SNOW DAY THREE

Those of you in other parts of the country or world may think, "big deal", but for us here in Southern Oregon near the California border, we aren't accustomed to this much snow. We've had 6" here in our yard and then it froze last night (and it's still below 29 degrees), so the roads are really hazardous and we're basically house-bound. At the moment we're getting a break but another storm is approaching Friday.

So, let's make some chocolates! My inspiration this morning is Color Throwdown Challenge #826 - Pink, Brown, and White with the yummy chocolate cookies dusted with pink sugar crystals. 

I'm using my new-to-me Tim Holtz #666290 "True Love: Colorize" dies. While this card was relatively simple to make, the chocolates were not. I made the chocolates a couple of weeks ago and had them in my stash until I figured out what to do with them. The sentiment is from Simple Stories ("Simple Vintage Berry Fields") and the spatters are Tim Holtz, from one of his Halloween sets. I've gotten so much use out of this spatter stamp over the years and year-round. Somehow the top panel moved when I was stamping the brown sentiment and I got a bit of shadow, but I didn't have the energy to stamp it again and just left it.

Color Throwdown: Color Throwdown Challenge #826

DUAL CHALLENGES!

Well, this is fun! Inkspirational Colour Challenge and The Color Hues Challenge have combined forces into one great challenge using the colors Red and Pink - perfect for my push on valentines. 

I might have played a bit fast and loose on the colors, using red and pink with a touch of warmth to them. I liked how the ivory tone of the watercolor paper combined with the warmer reds and pinks.

I die cut an older Penny Black "Fancy Heart" from a square of heavy, creamy watercolor paper and glued the heart back in place. I attached a die-cut red heart in the center and threaded a needle with ivory silk thread, knotted it, pulled it through the heart, and tied it off in the back. I mounted the printed heart paper to a square red card base and attached the front panel over it with dimensional foam so that there would be a definite 'window' in the face.

Here's a closer look:

               

Inkspirational: Inkspirational Challenge #334 - COLLABORATION with Color Hues Challenge #103 - RED AND PINK

                       

SNOW DAY!

Southern Oregon (well, most of the Northwest) is having its first snow day of the winter, and what better thing to do than sit in a cozy craft room and make cards? My dentist appointment was rescheduled and the planned lunch with my daughter-in-law was cancelled. So I decided to play along with everyone at Just Us Girls and their fun challenge to CASE one of the members of their Design Team.

Hello, Ina, thank you for letting me copy and share your wonderful card! I've always loved these sort of grungy AALL & CREATE "Scripted Botanicals" but never really quite knew what to do with them. Ina was right on spot with her use, so I couldn't resist following her lead, although I moved things a bit, moving the butterfly down toward the sentiment so the sentiment wouldn't get lost.

My embossed base panel is a Cuttlebug folder that I experimented on creating a void for a sentiment, but was only partially successful. I ended up trying to knock down some of the embossing on the lower right corner with a burnisher and wasn't completely successful, but managed to stamp the sentiment from the same Scripted Botanicals set. I stamped one of the images in black, over-stamped splatters with  PTI "New Leaf" die ink, and trimmed it like Ina did. I glued the stamped panel to an extra piece of card stock to make it stand away a bit from the embossed base and attached all of the layers to a green card base in my stash. The butterfly is one of the old "Beautiful Butterfly" stamp sets from PTI, which I fussy cut because the matching die would have cut away her antennae. A green gemstone and custom envelope finished things off.

My take is that Ina's card is better - more contrast and prettier color. Here's Ina's inspiration - go to Just Us Girls and check it out:

"Just Us Girls" Challenge: Just Us Girls Challenge #760 - CASE a DT Week

The view from our kitchen door - it started snowing about 6:30 this morning, and as I publish this at 11:30 it hasn't stopped. You can see how the clumps of ornamental grasses in the foreground have collapsed under the weight of the snow. Our little colony of feral cats is hunkering down in the covered patio.

 

FEBRUARY TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Here we are in February, and if you're on the same page with me, I'm working to get my valentines completed and mailed out to family and friends. You can see an obvious theme here from Diane with her new February inspiration board.

