Happy Little Stampers CAS: Wings

Yes, I've joined the Happy Little Stampers CAS Challenge design team! I've always considered myself a clean and simple cardmaker, but this is my first time on a CAS design team! I'm looking forward to matching themes to CAS designs. 
Our January theme is WINGS. I was tempted to think outside the box and use an airplane for my card, but eventually settled on a couple of feathered - and musical - friends: 

To keep my card CAS, I blended some distress ink along the bottom of my card as a ground for my little scene. My birds and music stand are stamped, embossed and coloured with Copics. After die cutting them, I arranged them on the card base and added the sentiment and a couple of notes. 

Be sure to visit Happy Little Stampers to see the great inspiration cards by my new design teammates! A big thank you to Kylie for giving me the opportunity to join the team. 

Supplies: Neenah white cardstock, Lawn Fawn Critter Concert stamps & dies, Versafine onyx black & bundled sage distress ink, Wow clear gloss & clear sparkle embossing powder, Copic markers, foam tape

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Seize the Birthday: New Year, New Look!

Check out our new look at Seize the Birthday for this brand new year! Big thanks to design team member Ashwini Rao for supplying our new badges and banners. 

Ashwini also picked our first "topping" for the year, and it is a tough one for me... LAYER IT! Of course, as always, we accept any newly crafted birthday card in our gallery, but as a team member, I really should use the optional challenge theme. And there are lots of options: I could have used layering stamps or layered die cuts... but instead I went a more challenging route and ended up with this: 

I have a not-so-secret affection for Graphic 45 papers, even though they are so out of my crafting wheelhouse. They do not exactly lend themselves to clean and simple cards. :D Still, once or twice a year, they call to me to come play with them, and a layered card is a perfect excuse. Most of the elements are from an 8x8 pad called Vintage Hollywood, with the tickets and countdown frames from their Curtain Call collection. As usual with G45 papers, I couldn't fit what I wanted on a regular 4¼ by 5½ card front, so this one is 6½ by 4¾. (How did I pick my size? By looking through my stash of random envelopes, of course. :D) For the backing panel, I sponged Versamark through a star stencil, added a freehand border with a Versamarker, then brushed on some Perfect Pearls. 

There's no obvious birthday sentiment, but I thought "Born to be a Star", popped up a little with some fun foam, combined with the less obvious "VINTAGE Hollywood", definitely suggested a birthday card. Even "On with the Show" works! 

Here's a close-up of the layered collage: 

Our surprise party guest for the next two months is none other than my friend and 25 Days of Christmas Tags teammate Joyce! Please visit the Seize the Birthday blog to check out hers, as well as my birthday teammates', creations! I hope you will join us. 

Supplies: Recollections black cardstock, Graphic 45 Vintage Hollywood & Curtain Call patterned papers, Heffy Doodle Starfall stencil, Versamark ink, Versamarker, biscotti Perfect Pearls, fun foam

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ABC Christmas Challenge: A & B

Happy 2020! Since the new year is starting on a Wednesday, so is the alphabet at ABC Christmas Challenge! 
Our challenges this month are A for Anything Christmas and B for Bingo. For my anything Christmas card, I made my first ever shadow box card! 

I am so happy with the way this card turned out, and a lot of the credit goes to my friend Stephanie, who has a really easy-to-follow tutorial here. (Sure, I could try to explain how I made mine, but Steph's instructions can't be beat! Also, I don't make videos. :D) I have two layers of snow, with images adhered to them and directly to the base of the box. Not having an engineering degree, this first attempt doesn't sit perfectly flat when folded, but close enough to still fit in a regular envelope, which was good enough for me. ;) 

Our second prompt this month is a bingo challenge, with the following grid: 

Oh look, there's clean and simple in the bottom row. :D Seemed like a good choice for me: 

I stamped and silver-embossed all the snowflakes in the Studio Katia Snowflakes stamp set and die cut them. As it turned out, I only needed three of them for the die cut panel I wanted to use. I added an embossed sentiment, and this card was done. 

While the snowflakes were right there anyway, I made a second card: 

This one counts for the bottom row of the bingo board as well, but not as obviously, with just the dir cut base panel and the sentiment banner. This time the snowflakes are embossed in white, with different colours of distress ink blended over each. 

I know, I know, it's January, but if you're anything like me, not all the Christmas card supplies have been tucked away.:D Why not give yourself a head start and join us? 

