Card 5

Okay, this is as far as I’ve gotten with the Altenew Year End Challenge. It’s Christmas week, so not sure if I’ll be able to get the rest done, but I’ll try. I’m also going to see if I can find where their monthly challenges are posted, so I can actually play along in 2021.

So May was interesting colors and one large flower. I looked at it before heading to church this morning and thought strips would be fun. So, I cut strips and played this afternoon.

Those really are peach, yellow, blue, and white strips. It looks a bit darker of a peach in the picture. The flower looks a bit closer to the peach, as well. Anyway, used the Altenew Peony Boquet stamp and die set for it, as well as some peach, yellow, and dark peach inks to color it. Had fun with this one, too. Looking at it, I probably should have used a different embossing folder for my flower frame. Oh well.

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

Card 4

You’re probably getting tired of these, but only this one and one more to go. This is for the Altenew Year End Challenge.

So, for April, I definitely went with “inspired by” rather than too close to exact. Not like me, I know, but I’m stepping out.

I used the Altenew Cube Builder Stencil (love this stencil), as well as some of their inks for the background. The flower that I had stamped for the front was just not looking right, so I used a couple of the Altenew Alcohol Markers to color some white paper flowers. Had a lot of fun with this and I really like the way the flower looks.

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

Card 3

Back to the Altenew year end challenge.

Here’s what I made for the March one. I know you only had to make one, but I’ve just been having fun with it. This is one of my favorite ones.

I used the Faceted Stars stamp to emboss the background, then used watercolors for both the image and the background. Had a lot of fun with this one. The succulent stamp set is also an Altenew set, but I borrowed it from a friend, so don’t know what it’s called. The sentiments are from the Faceted Stars, too.

Thanks for spending some of your valuable time with me!

Card 2

So, for February, this is what I came up with:

You can’t see it in the picture, but there’s a bit of sparkle in the yellow center flower, which is popped up. I borrowed the set from my friend, so I know it’s Altenew, but not sure what it’s called. I also used the Sunburst stencil to highlight around the edges. Definitely like how this one turned out. The base card is actually the dark green you can see around the edges.

Thank you for a bit more of your time!

Card 1

So, Altenew is having a fun end of the year challenge. Their challenge is to make a card from one of their challenges for each month of 2020. I actually hadn’t realized that Altenew had monthly challenges. When I saw the pictures of the challenges, I decided I wanted to do a card for each one. Granted, it may not happen, but here is their challenge.

And here is what I made for January:

Had fun with this one. I used their Halftone Stencil.

There are going to be 4 more posts. So far, I’m only through May, but figured I’d get these posted.

Thanks for spending some of your valuable time with me today. Have a very good week and a wonderful Christmas. If you’re alone this Christmas, especially if it is because you’ve lost a loved one this year, my prayers are going out for you. Don’t think you are all alone. This is the celebration of Jesus’ birthday and He wants to spend the day with you.

Love in Teal

The Mod Squad Challenge for now is to use white embossing and just one other color. I had a few ideas, but a friend gave me this Concord and 9th stamp set and I thought this image would work wonderfully for this challenge.

I simply embossed in white, then went back with a Wink of Stella brush pen and added a bit of sparkle, which slightly deepened the teal color of the “Love”. Added a few Nuvo Dream Drops in Cloud 9, then mounted it on a white card base. Quick, simple, and I really like the way it turned out.

Thank you for spending some of your valuable time with me today! Go out and enjoy the rest of your week.

Recessed Panel

A couple of friends have done cards with recessed panels recently. I like the look, so wanted to do one of my own. The MFT Sketch challenge for this week was perfect for it. Granted, I changed up the sketch slightly, but the elements are there.

I used a couple of background panels that I have done with watercolors sometime in the past year for the sunny sky and the sea. Used some blue ribbon for the border, and some GKD Kraft card for the bottom panel. This was all done on an MFT Natural base card. The sentiment and the image are from the MFT Party Like a Pirate set. The image was stamped on Neenah 67lb Bristol white card, then colored using Prismacolor pencils. The Bristol card added a bit of texture to the coloring, which was fun. I used liquid adhesive for my sea piece, and foam adhesive to pop up the bottom and top panels.

Besides this card, I also made something for some friends for Christmas, yesterday. They didn’t turn out as planned, but will still be given to them. I’ll try and remember to show you what I made after Christmas. It was something I haven’t done in quite a while and was a way to relax while working on my lines for the Christmas play. The play is next week and I am still messing up on those. It’s a bit frustrating.

