Well the New Year is fast approaching - I always get a little sentimental and nostalgic at New Year. This year it is a quiet one with hubby and I are on our own. I hope 2019 is a great year for your all - I know I'm going to be very busy with the challenge blogs. My own one for my Joy of Set's Facebook group starts on 5th January so I hope you will look out for it and come and play along.
Our challenge for Try Stampin on Tuesday is a sketch challenge with the option of Happy Birthday. Phew a non Christmas Card but fear not - the Christmas stamps are not going away thanks to the Sparkles Design Team I'm part of which is carrying Christmas through our hearts the whole year through.
But for now I've used a Stampin Up Set Watercolour Wings and it's matching thinlet. I've used some Kaisercraft paper for the background and sponged some retired SU More Mustard ink on the edges. The ribbon behind the Butterfly is non SU. I used three ink colours for the butterfly - Mint Macaron, Tempting Turqoise and Bermuda Bay. The little butterfly was cut out with an old SU punch.
There just remains one more thing for me to say and that is
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Oops - I'm not quite ready yet to let go of the Christmas style cards - but in fairness this is more a celebration of Winter than Christmas. My inspiration came from the challenge over at Inspired By which is as below
I used the Cable Knit embossing folder from Stampin Up for the base of my card in white and then heat embossed the snowflakes from Gina K Designs Season of Joy set - I loved this set it was my to-to for Christmas. Once the snowflakes were dry I used a few inks to ink up the background and make the snowflakes pop. I started off with Tim Holtz tumbled glass but it was too pale so I added some SU Night of Navy on top. The sentiment is from the same set and this was simply inked in black and then I ran a Spectrum Noir sparkle pen over the top of the words and also the snowflakes.
I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and received lots of new crafty goodies to play with for the New Year to come. Our challenge over at Sweet Stampin' this week is NEW. So I decided to get out a new stamp set which I hadn't inked yet - its called A Little Something from Clearly Besotted stamps.
Now that Christmas is over I have lots of Thank You cards to send out and this little set is going to be a great help.
I've used white on white here for the card - the inks I've used are all Stampin Up - Wild Wasabi, Melon Mambo and Fresh Fig. I've also used a retired SU embossing folder for the hearts - just embossing the bottom part of the white card stock. A touch of Baker's Twine and some embellishments and a touch of Spectrum Noir Sparkle pen finishes off the card.
I'm looking forward to your take on this NEW challenge.
Wishing you all a very successful and happy 2019!
My card today is all about the Glitter and Sparkle. I was inspired by a challenge by my friend and SU Demo Angie McKenzie on her Facebook Group Nature's Inkspirations and this was one of the four images I chose as my inspiration.
I've used silver glitter paper for the background. The trees are cut with Stampin Up's framelits which match Winter Woods. They have been cut twice and layered and some glitter added. The snowbank was made with a retired embossing folder by SU. The sentiment is from Kaisercraft Wonderland papers.
The photo doesn't really show how fabulously shiny this card is in real life.
I'm also adding this into the following challenges:
Global Design Project - T'is The Season
Make My Monday - Traditional Colours
Inkspirational - Anything Christmas
The Paper Players - It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
We have a sketch for you over at Try Stampin on Tuesday for you this week.
I've used some gorgeous Christmas Papers called Festive Chalkboard by Craftwork Cards. I then used a Stampin Up Stitched framelit to make the circle and heat embossed some images from a small little stamp set I had in my stash. I embossed them in Silver and then coloured them in with marker pens. I attached it all to a silver doily and added a small die cut silver snowflake in the top corner. Grey is a very unusual colour for me to work with but I thought it complimented that chalkboard paper.
Thank you for playing along with us and I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with this sketch.
The challenge over at Sweet Stampin this week is Snowmen/Snowladies - that's funny I've never seen an actual snowlady stamp.
The stamps I've used here are from an old set by Stampin Up called Flaky Friends. I started sponging a background winter scene - making it look kind of stormy with the added greens and yellows. I kept the colours of the snow people to two colour blues - the pale is from Kaisercraft and is called Lagoon - the darker is Stampin Up Island Indigo.
I added lots of glitter for sparkle including some sparkly ribbon and some extra embellishments on some of the snowmen.
Over at my Facebook Group The Joy of Sets we celebrate all things Stampin Up both retired and current as well as other stamp companies. It gives you the chance to still use the retired stock and not leave it un-inked and unloved! There is a special give away going on for our December Challenge with a $25 voucher from Lawn Fawn.
I'm also adding this into the challenge at Cards In Envy who want to see our Christmas cards - they could be inundated lol!
Wow it's getting busy for us crafters! I haven't had a chance to join in any of the challenges this week. However over on my Facebook Group The Joy of Sets we are running a Christmas Tag a day for until 16th December - there are so many gorgeous inspirational tags there that everyone has shared. Our Challenge for December is also sponsored by Lawn Fawn - I'm so excited that they agreed to sponsor a challenge for us. So why not head over to Joy of Sets and join in the fun.
Here are some of my Tags for the tag challenge this week.
I'm adding my tags into the challenge over at TGIF this week who are asking for anything but a card #tgifc188
Hello and welcome to our last Joy of Sets Blog Hop for 2018. We decided to go out with a bang and do a Christmas one - what a surprise!
At Joy of Sets we don't just focus on Stampin Up but lots of other stamp companies receive our recognition and love. My card for today's hop therefore doesn't use Stampin Up stamps - just the ink and the papers.