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: February 2025 Anything Goes Halloween

And my response to it:

I don't have any pink Halloween paper in my stash, other than the bright pick one I used for the mat and sentiment banner on my card, so I made some with pink ink. I started with an ancient corner cobweb (probably Inkadinkado) and PTI "Hibiscus Burst" ink and stamped it on a white cardstock panel that I had trimmed out with a deckle-edge rectangular die. I also stamped it on the corner of a second white panel and trimmed it with a stitched rectangular die. I blended pink ink on both panels, as well as adding a blended circle where I intended to stamp the spider's body. I added some Tim Holtz splatters in black and mounted the white top panel to a bright pink patterned paper and black heat-embossed my elegant little spider, adding a black line for her to dangle from. I added a black and white cobweb paper layer that I had cut with a larger deckle-edge die, stacked them all together and attached them to the face of the white card base after mushing some pink ink on the lower right corner. The sentiment was stamped with black ink on a strip of bright pink, before adding it and a bit of embellishment - black embroidery floss and a pink brad. 

This photo shows off the shiny surface of my little spider. I made a custom envelope from pale pink lightweight paper and lined it with a piece of coordinating black and white printed cobweb paper. I think I've finally used up all of my scraps of this paper years after purchasing a whole pile of it for Halloween cards way back when. I'm rather pleased with this card!

 

CONTINUING WITH VALENTINES

It's raining today, giving me an excuse to work on valentines instead of getting ready for spring in the garden. The garden can wait. February 14 will begin to close in on my this next week or so. I'm not sure I'll get a complete set of 30 cards ready, but I'll make the effort.

I had some scraps of printed paper in my Valentine's Day bin that I had die cut to make small postage stamps for the CAS challenge last month at The Paper Players. I ended up doing something else and set them aside, thinking I would use them somewhere along the line. Enter the first challenge of the year from Tic Tac Toe and Time Out Challenge as inspiration! 

I used Silke's diagonal row of Hearts/Red/Ribbon to reassemble my scraps. I had some iridescent pink scraps that I die cut with two sizes of stitched rectangles onto which I stamped a postage cancellation in gray and then glued the stamps in place and stamped once again. Then I die cut a PTI 'Love' from the stamped face of the smallest rectangle to use the spotlight technique (one of my favorites), building up the sentiment with several layers of pink cardstock and placing a red heart behind. I glued all of the layers together with an ivory watercolor paper as a mat, using the paper's deckle edge for the bottom. Finally, I prepared an ivory card base, punched a double rectangle on the right edge, wrapped a red satin ribbon around and through the punched openings, and assembled all of the layers.

TTTC263- Featured Designer Silke - Tic Tac Toe Challenge

 

This card is also appropriate for an additional challenge: Time Out Challenges #281 - "Pick 2", wherein we are challenged to use two of the words from their list for our cards. I selected 'Layer' and 'Love', but could also include 'Heart and 'Stitch'.

TIME OUT Challenges: Challenge #281 - Pick Two: Stitch, Layer, Heart, Food, Love, Warm

DECK THE HALLS

When I saw the current inspiration board over at Peace on Earth Christmas Challenge I knew I had to play along! All of these photos are beautiful, and I was particularly taken by the warm gray and silver/bronzy tones. 

 Peace On Earth Christmas : Peace on Earth Challenge #80

I chose to work with an old often-used die set from Penny Black (#51-561 "Snowflake Tag"), using it as a tree decoration. This card was made 100% from scraps and odds & ends. It's too bad that Diane and Darlene's newest challenge - The Neglected Stuff Challenge isn't due up until February 4th!

A couple of non-traditional materials included in the making of this card are the background metallic bronze paper - a paint draw-down (interior design parlance for submittals that a painter is required to provide for approval before proceeding with painting a space) and the middle snowflake piece is die cut from a sample of commercial vinyl wall covering. These are the types of things that end up in an interior designer's stash and linger there for years. 

I also used the very last sheet of one of the PTI small "Soft Stone" printed papers to make  my coordinating envelope (I used the printed side of the paper for the inside of the envelope) and a scrap for the top snowflake layer. Even the piece of iridescent satin ribbon was at the bottom of my ribbon scrap basket. The silver-embossed sentiment is from Hero Arts.  

