STAY COZY

BRRRR! It's starting to get cold here in Southern Oregon. We've had our first frosts, so my mind is starting to go to winter scenes. I jumped off from Shopping Our Stash Weekly Challenge - "Emboss Like a Boss" for inspiration as I played with a new-to-me die from Tim Holtz.

I dry embossed a snowy sky from Darice and then die-cut a small, stitched rectangle from the same panel. I glued a portion of one of the Tim Holtz #666334 "Forest Shadows" dies to the face and trimmed it out, matting it with a silver panel. I heat embossed the sentiment in silver on a larger stitched rectangle, tied a couple of strands of thin silver thread in a bow, and glued on a silver star sequin and gem and mounted all of this to a white card base. The final step was to add a small die cut house from Alexandra Renke's "Winter Village" set with a bit of dimensional foam. Before attaching the house, I added a tiny yellow panel to the back to light up the windows. So, this is my spare approach to "Boss Embossing"! 

Here's the link to #SOS509: 

Shopping Our Stash Weekly Challenge Blog: SOS509 - Emboss Like a Boss

Added December 28, 2023:

 

CHRISTMAS GOODIES

Inspired by two different challenges, I set out to bake a batch of gingerbread house cookies for my first Christmas card of the season. I started with the mood board at Inkspirational, while keeping an eye on Challenge #233 at Tic-Tac-Toe. 

This card is uncharacteristically complex for me, but I really had fun with it, trying to get as close as possible to the top left image with the plate of gingerbread cookies on parchment paper and a gold-rimmed plate. 

I started with a red top-folded card base and added a panel of laser-cut white lace from my stash - it was already cut to this size and never used. I constructed a white plate with various dies and blind embossed a piece of gold cardstock with an overall pattern before cutting it into an outline circle for the plate edge. I tore a square of vellum to place over the plate and attached my "cookies". The houses were cut from kraft stock using one of the houses from Alexandra Renke's "Winter Village" die set. I stamped and heat-embossed "powdered sugar "snow" on each of the houses before adding the icing with a white gel pen and then painstakingly adding tiny red hearts to each of them. I slipped a couple of pine boughs under the plate (Spellbinders "Christmas Blooms") and gold embossed the sentiment (PTI "Seasons Greetings") on a scrap of printed Christmas paper and die-cut it with a Stampin' Up tag. The final step was to add gold ribbon and red and white bakers' twine to the tag and attach it to the face of the card. Many, many, many steps, some of which I didn't bother to go into!

These were my inspirations:

        Inkspirational: Inkspirational Challenge #302 - Moodboard (inkspirationalchallenges.blogspot.com)

Added November 25, 2023:

And using the diagonal row - Paper Tearing/Holiday Sentiment/Ribbon:

TTTC233 - Featured Designer Silke - Tic Tac Toe Challenge

LET'S GIVE THANKS!

Let's give thanks to Anne Marie, who's in charge this week at The Paper Players and she's come up with a perfect theme for this time of year for our new challenge!

The Paper Players: PP665 - A Theme Challenge from Anne Marie

My take on Anne Marie's challenge is a basket full of thanks! I started with a wood-grained kraft cardstock as a card base. I used an ivory cardstock panel, die cut as a rectangular stitched panel that I stamped with an ancient stamp that I had never used before. I stamped it with PTI "Dark Chocolate" and "Americana" inks, punched a couple of holes, and pulled through and tied two strands of silk thread that I had colored with Copic markers. I stamped the basket from PTI's "Basket of Blessings" on kraft paper, colored it with Copic markers, and mounted it to the face of the ivory panel with dimensional foam. The final steps were to matt the ivory panel with rust cardstock and glue it to the wood grained card and add some rust-colored gems.   

If you haven't checked out The Paper Players Challenge blog yet, go and see what the ladies have prepared for your inspiration!

On a Personal Note: Four years ago I tried to retire, but one of my long-standing design clients asked me to stay on with him to complete an office park with three buildings next to the tenth fairway of a local golf course. The projects were interesting and varied and I told him I would help - as long as the spaces would be done only one at a time. Well, there was some overlap, but in the end, I completed design work on one speculative office space, one full building for a medical research lab, a financial planner's offices, and several spaces in a 4-story mixed use building in Ashland. Finally last Tuesday was the grand opening of a large medical spa that I've been working on for a full year and the completion signaled my agreement with myself to fully retire. So, as of the beginning of last week I am now officially retired! At 78 I think it is about time!     

