GUEST DESIGNER - AAA CARDS

I'm very proud to have been chosen Guest Designer for the current AAA Cards Challenge #202 - Sketch + Optional Twist "Gnomes"! The challenge is to use the sketch below with the option of a gnome or gnomes. I'm looking forward to seeing what all of AAA's followers will do with this challenge.  

https://aaacards.blogspot.com/2021/10/game-202-sketch-optional-twist-gnomes.html

My horizontal element is made up of an old PTI Christmas stamp set "Holiday Lights" that I stamped with Memento inks "Cottage Ivy", "Lady Bug", and "Bahama Blue", as well as Hero Arts "Butter Bar". I stamped the green ink twice - once on a white side-folded card and a second time on a slightly smaller white stitched rectangle. I added a very old sentiment that I had with Lady Bug and, because the inks were fading as they dried, I added some VersaMark Watermark ink over the sentiment and heat embossed it with clear powder so it would pop a bit. I die-cut a rectangular opening into the top layer and slipped some green cardstock behind as I glued it to the card base with dimensional foam. I added a gnome from Photo Play "Gnome for the Holidays Christmas" that I had colored with my Copics and fussy-cut.

Your turn to get out your gnome supplies and play along with the challenge!   

WELCOME, LITTLE ONE

Yesterday morning I actually cleaned up my craft area! Well, that didn't last very long because before I knew it I was once again engaged in a challenge - this time Just Us Girls #607 - "Photo Week". This week's challenge is a photo of a cute fox and stars soft wall sculpture. I was particularly drawn to the gray/orange/black/white colors of this photo - a combination that always draws my attention in interior designs.

This is my take on the photo:

I started this card by using a PTI cutting plate that is part of their "Birthday Bash" collection and a scrap of light gray linen-textured cardstock. Once the die was cut I turned it upside down and trimmed it down with a stitched rectangular die. I mounted this to a darker gray background textured cardstock. I stamped a little fox from PTI's "Stylized Autumn" stamp set with Memento "Potter's Clay" ink on white stock and colored his nose, eyes, and tip of tale with a black marker. I nestled him into a stitched moon that I cut with a stitched circle die by LDR Creative. I also ran part of the die plate with russet, white, and black and popped out the little stars and circles and glued them into the matching shapes of the lighter gray stock. I punched a hole in the top of the crescent moon and strung gray and white baker's twine through it and 2 additional punches at the top of the gray matt and tied it off in a bow to make it look like the little fox and crescent moon are hanging from the top of the card. This was all mounted to a top-folded white card with dimensional foam. I white heat-embossed the "Welcome" from MFT's "Right at Home" stamp set and added it under the twine. Finally I die cut 3 stars and stamped the white one with the Potter's Clay from PTI's "Tiny Tags" series. I glued the white and russet stars so they looked like they were hanging from the "bottom" of the upside-down balloon strings and added a black one for balance.

This was great fun, although quite labor-intensive! Anyone stumbling onto this blog should try their hand at it as well. Just follow this link:

"Just Us Girls" Challenge: Just Us Girls Challenge #607 - Photo Week

  

Added November 1, 2021:

ADDICTED TO PURPLE CAS

It's already time for a new challenge at Addicted to CAS and our talented host Ceal has selected Purple as the new code word. So where to start? I've finally put away all of my Halloween supplies and wanted to put some energy into the fall season. Purple isn't necessarily a color I associate with fall, but leaves obviously are. I thought to use gold heat embossing with the purple but then settled on copper instead.

I started with a cream cardstock for the background and kraft for the leaf. Using PTI's "Leaf Prints" stamp and matching die, I stamped the leaf with VersaMagic chalk ink "Purple Hydrangia". When it dried it looked a bit too soft so I added some Memento "Grape Jelly" dye ink to the outside edges of the leaf. I heat embossed the veins with Zing! "Copper". I die cut a couple of Stampin' Up Framelits "Chalk Talk" tags - one in a deep purple and a smaller one in linen textured cream cardstock. The sentiment is PTI's "Stylized Autumn" that I heat embossed with copper. I punched a hole in the larger tag and strung some natural and copper bakers twine through it. Before mounting all of this to the card I heat embossed some copper Tim Holtz splatters to ground the images and radiused the corners with a Fiskars corner punch. The matching cream envelope was lined with a dark mauve lightweight paper to pull it all together.

Here's another shot of the lower part of the card to show the metallic copper highlights.

