Watercolor Christmas

 I've recently become interested in watercolors and have tried a few simple things along with the new watercoloring challenge at Splitcoast. This one was really easy -- use painters tape to mask off a triangle, fill it with green watercolor, and decorate. I used gold acrylic paint and gold embossing to finish off the card.

The card is entered in these challenges:

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge #522 -- Christmas

Word Art Wednesday #470 -- anything goes

Craftyhazelnut's Patterned Paper challenge -- use patterned paper.

Blue snowflake

 

I think I've said this before, but I'll repeat myself. I love snowflakes as an image or design element, but I prefer they stay out of my life when it comes to weather.

For this card, I played with lots of different snowflakes. The big die-cuts are from a teal colored snippet of cardstock. For the background, I took an array of different sized snowflake stamps and used second, third, and even fouth generation stamping, to keep the background for overwhelming the die-cuts. The sentiment is white-embossed on a pale blue snippet of vellum. (I had trouble getting the vellum to cut straight, and now that I think about it, I usually tear vellum rather than cutting it. I guess that's why.)

This card is entered in these challenges:

CRAFT # 577 -- Christmas

Double D -- winter blues

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge #516 -- anything Christmas

ABC Christmas -- Winter Wonderland

Pixie's Snippet Playground #390-- use snippets 

Pammie's Inky Pinkies #2046 -- anything goes

Word Art Wednesday # 466 -- anything goes

Crafty Sentiments -- anything goes

Christmas Fun Fold

 I know a lot of people just love fun folds. These folds usually intimidate me, but this one was actually crazy easy. It's called a Triple Fold, and SCS has a tutorial as part of their Falliday Fest. 

It's also a good way to use up snippets, tecuase the two panels on the right only need about an inch to 1.5 inch wide strips of paper on top of the folded cardstock. There's also an inch-wide belly band, which is another good use for snippets.

I used snippets from a 6x6 pad of Christmas card stock where the dominant color is pink -- and don't ask why I bought pink Christmas paper because I'm not sure. (Some of the patterns are non-Christmasy, such as polka dots, so maybe I was thinking it would be multipurpose?) The pad also has a sheet of coordinating sentiments, and I used one on pop-dots for the center of this card. 

I'm entering this card in these challenges:

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge #515  -- anything Christmas

Craftyhazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge -- use patterned paper

 Pixie's Snippet Playground #390 -- use snippets

Word Art Wednesday #464 -- anything goes

Catch the Bug -- November anything goes

Crafty Sentiments -- Anything goes

Pammie's Inky Pinkies #2045  -- anything goes

The Holly and the Ivy #83 -- anything Christmas

Slimline Christmas

 I'm just getting into slimline cards, and I used the current sketch at SCS to create a Christmas card. The snow-covered ground is torn card stock, the trees are cut from a sparkly white paper, and the silver circle is the moon. I found a good use for almost the very last bit of one of my favorite patterned papers for the edges.

This card is entered in these challenges:

Crafty Sentiments -- anything goes

The Holly & the Ivy #82 -- anything Christmas

Pammie's Inky Pinkies # 2043 -- anything goes

Word ARt Wednesday #462 --anything goes

Rudolph Days Challenge -- anything Christmas

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge #513 -- anything Christmas

Craftyhazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge -- use patterned paper

Happy Halloween

 

It's mid-October, so Halloween is almost here. Deanne has a super-cute inspiration for us in the new PINspirational Challenge. (I go for cute Halloween over scary Halloween, so this pin was perfect for me.)  Hope you'll have a chance to create a project and link up to the challenge blog.

My project began with a stamped image that's been sitting in my stash for a while (I'm pretty sure Princess Judy sent it to me.)  I colored it in pencils. To frame it, I chose a some patterned paper from an old Halloween stack, and the papers in that stack are specifically designed to hold photos because an image is partially cut out and you can tuck an image into the slit. The pattern on the piece I chose echoed the tilework int he background of the inspiration photo and made it look like a big bat is flying over the witch. How fun is that?

For the sentiment, I turned to the computer to make a super-vertical sentiment, which I printed out on a snippet of white cardstock and matted on a snippet from the same Halloween stack. The witch is matted on another snippet from the stack. 

For the final embellishment, I found a couple of old eyelets shaped like ghosts.  (I guess the phrase "old eyelets" is redundant. When was the last time you bought eyelets??)

The witch card is entered in these challenges:

Pixie's Snippet Playground #389 -- use snippets

Craftyhazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge -- use patterned paper

Crafty Sentiments -- Anything goes

Up, up and away

 

I am very slowly starting to make Christmas cars, and I tried my hand at one in the slimline format. It's really very CAS.  The stamps are all from the same set from Whimsy Stamps. First I stamped the cityscape in black ink on a gray panel, then added the Santa and sleigh image flying off after leaving all the gifties.  The sentiment is in red, and there are a few gemstones to a) make it a little more festive and b) fill some space. 

This card is for these challenges:

ABC Christmas --Up in the Air

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge -#512 - anything Christmas

Word Art Wednesday #460--anything goes

Pammie's Inky Pinkies #2042 -- anything goes

Stockings were hung

 

Because I couldn't craft for so long, I'm way behind on Christmas cards.  I used the SCS sketch to come up with a quick one.  The central image features a  BoBunny stamp, which is red embossed and matted on a red-and-white printed snippet. It's popped up on foam tape to make room for the striped baker's twine behind it. 

I edged both the sentiment and the central panel with a little red ink, just because I think it makes the element stand out more.

(Just a note, the background paper is looking blue on my computer screen, but it is definitely green. After multiple attempts to take a photo that better reflects the color, you've got to take my word for it.)

This card is entered into these challenges:

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge #511 --use a stocking

Craftyhazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge  --use patterened paper

Word Art Wednesday #460 -- anything goes

Crafty Sentiments -- anything goes

Pammie's Inky Pinkies #2041 -- anything goes

The Holly and the Ivy #81 -- anything Christmas