New Challenge

I have discovered a new challenge that I am really excited about.  It's called Merry Monday and the challenge is to do a Christmas card each week.

Here's what I did for this week.

Like Leslie, I didn't have enough Christmas cards done when I needed to be sending them.  I was frantically making cards right up until Christmas.  And some people will be getting Valentines instead of Christmas cards!

Here's the sketch that Leslie gave us to use...

I'm not sure if she will give a sketch each week or if she'll mix it up with other challenges, but it will be good discipline to do at least one Christmas card each week.  That will still leave plenty to do in the Fall.

The poinsettia is made from the 5 Petal Flower and the Boho Blossoms Punches.  I punched one green and two red of the larger flower and 1 of the medium Boho flower.  I used my stylus and the soft mat from my Mat Pack and rubbed in circles on each of the flowers.  Then I just built them up with glue dots in between and used some teeny gold beads for the centers.

Edited to add: The petals of the poinsettia are "scooped out" with the circle punch in the Itty Bitty Shapes punch pack before they are embossed with the stylus.

The greenery is from one end of the Bells and Boughs poinsettia stamp inked with a Garden Green Marker and stamped in a circle.  The sentiment is from the Beautiful Season set and the snowflakes from a hostess set last year, Northern Hearts.

All supplies Stampin' Up!

Card Recipe

Stamps:  Bells and Boughs, Beautiful Season, Northern Hearts

Ink:  Garden Green, Handsome Hunter, Whisper White

Paper:  Whisper White, Crumb Cake, Real Red, Garden Green, Handsome Hunter

Other:  Five Petal Flower, Boho Blossoms, and Lace Ribbon Border punches, Stylus, Mat Pack, Mini beads

I'm having some connection problems with blogger.  Some blog pages are coming up blank.  Is anyone else having similar problems?  I haven't been able to leave comments on some blogs and I'm not sure if the link to Merry Monday will work here.  If not, just google Merry Monday Challenge and you should be able to get there.  I hope this problem will sort itself out soon.

Have a great weekend.

Enjoy!

Thinking about Christmas

Just a quick post tonight.  It was a busy weekend preparing sets for my first Christmas Card class this coming Saturday.  This is what we'll be doing.

Then I'll do it again in 2 weeks at my house.

Now I need to plan for the classes in November.

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Enjoy!



Poppy Red Cardinal

One day I saw a Cardinal in the back yard and I thought "Poppy Red".

I had stamped this Cardinal and tried to watercolor it.  I didn't do a very good job!

Stamping it with Basic Black on Poppy Red was a big improvement!

I've seen some of these Cardinals watercolored and I wish I could do that well.  Until then, I'll take the short cut.

Card Recipe
Stamps:  A Cardinal Christmas
Ink:  Basic Black, Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green, Soft Suede & Cherry Cobbler SU Markers
Paper:  Poppy Red, Naturals White, Garden Green
Accessories:  Ticket Corner & Modern Label Punches, Big Shot, Movers & Shapers, Watercolor  Pencil (for beak), White Gel Pen (for eye)

Enjoy,
Bonnie

Catching Up

I didn't get to stamp at all yesterday.   Other things seemed to keep interfering with my fun.  I did get some Christmas decorating done.  My goal is to have it done by Saturday when my girls all come to bake cookies.  I think it's our favorite time of the year!

My card today is for the Color Challenge at SCS this week to use River Rock, Old Olive, Real Red and Neutrals of Choice.

I stamped the whole design in River Rock, then I used the blender pen dipped in the Whisper White ink pad for the berries.  I did use a little Garden Green with a blender pen on the leaves so I guess this is not completely within the challenge.

So, here's another card for this challenge and the CAS95 challenge at SCS to use flower accents.

No cheating on this one!  I had a piece of Real Red that I had embossed with the Square Lattice Embossing Folder.  I punched three 5 Petal Flowers out of it.  (I cut down the one I used on top.)  Then I cut two flowers out of Old Olive for the leaves.

