I haven’t done many, if any, challenges for quite a while. I am on the Search Team at my church and we have been very busy for the past few months finding a new lead pastor. But, God led us to HIS choice and now it’s up to the Elders to recognize him as God’s choice, too.
So, I actually looked at a challenge this week. The MFT Sketch Challenge looked like fun and I actually did it.
Thanks for spending some of your valuable time with me today! Have an amazing week.
Okay, I know that sounds weird, but I’m in charge of the challenge at the We Craft Cards Discord site this week and my challenge is inspired by our Presidents. As paper money honors presidents, the challenge is to make a mini slimline card that is close to the size of paper money and fits in the envelopes that hold money. There’s a bonus to the challenge, that if they use different sized circles, representing the coins that also honor our presidents, they get an extra entry.
Here are two examples:
These are both close to 3″ by 6″ and both have different sizes of circles, just in different ways.
Now this second one, I did in pink and black and included dragonflies to work for another challenge a friend of mine found. It’s called Paper Dragonfly Creative Challenges. This is their second challenge and is an Anything Flies (goes) with just pink and black. So, a shimmer dark pink background, black shimmer dragonflies, black embossing powder, and pink bling. This bling was called Spoonful of Confetti. I have no clue what company made it, but these are great pink holographic holeless sequins. They are wonderful! The shimmer sheets are from MFT, granted they are old, so probably retired. The top dragonfly is a Spellbinder’s die and the bottom is called Light Dragonfly from Couture Creations. The sentiment is from a Gina K set called Grand Garden.
Thank you for spending some of your valuable time with me today! Have a wonderful weekend.
The following is this week’s MFT Sketch for their sketch challenge. I like it, but changed it up a bit.
I have a friend who is having knee replacement surgery on Monday. She also LOVES coffee, so thought this would be a fun one for her.
My “square” is a shaker with lots of fun elements that went well with the paper, as well as some dark browns for coffee. Inside is a sentiment from the BB Hug It Out set, “I Know Hugs are Healing, so I’m sending you my best hug ever.” Used some glitter paper for the coffee cup.
My take on the sketch is a bit different, but I had fun with it and made it for someone in particular.
Thank you for spending some of your valuable time with me today! Have a great rest of your weekend.
For any of those who know about my health, I started on a new type of pump on Thursday. The sensors arrived today, which will help keep me level. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the Tandem pump and the Dexcom sensors help stabilize my diabetes.
A friend found and shared a new challenge which is a monthly color challenge. Their February color is red. As I have a friend with a birthday the end of this week, who loves red, I made the following card for her per the challenge.
I know it looks like there is pink in the background, as well, but it was supposed to be red. So, I’m calling it a pale red. 😉 I took a Spellbinders class with Bibi Cameron last weekend and the kit for the class included a butterfly stamp set and die set that will be released on February 14. I know I’m sharing it early, but it’s a great set. There are other pieces that will be released as well that look amazing. I’m figuring this is good advertising for them.
The die in the background is from My Favorite Things and is called Graphic Roses. Unfortunately, it is no longer available. The butterflies are using the Spellbinders die set.
My husband doesn’t like the “messy look” of splatters and sprays, but I think they give a lot of character. I’m pretty sure my friend will enjoy her card.
Thank you for spending some of your valuable time with me today.
It’s been a long time since I’ve done a sketch challenge, so thought I would try the My Favorite Things weekly sketch challenge. It’s not exact, but I needed the bookmark to be removable and usable.
This is a galentine, yes, a card for a friend on Valentine’s Day.
Used the Graphic Roses Die-namic from MFT, as well as a hearts Die-namic. Neither of which they still carry. That’s really sad, as they are both great dies.
Thank you for spending some of your valuable time with me today.
I haven’t done a blog post in way too long. For the past week and a half I’ve been down sick. Had no clue it was Covid until my doctor refused to see me AFTER I was in her exam room. She did do a virtual appointment, though it would have been nice to know that before wasting my time to go. I did get tested and yes, I have it. Best thing she did was order a Z PAC in case it was something else. The Z PAC helped.
Anyway, I’ve been too busy to be upright for more than a few minutes at a time. I had signed up for an online Spellbinders class today and even though I hadn’t gotten all the prep work done, the class was a lot of fun. I was actually able to stay upright through the whole thing.
As few people as see my blog, I’m going to share what I did. I’m betting you’ll check it out when they release it on Valentine’s Day.
For the class, the kit included a stamp set and 1 die set, as well as the pieces for the pop up. That’s a good one I’d want to get, if my BFF hadn’t offered to share.
I do recommend Bibi Cameron’s class and the sets from Spellbinders. It was fun, especially as I haven’t been able to create for a while.
So, Day 8 was Winter Themed Envelopes. I didn’t make my own envelopes, as I had some already made, so decorated those. I wasn’t impressed with how many of them turned out, but it was still fun trying something different.
Now, Day 9 was Coloring Hot Foiling. I figured that out as I played in September, after getting my Glimmer machine for my birthday. But, I did it a bit different here, as I foiled onto some of the backgrounds that I had done and were in my “to be used” file (it’s HUGE as I like to try a lot of things when making backgrounds). Then, I added color to the images. I used a couple different ways. I actually did more than these, but didn’t take pictures.
