random reflections

Masculine Birthday Cards

Today is my brother-in-law's birthday and a week from today is my brother's birthday. I almost always do duplicate (or almost) cards for them. When Simon Says hosted it's STAMPtember event where they offer exclusive designs from major stamp companies, I caved only once. As soon as I saw the Gina K Stay Cozy set, I knew it would be perfect for masculine cards. 

Since these are winter birthdays, I decided on an ink blended background splattered with white for snow. The Gina K Master Layout #5 was the perfect window for the scene.

I die cut the window frame with the larger die in Gina K's Master Layout #1 (one of the most used dies in my collection) and adding some foam tape for dimension. The sentiment came from Honey Bee's Stay Still set of sentiments. 

There are several NBUS items used on this card. The Gina K Stay Cozy, the Gina K Master Layout #5, as well the Pinkfresh Studio 1" blending brushes which I received as part of the August Create and Connect event. I've had the Master Layout #5 for a couple of years, and why I haven't used those brushes before is beyond me! They are fabulous, and I just ordered three more during Simon Says Black Friday sale. 

As luck would have it, this card fits three challenges: The Paper Players: Be A Deer, Shopping Our Stash: Masculine, and Seize the Birthday: Masculine. I'll also send these off to Darnell's NBUS challenge. 

 

Color Hues 100!!!

Our fabulous leader, Nancy, has chosen the wonderful colors for this amazing 100th Challenge for Color Hues.

Since this is our 100th challenge, Woohooo... there will be a fabulous prize offered to one of our winners. You can read all the details over on the Color Hues blog. 

Originally, I thought I'd create a holiday card for this challenge (and sadly, I'm still in need of a few). But I found a foiled panel on my desk of the beautiful Spellbinders Cosmos Backdrop, and thought it would be lovely stenciled in blue and purple. I'm happy with the result. 

It's hard to see how pretty it is unless your can see the gold foiling as well. You can see the purple card base better in this photo, too.

I used two shades of grays for the leaves. Then I die cut the panel with one of Ellen Hutson's Essential Arches and layered the two pieces on a purple card base. 

The sentiment from a new Pinkfresh Studio Betterpress plate, Here for You was foiled in gold and die cut with the accompanying die which I love. Foiled cards are so hard to photograph well. I hope the second photo gives you a sense of how pretty the card is in your hand.

I hope you'll join us for this monumental challenge. Hop over to the Color Hues blog and see the wide variety of wonderful cards from the Design Team!

 

Christmas Ornaments

This post was made possible by the kindness and generosity of a fellow blogger--Darnell. When I commented on the beautiful papers she had used to create some lovely Christmas cards featuring an ornament, she sent me an envelope full of patterned paper pieces. What a surprise it was to come home from Wisconsin, and the very next day find this gift in my mailbox! Then I wondered if I had an ornament die that would work. Yes, thanks to the NBUS box, there was a Nordic Ornament die from Spellbinders. Thankfully, it included a solid ornament shape without all the intricate die cuts for the Nordic pattern.

I've created eight cards--all the same design, with a variety of the patterned papers, and card bases to match. All the cards have a premade sentiment from Memory Box's Open Studio line--Greeting Tabs. Last year I found "Merry Christmas" tabs, but was unable to find those this year. These have a variety of sentiments--Happy Holidays, Merry & Bright, and Warm Wishes. Each come in three different fonts. I added a strip of dimensional tape to each, but wish I hadn't as they would have been much easier to mail without it. Hindsight is almost always better!

Addicted to CAS has the perfect challenge that opened up just I started to create these cards: Ornaments. I'm also sending them off to AAA Cards: Anything CAS, Optional Christmas/Winter, and to Darnell's NUBUS.

Woodblock Wednesday-November

Woodblock Wednesday snuck up on me this month. It's been hard to get to everything that needs to be done after being away for 10 days. I'm making progress, but had to hop to it to get this card made. Fortunately, the image didn't need any coloring. It took several tries to get a good stamping, so I tried both Copics and colored pencils on some the rejects, and decided this woodblock print was best left alone.

This Magenta stamp has no name printed on it, and is almost as big as the card! I have no idea where or when I purchased it.

I chose two narrow mats--one dark green and another gold, and layered them on a red mini-slimline card. It's been quite awhile since I've made a mini-slimline card but it was perfect for this stamp. 

The sentiment is one of Memory Box's Black Greeting Tabs. I tried to purchase another set of them this year, but was only able to find a "Happy Holidays" version. They're just right so many times! 

This is off as my second entry into the Festive Friday Gallery--it's just a perfect list of elements for a Christmas card. This time I used red, green, gold, and a Christmas sentiment. The gold mat probably qualifies as glimmer as well. 

If you celebrate Thanksgiving in the U.S. I hope the gathering is one of laughter and love! I have so many blessings to be thankful for. 

Happy Birthday, Ella!

My middle granddaughter turned 10 yesterday. She's always been the fashion conscious glamour girl, and I had so much fun making her birthday card. She asked for a gift certificate to Athleta, so the card ended up being just perfect! She had a sleep-over party this year so I don't have a party photo, but here's my favorite photo of her--taken this summer.

I bought this Concord and 9th Window Shoppe Pop-up Base and the Fashion Shoppe dies knowing they'd get a lot of use having four granddaughters. I know I'll use some of the Fashion Shoppe dies for simpler cards as well. I already had the Book Shoppe and the Flower Shoppe dies are on my Christmas list.  

I love all the architectural details on the shoppe and the door. The black and white awning was cut from a My Favorite Things paper pad. All the little shoes, boots, etc. were cut from scraps. I photographed the card from the side so you can see the pop-out on the front of the card. It stands up perfectly and folds into an A2 card envelope. 