TWO OLD BATS NOVEMBER CHALLENGE

Well, Halloween has just now passed and it's time to start on next year's cards - yes, I just said that! In this first card of the new Halloween Year, I chose to combine two of the quadrants for a single image of a cake with bats and ghosts.

 Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: November Anything Halloween

 

Because of the primarily vertical nature of the dies when combined, I determined that a slim line card style would work best, so I started by folding an 8" x 8-1/2" piece of black card stock into a 4" x 8-1/2" card. The cake die set is Simon Says "Fancy Cake Set" #S731, the ghost is from Trinity Stamps #TMD-088 "Boo Brew", and the bat trim on the cake is from Whimsey Stamps die "Dracula Going Batty" #WSD406. I cut a panel of black and white printed bat paper, matted it with black and white stripes, and glued it to the face of the black card. The paper was pretty busy, so I added a panel of vellum to cut back on the busy-ness, after heat embossing the sentiment at the bottom. I embossed a panel of orange card stock with a wood-grained embossing folder before die cutting the cake layers so that they would look like they were covered in thick icing and assembled the cake, cake stand, and trims and glued them over the ghost. I fussy cut three little candy corns for trim and created a #10 envelope out of coordinating paper.   

We had a HUGE response to our October challenge (no surprise there), so let's keep it coming! After 25 entries there will be a prize selected randomly, so everyone has a chance to win. Our challenge is always "Anything Halloween" so you're not bound to the inspiration board, but I always like using it. Have fun - check out all of the Design Team's inspirations and let us know what you think of our projects!

KAITLYN'S BIRTHDAY

After a week off I'm back with this week's challenge at The Paper Players, and the lovely Claire has put together a Tic-Tac-Toe challenge for us. 

The Paper Players: PP664 - A Tic Tac Toe Challenge from Claire

I'm pretty sure that Claire's intent was that we would make a fall card, judging by the various elements in her grouping, but Friday was my youngest granddaughter's 9th birthday, and I thought I would take care of two things by using Claire's challenge to kick-start Kaitlyn's card. I chose the middle row across as my inspiration - patterned paper/die cut/sequins or enamel dots.

I started my card with a die-cut background from Papertrey Ink - "Birthday Bash", which I cut from white card stock. I stamped two adorable stuffed animals from AALL & Create (#249 "Dog Toys"), masking to overlap the images and colored them with Copic markers. I stamped a third one on a scrap of white and colored and fussy cut him. I mounted the stamped and colored die cut panel to a panel of patterned paper so that it would show through the circles and stars and attached all of this to a white 4-1/2"x 6" white card base. I added a fussy cut sentiment from Avery Elle's "Peekaboo Pets". I die-cut a PTI #9 twice - once from the same printed paper and a second time from a white card stock and glued them together so it would have a bit more thickness. I overlapped the fussy cut stuffed toy with the 9 and attached them to the face of the card with dimensional foam, lining up the 9 with the background stripes. The final step was to add several enamel dots in various colors and sizes, and a tiny, stamped heart on the little guy on the left. The coordinating envelope is made from lightweight paper.

PS: My granddaughter LOVED this card!

Anyway, have at it! Make any kind of card you wish - just make sure you've selected one of the horizontal, vertical, or diagonal rows for all of your elements - and share it with us. I always like the Tic-Tac-Toe challenges, and I'm sure you do as well! 

On a personal note: This "Birthday Bash" background die from PTI has been a favorite of mine for quite a few years and I've used it on many cards - most notably on this one I made 8 years ago for Kaitlyn's one-year birthday party:

  

I don't have a photo of the inside of this invitation, but I computer-generated the message "One year old is what you are!" plus the invitation information and a really cute photo of her. In the ensuing years between one and nine, this kid has become quite a force to be reckoned with!

 

ZOMBIES

I'm slipping in today with one last Halloween card. I thought I had enough for my mailing list, but alas, I was short by one card! To give myself an additional challenge I decided to play along with AAA Cards Challenge #251 "Anything Spooky Goes". This is a CAS challenge, which is great with me.

There's not much to be said about how this very simple card was created. I stamped a pair of bloody hands on a white cardstock stitched rectangle and over-stamped some Tim Holtz splatter in black. Then I attached a sentiment (also Tim Holtz) white heat-embossed on black cardstock and mounted all of this to a black card base. That's it!

AAA Cards: AAA Card Challenges : #251: Anything Spooky goes

 

TRICK OR TREAT

Midway through October, closing in on Halloween, and time to look in at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge! We all have some additional inspirational cards for your consideration. Check out the awesome cards my fellow DT members have created!  

