout is CASEd from a recent "queen for the day" challenge at SCS -- she used a long quote in place of an image. The sentiment is stamped on a tiny acrylic oval, adding just a touch of orange to the color scheme.

Non-traditional Christmas colors

This week's Off the Wall Craftiness Challenge (OTCW30) uses the colors of brown, white and green (you can see the inspiration photo below). I used them to make a Christmas card in somewhat non-traditional colors. The card is also a CASE of this week's Queen for the Day at SCS.

The stamps are really old ones -- the tree is from SU and the other a cheapy from Hobby Lobby. I used winter wonderland (sparkly white) EP. I love how it shows up on dark colors, and I use it a lot instead of white ink (which I have no luck with). The lace is an adhesive paper lace from K & Co. and the snowflake is actually a button.