Supplies: (ho-ho-holidays) Neenah white & Stampin' Up real red cardstock, Lawn Fawn Snow Day Remix patterned paper, Heffy Doodle Santa's Village stamps & dies, Lawn Fawn Ho Ho Holidays stamps, Versamark onyx black & Stampin' Up real red ink, Wow clear gloss embossing powder, Copic markers, MFT stitched square, blueprints 29 sentiment banner & Scenic Safari dies; (silver snowflakes) Neenah white cardstock, Studio Katia Snowflakes stamps & dies, Versamark, Ranger ultra fine silver embossing powder, MFT stitched rectangle die; (Christmas cheer) Neenah white cardstock, Craft Smith green card base, Studio Katia Snowflakes & Technique Tuesday Jingle All the Way stamps, Versamark, Ranger classic cherry & spun sugar, festive berries, salty ocean, milled lavender & evergreen bough distress inks, Wow fine white embossing powder, Sugar Pea card front element builder & MFT blueprints 29 dies, foam tape

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Happy Little Stampers Watercolour: Die Cuts

It's hard to believe this is my first blog post for 2020 (in Australian time) or conversely, my last post for 2019 (in Canadian time)! Whichever way you look at it, I am grateful to be part of the Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge design team for this new year. Our first optional theme is DIE CUTS. I think my creative mojo may still be in holiday mode, but I did manage to come up with this: 

I used the current sketch from Freshly Made Sketches to give my creativity a little shove. ;) To start, I die cut the flowers from watercolour paper and used distress inks to loosely watercolour them. Then I cut the two backing panels from watercolour paper and watercoloured them through a stencil. Once I'd put everything together, I decided to use this to add a sympathy card to my stash - it's always helpful to have a few on hand of there's not a lot of time to make one. 

Beautiful cards from my watercolour teammates, including our newest members, Carole, Swapna, and Anna! You have all month to die cut, watercolour, and join us. 

Supplies: American Crafts textured blue cardstock, Canson watercolour paper, Clearly Besotted Message Me stamp, Versafine onyx black, spun sugar, picked raspberry & salty ocean distress inks, Wow clear gloss embossing powder, Simon Says Stamp Fresh Daisies, Sizzix/Tim Holtz Stacked Deckle & MFT Blueprints 24 dies, Carabelle Studio Mosaïque stencil

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Rated... X?

Edna obviously knows how to celebrate the holidays 😱 - and so the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers is offering up X is for X-rated Xmas! Some of the sisters are better than others at going there - and sadly, my x-rated inspiration was sorely lacking. So here's my best effort: 

My Santa, yes, is still wearing clothes, but he is obviously ready to par-tay. He is coloured in Copics, and dancing on a stamped floor. My sentiment is festively sparkly with embossing powder. 

What about you, are you ready to go there? In honour of the season, this is our FOUR WEEK challenge - so you have almost a month to join us with your parental advisory project! 

Supplies: Neenah white cardstock, American Crafts green foil paper, Stampin' Up Visions of Santa, MFT Sassy Pants Holidays & Simon Says Stamp/Kelly Purkey Oh, Dear stamps, Versafine onyx black & Stampin' Up garden green ink, Wow clear sparkle embossing powder, Copic markers, Wink of Stella clear glitter brush marker, fun foam

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A Naughty Inkspirational Challenge

Inspirational is offering a challenge I can definitely enter! Their word prompt is NAUGHTY, and as a founding member of the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers, this is a challenge I can handle. In fact, I even used it to make multiple cards! 

I don't often make repeats of a card, but a) time is running out and b) Canada Post says cards with layers or embellishments sent outside the country might need to be charged parcel rates. Yikes! I need some relatively flat cards STAT! So I made this quartet of Santa cards, stamping the Santa in the MISTI, colouring, then adding the sentiment in either red or green. Here's the red version: 

And the green version: 

Since a few of my snarky sisters are on the Shopping Our Stash design team, I'm hoping they'll appreciate me linking this up to their current challenge, Happy Holidays.  

Supplies: Neenah white cardstock, Craft Smith red & green card bases, Picket Fence Studios Straight Form the North Pole stamps, Versafine onyx black, Stampin' Up real red & Memento bamboo leaves ink, Wow clear gloss embossing powder, Copic markers, Winnie & Walter Katharine Cutaways pierced frame die

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