Happy Day Before Thanksgiving!

Hey there!  I'm popping in to let you know that I have a post up on the AJVD blog today and here is a little peek of my card:

I hope you will head over to the AJVD blog to see the full project and to let me know what you think!  Wishing everyone in the US a very happy Thanksgiving!  Also wanted to let you know that AJVD has a Black Friday sale going on right now and here are all the details:

season's greetings...

Hello!  With Thanksgiving happening this week in the US I'm starting to realize that I need to get a few more Christmas cards completed.  To that end I made this card using the beautiful Altenew Festive Poinsettia stamp and die set that I purchased a few weeks ago.  I stamped the image with VersaMark watermark ink and the heat embossed in gold on watercolor paper.  I watercolored the image with distress inks re-inkers in Forest Moss, Festive Berries and Wild Honey.  Once the piece was dry I die cut it with the matching die.  I watercolored a background with Old Paper distress ink re-inker and then added splatters with some black watercolor paint.  The piece was die cut and then adhered to a panel of gold glitter cardstock.   I stamped the sentiment in VersaFine CLAIR Nocturne and then added the poinsettia.  This will be heading over to the Altenew November Inspiration challenge, as well as the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of all that glitters is gold challenge.   One more Christmas card down.... several more to go, lol!

Have a wonderful day!

two cards...

Hello!  The weekend is here!  I hope you have some fun plans.  I'm popping in with a couple of cards that I have made over the last few day.  First up is a card for Freshly Made Sketches.  I recently ordered a few things from Honey Bee Stamps and received a little card with my order that can be colored.  I decided to try my hand at coloring with grays using the card.  I pulled out my Prisma Color pencils and found three compatible grays and got to coloring up the flowers.   Once I finished with the flowers I found a green that was in the gray family, as well and a light yellow that I toned down even more with a white pencil.    I trimmed the panel just a bit once I was done.  I adhered some black cardstock that I embossed with an embossing folder to a light gray cardstock base and then added my panel.  I have to admit that I really pleased with how things turned out!

The second card is for Color Throwdown and CAS(E) this Sketch.  When I saw the CTD color palette I immediately thought of one of the Starbucks Christmas mugs that you can find in their stores.  They are so pretty and feature I stylized poinsettia on them so I decided to make a poinsettia for my card.  I just love poinsettias!  I pulled out my AJVD Poinsettia die set to create the poinsettia using red and aqua cardstock. Once the flower was created I added strips of silver glitter cardstock to a white cardstock base.  I placed my flower on the card where I wanted it and then placed my sentiment stamp.  The flower was removed, the sentiment was stamped using VersaFine CLAIR Tulip ink and then I adhered the flower.  Love the super clean and simple design.

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Supplies:  Cardstock:  white, aqua, light red, gray, black, silver glitter; Stamps:  Honey Bee; A Jillian Vance Design; Dies:  A Jillian Vance Design; Embossing folder:  Darice; Ink:  VersaFine CLAIR

Happy Wednesday!

Hello everyone!  Hope your week is going well!  I'm popping in to let you know that I have a post up on the A Jillian Vance Design blog today and here is a little peek of my project:

I hope you will head over to the AJVD blog to check out my super simple card and to let me know what you think!  Have a wonderful day!

Thanksgiving and Christmas...

Hello!  Popping in with a Thanksgiving card, as well as a Christmas card.  First up is the Thanksgiving card that I will be adding to the following challenges:  CAS(E) this Sketch,  Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge.   This card came about because I decided to die cut the fun wishbone die from the Spellbinders small die kit for October out of a piece of fall patterned paper that I had floating around.  Once that was done I had to build my card around it and boy was that hard!  Took me the better part of a day to get the right color combination.  Originally I had a lot of kraft cardstock involved, but things were just not working.  I brought in a green cardstock in the same color as the patterned paper and that seemed to make things work so much better.  One of the background ovals was die cut from an alcohol ink background that I created on some Yupo paper.   To create a little bit more interest in my card I embossed the green cardstock panel with some burlap.  I love the subtle interest that it brings to the card.

Now for my Christmas card.  This one is for the following challenges:  The Paper Players (colors), Time Out (colors) and MFT sketch challenge.   I have played along with an MFT sketch challenge in ages and I was determined to make something with the current super clean and simple sketch.  I almost went with stars (so original, lol!), but decided to pull out the beautiful Simply Snowflakes stamp set and the Layered Snowflakes die-namics dies.  After trimming down a piece of white cardstock per the sketch I stamped the snowflakes from the Simply Snowflakes in SU!'s Smoky Slate ink.   Then I die cut additional snowflakes from Poppy Parade and So Saffron cardstocks and layered them over the stamped snowflakes.   The sentiment from the Snowfall of Blessings stamp set was stamped in VersaFine CLAIR Nocturne.   The panel was finished by adding a thin strip of silver glitter cardstock and then adhering to a Smoky Slate cardstock base.  Love the unconventional colors for the snowflakes!

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Supplies:  Card 1:  Cardstock:  PTI fine linen; SU! garden green; Yupo; patterned paper:  Dies:  Spellbinders; Inks:  Ranger alcohol inks; Lawn Fawn leaf sequins; twine; burlap

Card 2:  Cardstock:  MFT white, silver glitter; SU! Poppy Parade, So Saffron, Smoky Slate; Stamps and dies:  MFT; Inks:  Stampin Up! and VersaFine CLAIR

happy thanksgiving

Hello!  The weekend is upon us and I have a card to share that took me two days to make!  I will be sharing it at Freshly Made Sketches (layout), Color Throwdown (colors) and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge (thanks/thanksgiving).   I am in love with the October Spellbinders small dies kit and just had to make another card using the dies that combine to make an acorn.  I have another card that is in the works using the fun wishbone die and I still haven't made anything with the insert die for the acorn that says "hello fall"!   To make my acorn I used a combination of cardstock and patterned paper.  The background is also patterned paper.  I die cut the body of the acorn from the patterned paper and scrap cardstock and then adhered them together to give the piece more stability.  The acorn cap was die cut from dark brown woodgrain cardstock and scrap patterned paper (4 times) and then all the piece adhered together so that it would have more height than the body of the acorn.   The word happy was die cut from white cardstock and twice from orange then adhered together so that when you see the card at an angle you can see the orange peeking out.  I adhered the acorn pieces to my die cut panel of patterned paper and then added the word on top.  The word thanksgiving (part of the sentiment happy thanksgiving from the AJVD set Best of Fall) was stamped on white cardstock in VersaFine CLAIR Acorn ink, trimmed down and layered with orange cardstock.   After adhering the sentiment strip I realized that the card was just a little too plain so I added some brown leaf sequins that I had in my stash and that did the trick!  I'm going to add this to the current Card Concept challenge as I think the colors are very similar to those found in the inspiration photo.   I believe this would fall into the clean and layered category.

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Supplies:  Cardstock:  MFT white, Hero Arts dark brown woodgrain, SU! Pumpkin Pie; Patterned paper:  My Mind's Eye; Stamps:  A Jillian Vance Design; Dies:  Spellbinders and A Jillian Vance Design; Inks:  VersaFine CLAIR; Leaf sequins:  Lawn Fawn