I added acetate behind the window portion of the die and cut the mirror from silver metallic paper. Like the architectural details, all the little items for the shoppe are just delightful: the chandelier, the dress form, the cute high heels and boots, the hat . . . There are more purses, a scarf, a belt, and other goodies that I didn't include this time. Despite being very tired from her sleep-over, it was clear she was pleased with the card. And the gift, of course!

I recently found another challenge new to me: A Cut Above - A Die Cut Challenge. The theme is Anything Goes, so this will be my first entry in their gallery. Loving die cuts, it won't be my last!

Flourished Christmas Tree

It's not unusual for me to purchase a Christmas stamp, or in this case, a hot foil plate one year, and not put it to use until the following year. This Spellbinders hot foil plate, Flourished Tree, is one of those products. I spent an afternoon with my hot foil machine earlier this month, and am now getting them made into cards. I foiled three panels, so have three more cards in my stash.

It's so pretty it didn't need any embellishment. I die cut it so I could have a red metallic border around it, and added one of Memory Box's Black Greeting Tabs. which work with so many designs and are a great time saver.

I'm adding this to the gallery at AAA Cards: Anything Goes/Christmas and Festive Friday where I'm using red, green, glimmer, trees, and Christmas sentiment from the Inspo List. (It hits a lot of the boxes there!)

 

CAS Christmas

The Paper Players have a challenge that is right up my alley: CAS Christmas! I'm running close to the end of the challenge, but we were in Wisconsin for ten days helping Sarah while Adam was away for a week. 

I purchased the foiling plate and dies for these Triangle Trees from Waffle Flower last year, and never got around to using them. They are perfect for a CAS Christmas card, but they are definitely a challenge to photograph. I have three variations on the theme:

This one has an embossed gold sentiment from The Greetery's Tagged Elegance.

The sentiment here is also from The Greetery, Sentiment Suite: Christmas.

Just the same as above with two trees and a gold star punched with a very old punch and bumped out with a bit of dimensional tape.

I was happy to be in Wisconsin, and enjoyed being with Sarah, Caleb, and Hannah, but have to admit being away for 10 days in November puts a time crunch on getting ready for the holidays. I only have to provide pies for the Thanksgiving dinner, but Christmas looms in the not too distant future, and I am NOT at all prepared!

 

 

Color Hues #99

It's mid-November (where does the time go?) and Marcia has a wonderful color combination on the Color Hues Blog for the next two weeks: Pink and Aqua.

These colors were perfect for the Hey, Honeycomb Balloons, by The Greetery. I started out with The Greetery Ticker Tape hot foil plate foiled with Silver Holographic Facets by Spellbinders.

For my hues of Pink and Aqua, I matched the cardstock to the colors of two of the Honeycomb Balls: Party. After die cutting the balloons, I white embossed sentiments from the Hey Honeycomb Sentiments on each balloon. 

I die cut some streamers, the balloon strings, and the sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio from silver metallic cardstock. Before arranging everything, I die cut the main panel and a panel of silver cardstock with Gina K's Master Layout #1, and attached them to a white cardbase. The white stars on the balloons are actually die cut from double-sided adhesive. Once the top layer is pulled off here's the final card.

I knew these products would make a very festive card, and I'm quite sure I'll be using up my supply of honeycomb balls for a variety of cards.

You'll find lots of inspiration on the Color Hues blog, where you'll find great cards created by our special guest, Teresa, and our very creative new Design Team member, Bonnie Klass!

 

 

Festive Friends

I've done a pretty good job resisting all the new holiday stamps and die cuts that have been released this year. I did break down and purchase the Festive Friends die cuts from Spellbinders. It was the October Die of the Month Club set so it was a great value. I just could not resist this cute bear wrapped in lights and his happy penguin friend. This is the first card, but it definitely won't be the last.

I die cut most of the pieces from scraps of card stock. The bear's sweater was die cut with some patterned paper in my stash (no longer sure of the manufacturer,) 

The background was created with Lifestyle Craft's tiny star embossing folder on gray cardstock. I added some dimension between it and the card base. The bulbs for the strings of light were die cut from silver glitter paper. 

The star was die cut from gold metallic paper. All that glitter and gold led me to the Sparkling Holiday sentiment banner from Pinkfresh Studio which I embossed in silver.

I'm sending this off to the current Tic Tac Toe Challenge, where I went across the bottom row: Die Cut, Metallic Element, Festive Sentiment.

Color Hues 98

It's my turn to be the hostess and to choose the colors for the new Color Hues Challenge:

If you've followed me for some time, you aren't surprised by this choice. Red and Black are two of my favorite color combinations. I often choose them when making masculine cards, but I also love them for Christmas cards. Since my stash of Christmas cards is very limited (and time is running short), I chose Christmas as my theme for this challenge.

I pulled out my favorite poinsettia die: Altenew's 3D P0insettia. I die cut it from Gina K's Red Hot cardstock-one of the most vibrant reds in my collection. I found the background paper in my stash of card fronts that I created but never used. It was splattered with gold, so I used the Gansai Tambi Starry Night watercolors to splatter the poinsettia as well. I finished it with three small Pinkfresh Studio Gold Pearls. 

Then I added the panel to a cream card base. The sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio's Hot Foil Perfect Sentiments: Holiday was also in an envelope of premade sentiments. Having these premade panels and sentiments makes card making a bit faster. Since it's more time consuming to get out my hot foil machine, when I do, I make multiples and stash them away.

I hope this color combo inspires you to join us at the Color Hues Blog. Whether you choose a holiday card or another theme, we'd love to see you in our gallery. There's always lots of inspiration on the Color Hues Blog to get you started!