Christmas Card Challenge #41 - Tall and Skinny

It's time for another Christmas Card Challenge, and the time to start sending out those holiday cards is looming upon us my friends!  This week the challenge is to make a tall and skinny card.  I made mine a 4" x 9" size which will fit into a legal size envelope.

 

Since I had a lot of space to fill, I decided to use two new stamps sets in my stash.  I started by adding some antique linen distress ink on the entire front of the card.  Then I used a circle stencil and tea dye distress ink to create the background.  I then used this really pretty vintage lace stamp from Wendy Vecchi.  I've seen her do some amazing cards and tags with it, so I took some inspiration for using it from her.  I stamped it in Archival jet black and then swirled some green and red distress inks on it.  I repeated the process on the bottom of the card.  This ate up some of the space I needed to fill.  Next I stamped the guy with the wreath (I just love this image...it reminds me of Ichabod Crane for some reason!) and the sentiment.  He needed something to ground him, so I added this pinked edge which was colored with the green distress ink.  Then I made a big mistake!  I edged the entire card with frayed burlap and goofed on the left side!  I added way too much.  I think my new ink pad was too juicy!  Oh well!  I achieved a distressed look!  I also added some enamel dots on the lace image and rounded the top and bottom corners.

 

You can see more from the DT on the Christmas Card Challenge blog.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Recipe

Stamps:  Deco Christmas (Tim Holtz), Vintage Lace (Wendy Vintage)

Paper:  Vintage cream

Ink:  Archival jet black, antique linen, tea dye, bundled sage, festive berries, frayed burlap distress inks

Accessories:  Ornate circles stencil (Wendy Vecchi), enamel dots, pinking edge die (MFT)

 



Mojo Monday #332

Hi everyone!  I had some stamping time last night and made a few cards.  I saw the Mojo Monday sketch and knew just what I wanted to do!  This came out just as I imagined it.  That doesn't happen very often!  I also saw a new to me challenge the other day called the Bloggers Challenge which is run by Lisa Sommerville.  The challenge is to use black and white with a splash of color, so this card was created for that challenge as well.

 

I used some new products on this card.   The "love" die is new as is the heart die.  It was on sale at JoAnn's so it slipped into my hands!  I added some Wink of Stella shimmer to both of them.  The pearl flourish was staring at me from my craft table, so I put it behind the heart.  I used some Tim Holtz tissue tape around the heart and the black base.  The rest is pretty self-explanatory.

 

Here's the Mojo Monday sketch I used.

 

I'm also entering this into the Time Out Challenge:  Love and/or Friendship is the theme.  They are having a DT call and while I didn't intend to make this card for that challenge (since I already entered once), it fit the challenge so I entered again!  Can't hurt, right?  LOL!

 

 

I can't remember when I've created a card based on three challenges!  I usually only like to combine two at a time!

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Recipe

Paper:  Neenah white, black, Yours Truly (MME)

Accessories:  Dies:  Tag sale #3 (PTI). Accent It: Celebration (MFT), Mini Hearts (Tim Holtz), tissue tape (Tim Holtz), pearl flourish (Want 2 Scrap), SU ribbon, Wink of Stella shimmer brush

Just Us Girls #205 - Sketch Challenge

Happy Saturday!  Time for a new challenge from Just Us Girls.  This week is our sketch challenge and the ever talented Vicki created this great sketch that can be interpreted any way you want!

I was in a very fall mood today.  It's chilly and rainy here in Buffalo, NY and I am in my fleece top and sweats!  Ah, fall!  Love it!  It's just a great day to chill and stamp, which is what I did.  It was a busy week with school starting and getting up at 5:00 everyday (and sometimes earlier).  I had to wait until this afternoon to create my challenge card(s).

I was thinking about this Tim Holtz stamp set called Mini Blueprints last week and thought I'd pull it out to create some fall cards.  The first one is a leaf I colored with copics and added some Wink of Stella shimmer to.  I added some tea dye and vintage photo distress inks on the image when it was still in the die.  The background paper is from Fall Prints and Patterns by Papertrey Ink.  I added some texture to the paper with Tim Holtz's new stencils.  I used burlap with scattered straw ink and stripes with tea dye ink.  

