Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Creature Feature two

Here is my second card using the Jingle Belles Christmas Creature feature, this time using the Merry Monday sketch #39 for inspiration. Kind of messed up some of the stamping, which I tried to hide with die cut snowflakes. I think they are a little too much, but oh well.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Holiday Creature Feature

Well, this might be my favorite Jingle Belles challenge ever! I love the idea of creating a card around an animal or even a "monsta." I've been trying to come up with a way to use a stamp I bought specifically to use for cards to give to my book club friends and other friends who love reading as much as I do. The stamp is a lovely cat reading a book. So I decided to incorporate the cat into a bookmark, which is attached to the card. Here is the card with the bookmark attached.



And here is the card after removing the bookmark. I used photo corners to hold it to the card, but since they aren't very sticky, it looks better to just remove them from card and discard them. On the back of the bookmark I attached the titles and authors of a bunch of Christmas themed books. Just the ticket for my bookie friends.


 

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Dreamin' of a Pink Christmas

I had a LOT of fun making pink cards for the current Jingle Belles challenge. I made four cards, although I decided I won't post them all. One of my biggest problems with card-making is that I'm not very fast. I spend hours on one card, which makes it very disappointing when I am not overly pleased with the result. But I have to admit, even the cards that I'm not crazy about are more fun to give than a store bought card!

This one was very fast. I inked some snowflakes on a pink card, added a pink ribbon, white bow and a chipboard ornament and voila! The one thing I canot figure out is how other people make such nice bows.

Merry Pink Christmas!

Here is my take on the Jingle Belles challenge, to make a pink Christmas card for Breast Cancer Awareness month (October). I used the sketch from last week's Merry Monday challenge.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Unscripted sketch #178 EEEK!

You just can't beat the Halloween color combos...orange, purple, black and green are so much fun! This is my take on Unscripted Sketches challenge #178, it was a great layout to work with.



Wednesday, October 3, 2012

For my (snow)flaky friends, the sequel

I found this Tim Holtz Kraft Core paper and thought it would be perfect to use with his grungy snowflake stamps for my second creation for the recent Jingle Belles Snow Challenge. It just so happened that the Christmas Cards All Year Round October Challenge is to use either a non-traditional image with traditional Christmas colors OR a traditional image with non-traditional colors so I'm also linking this up to CCAYR as these are definitely non-traditional colors!

For my (snow)flaky friends

I've been so busy that I never finished my card for the last Jingle Belles challenge, Going Postal. Lucky for me, it worked out to use it for the new challenge, snow-inspired Christmas cards! I love this Stampendous snowy postcard stamp I found at a little shop in Rapid City, SD, where my sister and I were visiting relatives. I stamped some Tim Holtz grungy snowflakes on craft paper as background and used colored pencils to give it a little sumpin sumpin.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Be of Good Bingo

This is the first card I've made (in my entire 9 months of card-making!) that my husband hates. On the plus side, now I know that he really means it when he tells me how cool they are! A couple of firsts for this card: I used a new embossing folder I just got in the mail from my good pal AND I embossed it on cardstock with a lighter core...something I just learned about from the same friend. One of the things I love most about making my own greeting cards is using non-traditional colors; the colors are actually quite a bit more vivid though. The sentiment is an EAD rub-on that I forgot about I think it's perfect for this blingy card. And for the second time in a row, this card is inspired by not ONE but TWO challenges. For the Jingle Belles Bingo challenge, I chose the diagonal row, starting in the upper right hand corner, bling, flowers, and dry embossing. And the layout is courtesy of Merry Monday Be of Good Cheer.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Scripty Santa


I just gotta say...making Christmas cards is hugely fun for me. I'm still learning but that's half the fun of it!

On Sunday I made one Christmas card to cover both the Christmas Cards All Year Round August challenge (kid's Christmas) AND the current Jingle Belles  challenge, based on Stephanie's awesome sketch.



I know...everybody else manages to get at least 5 challenges out of each card, but I'm just a beginner. Here's my Santa card, doesn't he look like he's having fun??




And since this little Santa actually pivots, I only glued down the rocking horse portion. That way kids can move him around...and this is what Santa looks like if someone slipped a little rum in his eggnog. But now I'm torn...do I really want to give this to a kid to demolish?? Hmm.


Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Unscripted sketch #171

I work with several non-profits and two of them involve support for US soldiers stationed overseas. Based in Folsom, Support4Soldiers, sends care packages to soldiers in Afghanistan at Christmas and the 4th of July. It's a great cause and a wonderful group of people to work with. And the letters of thanks from the soldiers are very touching. I'm sure they appreciate the snack foods and personal hygiene items, but mostly I think they are happy to know that people at home are thinking of them.

The group was recently contacted about a soldier who was severely injured by an IED explosion. He is now stateside and we were asked to reach out to him as he goes through a lengthy and difficult healing and rehabilitation process. Support4Soldiers has sent him a special package of goodies and many of us are sending him cards and letters as well.


I used this week's Unscripted Sketches challenge above as inspiration for my card to this soldier.