Well, get out your purple inks and/or papers and have some fun with this challenge!

 Addicted to CAS: Challenge #209 - Purple

 

On a personal note, this is my fall display on the buffet in our dining room. It's composed of a couple of very special mementos. 

Leaning against the mirror frame is a print I presented to my mother on her birthday some years ago - her name was Olive, and I brought this home after her death in 2014. It lives permanently in this spot in remembrance of her. The little round terra cotta object in the foreground is an impression of our beloved Sara's footprint that our veterinarian gave us after her parting in May. Normally during this week I have the Halloween stuff out, but this year we won't be home for Halloween. Hubby has his first Southern Oregon Repertory Singers (https://repsingers.org/) practice since the beginning of COVID, where he sings tenor. Also, our youngest granddaughter's birthday is the 28th and that always gets rolled into Halloween, so you can imagine where I'll be while Hubby is at choir practice!

Wishing all of my internet cardmaking friends a wonderful fall season!       

THANKFUL

I hadn't really intended to end up in my craft room today, but here I am! This is a new card in response to Freshly Made Sketches #508. 

I rotated the sketch by 90 degrees. The image of the oak branch is probably one of the first clear stamp sets I ever bought and I have no idea whose it is. I stamped it with Altenew "Rocky Shore" on light kraft paper and then over-stamped it again with Memento "Potter's Clay" and PTI "Pure Poppy". I wanted the branches to be darker so I colored them with a brown fine marker and filled in the three acorns with a Copic marker. I then stamped the sentiment from a new set from Savvy Sentiments in Altenew "Espresso" and die-cut all of this with a rectangular stitched die. I mounted a strip of linen patterned russet cardstock to a wood-grain darker kraft cardstock and tied a brown ribbon on. I attached the kraft rectangle to the card with a bit of dimensional foam. 

Freshly Made Sketches: Freshly Made Sketches #508 - A Sketch by Jacquie

AUTUMNAL SINGLE-LAYER

Good morning, friends. We woke this morning to the first foggy overcast day we've had for quite some time, although it has now cleared and the sun is trying to peak through. It looked like a typical southern Oregon November morning. Autumn is definitely here!

This morning's offering is to both Less is More Challenge #454 - OLC - "Autumnal" and Happy Little Stampers October Stencil Challenge.  

I used a Strathmore watercolor card and matching envelope for this card. I started by inking one of the stencils from Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz Collection with Altenew "Sand Dune" dye ink and then over-stamping the sentiment and image from Colorado Craft Company (Savy Sentiments #SS368) and Impression Obsession, respectively, with PTI "Dark Chocolate". Finally I colored in part of the image with my Copics markers and applied 3 small tan pearls. 

I did this card twice because the first time I used all Altenew inks and they bled into the paper badly. The second time I switched to PTI for the over-printing and this time it bled into the Altenew ink where the stencil was. If I were to use this for my personal Thanksgiving cards I think I would spend a bit more time experimenting with different combinations of ink so that I would get less bleed - or smoother paper. (My OCD raising its ugly head!) And speaking of OCD, that envelope liner is exactly the color of the stenciled woodgrain on the card, but it photographed differently. 

"Less is More": Challenge #454 - OLC - Autumnal (simplylessismoore.blogspot.com)

Happy Little Stampers: HLS October Stencil Challenge

BOO!

 Okay, so I lied! I thought I was all finished with Halloween and then some interesting challenges showed up using Halloween imagery, so here I am back with more. AAA Cards has a new challenge #201 One Corner + Optional Twist Boo!  

I started this card with a white stitched rectangular piece of cardstock that I blended in the top righthand corner a bit of PTI "Orange Zest" die ink. Over that I stamped Tim Holtz splatters in the same color and layered on a spider web and sentiment in Memento "Tuxedo Black". I then stamped the spider (this may be an old Inkadinkado set) with VersaMark watermark ink and heat embossed it with Zing! "Purple" powder. The final step was to use a fine orange marker to fill in the swirls on the spider's back. I glued this to a piece of purple cardstock for matting and attached both to the front of a side-folded card.

AAA Cards: Game #201 - One Corner + optional twist BOO!

Added on November 7, 2021:

This card also works for Tic Tac Toe Challenge #135 - the diagonal Purple/Orange/Black.

 TTTC135 - Featured Designer Claire - Tic Tac Toe Challenge

  

 

TODAY'S FINAL POST

And finally for today, here is an entry into the current CASology #396 "View". I won't absolutely promise, but this may be my last Halloween card for the season!

