CHRISTMAS VILLAGE

I cleaned out my Christmas scraps box yesterday, mostly for the purpose of re-acquainting myself with what was hiding there. In the process, I promised myself to make all of my Christmas cards this year out of bits and pieces to see how much I could get rid of before I buy any more paper anytime soon. I was also in search of some ideas for the current Freshly Made Sketches.

I definitely took liberties with Linda's current layout, which features three staggered rectangles and the sentiment running along below. I have these accordion-folded foil laser-cut villages that have been with my scraps for quite some time now. I used some last year on this card, but still have several of them left. I cut the buildings apart into similar-sized rectangular pieces and backed them with black card stock for the windows and door openings. I die cut a scrap of gray printed swirl paper with a stitched rectangular die and attached it to a black card base. I gold heat-embossed the sentiment on a scrap of black card stock and trimmed it with a smaller stitched rectangle, attached it to the face of the card, glued on two of the buildings and overlapped the third one with a bit of foam dimensional tape. The final additions were a die-cut foil star and lining a ready-made envelope with the last of the swirl paper.

Freshly Made Sketches: Freshly Made Sketches #664 - A Sketch by Linda

SEIZE THE BIRTHDAY - MASCULINE

Seize the Birthday: Seize the Birthday #296 Masculine

I have a friend who has his birthday on December 26th and he hates it! He complains that his birthday gets caught up in all of the minutia of Christmas - I can't say I blame him. I was happy to see our challenge at Seize the Birthday this next two weeks as "Masculine", giving me the opportunity to do a very personal birthday card for him before I get too busy with all of the year-end activities.

For his card, I chose to work with an image that is his personal image, or logo. My friend is an architect and this image is the one that appears on all of his documents and drawings. We're working on a project together at the moment and I cut this image off of the side of one of the drawings I've been working with. Architectural drawings are plotted onto wide rolls of white 20 lb. bond, which felt a little too thin in terms of paper weight, so I adhered it to a heavier card stock and then silver heat-embossed the sentiment from an old PTI stamp set - "Winter Hills". I then matted it with red and silver card stocks and attached it to a slimline card base of  a gray/silver textured stock. This is a custom sized slimline (measuring 7-1/4" x 3-5/8"), meant to work with the shape and proportions of the trees image. The final step was to add a tiny red bird to the 'H' in Happy with an even tinier piece of dimensional foam.

Of course, the customization of the card meant I had to also customize the size of the envelope. I used a plastic template, adjusting the length of the envelope, and made it from part of a 1/8" scale CAD drawing (computer-aided drawing) from our project. I'm pretty sure he'll really appreciate the personalization of this card - you might say it's from CAD to CAS!  

On a personal note:

This has been a great two-month tenure with the designers at the Seize the Birthday Challenge. What a wonderfully supportive group they are! I'm promising myself to visit them often in the new year.

A BIT OF HOLIDAY SNARK!

Feeling snarky today, so where best to express that than over at Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers? The November challenge is "C is for Critters". For layout, I am going with CAS Colours & Sketches: Challenge #549 - Sketch. 

I started by computer generating the sentiment and printing it out, trimming it, and attaching it to a red scrap. I glued the sentiment and red strip to a piece of white cardstock and die cut it with a stitched rectangular die. I stamped some Tim Holtz Snarky Cat images with black ink, colored, and fussy cut them. I mounted the rectangular panel to the face of a white card base, after attaching the milk jug, fish bone, and cat.

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: SoSS #256 - C is for Critters

CAS Colours & Sketches: Challenge #549 - Sketch

Added December 10, 2024:

GREETINGS OF THE SEASON

It's mood board week at Just Us Girls and I had fun baking some gingerbread cookies to hang from tree branches, similar to the image at the bottom left of the mood board.