PURR-FECT

Continuing in my CAS mode... I haven't played over at CAS Colours & Sketches for a bit and couldn't resist turning out another Valentine. Their Challenge #552 is a great layout for a CAS card and I'm all over that! 

You'll notice that I changed the format a bit to a vertical A4 because I thought my little kitty would work best vertically. I have this very old Inkadinkado stamp set that I've used so often, but have never used her image. I stamped her with black ink on white cardstock and fussy cut her out. I made a white side-folded card base and die cut a stitched panel from the same cardstock and tore the lower corner off. I then inserted some Valentine's Day card stock behind, attached both layers to the face of the card, and over-stamped the sentiment in black. I nipped off the top of a die cut heart and attached it to the kitty's mouth and glued her to the front of the panel with a bit of dimensional foam.

I liked this layout so much that I played with it some more with different papers, because I think I'll use this card as this year's Valentine for family and friends. Considering my reputation as "the crazy cat lady", it seems quite appropriate!

CAS Colours & Sketches: Challenge #552 - sketch 

YOU'VE GOT MAIL

And while I'm on a CAS kick, I popped over to The Paper Players Challenge #PP721, a Clean-and-Simple challenge from Jaydee - "Postman bring me a letter".

This is as CAS an it can get! I started with a white A2 card base and a slightly smaller matching white panel. I stamped the postage sentiment with dark gray ink and glued a die cut postage stamp from some white cardstock and printed paper over the top, after die cutting a small heart from the larger one and inserting a pink heart into the opening. I overprinted the postage cancellation stamp one more time and BAM! Done.

The Paper Players: PP721 - A Clean-and-Simple Challenge from Jaydee

Added January 25, 2025:

FOLLOW THE LEAD

The design team over at AAA Cards Challenge #282 has come up with a really fun challenge they're calling "Follow The Lead" that I couldn't resist! Marlies is this month's leader and she has produced this wonderful almost completely white layered die cuts card with a single red heart - how much fun is that? Our challenge is to create a card that in some way jumps off from her gorgeous card.

My approach to Marlies' card was to follow her idea with layered dies and a single red heart in the lower right corner:  

I started by die cutting a white cardstock stitched rectangle and then die cutting one of my favorite heart dies (Penny Black #51-182 "Fancy Heart") off the edge. I die cut the heart a second time and mounted it back onto the rectangular panel after adding the sentiment in red ink. I die cut one of the cute little birds and branches from My Favorite Things and added him, along with a tiny red heart, to the face of the top panel with some dimensional foam. The final step was to layer this panel over the face of a white card base with more dimensional foam.   

You really must go over to the link and check out all of the incredible cards that the design team has come up with, following Marlies' lead:

AAA Cards: AAA Cards Challenge #282: Follow the Leader

And while I'm sharing my card, I'm also dropping in at Diane and Darlene's Simply Clean & Simple January Challenge:

Simply Clean & Simple: Simply Clean & Simple January 2025 Challenge

Added February 6, 2025:

WINTER WISHES

It's a three-day weekend here in the US and I'm easing into the weekend with a bit of cardmaking. There are a couple of  challenges with winter-like themes and it's quite cold here in my part of the country, although I doubt there will be any snow. My inspirational challenges for this card are Just Us Girls #758 - Mood Board and Inkspirational Challenge #333 - Word Prompt "Snow".

For the image I started with the center photo of the JUGS mood board of pine cones, boughs, and snow. I cut out some dies I've never used before from both Spellbinders (#S4-1135 "Christmas Blooms") and Tim Holtz (#666715 "Vault Festive Wreath"), using a bit of woodgrain kraft cardstock, brown, and a couple of greens. I die cut a scrap of white and green printed paper with a stitched rectangular die, mooshed on some green ink at the top, and matted it with some green cardstock. After stamping the sentiment at the lower end in dark brown ink, I arranged the pine cones and boughs and glued them to the panel. I prepared a top-folded card base by blind embossing snow on the top portion of the card and cutting and embossing an additional stitched rectangle. I glued all of the layers together and set about trying to figure out how to get the snow and then remembered that I have a jar of molding paste that I've never opened yet, so I applied some of that with a Tim Holtz stencil and shook on some glitter before it dried.

