Autumn Hello; Winter Joy

I'm back again (!) with two more cards for the Unity World Card Making Day challenges! The first one is for Challenge #5: Fall Theme. 

This card is the result of a happy accident! My original plan was to stamp these leaves in a variety of colours, cut them out, and gather them in a bunch with some twine as a focal point of a card. So I stamped them, looked at them, and realized it made a rather awesome background! Thus this card was born. I think I've even worked in some design elements, with the flow of the leaves across the card, and the placement of the little sentiment in the "sweet spot". :) 
My other card is for Challenge #2: Texture. 

Texture? Let me count the ways: 
1. Dry embossing (I sprayed the panel with smooch spritz first for some glitz, then debossed rather than embossed by accident totally on purpose.)
2. Heat embossing. 
3. Textured cardstock for the snowman's jacket and hat as well as the frame.
3. DIY flocking (styrofoam snowball) on his hat and jacket trim.
4. Red perfect pearls for his nose! 
5. Ribbon loops. 
If you big the picture, you'll see the shimmer on the embossed panel as well as the shine of the silver paper of the paper-pieced ornaments. 
I'm on the home stretch now! I may just get all eight challenges done. Although real-life obligations are starting to pile up. ☺

Supplies: (hello) red & Stampin' Up naturals ivory cardstock, Unity September 2011 Kit of the Month (All Seasons) & ? stamps, Memento dandelion, cantaloupe, tangelo, rhubarb stalk & Ranger vintage photo distress inks, Doodlebug twine, pop-dot tape; (winter joy) white & Recollections textured red & silver cardstock, DCWV patterned paper, Unity roly-poly winter joy stamps, Versamark & Versafine onyx black inks, clear & Ranger ruby red embossing powders, Spellbinders ribbon labels & circle dies, Cuttlebug snowflake embossing folder, Colorbox vanilla smooch spritz, white gel pen, Prismacolor pencils, Offray ribbon, pop-dot tape

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Two More Challenge Cards!

Working away at more Unity World Card Making Day Challenges! Once again, I made sure I did a hard (for me) challenge along with an easy one. The hard one first:

This is for Challenge #8: colour challenge. The colours are cream, brown, olive and pumpkin. SO not my colours; I'm more of a brights kinda girl. :) As I looked through my stamps, I came across this itty bitty I hadn't used yet, and the wheels started turning. Don't these socks just call out to be paper-pieced? So that's what I did with a couple of patterned paper scraps. The orange scrap was a rather pale pumpkin, so I added some spiced pumpkin paint to the polka dots. Now I have a fun masculine card to add to my stash! 

Challenge #6 asks you to make a border using a non-border stamp. I had lots of ideas for this one, but in my effort to build up the Christmas card collection as I do some challenges, I opted for this little holly stamp. Notice I went for the non-written rhyme: jolly, golly... holly!
This means I have half the challenges done! Four down, four to go... 

Supplies: (socks) Stampin' Up naturals ivory & old olive cardstock, patterned paper scraps, Unity matching socks stamps, Brilliance coffee bean ink, clear embossing powder, Twinkling H2Os, Spellbinders reverse wonky rectangles die, pop-dot tape; (be jolly) white & black cardstock, Echo Park Holly Jolly Christmas patterned paper, Unity/Jillibean Soup Christmas Eve Chowder stamps, Memories black, Stampin' Up garden green & Versamark inks, clear embossing powder, Prismacolor pencils

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World Card Making Day Challenges

So, World Card Making Day (WCMD) was October 6th, coincidentally the day of our big family Thanksgiving dinner... which I cook. Luckily for me, some WCMD challenges extend beyond the day itself, including those at the Unity Stamp blog. If you enter all EIGHT, there's a chance for a big prize! I don't know if I can manage to get them all done, but I've got two ready to go! 

This is for Challenge #7: Colouring. It was going to be for the embossing challenge, but I realized that masking the little penguins so they could all hold flippers AND embossing them was too much work for my frame of mind when I made it. ;) The colouring was accomplished with a few Sharpies, and the pom-poms and hat bands have some Stickles for fun. 

In attempting not to do ALL the easiest challenges first, this is for Challenge #4: Sketch. I was pretty much stumped by this sketch until I flipped it upside-down. Then I had a bunch of ideas, and settled on using this great {ippity} penguin, sitting on a giant snowdrift. He's coloured with Prismacolour pencils. 