I started with a couple of images that I white heat-embossed on kraft card stock, adding a small bit of red, fussy cutting them, and punching holes for bakers twine hangers. I die cut some Hero Arts birch tree trunks and mounted them to a gray/silver textured stock that I had die cut into a stitched rectangle and mounted to a white card base. I die cut a second smaller rectangle from matching white card stock and die cut a circle out of it, adding a red sentiment from a well-used old Christmas sentiment stamp set (?).  I pulled the bakers twine through punched holes at the top of the circle and tied them off. The final step was to attach the front layer and gingerbread cookies to the face of the card.

I used all of my kraft A2 envelopes up for Thanksgiving cards, so made a custom one for this card and lined it with a light-weight Christmas ornament paper. 

Here's their Mood Board and the portion of the image I chose:

"Just Us Girls" Challenge: Just Us Girls #754 - Moodboard Week

 

HO HO HO! #2

Well, this was fun! I wanted to use the other side of the printed paper I used for yesterday's card, inspired by AAA Challenge #278: "Anything CAS goes, with an optional twist of Christmas-Winter". I fussy cut a bunch of the images from the blue side of the paper - anyone who has been following me over the years knows how much I enjoy fussy cutting! I die cut a stitched pale aqua rectangle and white heat embossed the sentiment (Impression Obsession #CL971 "Holiday Words") and a flurry of snow with a Tim Holtz splatter. Then I lined up a row of trees and one of the cars and glued them to the face. The final Santa car carrying the Christmas tree was added with a bit of dimensional foam to pop it up and all was glued to a white card base.

I used a matching aqua stitched rectangle for the inside sentiment (also white heat embossed and from the same Impression Obsession stamp set. I made a custom envelope from a second sheet of the paper, using the red side for the outside of the envelope. 

 

AAA Cards: AAA Card Challenge #279: Anything CAS Goes (Christmas-Winter)

HO HO HO!

Time to start getting a move-on with my Christmas cards! Yesterday I dropped all of my Thanksgiving cards in the mail  (I completely forgot to photograph them). So this morning I'm playing around with a couple of ideas - Inkspirational Challenge #329 has a word prompt up right now - "Santa". I have a fascination with scale and love using tiny images and words. Last year after Christmas I bought a stamp set from Hero Arts (#CM386 "From the Vault - Winter Joy") with several small images that I haven't used yet. I'm going to try my hand at using all of them over the next week or so - we'll see how it goes.  

I wanted to do a card with limited colors, so chose red, black, and silver on white. Last time I was at my favorite craft supply store, I picked up some 12x12 sheets of printed cardstock in their specials bin and used the red side of the paper (the opposite side will show up one day soon). I started with a stitched rectangle of the red cardstock and a smaller stitched rectangle in white. I stamped Santa and his deer in black on white cardstock, colored his hat and coat, and very gingerly fussy cut the image. I lined everything up and stamped Santa again in black inside the stitched circle I had die cut from the top layer. I did that so that I could cut away more of the black and white image but still have his reins to the reindeer show up. I lined up all of the layers and stamped a spatter and sentiment in silver heat embossing, then glued them all to the face of a white card base. Afterwards I wish I had done the spatter in red or black, because it somewhat obscures the sentiment. 

Inkspirational: Challenge #329 - Word Prompt - Santa

MID-NOVEMBER TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Halloween 2024 has come and gone, but here at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge, we love it so much that we keep going all year! So this is our second card for Halloween 2025.

I found this sentiment online and computer-generated it onto a sheet of red-orange 20 lb. paper. I attached it to a black card base and die cut a stitched rectangle from black card stock, punched out a drippy border, and die cut a pumpkin face from my Trinity Stamps "Boo Brew" die set. I added googly eyes, then fussy cut a little ghost from some embossed ghost paper and colored in his eyes and mouth and mounted him with a bit of dimensional foam. Easy-peasy! I made a coordinating envelope with the red-orange paper and lined it with this really cute light-weight ghost paper I found at Joann's.

Remember that our challenge is for anything Halloween - your turn!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: November 2024 Mid Month Reminder

Come and join us. If we get 25 or more entries to our challenge, we have a random drawing for these great Whimsy dies for your stash:

SEIZE THE BIRTHDAY - "FOCAL ONE"

We have a new challenge over at Seize the Birthday, with an optional topping of "Focal One".

