Year of the Dragon

The Chinese New Year was celebrated this week! (Monday, to be exact.) It supposedly also marks the beginning of the spring season, although the weather here at the moment would beg to differ. We have now entered the Year of the Dragon, which just happens to follow the Year of the Rabbit -- that's me! While I do have bunny stamps, I am lacking in the dragon department, so went very traditional for my New Year card:

For me, one of the neat things about this card is that much of it is made with things I have won! The lanterns are part of a Black Leaf Design Solutions digital set I won on the DYSU challenge blog. They are paper-pieced with some My Mind's Eye paper I won from my friend, Meg. And the twine the lanterns are hanging from is one of five colours of twine I won from the Ribbon Carousel Challenge! (Yay, me! Granted, these wins took place over quite a stretch of time.) For the little dragon medallion, I went back to my teacher roots and found the image on Scholastic.com. I did manage to supply the red and white cardstock all by myself. ☺

The Simon Says Stamp Challenge is calling to me to link this card! And since the Year of the Dragon is supposed to be one of extra good fortune, here's hoping! 

Supplies: white and Stampin' Up real red cardstock, My Mind's Eye Life of the Party Lime Twist patterned paper, Black Leaf Design Solutions Festive Chinese Lanterns digital image, gold gel pen, black baker's twine, dimensionals

It's Friends with Flair!

It's Friday, and that means Unity Friends with Flair! I'm always happy to link up, just not thrilled at the reason I had to make this card... it's another sympathy card. I wanted to get it done and in the mail right away, so... I CASEd myself. (CASE = Copy and Share Everything.) I switched up the colours and dropped a layer, but kept the same general layout. I will have to use this image for a different type of card soon, though -- otherwise, it may start to be "the sympathy card stamp" in my mind. (I pigeonhole things that way sometimes, if I'm not careful. ☺)
Hope you're getting ready for a great weekend! And if you head over to the Unity blog... wow, there's a ton of fun new releases over there!
P.S. Almost forgot to link this to Simon Says Stamp anything goes challenge! 


Supplies: Stampin' Up very vanilla cardstock, wedgewood blue cardstock, Unity/Webster's Pages Love stamp & Bevy of Butterflies sentiment, Stormy Sky distress ink, clear embossing powder, oval nestabilities, Fiskars threading water punch

Time for Valentines at Crafty Creations Challenges

This week at Crafty Creations Challenges, we're looking for Valentine-themed projects -- after all, Valentine's Day is less than a month away! I've got two heart-related cards to help get your ideas flowing. 

It's a one-layer card! Even though I'm all about keeping my cards clean and simple, I rarely make one-layer cards. Somehow, they always seem too plain. However, after stamping these hearts and trying to layer them several different ways, I realized they were calling out to just be right on the card base. I also have to share my (very) unlikely inspiration:

Don't worry, I'm not equating myself to Matisse. ☺I used this piece a number of times in the classroom as part of an art lesson in collage. When I was looking at my heart stamps, trying to decide what to do with them, I thought of this and using them as a tower. 
My second card has no links to modernist art:

Instead, it has candy hearts! I stamped each heart on a different colour of cardstock with a coordinating ink. This easy frame is fun to use when it's a card you don't plan to send in the mail. 
Have you started your Valentine crafting yet? Link your projects up to our challenge and you might win a great prize from this week's sponsor, Whiff of Joy. Plus, the rest of the design team will be sure to inspire you. 


Supplies: (tower of love) white cardstock, Hero Arts heart in a heart, dot heart, star heart & spiral heart stamps, Colorbox orchid pastel, lime pastel, blue lagoon & lipstick red chalk inks; (candy hearts) white, pink, blue, green, yellow & Stampin' Up almost amethyst textured cardstock, Craft Smart candy hearts, Hero Arts envelope pattern & Unity All Seasons stamps, Colorbox orchid, cyan, fresh green, canary & Stampin' Up lavender lace inks, clear embossing powder

Crafty Creations Challenges: What's New?

