A Study in White

I really wanted to play along with the All is White challenge at Keep It Simple.  I'll confess it was a little intimidating, but the design cards were so inspiring I thought I'd give it a try.  I used the layout from Cardabilities.  

I'm disappointed that the fabulous snowman image from Chill Out doesn't show up all that well in the photo.  I clear embossed it so that the card would be as white as possible, but I think a pale gray would have worked too.  I also clear embossed one of the images from Cover Ups before cutting all those flags to create a bit of texture.  I added a few accents in silver glimmer paper just to jazz things up a bit!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Two Cards and Some News!

I'm super excited today because Alison has asked me to be the February Guest Designer over at The Alley Way Stamps and today I'm showing two cards I made for the TAWS blog!  I'm such a huge fan of her stamps that it was a no-brainer for me to accept!  

My first card uses one of my all-time favorite flowers from Awesome Blossom and the sentiment from Jibber Jabber.  These yummy colors are from a new (to me) challenge called still addINKtive.

My second card is a nod to winter, which is still making itself known around here since I woke up today to find a bit of snow on the ground.  Not enough to make a snowman, though, so I had to make my own with this cute image from Jolly Holiday.  He's been captured perfectly in the Polaroid from Framed!  I colored his scarf up with a bit of Lucky Limeade and Island Indigo, which is just about one of my favorite color combos.

Well I'm off to run some errands before I hunker down in the craft cave for some well-deserved crafting fun. Tonight, of course, is the Superbowl and although I don't know which team to root for, I always enjoy the funny commercials!

Freshly Made Sketkches 66

I can hardly believe that Christmas is less than a week away.  I think I'm just about ready and I hope that you are too!  Being Wednesday, it is time for another great sketch from your friends at Freshly Made Sketches.  This week Tui has designed a great sketch for you to try.  And since we are winding down to a very busy time of year this will be our last sketch until January 2, 2013!  Good news for all of you since you have until December 31st at 12:00 PST to link up your card in the gallery!

I didn't really need any more Christmas cards, but I wanted to keep with a seasonal theme so I grabbed the Snow Much Fun stamp set which has the cutest snowman images.  And by the way, don't adjust your set, this is NOT Soft Suede.  It's actually the retired True Thyme (paired with its companion DSP Holiday Thyme).  As a lover of earthy colors, I can tell you that this is an all-time favorite and I only break it out for very special occasions!

I know it's a busy time of year but I hope that some time in the next couple of weeks you can ink up some stamps and join us in the gallery.  We always love to see how you interpret our sketches!  And don't forget to pop on by Freshly Made Sketches and check out what the design team has created.  

'Tis the Season with DD#29 & ATCAS#1

Happy Thanksgiving to all my U.S. visitors!  Today of all days should conjure up visions of turkey and the colors of autumn, but Thanksgiving is also the gateway to the start of the winter season, so today I've got a snowy, snowman card to share.

The color challenge at Dynamic Duos is Marina Mist and Basic Black with a snowman theme thrown in for good measure.  As luck would have it there's a new challenge in town called Addicted to CAS and their inaugural challenge code word is "snow!"  Kismet!

I've got to admit that I'm not much of a fan of snow.  I live in New England where we see our fair share of the fluffy white stuff, but the truth is that I would be a happy camper if I never saw a snowflake ever again!  That being said, I am fond of snowman images and this happy fellow from Snow Much Fun is particularly engaging!  I gave him a snow drift that I cut from Silver Glimmer Paper and even a small pile of snowballs in case he wants to start a snowball fight later.

I'll be off later this morning to my sister's house to enjoy a lovely dinner with family, but I first wanted to offer an apology to the ladies at Dynamic Duos because I couldn't resist coloring the snowman's carrot nose orange.  I tried coloring it with a neutral color but it looked like a weird sepia-toned, washed out version of a carrot better suited for my compost pile.  So, in a direct defiance of the rules I used an unsanctioned color. Consider me chastised and hanging my head in shame and I promise to be good in the future.

Thanks for stopping by!

Freshly Made Sketches 59

This week at Freshly Made Sketches, Cindy has got a fantastic sketch that is perfect for layering and showing off your favorite patterned paper.

I used some retired paper called Holiday Lounge as a background to my little snowman.  Now that I'm looking at the photo of this card here, I think he looks a little lonely and I wish that I had either added a friend or some snowballs or something.  Maybe I'll go back and add a little something extra before I send this to someone.  In place of the ribbon, I wound around some baker's twine and added a Crumb Cake corduroy brad which looks surprisingly like the Sahara Sand that I used for my card base.  A happy accident, I'm sure!

Now head on over to Freshly Made Sketches and check out the cards our design team has put together to amaze and delight you!  Then ink up those stamps and get crafty with us!

Friday Mashup 36 and Sketchbook Saturday 41

Yesterday I thought I was done making Christmas cards.  My stamp room is overflowing with them and I'm totally fine if I don't see another poinsettia, snowflake, wreath or what have you until next year.  But then the challenge this week at The Friday Mashup included snowmen, which got me thinking about the cute guys in Snow Much Fun, which got me thinking that I could maybe do one more Christmas card.  For old times sake and all.

The challenge was to make a card with a snowman, and/or make a card using the colors Blushing Bride, Baja Breeze and Basic Gray.  I definitely planned on using the colors, but I really wasn't sure about the snowman owing to my previously mentioned aversion to all things Christmas.  But the more I looked at this adorable graphic, the more I realized that the dudes from Snow Much Fun deserved one last hurrah.

So then I went over to Chupa's blog and checked out her latest Sketchbook Saturday sketch and, combining the two challenges, sat down to get all inky.

Actually getting inky for this card was not all that easy.  I had a hard time translating what was in my brain to what was appearing on my card and I almost scrapped the whole thing.  But I took a short break and by the time I got back in my stamp room I managed to settle down and create this.  It actually has a nice clean look to it that I like and the colors are great together.

I've been experimenting with the custom white balance setting on my camera to {hopefully} help me get a better picture of a card that has a lot of white in it.  I took a picture of this card with the automatic white balance then again with a custom setting and I can actually see a difference.  It is far from perfect, but I plan to keep experimenting with it until I get something I'm really satisfied with.

Thanks for stopping by!

PPA120

I made a card for the Pals Paper Arts sketch challenge this week.  It involves a snowman...with a bit of a tan.

When I saw the sketch, I got it in my head that I wanted to use one of the snowmen from Snow Much Fun.  Then I got it in my head that I wanted to use some of my Jolly Holiday designer paper.  So I put the two together.

It wasn't until I started to color my snowman that I realized something wasn't quite right.  I think it's rather hard to tell in the photo, but this card is made with Very Vanilla.  Including the layer with the snowman stamped on it.  When have you ever seen an off-white snowman?  I'll tell you.  Never.  But rather than scrap the card and start all over, I kept my somewhat strange colored snowman.  He's kind of growing on me!

Thanks for stopping by!

Curtain Call 64 Snowman

I guess I'm not done with winter after all!  Maybe it has something to do with the newest snowstorm headed my way.  I actually didn't know about the snowstorm when I first decided to make this card, so maybe I'm a little bit psychic?!?  In any event I decided on a snowman for my Curtain Call 64 color challenge card.

I couldn't resist after seeing this brave snowboarder!

A little shimmery goodness in the form of dazzling diamonds highlights the edge of my "snow."  And to keep a promise that I made to myself to use my felt stash more, I added the scalloped piece at the top.  By a strange coincidence, the color matches Marina Mist almost exactly!  I owe the layout to the FTL71 sketch from December 2009.
 
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!