I'm also going to sneak one of these cards into the Moxie Fab World Christmas card challenge. Unfortunately, those challenges end tonight, so I'll have to live with just two entries. More time for Unity challenges! :D 

             

Supplies: (warm wishes) white & Stampin' Up garden green cardstock, Unity/Jillibean Soup Christmas Eve Chowder stamps, Memories black & Stampin' Up real red inks, Sharpies, icicle Stickles, Cuttlebug embossing folder, Spellbinders labels 3 & ribbon tag dies, Celebrate It ribbon, pop-dot tape; (safe holiday) white & Stampin' Up real red cardstock, DCWV patterned paper, {ippity} by Unity Pain and Pride stamps, Versafine onyx black & cranberry inks, clear embossing powder,  Prismacolor pencils, frosted lace Stickles, pop-dot tape

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Simon Says Dies or Punches

This week the Simon Says Stamp challenge is to use dies or punches. After thinking I didn't really even want one, I use my Cuttlebug a lot. So a card with a die cut seemed like a fine idea. :D

I really like the delicate look of this flower die. After I cut it, I watercoloured it lightly with green and yellow ink. This patterned paper matched the colours perfectly, and then I picked up on the blue to ink the sentiment. A little twine to finish everything off. Sweet, simple, and easy to mail. 
Since this is (obviously) a birthday card, I'm also going to link it to Moxie Fab World's birthday card World Card Making Day challenge. I totally missed out on WCMD since that was our family's main Thanksgiving get-together day.  Now I'm making up for lost time... next up, some Unity WCMD challenges! 

        

Supplies: white cardstock, watercolour paper, Memory Box brioche patterned paper, Memory Box happy birthday sentiment, Memento dandelion, new sprout, pear tart & teal zeal inks, Simon Says Stamp fresh daisies die, Twinery honeydew twine Pin It Now!

Double Embossing

It's Friends with Flair Friday over at the Unity blog, and I decided it was time to show off my first-ever attempt at double-embossing. 

I started by embossing the music background on white cardstock with clear embossing powder. I then sponged yellow and orange inks to cover. Next came the butterfly from Key to Joy, embossed in white. Finally, I sponged green around the butterfly, letting the orange and yellow show through the central image. Trimmed, matted and layered on an old olive card base. The "happy" sentiment is from the {ippity} set A Little Buggy. I made this a while ago for my friend Emily's birthday, and for some reason it hadn't made it to my blog yet! So here it is. :P 
Hope your weekend is off to a great start! 

Supplies: white & Stampin' Up old olive cardstock, Unity Key to Joy butterfly, {ippity} A Little Buggy sentiment, Market Street Stamps vintage music background, Versamark, Colorbox frost white, Memento dandelion, cantaloupe & bamboo leaves inks, clear & white embossing powders Pin It Now!

Be Inspired at Crafty Creations Challenges

Belated happy Canadian Thanksgiving! It is definitely autumn here now, and the leaves are falling like crazy. But why rake when you could stay inside and play with paper? :P This week Crafty Creations Challenges has an inspiration photograph to spark your creativity: 

So here is what I was not inspired by: the colours. (It's probably not proper etiquette to admit what you didn't like, but colours seem to be what I always consider first when looking at an inspiration pic. These are a little too neutral for me.) What I did like were the natural elements such as the wood and the feather, and the lovely shape of the bell jar. I looked through some images from our sponsor this week, Meljen's Designs, and picked one that worked for me.

I was eager to try my newest Twinkling H2Os (attention, Canadian shoppers: this store has great prices, sales and service! I now have a fine collection of Twinkling H2Os, whereas I used to have two little pots) so printed out this Victorian birdcage image on watercolour paper, then heat-set and painted it. (One of these days, I will teach myself some more digital-friendly techniques...) Instead of real feathers, I created the pattened paper frame... from a scan of a cloth napkin! :D Some liquid pearls on what I decided were berries completed the scene. I will confess... I'm not completely satisfied with how this has turned out, and may continue to play around with this a little more. 
What inspires you when you look at this week's photograph? Show us for a chance to win your choice of four images from Meljen's Designs! 

Supplies: white cardstock, 110 lb. watercolour paper, Meljen's Designs Victorian birdcage image, Twinkling H2Os, ruby red Liquid Pearls, pop-dot tape Pin It Now!