On this one, the acorn was also colored with copics and some Wink of Stella shimmer was added to it.  I used the same pattern paper and this time used dotted fade stencil with vintage photo ink then stripes stencil with wild honey ink.  This card could definitely fit in the masculine category!

Stop by the JUGs blog and design team blogs for more inspiration.

JUGs blog
Maria Levine
Marisa Ritzen
Nancy Leppek
Tangii Crain
Vicki Dutcher

Thanks for stopping by!

Recipe

Stamps:  Mini Blueprints (Tim Holtz); Autumn Foliage (Inkadinkadoo)

Paper:  Fall Prints and Patterns (PTI), vintage cream, X-Press It Blending Card, dusty durango, early expresso

Ink:  Versafine onyx black, Memento tuxedo black, tea dye, vintage photo, wild honey, scattered straw distress inks

Accessories:  Spellbinder dies, jute ribbon, Prima crystals, Tim Holtz stencils:  burlap, dotted fade, stripes

Me and Tim Holtz!

Hi everyone! Well, yesterday was an exciting day for many girls in Buffalo...we got to take a class from none other than Tim Holtz! The owner of our LSS, Sharon from Buffalo Stamps & Stuff, managed to get him to do 4 classes over this weekend. I must say that Sharon is a lovely lady and has the most FABULOUS store! It's like "Cheers" where everybody knows your name! You walk in and get an immediate greeting of "Hi Lisa!" Love that! She has taken many of Tim's classes and has met him many times. It's no wonder that he wanted to come do these classes for her! You can read what Tim had to say about it here and here on his blog!

I have lots of pictures to share, first up being me and Tim, of course!

OK, a little blurry, but it's really me and Tim! (We had to wear name tags, so that's the white thing on my black shirt...oye!) He's cute, isn't he?

My friends, Cheryl Rowley and Tracy Harp, took the class with me as well. It was called Generation Grunge, where Tim (we're on a first-name basis now ;-)!) showed us all his grunge material and how to work with it. And work with it we did! This is the final project I created.

I have to tell you all the steps that went into this amazing project. First, we had to cover the grunge board pages and cover pages with his paper. We used a multi-medium matte glue from Claudine Hellmuth Studio. Great stuff! We sponged it on the grunge board, put the paper on top, then SAT ON IT to help it adhere while we did another page! This was hilarious watching everyone stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down....! He must have been laughing at us in his head! Then we had to cut the square paper to match the flourished edge. After we did this on one side, we had to repeat it on the OTHER side! This took about an hour, no lie! After that step, we used his sanding block to sand all the edges to a white color. My arm was KILLING me after that process! (Mental note: lift more weights to strengthen the arms!) My black shirt was also covered in dust! Then we had to ink up and distress the edges with his Distress inks. Here's a picture of the pages.

I think I would have done a little better at the sanding if I had lifted more weights before the class!

We also stamped and distressed bags that had a little sheen to them.

Isn't that flourish fabulous? And look at that paper...I'm in love with that floral design!

Then we put the flower together and added the embellishments. The flower was cut with his die beforehand and we "distressed" it with his cool Craft Scratcher tool. It has little metal "fingers" that pull the strands from the material and makes it lookes more distressed. We added some tulle and a pretty button. The knob was so cool...it had a screw attachement.

The birdcage was also cut with his die cut beforehand, and we painted it with his paint daubers, scratched it up with his sanding block, then distressed it with distressed ink. The bird was all ready for us to add some ink to it and some distress stickles. We also added the crystals to the cage with jump rings. So pretty!
Next up was adding the "hinges" and hardware. We added our inital for the one piece.
I purchased his book, A Compendium of Curiosities to read more about his work.....
...as well as get his autograph! ;-)
So that's it! I have to admit that I'm not sure this is totally my style of stamping, but I am "curious" to investigate its possibilities! I'll have to play around with it to mix up my style a bit. Stay tuned to see what I do! Thanks for staying with me on this long post! I'd love to hear what you think!