It's finally cool in Florida, so sweaters it is!

Yay, we got a cool front here in South Florida, and temps are down to the '50s. It won't last long, but it really gets me in the Christmas card mood! 

All of these cards were inspired by Mary Polanco and a Youtube video she did a few weeks back about not overthinking your designs. I was going to follow her idea with my own dies, but I needed this sweater die that she used. 

A couple of things I don't remember Mary mentioning are that when you ink-blend onto a finished card base you will get ink on the back of the card. Well, I did, anyway.  Also, I used these kraft card bases and they warped, a lot.

I used some white acrylic paint watered down for the white splatter, and the paint picked up some of the Distress ink and turned beige or pink. I kept it.  I also cut the warped fronts off and attached them to some cream colored card bases that also have been in my  stash a long time.

Most of this paper is from "Say Freeze", new paper packs I picked up at Michael's last week. I especially enjoyed fussy cutting some of the images for the inside.  I used some washi tape that's been in my stash for a while, also.

The outside sentiments are from Simon Says Stamp and Concord & 9th.  

Every sip of the way!

Somehow I missed posting this back in January when I made it, so here she is! That's another of the great frogs from My Favorite Things' Toad-ally Awesome, a wineglass cut from vellum from last year's "Wine Service", and a sentiment from MFT's "Good Time to Wine".

Bonus, the inside sentiment is also from "Good Time to Wine".

Trying to channel my inner Amy

I'm still on my flower kick. Today I tried to channel Amy R. from Prairie Paper & Ink.  A few years ago she did a set of water colored note cards that were truly lovely!  But I dived in face first without referencing the original set.

The cards were sketchy flowers, stamped in black and loosely water colored, then splattered, then die cut and stamped sentiments were added with unifying strips of black and white paper.

Here are mine:

First of all, Amy's were portrait style, and she had more room for the die cut sentiments.  The flowers are My Favorite Things' Sketchy Blooms 2, and the sentiments are MFT's Arrow Words.

Mine are colored with Distress Oxide Inks, and I am pleased with the messy way they came out.  I also splattered them with the Distress Oxide Ink in Black Soot.

I finished each one with black and white baker's twine, of which I have a giant spool.

My big take-away from this is that just because the pen says it's waterproof doesn't mean you can watercolor over it.  Copic Multiliners, I'm looking at you.

Warm wishes for you, deer.

I'm trying my hand at this week's Color Throw Down Challenge. The colors are slate blue, orange, brown and white.

I can tell you right off the top that working with slate blue is not in my comfort zone. But, moving onward, I started by ink blending 2 similar colors of Distress Oxide ink, Faded Jeans and Stormy Skies. After adding the snow hill, I cut the 2 deer from orange and brown paper. The orange is quite dark in this photo because I tried to ink up the edges with more Distress ink. I also added some typewriter text clear embossing over both deer. I added clear Stickles to the orange deer's antlers, and finished with white and copper Nuvo drops.

The deer are from My Favorite Things' Delightful Deer Dienamics set, and the sentiment is from an old Lawn Fawn set called Winter Fox.

I stopped myself just before I added a copper drop behind one of the deer. I really have to remind myself of how things might actually look.

I love flamingos! Here they come!

Yes, it's the Festive Flamingos from My Favorite Things' October card kit. I was (virtually) standing in line when these became available earlier this week. I ordered on Tuesday and they came on Thursday.

I wanted to get one of these made up as soon as I could, so I basically copied this design from their website. Thank you, Rachel Alvarado for your simple and charming layout.

I was in such a hurry to get this one done that I forgot to add the white gel pen highlights. Oh well, we'll get back to these.

Side note: I find it kind of hard to work with Barbie purples and pinks for Christmas. I think I may save these tiny plaid papers for something else.

The flamingos are Copic colored, and the card is tinted with Distress Oxide ink in Spun Sugar and Faded Jeans. The spots are Nuvo Jewel Drops in Periwinkle.

I'm a big fan of the flamingos. Did you know that all the flamingos at Lion Country Safari are named for presidents?

Another fun flamingo fact: their color depends on their diet. The more shrimp they eat, the pinker they get!  The flamingos at Lion Country Safari are well fed:

Let's ink up a book!

