Christmas Card Challenge #15 - Elves

This week at Sparkels' Christmas Card Challenge, we get to play with Elves.  You can incorporate them anywhere on your card.  When I think of Elves, I always think of my Holiday Line-Up set.  It is so cute!  In addition, I used the Four the Holidays stamp set I got free from the sale-a-bration promotion.  This set has four great holiday greetings.

Materials used are stampin’ up! Unless noted

Stamps: holiday line-up, four the holidays, short & sweet

Paper: crumb cake, very vanilla, jolly holiday dsp, old olive

Ink: black staz-on, early expresso

Accessories: su markers (old olive, cherry cobbler, early expresso), off white marker (other), blush marker (other), satin old olive ribbon, build-a-brad, dimensionals, light brown marker (other), light yellow marker (other)

Punches: 3/4" circle

Techniques: coloring with markers

Christmas Card 5

Walk to school night was great!  Actually, we didn't walk this year, because it is SO hot we didn't want to be dripping with sweat when we got there.  Tate's new teacher is fabulous!  Tate likes her already, and she seems so excited to teach.  She has a lot of energy, which is great!  He is actually looking forward to going this year.  Tanner is so funny!  He is SO excited about going to kindergarten.  We stopped by his room first and we had to go back to see things again before we left.  He keeps asking how many more days until he can go.  I hope he feels this way on Monday.

We are supposed to be getting a thunderstorm today.  I hope we do!  The boys slept in the basement last night, because our bedrooms were SO hot.  It was still in the 90s at 11 p.m. and that doesn't count the heat index.  Our bedroom was 89 degrees last night, when we went to sleep.  We used three fans all night and yes, we do have our air conditioning set at 78 degrees.  Our bedrooms are on the upper level, so as they say....heat rises.  I just checked the weather on the internet and the rain is supposed to start at 9 am.  That would be awesome; however, it is still supposed to be in the 90s this afternoon with the rain.  What?  I thought is would get cooler.  On the positive side (which my mom has always taught me to look at), at least we have been able to use our pool a lot this summer.  We prayed for a hot summer.  Be careful for what you ask for... God might give it to you...LOL!

This is the last card for my Christmas card workshop this fall.  This set is so fun!  I love the looks on the reindeer faces.

Materials used are stampin’ up! Unless noted

Stamps: holiday lineup, perfect punches

Paper: Green (other), Jolly holiday dsp, off white (other)

Ink: green (other), early expresso

Accessories: twill ribbon, cherry cobbler marker

Punches: scallop circle

Techniques: basic stamping

I have been in the learning mood lately, so I have signed up for some classes online.  One of them has to do with using actions in Photoshop.  I read Coffee Shop Photography every day she posts and love her blog.  She is always creating free actions and talking about photography.  Check her out!  I love the pictures she takes.  On her blog, she wrote about a class given by Amanda Padgett at Everyday Elements regarding actions.  I signed up.  I am hooked on actions and wanted to know how to use them.  Her blog is very cool too!  Are you taking any online classes now or this fall?  I would love to hear about them.

Lastly, I visited my friend, Kim last night and we made some of the cutest projects.  I will start showing you those next week.  Have a great weekend.  We are going to hang out this weekend, soak up the sun and family time before school starts on Monday.

Christmas Challenge - Guest DT

We had a FUN week!  My mom, nieces and nephews went home yesterday and we miss them already.  It was so nice to see them and play every day while they were here.

Today, I am honored to be a guest designer for Sparkle's Christmas Challenge.  I need to get back to playing along with her challenges every week.  Maybe this is the nudge I need to get organized in order to play along every week.  For this weeks challenge, we have a color combo for you.  The combo is deep red, black and cream/vanilla.  Here is a sneak peak of my card.  Please visit Sparkle's Christmas Challenge site to see what I created for this challenge:

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless noted:

Stamps: Tiny Tags, Simple Snowflake, All Holidays, Holiday Line Up

Paper: Black, Colonial White (other), Jolly Holiday Designer Series Paper

Ink: Cherry Cobbler, Black

Accessories - Black embossing powder, Iridescent Ice embossing powder, Cherry Cobbler marker, Black grosgrain ribbon, Black button, waxy flax (other), Black bigger brads, dimensionals

Punches - Medium Jewelry Tag, Extra Large Oval, Snowflake Extra Large, Ticket Corner 

Sparkle's Creations Challenges

Last year, I used Maria Bell's Christmas Stampin' All Year Long for challenges and motivations to make Christmas throughout the year.  I will continue to visit Maria's site for inspiration in 2010.  In addition, I found Sparkle's blog where she has a Christmas card challenge every Sunday.  My cards today were inspired by here last challenge of using red and blue.  My red is vineyard berry and my blues are dutch blue and outdoor denim.  These colors are from the CTMH color palette.

I used watercolor paper for a change and used my ink pads and water brush.

Sparkle makes the suggestion to create two cards of the same design.  I thought I was making these two exactly alike.  Then I realized I glued my snowman image on the opposite ends of the pattern paper.  Ha Ha!  I didn't realize this until it was too late to remove the image easily.  Oh, well!  I like both of them, but my favorite is the one on the right.  I like the vineyard berry pattern paper on the bottom better for some reason.

Materials used

Stamps: Holiday Lineup (SU), Great Greetings (SU - retired)

Paper: Deck the Halls and Just Chillin' (CTMH - retired), outdoor denim  and white daisy cs (CTMH), watercolor paper (Archivers)

Ink: dutch blue, black, orange, grey flannel, and vineyard berry (CTMH), jet black (StazOn)

Accessories: blue ric rac (Archivers), white pearls (Mark Richards), crocheted flower (DZ Doodles), outdoor denim button (CTMH), colonial white waxy flax

Techniques: water brush coloring, liquid applique, flower soft
Punches: small oval and oval scallop (SU)

Happy Holidays!

Merry Wishes

Continuing with my Christmas card challenges, I have an eyelet challenge to show you today. This is for Debbie's Eyelet Challenge #21. I remember when eyelets came out and I loved using them. I don't seem to use them much anymore. I am a "brad" girl. I showed my club this card on Saturday night and Patti commented that I had more brads than eyelets. See the cute little mini brads on each one of the reindeer, except Rudolph. He needed a big red brad. I love this image. I told her I know, but I did use some eyelets on the background paper. Hee Hee! I tried right?

I colored my image with CTMH pencils and pop dotted my image on cranberry cs.

See these little cuties up close! Love it!

Card recipe: Paper - Basics Evensong Collection (CTMH), Evensong Level 2 paper (CTMH), cranberry cs, white daisy cs and new england ivy cs (CTMH); Stamp sets - Holiday Line Up (SU), Lots of Thoughts (SU); Ink - cranberry (CTMH), black (Memento); Accessories - mini brads (CTMH), cranberrry bigger brad (CTMH), red eyeles (unknown); scallop square punch (SU)

Tomorrow I will interrupt my Christmas Challenges with a special project for Paper Craft Planet. Check back and see what the Design Team has been doing.

Happy Stamping!