My "view" is into a church graveyard on Halloween night, complete with bats and a leafless tree. The tree and church are die-cut with black cardstock using Sizzix/Tim Holtz #664194 die set. The moon and card opening is using very old circle dies from who-knows-whom. The 3 bats are from one of Tim Holtz' Halloween sets. The sentiment is an old rubber stamp I've had for years and I black heat-embossed it onto a strip of printed orange paper. The bats are also black heat-embossed. I layered everything onto a 5-1/2" square white card using dimensional foam under the top layer and added a small piece of orange paper under that layer to the outside edge of the card. 

CASology: Week 396: VIEW

 

STAY COZY

This is my entry for the CAS Christmas October Challenge - Gray & White. 

This one was fun and very CAS. On a side-folded white card I added a slightly smaller panel of a printed gray paper that I thought looked like a winter sky, although it is actually wedding paper! I stamped the sentiment with Memento's "Gray Flannel" dye ink onto a white card layer that I had cut slightly smaller than the gray panel and then die-cut the top with a Nellie's Choice #SD214 "Village" wave shape and mounted it in the front. I die-cut the house and trees from red and white card stock with Alexandra Renke #D-XX-AR-Wo128 "Winter City" and glued them on. Lastly I added a bit of darker gray on the house, a small red die-cut heart, and red and white baker's twine. Very easy.

CAS Christmas Card Challenge: CAS Christmas October Challenge

BIRTHDAY FISHES

We had a very busy family weekend, hitting both sides from Friday through to Sunday. On Friday evening it was a visit to Hal's youngest nephew's new home. Saturday was filled with my nephew, his   wife and their three children, his sister and her daughter, and my son, daughter-in-law, and their three children. Sunday was brunch with my husband's brother's widow and her middle son. Whew! But somehow I managed to squeeze in some cardmaking.

This first card is actually one I made a couple of weeks ago and just hadn't photographed. My youngest granddaughter will turn 7 later this month and she is crazy about fish (and just about anything else occurring in the natural world). For her birthday I'm buying her a small tropical fish tank set-up and some of the usual "beginner" tropical fish. She has a betta already, but they don't play well with other fish so he will stay in his own tank or we'll add a beta divider. She's really good about taking care of her betta, so I don't have concerns about adding a larger tank and divider or a 2nd one.

      

I started with a side-folded white 5-1/2" square card and added 2 layers of iridescent card stock (a pale aqua and bright yellow-gold. The dies I used for this card were borrowed from one of my card-making buddies and I don't know who the manufacturer is (Hero Arts?). I die-cut the tank from the same aqua iridescent card stock and mounted it on the face of the card. Then I die cut it a second time with a darker aqua glitter paper (that I hand cut off for the water in the bowl) and again for a second layer of the aqua glitter to suggest the bottom sand. Then I cut it yet again from gray glitter card stock, and using one of my Lawn Fawn stitched waves, I trimmed both of those layers for the bottom of the fish bowl. I added die-cut leaves in dark green card stock and brighter green vellum and placed those in the bowl. Finally I die-cut the fish from the yellow iridescent stock and colored him with some Copic markers and gel pens. The last step was a black gem eye and 4 bubbles with Nuvo Chrystal Drops.

It's hard to really see how glittery this card is, so here's a shot of it close-up:

I haven't finished the inside of the card yet, but it will say "Birthday Fishes"! I'm sharing this card with Happy Little Stampers October "Anything Goes with Dies" Challenge.

Happy Little Stampers: HLS October Anything Goes with Dies Challenge

Best fishes to you all - thanks for stopping by!  Fran

CLEAN & SPOOKY

How appropriate is this new challenge at Addicted to CAS #208 "Spooky" for October? I think Barb was on to something here! 

I'll soon be wrapping up all of my Halloween papers and stamps for another year and getting out all of the fall and winter stuff in my stash. I've now stacked up almost enough Halloween cards to send to my entire mailing list - I think I only need about 3 more.

I started this card with the little raven image (StampFrancisco) by stamping him with Momento "Tuxedo Black" ink and coloring him with a couple of Copic markers. (I have a fondness for ravens, as my maiden name was Poe!) Then I masked him off and stamped the Tim Holtz cobweb with PTI "Soft Stone". I added the blood drops and spider and then finally black heat-embossed the sentiment and die cut it all with a stitched rectangle. Before adding it with dimensional foam to a white card front I  stamped the cobweb a second time directly onto the card front to extend it off the bottom. I also added a small dark gray bead to the raven's eye.

