Clean & Simple Stampin' (#171)

This card is for the current sketch challenge over at Clean & Simple Stamping.  I had to make a birthday card for my talented, crafty friend Jess and needed some inspiration so this was the perfect sketch to get me going.  I just went to my LSS over this past week and bought a bunch of Valentine paper & accessories so I just had to break into it a little for Jess's card.  I'm a bit burnt out from making Christmas cards so I wanted to do something totally different and girly and pink.  I got to use my new October Afternoon Sprinklers on this which makes me far too excited (I used the Sprinklers on the graph paper in the background)!  I decided to stick with the sketch and use a square layout which I don't do very often.  I'm going over to Jess's house tonight for a NYE party so I hope she doesn't see this post before I give her the card!

CAS'in #33

This week's CAS-ual Friday challenge is to create a clean and simple project using kraft & twine so I am going to share one last Christmas card! I wanted to keep it simple so that it appeared masculine since I planned to give this card to my dad.  I used a vintage book for the corner turn up and I distressed the edges with some scissors and then wrapped a whole buncha' twine around the whole thing. 

Sidewalkin'

Here is a birthday card that I made for my friend Lora using the new October Afternoon line - Sidewalks.  I love this line, it's so fun!  For this card, I just sewed the border around the edge of the flowered paper with my sewing machine and then layered it up on some kraft cardstock.  After that I used my bloom builders and a brad to make the layered flower, added some twine and then added a banner & sentiment.  

Sweetenin' up Christmas

This card was made with the Papertrey Ink Friendship Jar & Holiday Fillers.  I just love this set, it's so fun and it's easy to make it 2 dimensional.  I made this one similar to the hydrangea cards I've posted in the past.  I used several copic markers to color the candy canes & the jar and then added some red sparkle stickles to the canes & glossy accents to give it the jar look; after all of that dried I added the twine & tag and then layered it up with some colorful cardstock.
The candy shown in the photo was made by my neighbor, it is sooooo good.  In addition to the yummy chocolate peppermint bark, he also made some chocolate with bacon in it.  It is as awesome as it sounds.  I've already eaten all of it!

Decoratin'

One of my favorite blogs to read is Dawn McVey's; I just love her style and she always has great ideas!  As I was reading her blog last week I saw how she decorated a pandora gift box and I thought it was just so clever that I had to try it myself.  My sister-in-law asked for some Pandora charms for Christmas, so I just happened to have a Pandora gift box to decorate for her. 

Twistin' for 6 more months!

So I have been asked to stay on the Design Team over at Twisted Sketches for the next 6 months! I'm excited to be part of the Twisted team and can't want for the new sketches starting in January!  Here is my take on the DT card sketch with the "number" twist.  I made this card for my niece who just turned 9 years old.  Head over to Twisted to check out the sketch and the rest of the DT's cards.

Craftin' Away

For more Christmas card inspiration, I stumbled upon the Cardabilities Challenge site and loved this week's sketch!  I used it to make a few cards for family members.  I also thought it'd be fun to add one of our nutcrackers into the picture to make it a little more holiday themed.

This card also fits into the color challenge over at Just Us Girls.  The color challenge this week was to make a card using red, olive & white/kraft which was easy because I've been making Christmas cards all day!

Playin' #111 & LIM'in #46

I am in a full out Christmas card & tag making mood, which is good because I really haven't started until today (whoopsie!).  For inspiration to get started, I went to the challenge blogs!  I loved both the Play Date Cafe & Less Is More challenges this week so I decided to combine them into one card!  The PDCC this week was to use black & white with a splash of teal/aqua and the LIM challenge this week was to incorporate music into your card.  I used a music note stamp that I've had but haven't really used much and stamped a piece of plain white cardstock, trimmed the edges and then just layered it with black & aqua cardstock.   After that I just stamped the "Merry Christmas" sentiment and added a folded ribbon which I assembled with some hot glue and then added an aqua stone brad.

Celebratin'

One of my friends asked me to make an anniversary card for her to send to her brother & sister-in-law.  I know that she loved a previous card that I made with my summer friendship jar stamps, so I recreated it with a Mr. & Mrs. sentiment.

At the same time, I had came up with another card that I had been wanting to make with the Mega Mehndi Medallions set that I have, I ended up loving how this came out.  The center circle was a happy  accident.  I was using a piece of scrap from a previous mehndi stamp that didn't come out well and I turned it over and a portion of the mehndi medallion was on the circle and I decided that I really liked how that looked so I ran with it.

I have to apologize for my photo quality in the last few posts.  I haven't been able to photograph in natural light lately due to my schedule.