I started with some Whisper White and added snow banks with some Soft Sky ink and a sponge. The trees are from Hero Arts Winter Scene and have been stamped with SU Wild Wasabi. The little robin is from Wild Rose and he has been coloured in with SU Watercolour Pencils. His hat has some Frosted Lace Stickles on the rim and the bobble to make it shine. He was cut out and popped up on dimensionals. The extra touches of snow have been added on with a white Signo gel pen. The sentiment is an old one I've had for years and is one of my very favourite Christmas sayings.
I hope you visit everyone on the blog and get lots of lovely inspiration for your Christmas cards this year. If you are on Facebook and would like to join Joy of Sets just follow the link at the top of my page. We have lots going on including swaps, monthly challenges, worldwide RAK's, blog hops and a great bunch of crafters always ready to help out.
I would just like to take this opportunity to thank all the participants of this Blog Hop and all the fabulous crafters we have on Joy of Sets. It was my small little group started in 2017 and it has grown to be over 3,000 members - it was exactly the right name to give the group also because it does bring me great Joy. So thank you all for being there in 2018 and here's to a crafty 2019!
I'm delighted to be offered the chance to be part of the Sweet Stampin Challenge Blog Design Team. I jumped straight in and was just in time to add my entry for this week's theme which is Sparkle and Glitz.
I used some Designer Series Paper from Stampin Up for the background as it looks like stars. I then used some silver paper as a backing and silver embossed stars on to some white card stock. The circles were cut out with Stampin Up Stitched Framelits in both silver and white. The scene in the inner circle is from Hero Arts Winter Scene stamps.
I used some of the same DSP as the background and sponged some ink over it. The trees have been silver embossed and the deer have been inked in Early Espresso and then covered in a Wink of Stella to give them a sparkle. The sentiment has also been silver embossed and comes from the same set. A shiny brad to match the backing paper is added to the sentiment. I've added two lots of Stampin Up ribbons to make it look as if it is a bauble.
I'm looking forward to seeing all your lovely sparkly creations and thank you for visiting my blog.
We have a sketch for you today over at Try Stampin On Tuesday
I turned the image around and went with a non Christmas card for my card. I've used the lovely SU stamp set Wetlands. The paper was run through an old crimping machine I have to give the effect of the water. Versamark was used on the cardstock to emboss it with the stamped image.
The tag is from an SU punch and there is a touch of sponging on the edges to soften it.
Wow - a non Christmas card from me today - I'll be getting withdrawal symptoms! My card is for two challenges - Watercooler Wednesday which is Anything Goes - Feminine and Double D Challenge which is Wishes.
Well it had to be SU's Dandelion Wishes for my card. I started off with some Whisper White and sponged it with some Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Tattered Rose, darkening to Worn Lipstick with a touch of an old SU colour Rose Red. The dandelions were inked in Early Espresso and I used my Tim Holtz stamping platform so I could do multiple inking on the stems and the inside of the dandelions just to give them a touch of depth.
I layered it onto some Early Espresso card stock with an SU pearlized doily cut in half placed at the top and the bottom. I then used a white gel pen to add the stitching around the side. The card base is Stampin Up Pink Powder and the matching ribbon is Pink Powder sheen. Some SU embellishments finish off the card.
I'm an old traditionalist at heart and like nothing better at Christmas than red. It's actually one of my favourite colours anyway, that and green and I have a lot of red in my house. The challenge over at As You See It is red but with a twist - a card done in less than 10 minutes.
Even though my card has heat embossing and cold embossing I still managed to get it done under the 10 minutes.
This Santa Collage stamp is one of my all time favourite stamps at this time of the year. He's been embossed with red embossing powder. The holly embossing folder is an retired SU one. The sentiment is from Inkadinkado and is also an old stamp.
Sparkles Christmas Card Challenge #95 is also asking for embossing.
We have a colour challenge for you over at Hand Stamped Sentiments this week. I decided to have a play with Stampin Up's Dandelion Wishes as I haven't used this in a while and it makes a change from Christmas cards.
I don't have any Merry Merlot yet in my stash so I used the closest thing which is Cherry Cobbler. I used that as the card base with some Pumpkin Pie for layering. The background stamp is a very old one from Laura Ashley. - The words say "Find your inspiration anywhere roaming the English Countryside gathering wildflowers...." - a perfect backdrop for the Dandelions. I used Crushed Curry for the words and sponged the edges with Pumpkin Pie and stamped the dandelions in Memento Tuxedo Black ink.
I added half a Pearlized Doily from SU which has been inked in Crushed Curry. I found some ribbon that looked very like Pumpkin Pie and added an old SU brad. The beauty of not being an SU demo any more is I can use all my old stash. Some Cherry Cobbler enamel dots finish off the card.
This is my last post for today - I seem to be on a roll for a Monday. I had this card done but realised I hadn't blogged about it yet and wanted to add it into the challenge for CAS Colours and Sketches #296 which was the following: a double challenge and although I didn't have the exact colours I made do with some alternate Stampin Up colours.
I've used a retired Stampin Up set here called Season of Joy - I just love this Christmas tree - the little presents are also very ld SU stamps from about 1990!! I used Cherry Cobbler, Wild Wasabi and Not Quite Navy for my colours with a some So Saffron card stock behind the Whisper White. The Christmas presents have a touch of Dazzling Diamonds on them and the twine is Old Olive.
The sentiment is not SU and is an old but favourite one of mine as it reminds me of one of my favourite films for the Festive season which is Meet Me In St Louis - I just love Judy Garland and this song in particular. Christmas Eve normally finds me having a few quite hours watching this again. Here I've embossed it with Silver Embossing Powder.