 

I fashioned this card after the trick-or-treaters in the lower left quadrant of our inspiration board - see below. I had a couple of sheets of very old 12x12 Halloween paper from Halloweens past and I completely lost track of whose papers these are. Starting with a black card base, I added some handmade Japanese rice paper to the front of the card and layered over a couple of panels of stitched waves in gray. Then I fussy cut a couple of houses out of the printed paper and slipped them and a die cut picket fence under. I stamped some tiny bats in the sky and attached a couple of coordinating costumed trick-or-treaters from a page of tags in the same collection of papers. I finished with another fussy cut house and die cut fence, stamped bats, and heat embossed sentiment inside. The custom envelope was made from the overall printed paper and lined with green lightweight paper.  

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: October 2023 Mid Month Reminder

SIGNS OF AUTUMN - CAS

It's Sunday again, and you know what that means - a new challenge at The Paper Players! The very talented Joanne is this week's host, and she has chosen "Signs of Autumn" as the CAS challenge.  

The Paper Players: PP662 - A Clean-and-Simple Challenge from Joanne

I used one of my favorite sentiments from a fall Impression Obsession stamp set of several years ago. I stamped it onto an ivory cardstock that I had pre-cut with a stitched rectangular die. I used PTI's "Dark Chocolate" ink and then overprinted a PTI flourish in pale orange to suggest steam coming from the die cut pumpkin cup (Trinity Stamps #TMD-088 "Boo Brew"). I layered everything over a matching ivory card base and lined a coordinating envelope with some printed paper from my fall stash.

You'll have fun with Joanne's theme this week, but remember to keep it CAS! If you need a refresher on what we mean by CAS:

• Minimal layers and embellishments
• Plenty of open space, aka "white" space
• Simple and uncluttered

On a personal note: On Friday morning we delivered two more young feral cats to SNYP and found out it was one male and one female. That gets us down to just three more juveniles for an appointment in December - hoping we don't get blessed with any more! While waiting in line Friday I met a woman who is feeding 56 feral cats and has names for all of them! 

LEANNE'S COLORS

Well, the beginning of a new week and a new challenge at The Paper Players! This week our host is the Lovely LeAnne (alliterative!)  and she has selected a great collection of colors for fall - great for Halloween or fall images. I was feeling a bit 'Halloweened' out this week, so went with fall images. I hope to see lots of designers playing along with us!

 The Paper Players: PP661 - A Color Challenge from LeAnne

I stayed on the CAS side this week with some new images that I treated myself to during my birthday week - "Hello, Pumpkin" from Graphic 45. I started by stamping the larger pumpkin on a white die cut stitched rectangle with Memento's "Black Tuxedo" ink, overlapping it with a smaller pumpkin, and coloring the stems with an olive Copic marker. Then I stamped again on scraps of orange, purple, and olive polka dot papers, fussy cut the images, and pieced them, slipping the purple one under the orange. I finished with a PTI sentiment in black. It looked a bit bare, so I added a couple of punches on each side of the sentiment, pulled through and tied orange and purple twine in a bow, and mounted everything onto a white card base with some dimensional foam. Done.

Our design team has some beautiful examples for your inspiration. Visit their blogs and be sure to let them know how much you appreciate their challenge examples! 

On a personal note: The mention of Memento's "Tuxedo Black" reminded me to tell of my activities of the last couple of days. We keep getting "blessed" with kittens that feral mothers have been bringing in for us to feed and we have been trapping/spaying/neutering about every 6 months, hoping to catch up one of these days so we can control the neighborhood cat population. Last night we trapped 2 little juvenile tuxedos and delivered them this morning to the local chapter of SNYP (Spay & Neuter Your Pets). I think I mentioned that when we went through the last round of spaying and neutering, we had a lactating female, and she brought her 4 babies to us in June. The two little guys we took in this morning are part of her litter and we're hoping to get the other 2 in next Friday morning (I think 2 females). In the meantime, 2 more little calicos have shown up - it's feeling like a never-ending revolving cat door! I love cats, so I can't not feed them. Fortunately, some of the neighbors are helping out because we're all so disgusted with a woman down the block that lets her 13 cats run wild and breed constantly, leaving all of us to pick up the slack. The city has many laws on the books meant to control dogs, but nothing related to cats.   