It's technically my week off at Crafty Creations Challenges, but I was in search of a little inspiration and decided to play along anyway! This week, show us something new! I used a new image from our sponsor this week, Sew Many Cards:

I wanted to keep this card very pastel, so watercoloured the Love Tree image with distress inks. It looked like the perfect tree to lie beneath on a spring day, so I paired it with a "daydream" sentiment from a Unity set I picked up just before Christmas. (New item number two!) Unfortunately, the light colours made this tough for me to get a good photograph.  
Be sure to visit Crafty Creations Challenges to see what this week's design team has to inspire you... and consider this a good excuse to start using some new craft goodies!


Supplies: cream & Stampin' Up pink pirouette cardstock, watercolour paper, Sew Many Cards digital image, Unity Gratitude=Joy sentiment stamp, spun sugar, milled lavender, dusty concord, bundled sage, peeled paint, antique linen & vintage photo Distress Inks

New Year Friends with Flair

I thought it would be fun to link up to the first Friends with Flair for 2012, so got out my Unity stamps:

I used a variety of Unity and Ippity stamps to create this little wildflower-and-grass silhouette and paired it with a sentiment to make this serene card. 


Supplies: Stampin' Up very vanilla and soft suede textured cardstock, Crate Paper portrait collection-pearls patterned paper, Unity Gratitude=Joy, Bevy of Butterflies & Ippity Sing a New Song stamps, Vintage Photo distress ink

The Last of the Christmas Posts?

Before we get too far into January, I wanted to share some fabulous (mostly) Christmas cards I received from some very talented friends. These are more or less in the order I received them.

Back in November, Kary celebrated her birthday by giving away stamps sets on her blog! And I won two lovely sets! When Kary sent them (from Malaysia!) she included this lovely card. One of the best things about this beautiful card is that it confirms that I have no need to invest in Copic markers... I could never come close to this level of gorgeous colouring! This also turned out to be the first Christmas card we received this season.

I guess I've been on a bit of a winning streak, as I also won some fun stamp sets from Angela in November. She sent them along with some extra goodies and this great card, which was perfect to receive on a gray and gloomy late fall day. 

But then Angela sent me this beautiful Christmas card a few weeks later! I love the more vintage-y feel of this design with its rich warm colours. 

My friend Amanda knows I love me some Mickey, so she sent this amazing card to me. Do they not look perfectly festive in red? (Fun coincidence: my husb had already bought my Christmas card, featuring... die-cut Mickey and Minnie under the mistletoe!)

I do like Emily's clean and simple (CAS) style -- and playdates at her house where she lets me use all her awesome stuff! (I don't think I'll be getting her out of the city any time soon to return the favour. Besides, she has way better toys. ☺) My photograph doesn't do justice to the glittery green felt she used for this sweet Christmas tree. Emily does a much better job displaying it here. 

A Stampin' Up demo that sends her customers Christmas cards? How awesome is that? Of course, Grace knows what she's doing, since she used beautiful SU products, most of which I don't have. 

It takes a while for an angry red bird to fly from the States up here to Canada (so many pigs along the way, I'm sure) but wow, it was worth the wait to see this card from Meg in person! Every little detail is perfect, right down to the shimmery Santa hat!


Thanks for making it through this long post -- I think these awesome cards make it all worthwhile, though. 

Crafty Creations Challenge #151: Turn Up the Heat!

In my neck of the woods, yesterday was definitely a day to turn up the thermostat -- it was COLD! And at Crafty Creations Challenges, we're getting you to turn up the heat with some heat embossing this week. 

Using heat embossing is not a huge challenge for me -- NOT using heat embossing might make it a challenge! So I decided to increase my heat-embossing repertoire by investigating using it on digital images. This butterfly image is from our sponsor this week, Pattie's Creations. I printed it out on vellum and had my embossing powder at the ready to sprinkle as soon as the paper cleared the printer. As you can see, it worked perfectly! (I may have to try this on regular cardstock next -- imagine the possibilities! ☺)

Be sure to visit the Crafty Creations Challenges blog to see what the other design team members have created, and to enter the challenge! 

supplies: Stampin' Up very vanilla and rich razzleberry cardstock, Basic Grey euphoria-ferver patterned paper, Pattie's Creations digital image, gold embossing powder, Martha Stewart border punch