I took a page from an old book, and inked it up with Distress Oxide inks and a stencil, then cut out a raggedy panel with a die.

I really love the look of text backgrounds, but sometimes I find myself trying to read them. What's up with that?  It's like always noticing the tune in the elevator and trying to identify it.

The butterfly, dragonfly, and botanicals are from My Favorite Things' Fluttering Friends, and are colored with my Polychromos pencils and cut with my Brother Scan N Cut 2. I finished it off with a circle die cut and some Nuvo drops in gold.

Now, back to more Christmas cards when no one is looking.  I'll share them all in November/December.

You are my number one!

More cute bugs from Waffle Flower's Rock On set. Colored with Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers on Fluid Hot Press paper. The background is blended Distress Oxides in a radiating rays formation. What can I say, but "Cute".

BOO!

Today's simple and funny card is inspired by Vicki Papaioannou. Her's are more colorful, though.

I used old patterend paper from my stash, and tore it into strips. I dirtied up the edges with Antique Linen Distress Ink and glued them to a black panel, leaving the gaps. The eyes are from Doodlebug's Erie Eyes Sprinkle collection.  I finished it off with a sentiment created with Lawn Fawn's Violetta's ABCs.

The inside is finished with 2 sentiments from My Favorite Things' Witch Way is the Candy?

Halloween Hello

Hello all!  Here's just a little card using the bat from My Favorite Things' "Witch Way Is the Candy" set. I haven't used the townscape from Sizzix in years. The houses are still funny to me.

The oval panel behind the bats has been lightly brushed with Wilted Violet and Black Soot Distress Oxide Ink. The bats were colored with Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers.

And to think, before I started making cards I didn't know Halloween was a card-giving occasion. Silly me.

Thanks a Ton!

I love this little elephant from My Favorite Things' "Sweet Safari" set. Why they retired this set is beyond me, but I was happy to get it in the big retirement sale a few weeks back!

This guy was colored on heavy watercolor paper with Zig Real Brush Clean Color markers. The background was water colored over a stencil from The Crafter's Workshop Designs by Jaime, with watered down Distress Oxide ink.

I discovered, when I made the banner, that the heavy 110 lb cardstock from Michael's cuts fine with a die, but maybe doesn't emboss and fold so well. Yes, the greeting is crooked, and I don't care.

Cold nose, warm heart

Today's card is in answer to 2 new challenges this week. The Color Throwdown challenge this week is Hot Pink, Lime Green and Yellow. (CTD456)

I colored my My Favorite Things'  "Top Dog" dogs with Spectrum Noir markers, and arranged them on a circular panel that's stenciled with Twisted Citron Distress Oxide ink, on another panel that has Fossilized Amber, Picked Raspberry and Twisted Citron Distress Oxide ink blended on and sprinkled.

In order to follow the My Favorite Things sketch challenge (mftwsc346), I needed to add a vertical element under the left side of the circle, but I kind of forgot until it was glued down. Vellum to the rescue! It's over, not under, but I'm going to call that artistic license.

Puppydog kisses

Today's birthday card is from a new-to-me stamp that is being retired. Boo hoo, and it's so cute! This is from My Favorite Things' Top Dog.

I colored the dogs with Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers, cut them on the Scan and Cut, mounted them on an ink blended panel, and added a tan mat with a dot detail around the edge (Sizzix die). The sentiment and dogs are mounted with foam tape.

Good news: as I mentioned before, these quirky images look ok if they are colored primitively. Bad news, my Scan and Cut follows the edge, even the ones where I painted out of the lines.

Now, I'm off to watch Sharknado 5, Global Swarming.

Tail wagging terrific day!

So, I've decided to do the color throwdown challenge this week. I've actually done 2 of them, but we'll talk about the other one later, ok?

This is actually stretching the limits of the color choices, as I did not actually use kraft specifically. I've had these water colored dogs for a while now. They are from Inky Antics' Delightful Dogs #2.

I started by putting down some Distress Oxide colors on some 140 lb water color paper, then spritzing with water and blotting off the excess. Then I used the same 2 colors to create some splatter. I then cut the panel using the largest die from Gina Marie's Designs Stitched Scalloped Edge Dies.