ALL ABOUT THE CANDY

WOW! Here we are already in October, and if you've been following along you could have anywhere from 12 to 24 Halloween cards ready to mail out. I just counted mine today and I have 23. And we have a brand-new mood board to play with at Two Old Bats Anything Halloween October Challenge.

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: October Anything Halloween

I chose the top left quadrant, and I had this silly idea about a spider preferring Halloween candy corn to the protein-based treats she had already trapped in her web! 

I started with a square black card base and attached a slightly smaller yellow square to the face, followed by a printed orange/yellow paper that I had stamped an Impression Obsession cobweb image on. I also stamped some bugs on the cobwebs and fussy cut several candy corn pieces from another printed card stock. After computer generating the sentiment, I glued it to the face of the card and added a fussy cut spider. Much simpler than last month's card!

We've had a great response to our challenges the past couple of months, so let's keep up the good work! Join us and have some fun with the latest images. Go to the blogs for our Design Team and let us know how much you appreciate our inspirational examples!

MOON & PURPLE & BITS & PIECES

I'm trying to fill out a need for just a couple more Halloween cards and went deep into my scraps for this one. Because of my tenure at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge, I have a bin filled with stamped and/or die cut bits and pieces that started as ideas but then were relegated to the bin for possible future use.  

I had a square black card base with an attached slightly smaller square of stamped cobwebs on white (Impression Obsession #CC141 "Spider Web") and I started with that. The purple circle with die cut black graveyard and moon was another scrap that I had started a card from a couple of years ago and never decided what to do with it. I mounted a printed cobweb pattern from last year's Park Lane "Haunted Hollow" 12x12 card stock pad over the white stamped square and attached the die cut circle. Using a scrap of purple polka dot card stock, I white heat embossed the sentiment and cut a Stampin' Up "Chalk Talk" tag, slipped it under the circle, punched a hole through all of the layers, and tied on a couple of lengths of purple and black twine. The final layer was a white card stock ghost (Tim Holtz) left over from a couple of years ago and I slipped a scrap of black behind his mouth and eye.

 

I photographed this card on a gray-toned statuary marble slab I use for rolling out pie dough. I was surprised to see that the photos came out with the marble looking like it's a lavender tone - not complaining, just saying. I'm going to share this card over at Toc, Tac Toe Challenge #228 before it closes. I selected the top row - Free/Moon/Purple.

TTTC228 - Featured Designer Felicita - Tic Tac Toe Challenge

COLOR HUES - CORAL & BLUE

Hello, all! I'm pleased to be Guest Designing at Color Hues for the next two weeks! Challenge #73 is "Coral and Blue" - two favorites of mine.

I chose a bright coral tone and navy blue for my colors. I started by stamping a script on white card stock in PTI "Enchanted Evening" ink. I separated the two lines of sentiment from Hampton Arts + Gina K and heat embossed the second line directly on the white card stock in dark blue. The first line was heat embossed in white on a strip of dark blue iridescent stock and layered over the script, then die cut into a deckled rectangle. I added a dark blue iridescent strip to the face of a white card base and tied it with some slightly lighter blue twine. I die cut three more layers of deckled rectangles to give dimension and attached all of them to the face of card base and added die cut flowers and leaves from Alexandra Renke, along with three coral-toned sequins. My cellphone is presenting this coral tone as a bit pinker than it actually is.

I'm hoping you'll follow me over to Color Hues and play along with the coral & blue challenge!

Color Hues: Color Hues #73- Coral and Blue (colorhuesthecolorchallenge.blogspot.com)

LOST IN SPACE

How much fun is this new theme challenge at the Paper Players? Our very talented Ann is this week's host, and she's chosen "Lost in Space" as theme #660.  

The Paper Players: PP660 - A Theme Challenge from Ann

I have only one set of stamps that fit this bill, so that was a done deal when I saw the theme. It's Hero Arts #357 and I stamped it twice - once on this starry night printed paper and a second time on metallic silver vellum - and heat embossed it with dark blue embossing powder. I fussy cut the moon on the silver piece and glued it over the top of the starry night sky paper that I had die cut with a stitched rectangular die. Then I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment with silver and tied a shooting star tag to the bottom of the moon with fine silver thread. Finally, the die cut rectangle was matted with a second silver rectangle and attached to the face of a dark teal card base. I created a matching envelope from the starry sky printed paper.

It's really not obvious by my photos that the paper used for the moon, tag, and mat are all silver. 

It's now your turn to have some fun with Ann's wonderful theme! Check on the inspiring cards from the rest of our designers and let them know how much you enjoy their renditions.