Winter Cards

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.

Peeking In

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.

One Sheet Wonder or Work

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.

Another Fall Birthday Card

Had a lot of fun making this one for my brother’s birthday. I used a foiled piece done with my laminator for the background, then added black Distress Oxide ink to it. Wiped it off with a dry cloth so you would see the shine of the foil. The piece was a Gina K hot foiling background piece. I know it really isn’t supposed to be gears/axles, but that is what it reminded me of, so that’s why I used it.

https://heroarts.com/blogs/hero-arts-blog/stay-crafty-with-hero-28?mc_cid=b30572d097&mc_eid=d95037933dThe rest of this were from a Hero Arts Monthly kit from long ago that I loved. Had a lot of fun coloring the bird with Sakura Stardust Pens and some colored pencils. Added some of the Scrapbook.com Pops of Color drops. These are also what I consider fall colors, so I’m sharing this with the Shopping Our Stash Weekly challenge, as well as the Hero Arts Challenge Blog.

Thank you for spending some of your valuable time with me today!

Fall Birthday Card

Have gotten quite behind on birthday cards, so worked on those, yesterday. Here’s one of the ones that I made following the Shopping Our Stash Weekly Challenge.

I pulled out my laminating machine and did some hot foil. The orange piece was a Gina K hot foiling background of dots that I used some sparkling orange foil on, then used a few orange Distress Oxide inks to color. The sentiment piece was another Gina K hot foiling piece that I did with gold Deco foil. Then used 3 different red Distress Oxide inks to color. It looks more red than pink or orange in real life, but not a bright red, as I was looking more for faded red. Used some darkish yellow card from MFT for the background with an Altenew embossing folder. Added a few sequins (red, orange, and yellow), added a bit of clear sparkle Nuvo drops and was done. Had fun making it and it is the differing color of changing leaves that you see in fall. Granted, we don’t see many of those in Phoenix, but I do enjoy seeing pictures of the beautiful changing leaves in other places.

Thank you for spending some of your valuable time with me today.

Recipe Challenge

I’m hosting next week’s challenge at WeCraftCards.com. Our challenges this month are all about fall. So, I went with a recipe challenge as it’s cooling off enough to start baking again. (A recipe challenge is just that, a recipe of things that must be used/done to make your project.)

Here are my 3 examples:

Now, I’m not going to tell you what the recipe is, but all 3 of these cards follow it. If you’re wondering what it is, check out the Monday Challenge on WeCraftCards.com on, you guessed it, Monday.

The third card was also done for a new challenge that some friends of mine found and entered: Peace On Earth Christmas Challenge. This is actually their first challenge.

Can you tell I was going with the lower left corner picture for my inspiration?

Thanks for spending some of your valuable time with me today! Don’t forget to check out the challenge on Monday to find out what the recipe is.

Baby Time

My niece had a baby last week, so I took her a meal last night. Had to make another card welcoming the new little one. And, of course, I had to make a card for my brother, the new grandpa.

Baby
Grands

Had a lot of fun making the cards. This second one is being entered in the My Favorite Things Sketch Challenge for the week.

Thanks for spending some of your valuable time with me today!

Quilt Card

The challenge on WeCraftCards this week is to plan for cooler weather and make a quilt card. The Monday SimonSaysStamp Blog challenge is to make a card with texture. I figure a quilt has lots of texture, so made sure the pieces of my quilt do have texture.

I have glitter paper, highly textured card, a couple of the pieces have embossing just on some of the images, there’s a super smooth piece, and I popped up the center pieces, as well as the butterfly at the top. Some of the patterned paper is DCWV, some is Echo Park, and some is “other”. The whole piece to the bottom left in the picture is alcohol ink on Yupo paper. Had lots of fun figuring this out and making it.

Here’s another one I did:

My husband got me a Spellbinder’s Glimmer machine for my birthday, so I used a die and foiled on the Spellbinder’s paper for the glimmer machine. I had trouble stamping and “coloring” a couple of images, as the ink doesn’t seem to dry on this paper and I didn’t think to heat it before I smeared it. Oops! So, on this one, I wanted to see if I could use Distress Oxide Ink with water and just smoosh color onto my foiled piece. It worked quite well. However, I don’t suggest running a dry cloth over the foil until it is completely and totally dry. The paper didn’t like being that wet and peeled up a bit. So, if you’re going to watercolor, let it air dry for a while, then go on. I am loving learning to use my new machine!

Thank you for spending some of your valuable time with me today.

Bold Butterfly

A friend posted a card either last night or this morning to the ModSquad Challenge which is a butterfly challenge. As I just bought this beautiful large butterfly die set from The Ton, I figured I could hurry home from work and make a card before tonight’s meeting. So,

So, my quick and easy card. Granted, I really need to clean and unwarp my die plates, then using dies will be quick and easy rather than places not cut through.

I also used Altenew’s Mod Squares embossing folder for the background. I used it going down, rather than up, as I liked that look better with the butterfly. Yes, you really can use things in ways other than the norm.

Now, need to run as this took longer than anticipated. Go check out some challenges and see what you can do. You can definitely do more than you think you can.

Thanks for spending some of your valuable time with me today.

Playing with New Tools

So, my birthday was last week. I turned 51, which is pretty amazing, as I was told all while I was growing up that I wouldn’t live to be 40 and before that I would go blind and have parts amputated. This is bonus year #12 that God has blessed me with. I still have my sight and all my parts. I know God has a purpose for my being here, or I wouldn’t be. So, I try to do His will for me.

Anyway, I got lots of crafting things for my birthday and got to play for a while on my birthday, as I spent part of the day with my BFF. Made this first card using a fun Simon Says Stamp stencil and some Lindy’s Magicals in Autumn colors.

Instead of using the Magicals as they were supposed to be used, I used them more like Perfect Pearls, where I used VersaMark ink through the stencil, then sprinkled on the different colors of Magicals (5 colors), then misted with water. It has INCREDIBLE sparkle. Used a Simon Says Stamp stamp set for the butterfly and the sentiment. I wrote the names on the back of the piece, then adhered it to the layer and base. Oops! The butterfly is gold embossed on acetate. Used the same gold embossing powder for the sentiment on a plum cardstock.

Entering this one in the Simon Says Stamp Blog Monday challenge.

This next one I did using some ombre’ glitter paper I got at the Stamp & Scrapbook Expo on Friday (my daughter and I went together).

Had a lot of fun cutting out the leaves from different papers and making a “wreath”. I used some Wink of Stella on the “thanks” to give it some sparkle, too. I liked leaving the rest of it blank. I did add some of those leaves falling down the inside right side.

I have so many more things to play with that I hope to share, soon.

Thanks for spending some of your valuable time with me today! (If I don’t reply to your comments right away, please know I’m crazy busy right now with our Women’s Advance on Saturday, as well as some other church things, so it may take a bit, but I definitely will reply. I appreciate your comments.