I think this photo shows the molding paste and glitter a bit better than the one above. Also, the woodgrain of the kraft cardstock shows up really well with this close-up photo: 

"Just Us Girls" Challenge: Just Us Girls Challenge #758 - Mood Board Week

Added January 23, 2025:

Inkspirational: Inkspirational Challenge #333 - Word Prompt - SNOW

MID-JANUARY TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

It's mid-January in the first month of our 2025 Halloween Challenge at Two Old Bats! It's snowing in the graveyard and the ghosts are venturing out of the graves to take in some of the winter scenery.

This card was made mostly from scraps in my Halloween bin. I started with a couple of gray pieces that I stamped the graveyard scene on with black ink (Unity Stamps "Toil and Trouble).I trimmed out one of the pieces with a stitched rectangular die. I used Tim Holtz splatters with Hero Arts "Unicorn" pigment die and matted it to a black and orange scrap. Then I attached that to a side-folded white card base. The two ghosts were lingering in my scrap drawer and I glued them to the face of the card and layered the second fussy cut graveyard scene over them with a bit of dimensional foam. I added a couple of  pumpkins from a printed cardstock and then took a white gel pen to them and the graveyard images. 

You probably remember that this is the mood board from the first of the month that we could use for inspiration (or not):

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: Two Old Bats January 2025 Mid Month Reminder

And if we can get 25 of you to wrap your brains around the idea of Halloween cards in January, you may be rewarded by winning the drawing for these cute little space aliens from Whimsy Stamps:

MASCULINE VALENTINE

A couple of the current challenges looked like they were perfect for making a valentine for my hubba - Color Throwdown #824 - "Black, White, and Gray" and Just Us Girls #757 Word Week, "Masculine".

I fumbled around a bit and finally settled on an old PTI stamp from their "Love & Marriage" set that I think I've used only once before - I love this image, but forget that I have it! I stamped it twice with black ink - once on white card stock and again on gray cardstock - and die cut a heart (also PTI) from both images. I overprinted the tiny sentiment with silver heat embossing. Then I layered the gray heart over the black and white image with some black dimensional foam. I trimmed out the image with stitched rectangle and matted it with some of the gray stock. Before adding the various layers to a black card base, I edged the gray mat with silver embossing and added a tiny heart to the gray heart.

I think you can see the dimensional heart and silver embossing a bit better with this close-up photo:

Color Throwdown: Color Throwdown Countdown #824 

"Just Us Girls" Challenge: Just Us Girls #757 - Word Week

 

NAUGHTY KITTY

I'm sharing my bit of morning fun with a couple of my favorite challenges - NBUS Challenge #79 and Color Hues Challenge #TCH1010 - Red and Kraft. 

This is my second outing this month with Color Hues Red & Kraft. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I had received a new die set - Tim Holtz #666290 "True Love, Colorize" that I hadn't broken into yet, but I thought I would play with it later this week. Well, here we are. This is a really complex set of dies, so I didn't do the full box of chocolates. I just played with putting together the bottom box and three of the chocolate variations. And I just could not resist doing something with one of my beloved Tim Holtz Snarky Cats! Especially since naughty kitties were on my mind this morning as one of mine was on the dining room table raiding small pebbles out of the bottom of one of my pillar candle holders.

As usual, I had problems with photographing this card - my cellphone does not like red. I tried adjusting the color in my photo editing application, but couldn't quite get to the colors on the card. Suffice it to say, they are variations of red and kraft with a bit of brown thrown in.   

I started with a dark red 5-1/2" top-folded card base. I added a band of bright red to the lower part of the card and started assembling the box and some chocolates. I stamped my naughty cat and the sentiment with dark brown ink on kraft, colored the kitty with Copic markers and white gel pen, and fussy cut him. I trimmed the sentiment into a strip and adhered it above the red strip and glued the box of tampered with chocolates over, trimming the left edge. I attached the cat with a bit of dimensional foam and added some splatters here and there. The final step was to create a coordinating envelope that I lined with a bit of dark red vellum.

NBUS: NBUS Challenge #70

Color Hues: Color Hues Color Challenge #101 - Red & Kraft