Seize the Birthday: Seize the Birthday #295-Focal One

I'm not going to pretend that I have a very clear understanding of this challenge! It was explained as "...in your card, for the focal image, use only one stamp and stamp it only once. No more stamping is allowed on the focal image. However, you are free to color it and do anything else with the rest of the card including a sentiment."

I think my card meets those criteria. On white card stock I stamped a single poppy image from AALL & CREATE #197 "Scripted Botanicals" in black, trimmed it out with a stitched rectangular die, and die-cut a stitched oval from the image. I colored the image in the oval with Copic markers and glued it back on with 3 additional layers of die-cut ovals for dimension. I attached this rectangle to the face of a matching white card base. The final step was to white heat emboss the sentiment from PTI on black card stock and trim it to fit the width of the card, along with a bit of raffia and some rhinestones. That's it!

It occurs to me that this card may also fit another challenge. I have never used the poppy image stamp before, so it is appropriate to share it over at NBUS - Never-Before-Used- Schtuff.  

NBUS: NBUS Challenge #68

HOLIDAY CHEER

It's been quite a while since I've played with the gang over at Just Us Girls Challenge. This week is Color Week and the colors are gold, white, and blue - perfect for my first Holiday card. I've seen so many gorgeous postage stamp cards lately, that I took out my one postage stamp die set and dusted it off for a mostly white card.

I gold heat embossed some sprinkles on a white card base and on a snowflake border die and attached both to the card base. I die cut the postage stamp in white and blue. The swirl was stamped with white Hero Arts Pigment Ink and then the sentiment was over-stamped and gold heat embossed. I added gold twine and a star brad and attached the assembled postage stamp to the face with dimensional foam. Thus completed by card for Just Us Girls Color Week #752.

"Just Us Girls" Challenge: Just Us Girls Challenge #752 - Color Week 

Added November 14, 2024:

 

THANKSGIVING

I took a break to relax my brain a bit and made a card for AAA Cards Challenge #278: Sketch. For someone who is supposed to be retired, I sure am not at this point! I agreed to one last project with an architect and client that I really enjoy working with. But we're in the phase of the project where we're diving into contract documents, details, and specifications and my eyes are crossing! Yesterday I was hunkered down over my computer for 7 hours straight and my back is killing me. So what am I doing? Hunkering over my craft desk!

I started this card with two identical pieces of kraft card stock and I white heat embossed the pumpkins (Impression Obsession #CL698 "Early Sunsets") and "happy" from an old PTI set. Then I stamped "Thanksgiving" in brown ink on the panel that was to be the base. On the second kraft panel, I die cut three rectangles and colored them with Copics. After trimming out the base panel with a stitched rectangular die and attaching it to a white card base, I glued the three smaller rectangles over the image with dimensional foam.

AAA Cards: AAA Card Challenge #278: Sketch

 

NOVEMBER TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Just look at these great ghost and pumpkin fall leaves included in our new November mood board! How can anyone resist playing with that idea?

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: November 2024 Anything Goes Halloween

I couldn't resist! I chose to die cut some PTI fall leaves from ghost-printed paper and coordinating dotted papers, also over-stamping the veins with PTI's coordinating stamp. I started this card with an existing printed Halloween 12x12 paper that I trimmed to a folded 5x7 card and white heat-embossed the sentiment from Unity Stamps #Uk-1400A "Toil and Trouble" (new to me, and expect more from this stamp set as the new Halloween year progresses). After stamping the sentiment, I fussy cut a couple of ghosts from the same ghost-printed stock and glued them to the windows.

The final step was to attach the leaves to the card face - the orange one is attached with dimensional foam. I had a purple A7 envelope in my stash that I lined with the orange ghost paper.

Since Halloween was just yesterday, I'm sure you all still have your Halloween supplies out (in my case they are spread throughout my craft room year-round), so it will be simple to produce yet another Halloween card. Remember that this is a year-round challenge, so we are now starting a new Halloween year, soon to be 2025!