The second one was my favorite and actually the first I did. I had foiled onto a piece of acetate that I used alcohol inks on the back of. Then colored the foiled images with alcohol markers. Heat embossed the sentiment on it with some fun glitter embossing powder.
Day 10 was Stencil Resist. Oh, this one was fun. Granted there are tons of ways to do a resist, but for this one, paste was applied through a stencil, then watercolored over. The paste picks up some of the color, but not too much. Definitely had fun with this one.
When I did this, I added too much water to my panel and washed most of the color out, so went back and added more color. I liked the color better after just the markers as it had more blues and less yellow, but thought this was good for Christmas. My poinsettia was also smaller than I remembered, but after adding a few bits of bling, I think it worked. I hot embossed the poinsettia, then added a bit of color to the image.
Day 11 was to add Snow. So many ways to add “snow” to cards and I think I’ve tried a good number of them. For this one, I used some Cosmic Expressions Fluffy Stuff that expands when you heat it. So much fun to play with! Granted, it does break off and get smooshed, but still fun.
Day 12 was Storybook Style Coloring. That’s pretty much how I color, so here are a couple of tags that I did for the Day 14 DIY Striped Patterned Papers with the images colored sort of like that.
Day 13 was a see through shaker. It was supposed to be a card and I did have plans, but no time. I needed to do more tags, so made see through shaker tags.
Day 14 I already told you about, but here are a few more of the tags.
I had a whole lot of fun trying things in different ways and trying a few new things in this class. I do recommend the Holiday Card Workshop 2021. If nothing else, you’ll have some fun creating.
Now, I’ve gotten very behind on other stuff, so probably won’t be around for a bit. Thank you for sharing some of your valuable time with me!
It’s definitely not winter here, but it’s fun to make Christmas and winter cards as homework for the Holiday card Workshop 2021 at OnlineCardClasses. Com.
Day 6 was Stepped Up Stencils. They had some fun ideas for using stencils. Here’s what I did:
Had fun masking and inking. I did use a different stencil with glitter glue on the top right and bottom left areas, but I was almost out and it didn’t work well. My son really liked it, though. I decided to do a small shaker in the center. My husband couldn’t read the sentiment, so I went over the words with a blue Sakura Stardust pen.
Day 7 was Blended Backgrounds with Extra Details. I liked what they showed, but did mine differently.
I started by foiling some snowflakes, then masking and inking my panel. I wasn’t sure if heat embossing on top of the foiled panel would work, but was impressed when it worked beautifully. The foil is a pearl looking one and the embossing is black.
Definitely had fun with both of these.
Thank you for spending some of your valuable time with me today.
A friend of mine got the Online Card Classes Holiday Card Workshop 2021 and was given permission to “share” it with me. As it is her class, I can share my cards here, but not in the gallery. So, here is week 1:
Day 1 was “Nighttime Lights”. I did have fun with this one.
These were done on a triangle fold base, which is great, as you still have a full A2 size panel inside for writing.
Day 2 was “Mass Produced Cards”. This one took too much time and boy did I get inky. It was fun using a Concord and 9th Turn About Set, though. There are 6 cards in my set. The front and center one was my tester. I like it enough to give away, but decided to change it up a bit for the rest.
Day 3 was “Full-Card Shaker Cards”. I’ve done these before and really enjoy them. This one, a couple of my pieces were a bit big and as I embossed the panel, things catch a bit more. It seems more like fall to me this way. I also used Thanksgiving as my “holiday” for this one.
Day 4 was “Easy 2 for 1 Gel Press Printing”. I have done this before and enjoyed it. Yesterday I was having tons of trouble with it. Finally got a couple I liked enough to use. It’s sad when the sheets where I rolled off the extra paint were better than the panels I was working on.
Day 5 was “Dry Embossing”. I have embossed with a stencil many times, but everything was just going wrong, yesterday. I wound up ripping a brand new stencil, but used it for the background piece, anyway. The ornament was embossed using a different stencil, then I inked through the stencil, as well. It was a faded inked piece. Added a bit of bling to the ornament to jazz it up.
The “Merry Christmas” was cut out of a red shimmer sheet, so this card has all kinds of sparkle to it.
This is a 12 day class, but I never know when I’ll have time to participate, so as I got these done, I’m sharing them, now. So you know, this year’s Christmas cards are vertical. Next year’s are horizontal. Some of these are for next year.
Have a great weekend! Thank you for spending some of your valuable time with me today.
The challenge at WeCraftCards.com this week was to do a 6×6 One Sheet Wonder. I didn’t like the patterns I saw, so made my own:
Sketched out at work on a sticky note.
Then it was making the cards with all of my pieces from two 6×6 sheets of patterned paper cut accordingly. I knew I wanted to use my Simon Says Stamp Frog set, which is why I choose the papers I did. Not great choices, but I thought they would be. Anyway, stamped 6 frogs and colored them, then started putting the cards together. Had pieces left for 2 more cards, so found some other things for those.
The problem with one sheet wonders for me is that I have all these pieces, and don’t know what to do with them. I’d much rather do a card or two at a time. This took me all week. Granted, it was a busy week.
Thanks for checking out what I did this week! Have a wonderful weekend.
Cards and Candles in Progress 