That's it! I hope you'll join us with Barb's code word challenge. Clean and Spooky! 

  Addicted to CAS: Challenge #208 - Spooky

NEW HOME

This evening we are on our way over to my husband's nephew's new home. I made a congratulations card for him and his wife this afternoon.

This was a very fast and easy card. I die-cut a stitched rectangle in white cardstock and made a stencil to blend pale blue ink on for sky. I still have a way to go before I learn to blend evenly. I stamped the sentiment from Impression Obsession (#C5676) with PTI "Ocean Tides". I then die-cut some new little house and fence dies from Nellie's Choice $SD214 in 3 pastel cardstocks and white and glued them to the rectangle, popping up the pink one with some dimensional foam. I added a small pink heart and an Ocean Tide cardstock mat and attached both layers to a side-folded white card. Inside I added another stitched rectangle, a small white house with pink window, and green sentiment from a new stamp set from WPlus9 Design Studio "Neighbors".

On a personal note, I'll be doing quite a few "New Home" cards in the future. My son just recently got his broker's license and he has aligned with John L. Scott Real Estate, one of the largest real estate offices in our area. He has asked me to put together a bunch of samples of several different designs that the agents can give to their clients when they close on their new homes. I've been stocking up on stamps and dies that might work for this and I have yet to determine what I might sell them for. I'm looking forward to working on this once we get past the holidays.

Thanks for stopping by!      Fran

TWO FOR ONE

This next card challenge is a "twofer" for both Less is More #453 - Purple & Yellow and Just Us Girls #604 Word Week "Halloween". 

This was a very simple card. I started with Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz image from "Haunted House" #CMS308 on a white die-cut stitched rectangle. I first stamped the image very lightly with a pale lavender die ink so I would know where to apply the yellow Copic coloring. I colored the pumpkin's eyes, nose , and mouth and a circle behind the candle and then heat-embossed the image with Zing! "Purple" powder. I attached it with dimensional foam to a yellow mat that I offset behind and glued all of that to the face of a top-folded white card. Finally, I attached a PTI "Tiny Tags" tag with a white die-cut skull from Tim Holtz into which I had threaded purple and yellow bakers twine. That's it!

 "Less is More": Challenge #453 - Purple & Yellow (simplylessismoore.blogspot.com)

"Just Us Girls" Challenge: Just Us Girls Challenge #604 - Word Week

GHOSTS AND COBWEBS

Continuing with my glut of Halloween cards, next up is a submission for the current Freshly Made Sketches #505. This year I will have to make very few additional Halloween cards to complete my usual edition of 25-30 for friends and family. I had some left from last year's challenges, plus with all of the ones I've made this year, I'm now up to 21 individual cards! I'll soon be home free and can start thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I started with a large 4 x 6 white card base on which I mounted purple card stock cut just slightly smaller. Then on a second purple card cut a bit smaller than that I white heat-embossed a Tim Holtz cobweb from one of his many Halloween collections. I stamped a StampFrancisco ghost with Memento "Tuxedo Black" and fussy-cut him out to put into a dark purple circle die. I slipped an orange sentiment strip (stamped from Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz "Stitches" #CMS365 with Memento's "Grape Jelly" dye ink and white heat-embossed sentiment from an old stamp set) under his hands and mounted all of this to the white card that already had a purple mat attached. The envelope was a purple one left over from last year's Halloween card and I lined it with a scrap of orange paper.

 Freshly Made Sketches: Freshly Made Sketches #505 - A Sketch by Narelle

HEY, PUMPKIN!

Continuing with  my Halloween theme, on the current Color Throwdown #662 the challenge is to combine purple, orange, green and kraft - no easy task. I'm disappointed with the photo on this card because the purple mat is showing up as black. 

The first thing I did was to white heat emboss the background pattern onto a piece of Kraft paper that I then die cut with a stitched rectangular die. Next I heat-embossed the three pumpkins from a very old stamp set (in fact, all of these stamps are very old) with Zing! Purple and colored them with my Copics. I fussy-cut them out and mounted them, with the sentiment strip onto a white folded card and orange and purple mats. I lined a white envelope with the orange paper and heat-embossed a sentiment (Simple Stories #13820 "Boo Crew") with Zing! Purple powder.  

Color Throwdown: Color Throwdown #662