The dogs, which I colored last year using Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers, were cut out using the Scan and Cut and attached flat to the water colored panel. I stamped the sentiment with Versafine black ink and mounted the panel to a bright green card base.

I observed that the Lucky Clover Distress Oxide ink was a good match for the card base before I used the water on it. I don't know if you can see it in this picture, but in some of the "lifted" areas it left behind more blue than green. Fascinating.

Sharknado - one more time!

Yes, I just had to do one more. I just had to.

The shark is from Avery Elle's Hello Chum, and the tornado is an upside down Christmas tree die. The shark, tornado and background are all water colored with Distress Oxide. The "Smile" die is from My Favorite Things.

I printed the inside sentiments from my computer. Yes, I am stoked up about shark week and a new Sharknado. Silly me.

Flippin' awesome!

I have been experimenting with brick backgrounds this week, and here's my latest.

The brick background is from a cheap embossing folder (maybe Darice?) that I've had for a while, and I lightly went over it with Distress Oxide in Iced Spruce.

The fat chef is from My Favorite Things' Recipe for Happiness, and the red frame is from MFT's Blueprints 27. The blue background panel is cut with my new rectangle die from Gina Marie Designs' limited run of double stitched inside and outside shapes.

The shapes mostly cut well enough, but I get better results if I use my precision cutting plate in my Big Shot. Also, one end embosses the stitching better than the other, so I put a shim on one end to try to equalize things.

I am getting a little smarter, though. I've started to mark the end of the die that needs the shim so I won't have to test it each time. Live and learn, right?

Mr Chef and his kitchen tools were colored with Spectrum Noir markers.

And now, my random craft room thought: Where can I have put that BIG pad of Bristol Smooth cardstock? It's too big to be so hidden.

Cats + Hearts = Purrfection!

Wow, I am still using up all the cats I colored back in May. Would you believe I'm still not done with them? Most of them were colored with Copics or Spectrum Noir markers and cut with my Scan and Cut, but these were on water color paper scraps, so were fussy cut.

Anyway, this week I ordered and received a bunch of basic shaped dies with double stitching around both the inside and outside edges. These dies, from Gina Marie Designs, are a value, priced much lower than the die sets from big-name companies, but are not no-name dies from China, either.

What I am discovering with these dies is that I must use the precision plate in my Big Shot, and if I want both ends to emboss the stitching evenly I need to put a little shim at one end only. My next project is to cut each one separately and mark the low end so I'll know where to shim them in the future. Oh boy.

Anyway, for the hearts in this card, I cut all three at once and colored each one separately with Distress Oxide Ink.

The front of the pink card base is embossed with the 2nd largest of the rectangle dies from Gina Marie Designs. It's very subtle.

The kitties, from My Favorite Things' Catitude set, were water colored and fussy cut. My Brother Scan and Cut is not so great at cutting things from heavy watercolor paper scraps. When I tape down the scrap the scanner wants to pick up the tape and it's too close to crop out. Yes, I need to get my cutting mat sticky again.

I finished up with some Nuvo Crystal Drops and Nuvo Jewel Drops.

Birds love tea, too!

I'm loving these adorable birds from Your Next Stamp's Love Birds set. They are colored with Spectrum Noir Markers, and high lighted with Distress Oxide ink splattered die cuts.

Pawsome in every way!

More fun and funky cats from My Favorite Things' Catitude set. I still have a few more to use, so this isn't the end, my friends!

I stenciled the brick wall and setting sun with stencils from MFT and Distress inks, onto Bristol smooth card stock. The cats had been colored previously with Spectrum Noir markers.

I may go and get a little bird for the top of the fence. Maybe.

Call anytime. Really.

So, this week I played with my new Distress Oxide Inks. The first thing I did was this tri-colored panel. I used a Gina Marie die for the panel. I played around with a lot of different white die-cut sentiments, but ended up liking these simple palm trees the best. The palm trees are one of the no-name dies from China that I recently got. More on that story later.

I used a sentiment from an older set from The AlleyWay Stamps.

I have decided that I will go and use most of the stamp sets that I HAD to have, but have never used. And to make the challenge even greater, at least one stamp should come from a set that is no longer for sale. Then it will truly be archaeological.

Of course, I haven't stopped buying new stamps, what do you think I'm capable of here?