Oh, Burlap Tree!

In my world, Christmas decorations go up the day after Thanksgiving, so this week's Color My Heart challenge was perfect:  Cranberry and Ponderosa Pine.

All the stamps came from the Art Philosophy Cricut Bundle.  I stamped the "banner" from the swirly stamp set onto Burlap Ribbon with Ponderosa Pine pigment ink, turned it upside down and...voila...Christmas tree.  The tree trunk is the edging of the Burlap Ribbon.  I just tucked it under the tree and used Liquid Glass to adhere both it and the tree.  I also used Liquid Glass to adhere the Cranberry Baker's Twine bow.  The sentiment came from solid stamp set, again in pigment ink. 

Such an easy card.  Wish putting up my real Christmas tree was this fast!

May your Christmas season be filled with light and joy.

Until next time,
Becca

Polar Express

I love the colors for this week's Color Dare, but they make me think of Thanksgiving and I need Christmas cards...a lot of Christmas cards.  Every year I try to whittle down my list, but every year it stays around 75 cards.  I have 15 ready. 

Yeah.

So, I racked my brain until I could find a way to make Smokey Plum, Goldrush and Olive Christmassy.

The background doily is from one of the stamp sets that coordinates with the Artbooking Cricut cartridge.  I stamped it with Versamark ink on Kraft paper.  The rest of the stamps are from Polar Bear Holiday.  The bear and sentiment were stamped in Cocoa pigment ink.  I used clear embossing powder over the bear only because I wanted a barrier to my watercoloring.  The bear himself was colored with Copics, but the sunshine around him is Goldrush ink watered down and painted. 

To get good coverage of the Olive snowflakes on the Kraft, I used pigment ink.  It stays truer to the color when using it on a colored background.

The picture doesn't show it well, but the bear's scarf is a bit of Smokey Plum reinker, Pearl Paint and water.  I dyed the ribbon with Smokey Plum, so I had some leftover dyed water to play with.  The skates and white parts of the hat were painted with the Pearl Paint directly.

When I got done with the main card, I thought I'd add a few sequins.  Well...hmmm.  I couldn't seem to stop.  At all.

Yeah.

Anyway, I think he turned out really cute.  And he will certainly be added to my stash of Christmas cards.  One more down, sixty to go.

Until next time,
Becca

Fresh Muse

My crafting mojo has been missing for days now.  Of course that always seems to be the case when I have deadlines looming in my personal life.  With a list of things to do as long as my arm, I'm staring vacantly into space hoping the craft fairy will come clean up my area and leave me a pile of finished projects.

One of the things on my to do list is to finish making Christmas cards.  I used inspiration from Freshly Made Sketches and Muse to bring you this:

Taking a cue from the design team over at Freshly Made Sketches, I was very loose with my interpretation.  I spritzed pearlized Smokey Plum onto the purple background to follow the sketch.  Then I used my finger to smear silver pigment ink over top.  That left me with too much silver and not enough purple, so I smeared Smokey Plum and Gypsy pigment ink. 

The snowflake followed the same basic inking.  First it was spritzed, patted with Smokey Plum pigment ink, patted with silver pigment, and then toped with some heavier pats with Gypsy pigment.  I have a little silver on my Gypsy ink pad now, but it's not horrible.

The snowflake was cut using the Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge, and the sentiment is from Stampin' Up.

All supplies listed with italics are CTMH.

Well, off to make dinner. Maybe the kitchen fairy cleaned and left me a delicious, nutritious meal.  Here's to wishful thinking!

Until next time,
Becca

Bit of Green Birthday

Our challenge this week at Color My Heart is Black & White with a pop of Green.  I put this card together for a very musical nephew.

Here's the supply list (everything in italics is CTMH):

• Stamps: Universal Background, Distressed Background, Holiday Tags
• Paper: Pear, Black
• Ink: Black
• Accessories: Artiste (p. 47 - notched paper, p. 36 - sentiment frame), Baker's Twine: Neutral Assortment, black sequins (Hobby Lobby)

Using Cricut Craft Room, I selected the notched paper shape twice.  Before cutting, I selected the sentiment frame shape and positioned it inside one of the notched paper shapes.  I then placed the Pear paper where it would be cut with the sentiment frame opening and placed the Black paper where the second notched shape would cut.  After the Cricut cut, I trimmed the Black paper and glued it along the notched edge.

I stamped the Pear piece with the music from Universal Background then laid it over the white card and stamped the frame from Holiday Tags through the opening.  The beauty of doing a cut out window like this one is, even if you don't get the stamped image lined up perfectly, as long as it's straight and in the vicinity of where you want it, you can adjust the piece with the window.  Love that!

The Pear and Black notched paper shape was adhered with foam tape to add dimension making sure to leave an edge so the large black sequin could be tucked underneath a smidge.  (Such a great word..."smidge") 

Once again, I must give a shout out to my inspiration card which can be found here.  Other than substituting CTMH supplies for the ones she used, my only real changes were the color of the Baker's Twine and stamping the Distressed Background image vertically along the left side of the card as opposed to her horizontal image.

Since I have two musical nephews with birthdays this month, my only real dilemma is deciding which one gets this card and which one get a different one.

Until next time,
Becca