Oldie Moldie Monday

 It is Monday, time to show some love for your old supplies.

I found this image in stuff - I must have done it over 10 years ago.  I believe it was chalking over an image stamped with VersaMark ink.  I used some of my new knowledge to give it more life.  I used colored pencils to add shading to the fish and plant life.  I also added some stickles to give the bubbles a little glitz.

Remember to show some love for your old supplies.  They still make great cards.

CAS Mix Up Challenge for January

 I am trying to play along with a few challenges to get some cards made and sent out.  

The current challenge at CAS Mix Up is loose watercoloring.  Pretty much all my watercoloring is pretty loose.  

I wanted to send a card to some friends who recently lost one of their faithful companions.  Jack was such a sweet dog and a total support for his humans.  He will be missed.  

I had drawn these birds when I was staying with them in Florida so thought they would like getting a card with the birds on it.  Plus who can resist this sentiment.  I hope it brings a smile to their faces.

As you can see, pretty loose drawing and pretty loose watercoloring but I had lots of fun doing it.

Thanks for stopping by.

Sunday Stampers Sketch Challenge

 I am having fun just playing with paper and trying to find challenges to inspire my creativity.  Today it is the sketch challenge at Sunday Stampers.  The sketch inspires you to split part of your paper in half.

On one of my tables, I was looking for something and saw this well aged pad of patterned paper.  I believe the date is 2011 and it had some beautiful paper that worked so well for this sketch.

The entire card is made from patterned paper.  I used pieces of paper behind the focal point to add a small amount of dimension.  A small stamped sentiment completed the card.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  

Christmas Cards for 2022

 When December 2022 rolls around, I want to make sure I have enough Christmas cards to mail out.  To aid me in this hope, I am trying to do as many challenges as possible.  

This week I am participating in the sketch challenge at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown.  

I decided to flip the sketch up side down.  My tree is the banner and my snowflake is the star.  

The tree is a wooden tree.  I colored it with a distress oxide reinker and then poured clear embossing powder over the top and melted it.  I repeated this step so the tree has a beautiful shine.

The background I did some ink smooshing to add some color to the background and then ran it through an embossing folder.  I colored the mat for the card with distress oxide ink so it is a perfect match.  The snowflake was cut from white glitter card stock.  The sentiment was stamped on some ink smooshed paper.  I completed the card with white and silver splatters.

Here is a close up of the tree.

I have one more card for my Christmas card stash.  I mailed over a 100 in 2021 so I do need to be productive.

Thanks for stopping by.  

Oldie Moldie Monday

 It is Monday, time to show some love for your old supplies.

Old Christmas patterned paper still makes great cards.  Love the retro vibe of this paper.

Remember to show some love for your old supplies.  They still make great cards.

January 2022 Happy Little Stampers Stencil Challenge

 It is time for a new year and time for a new challenge at Happy Little Stampers using our stencils.  This challenge is always fun because it is "Anything Goes."  Stencils are such an inexpensive tool in our card making assortment of items to use to make beautiful cards.

It seems that after Christmas we always need a few cards to send a thank you or a winter greeting to.  These cards are very easy to make.

I have seen this technique many times and finally got around to trying it.  I first added a light layer of pink ink smooshing to the background.  After this had dried, I took a background stamp from Hero Arts (I believe it is words in relationship to friendship) and clear embossed it.  I then layered my snowflake stencil from Gina K used three different colors of oxide inks to color the snowflake.  I stamped the sentiment with the blue oxide ink and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.  I die cut it and a larger circle to mat it.  It was all added to a dark blue mat.  

The background for this card was made by spritzing the snowflake stencil with water and then turning the spritzed stencil over on some card stock.  I press down on the stencil so that the leftover ink absorbs in the card stock.  It makes such a pretty soft background.  I used a Memory Box die and cut it out of the colored background.  A pinkish/purply metallic mat was added and you see the snow man showing through the dies.  I die cut the words from the same metallic card stock.

I love that I could get two cards from the same stencil.  Entirely different looks for each card.

Please join us at Happy Little Stampers for our January Challenge.

Thanks for stopping by.  

Happy Little Stampers January 2022 Christmas Challenge

 Wow - it is January 2022.  How did that happen?  Are you ready to start thinking about your Christmas Cards for December 2022.  It will be here before you know it so it is best to get started now.  You probably still have supplies sitting around - might as well use them.

The challenge this month is Anything Goes so I know there is something sitting on your design table that will fit into this category.

While visiting a friend in November 2021 we stopped at a wonderful scrapbook/stamp shop.  I bought a couple new stamps (OK - who am I kidding - I bought more than a couple).  The stamps I bought for Christmas are Woodware Stamps.  The stamps have circle openings where you can add little die cuts and they also have a die that cuts the perfect sized cuts to fill your circles.  You can also color the circles.

I am sharing two cards.  Both were done basically the same.

I stamped with Memento Black Ink and used Copic markers to color the pine bough and bow.  In the ornament I added a light coat of BG10 to bring the entire ornament shape together.  I colored some of the smaller circles with a red copic marker.  The largest circles (using the die I bought for the perfect sized circles) were cut from a metallic red card stock.  I then die cut gold stars which I glued on top of some of the other circles.  On the smallest circles, I added gold Stickles.  A light layer of blue chalk was added to the white background.  A small sentiment was stamped tucked in close to the ornament.  I matted the image with gold card stock and added to a kraft card base.  Gold splatters completed the card.

On this card I stamped the wreath with a green Memento Ink.  I then used a darker green Copic marker to add a little depth to the leaves.  On the smaller dots (berries) I used a red Copic marker to make them red.  The green layer added a little depth to the red.  I added red metallic circles to the larger circles.  Gold Stickles filled in the medium circles.  A clear glaze was added over the top of the gold Stickles.

I added some blue chalk to the white background to add some color.  A Joy die was cut from red metallic paper and added to the middle of the wreath.  The image was matted with gold and mounted to a kraft card base.  Gold splatters completed the card.

I have six of these ready to complete so I will have started my supply of cards for 2022.

Please join us at Happy Little Stampers for our January Christmas Challenge.

Thanks for stopping by.