Anyway, thanks for spending some of your valuable time with me today! Have a wonderful week this week.

Snow Fun

So the Double Trouble Challenge has a challenge for this week: Thing 1 – make something new (I used a new stamp set that I got last month), Thing 2 – snow, and Thing 2 – link to other previous partners’ challenges.

I had lots of fun making this one. You certainly can’t tell in the picture, but all that “pink” is actually red, except for the 1 different snowperson. Also, all the snow people are glittery where they are snow. It really does look better in person.

So, this should fit for the following challenges:

The Crafter’s Café Challenge Blog and the Use Your Stuff: #411 Mood Board challenge. I really liked the green and red colors throughout the mood board. So, I used green and red (it really is a nice red, not the pink it looks) for everything but the 1 snowman (goes with the sentiment inside). I also really like the warmth of the fire, the lights, and the cocoa, which made me think of it being cold outside.

Here’s another snowperson card I made:

You can almost see the glitter of the snow people on a couple of them on this card.

As my son will never look on here, this is a card I made for him for Christmas day:

My silhouette was not playing nice, so you can still see some rough edges, even after I sanded them down. Oh well.

I used the Newton’s Nook stamp set: Frozen Fellowship.

Thanks for spending some time with me today! Enjoy the rest of your week.

Challenging

Some friends played along with a Tic-Tac-Toe challenge by Double Trouble. I’d never seen any of their challenges, so I went and checked it out. Had fun with this one, which is also going towards 2 other challenges, one for The Paper Funday Challenges, and one for Hero Arts.

To make this, I used 3 different patterned papers. Two were from a Gina K Designs set and I don’t remember where the third came from. I also used two Hero Arts stencils for the background, the first was a leaf like one with some crackle paste that I added green acrylic paint to. It was a pretty rich green when I mixed it, but dried to this aqua color. Then used some ink and some Nuvo sparkle spray through another, over the top. The pumpkin was from a brass embossing stencil that I used ink through, them embossing paste. The Thanks was die cut with a Stampin’ Up! set of word dies.

I had fun with this one, as I tried different things to create it.

For the Tic-Tac-Toe challenge on Double Trouble Challenge, for Thing 1, I used the Pumpkin, Patterned Paper, and Embossing or Stencil down the left column. Hey, I even got the top row: Pumpkin, Leaf, Dies; and the cross top left to bottom right as I used fall colors. Got the top right to bottom left cross, too. Okay, this is fun. For Thing 3, it is a sentiment card. For Thing 2, I did the Paper Funday Challenge of a Thanks card. Hero Arts was also a Thank You card challenge.

Thank you for taking the time to check out my Thanks card for all these challenges. Have a great rest of your Thanksgiving weekend!

Even More Watercolor

I’m going to show you what I did for Days 6, 7, and 8 of the Simply Watercolor Christmas class on Online Card Classes, here.

Desert Night Sky

I liked what Laura Bassen did for her take on it, but decided rather than doing wiggly pine trees along the bottom and sides, I wanted to do some Saguaro cacti, as I live in the desert. The night sky wasn’t easy, as I started off with Crayola watercolors. Did 3 layers and it was still incredibly light. So, added some Zig Clean Color brush colors on top, then blended with water. That worked much better. Did I draw those cacti? Absolutely not! They are a stamp from the Out West 2 set designed by Theresa Momber (Gina K. Designs). I really like the way this one turned out.

This was my take on the Words and Typography of Day 7. I can print, and I can actually make fun letters, but they take a lot of practice and time, so . . . I took the easy route and used the computer. I printed in a very light gray, then used the watercolor over the top. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but it’ll do.

Day 8 was a Santa card, but I didn’t want to do a Santa, so I followed what Debby Hughes did. Definitely not exactly, but close enough for me.

Joy

I did freehand that Joy with gold watercolor and a brush. It turned out better than I figured it would. This is pretty messy, but I still like it.

And, that was the end of the class. I did do a black piece of paper with gold and a few light colors splattered on, but the gold is all that really showed up. I’ll have to get some other colors on that and do something with it, but at this point, I’m done with watercolors for a while.

Thank you for spending some of your valuable time with me today. Go enjoy the rest of this day that God has blessed you with.