I also work with Baking GALS, a nationwide group of folks who send packages of home-baked goodies to soldiers every month. I am going to start sending a homemade card along with my home baked cookies on the next shipment.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Oh Christmas Sketch...


I was so excited to start the new Jingle Belles challenge yesterday (as always). I had plenty of time and an idea of what I wanted to do. Here's Stephanie's sketch, which is a great template to work with.


But no matter how many ways I tried it, I just could not get a look that I liked (I'm pretty sure it's because the snowflake paper I chose is too busy). I tried a GAZILLION ways of framing my embelli-flake, putting it on a tag, different color and shapes of die-cut card-stock, but it just doesn't float my boat. No matter...I had fun trying and someone will be getting this baby in the mail in December anyway! I did manage to make a birthday card and a thank you card yesterday as well, which is pretty good for me.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Santa Baby

I had a blast with the current Jingle Belles challenge, to incorporate something you find at the North Pole, into a Christmas card. My first attempt ended disasterously when I decided to try adding stitching on my sewing machine, the first time I've attempted sewing on paper. It looks so easy when other people do it! I'll practice on scraps a bit before I try that again. I love it when I can use actual scraps, and all the paper I used for this card is leftover from scrapbooking, so I'm very happy. I also love this Tim Holtz die and this is the first time I've used it.

I'm working on my second...er, third...card now. Also trying a technique I've not tried before, so maybe it will get posted and maybe not!

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Second red OR green card

And here's my green but not red, which used bits from a couple of different card-making attempts, particularly from the recent vintage-themed challenge:

Green OR Red (but still not both)

The current Jingle Belles challenge to create a card using either green but not red OR red but not green was surprisingly hard for me. I almost completed a "green" card before realizing that it had a bit of red in it. So that's in the pile of unfinished, ready to go for something...can't have too many Christmas cards I say. Anyway, here's my red...






Sunday, July 8, 2012

Vintage Holly

The current Jingle Belles challenge Walking in a Vintage Wonderland is to create a vintage style Christmas card (a really fun theme suggested by guest star Linda Brun). I used a vintage style postcard with pressure embossed cardstock and scrapbook paper for background, and added some lacy ribbon and a couple holly embellishments. I love the girl and her dog, but decided that the overall effect is a bit drab. I'm going to try another card today and go for more color. For the first time I'm also submitting to the Christmas Cards All Year Round July challenge, to include holly or poinsettia in the card. The photo is slightly blurry but I took the shot several times with various approaches and it always appears this way.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Mele Kalikimaka

The Jingle Belles challenge http://jinglebellesrock.blogspot.com/2012/06/summer-holiday.html is to make a card using hot colors or a tropical theme. How cool is that?? We have a family friend who always sings Mele Kalikimaka at Christmas and I had just picked up some flip-flop embellishments, so I had to go with the tropical theme.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Merry Monday Challenge #24

I've been following the Merry Monday Challenges http://www.alwaysplayingwithpaper.blogspot.ca/ for a while and this week decided to give a go. So here is my card for Challenge #24, Frosty Greetings. I'm a novice card maker, just started late last year. Now I'm hooked!
 This Challenge ends on SUNDAY at Noon (PDT).

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Fa-la-la-la-la

The current Jingle Belles challenge is to incorporate Christmas music into a card. I fell in love with the name of this carol, Carol of the Birds, but wasn't sure if I had ever heard it. I found it on itunes, very Elizabethan. My first attempt, below, is pretty basic. I would like to try something more complex for my second card...but we'll see.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Jingle Belles 2nd giftcard holder

For my second creation, I wanted to make something three dimensional but I don't have the tools most of the on-line examples used. So I copied a pillow box template out of a paper crafting book and scored it with a dull knife. It worked!

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Jingle Belles - On the First Day of Christmas

The current Jingle Belles challenge is to make a holiday card with a gift card holder. I was pretty much stumped for ideas but after studying other Belles' creations, I was able to come up with a couple ideas myself.

Here is my first card. I embossed snowflakes on green cardstock for the cardholder and used scrapbook paper, something I have way too much of, for the background.

Monday, April 30, 2012

Peace on Earth(day)

This is my very first posting on my blog...which I just set up last week! I am fairly new to card-making and find it extraordinarily fun and satisfying (thank you Stephanie!). I love reading blogs of the other Jingle Belles followers and have learned a lot from them. So I decided to give it a shot!


Here is my second card for the most recent Jingle Belles Challenge, in honor of Earth Day, to create a card by recycling, re-using, or rescuing something. The penguin is a used gift tag from a few years ago. The snow flakes were leftover from a card I made for the last JB challenge. And the lighter blue paper is a scrap from something...I have no idea what. The sentiment at the bottom is a little hard to read in the photo, it says "brrrrr."

"Second card? But where is the first one?" you ask. Good questions. Before making my first card I said to myself, "Self", I said, "you should create a card made out of 100% recycled materials." And I did, using a tissue box, scraps of paper, a ribbon that came off the penguin gift tag above, another ribbon off an old bow and part of an office file folder. And it's quite ghastly. I haven't decided whether to post it for posterity or just put it out of its misery.