There's Dazzling Diamonds on the lattice and around the sentiment.  It doesn't show up very well in the photo but it sparkles IRL.

Card Recipe (Mistletoe)
Stamps:  A Cardinal Christmas
Ink:  River Rock, Whisper White, Garden Green, Real Red
Paper:  Whisper White, Old Olive
Accessories:  Blender Pen, Real Red Grosgrain Ribbon

Card Recipe (Poinsettia)
Stamps:  Many Merry Messages
Ink:  Real Red
Paper:  River Rock, Whisper White, Real Red, Old Olive
Accessories:  Big Shot, Lattice die, Square Lattice EF, 5 Petal Flower Punch, Dazzling Diamonds, Basic Pearls

Now to get a few more things out to decorate for Christmas.

Thanks for the visit.  I hope you will come back soon.

Enjoy,
Bonnie 

Cardinal Peace

I've been using this little guy a lot lately.  We did a card with this image in the October Stamp Stack only he was stamped on Poppy Parade.  Actually, I think the Poppy suits him better but I stamped him on Cherry Cobbler today because that's one of the colors in the SCS Color Challenge.

The other colors are Concord Crush & Old Olive.  Dessert is to put an argyle on the card.  I don't know if you can see it, but some of the panels are embossed with an argyle pattern.

First I inked the branches with SU Markers and stamped on a Naturals White piece.  Then I inked the bird with black,  stamped on the Cherry Cobbler and cut him out.  I used a Prismacolor Pencil to color the beak & feet and a white gel pen to dot the eye.  I stamped a little too far to one side so I inked the leaves and stamped in front of the bird too.  (I feel like I ought to name him instead of calling him "the bird".)

The sentiment is from an old Christmas set called To You & Yours.  It was only available the one year which is a shame.  It's a darling set.  I stamped some more leaves around and over the sentiment.

I'm going to put this in the sketch challenge on SCS too.  The sketch called for the large design area to be an oval and the sentiment to be a circle.  I didn't have an oval cutter that big and so I used the corner rounder punch to round it up a bit.  Keeping the corner thing going, I used my Curly Label Punch for the sentiment.  The Movers & Shapers has a die that cuts the Curly Lable just a bit larger.  Perfect for layering!

Card Recipe
Stamps:  A Cardinal Christmas, To You & Yours
Ink:  Basic Black, SU Markers (Old Olive, Concord Crush)
Paper:  Naturals White, Old Olive
Accessories:  Big Shot, Backgrounds 1 Texturz Plate, Movers & Shapers, Curly Label & Corner Rounder Punches,  Blender Pen, Prismacolor Pencil, Uni Ball Signo Gel Pen

I'm also going to send this over to 2pawsdesigns for her {Made by Me} Wednesday.

I've got a book due at the library tomorrow and I need to go finish it!  It's Plantation by Dorothea Benton Frank.  I can't wait to read the sequel.

Enjoy,
Bonnie

It's Just Not Me!

I'm almost embarassed to even show this!  It's so not me!  I rarely use any sparkle.  It's not that I'm against it, I just don't do it well, I think.

Maybe if I had just put a little dazzle I would like it better.  I really go carried away!

I started to just trash it, but then I thought, maybe someone would like it and find some inspiration from it.  Even if it is what not to do!  LOL

The One Layer Wednesday challenge, that I usually participate in, has taken a detour.  Since Susan is swamped, Jennifer offered to host the challenge the rest of this month.  Wasn't that nice of her?

Her challenge was to do a holiday card and not use white, cream, red or green as background colors.  Whew, that's hard!

Then the Free for All Challenge on SCS today was Winter White Out.  Do a winter card not using white, purple or blue.  Now that's doubly hard!

I spied this stamp from A Cardinal Christmas.  It's supposed to be mistletoe, but if you have looked closely at some of the holly that they use in landscaping, it resembles that.

I used the Black Magic technique.  I stamped the image with Whisper White on any color (here I used Crumb Cake).  After it  dried, I colored it with watercolor pencils.  (I used a combination of SU Watercolor pencils & Prismacolor pencils.)

It didn't look too bad at this point, although the leaves could have been a bit darker.  Then I used a little 2 way glue and sprinkled Dazzling Diamonds to give it a frosty look.  Yikes!

I had a bird punched out already and I put him between the branches, double scored the edges and decided to quit.  Besides, Luke woke up.

Card Recipe
Stamps:  A Cardinal Christmas
Ink:  Whisper White
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Cherry Cobbler
Accessories:  Extra Large 2-Step Bird Punch, Dazzling Diamonds, Basic Rhinestone

I guess technically I did use white, but I covered that up.  Then glittered it!  I have sparkles all over the room!

Have a dazzling weekend.
Bonnie

Christmas in this Heat?

It's hard to think of Christmas when it's soooo HOT outside. Thank God we have AC and it's working!

Susan chose Christmas for her One Layer Wednesday Challenge this week. You can visit her blog and see what's showing up there by clicking here.

I did two. This is the second one. It took about 10 minutes if you don't count the 45 minutes it took to do the other one that I didn't like.

This was so simple and I liked the way it turned out.

The pine bough is from the Autumn Days set. I inked it with Soft Suede & Garden Green SU Markers and stamped on a Naturals White card. I did use the Stamp-a-ma-jig for placement for this as well as the sentiment. I can still manage to stamped crooked when I use that thing! This time I did pretty good. BTW, the Merry Christmas is from A Cardinal Christmas set.

The bow is from a piece of Christmas wrapping cord tied in a bow and attached with a glue dot.


Now for the one that took so long.

I traced a 1" circle on the Naturals White card with a pencil and stamped the pine spray from the Pines set. This is a retired set that I still use from time to time.

The pine needles are stamped with Garden Green. The berries are from the Autumn Days set and I used a Real Red Marker to ink a few berries and stamped around.

I didn't do a very good job on leaving an opening on the inside and I felt like it needed a little something else, so I pulled out the Extra Large Bird Punch and punched the bird & wing out of scraps of leftover Christmas paper. The sentiment is from the Warm Words set (also retired) and stamped in Real Red. I used one of the tiny pearls that SU offers now for the eye.

Now that I'm finished, the wreath doesn't look so bad but I still like the single spray better.

I've got to go and post this on Susan's blog.

Christmas is right around the corner! Hopefully it will cool off a lot by then!

Enjoy,
Bonnie

Christmas in July

Hello Stampin' Folks. Here is card for the SCS Sketch Challenge this week.

I had been using the Wild Wasabi & Cherry Cobbler for the color challenge and wondered how they would work for a Christmas card. I stamped one of the ornaments from the Tree Trimmings set in Cherry Cobbler, then clear embossed it. It needed something behind it, so I pulled out my Autumn Days set and inked the pine branch with markers. I stamped several times on the 1 3/4" x 3 1/4" piece of Naturals White. The ornament is attached with dimensionals.

The 2 5/8" x 4" piece of Wild Wasabi was stamped with the same pine branch using the Wild Wasabi ink.

The Merry Christmas is from A Cardinal Christmas and stamped with Cherry Cobbler.

All pieces are matted with Cherry Cobbler on a Naturals White 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" card base.

I like these colors together and will use them again for Christmas cards.

Card Recipe
Stamps: Tree Trimmings, Autumn Days, A Cardinal Christmas
Paper: Naturals White, Wild Wasabi, Cherry Cobbler
Ink: Wild Wasabi, Cherry Cobbler
Acc.: Chocolate Chip & Wild Wasabi SU Markers, Rhinestone, Dimensionals

I really like these colors together for Christmas cards. Bet you'll be seeing these colors a lot!

Happy Stampin',
Bonnie