Believe - in Halloween and Christmas!

With everything busy around here, I'm taking another minute out to post a card for two challenges. This one is supposed to fill the requirements for Card Positioning System sketch 139 and for the Color Throwdown #66.

Check these sites out if you haven't already. Great inspiration from the design teams and participants!

This card made use of cardstock I had in the stash and my new Papertrey Ink set, Holiday Button Bits. The Button Bits series is just too cool for school - fun to use and gives you built in embellishments!

Have a safe and happy Halloween and enjoy the extra hour of sleep tonight. I'll miss daylight savings terribly. I suspect all procrastinators do!

Merry Kissmoose on Halloween!

Happy Halloween! We have a busy household watching that football team with the Herschel Walker record breaking quarterback and waiting on Trick or Treaters. Emma is in seventh heaven since Blondson and his girlfriend are here for the weekend. AND, they brought Nigel! If the rest of the kids were home Emma's life would be complete. She helped with the photos today just to keep her out of the football viewing area.


Today's challenge is for Scrapmaster's Paradise Color Combo #21 and 2 Sketches For You, Kazan's Sketch 38.

Here's the card

How cute is that moose? And better still I WON HIM! For real! One of the comment lotteries on Papercraft Magazines blog. So if you've given up and believe no one actually wins, it's not true. I won this set, Christmas Critters, from Cornish Heritage Farms. I won others too, but I'm using them in challenges later. The papers I used are from Basicgrey's Christmas issue a couple of years ago and the cardstock and buttons are from the stash.

 

Torn Tree

This tree was a quick entry into Hero Arts blog challenge this week. The topic was torn paper and I ripped this out quickly. 

The 'joy' is stamped using Hero Arts Designer Alphabet. I did some stitching on the kraft cardstock to give the look of snow falling. 


Am I the only person Blogger gives grief or does he move photos around on everyone?

Happy Birthday!

Here's a cheater of a birthday card. It fits the challenges for Card Positioning System challenge 138 and Color Throwdown challenge #65. It's also submitted to the Paper Craft Planet blog for Susanna's birthday. The real cheat? I made it for my mom's birthday and it's in the mail on the way to her.

Here's the card I finally came up with to meet all the qualifications.

I used Papertrey Ink's Everyday Button bits and a K&Company designer mat pad for the papers. The buttons and ribbons were from the stash. The original design of the stamp calls for it to be a topiary - it's really pretty and elegant that way too. I just made it a flower stem and added the wings from the bird in the button set to make the flower leaves. Love that about Papertrey designs, most of their stamp sets work in several ways.

Hope you have a great weekend! We finally have the family room painted and now we're in the process of putting it all back together and shampooing the carpets as well. The heat is on since we leave on a short vacation Monday and I hate the idea of coming home to a mess!

A JUGS3 Card and a New Grandchild!

I just scooted in under the daylight wire for this card today. Kept saying it wasn't going to happen again and then I got distracted. By this:

Meet my new grandchild, Cobalt, Colby for short. Redheadedson is the world's biggest dog fan and has waited until he graduated from college and got a job to get his own dog. He's a chemical engineer, this is an Australian Cattle dog, a Blue Heeler, hence the name Cobalt. Colby's seven weeks old, comes home as soon as he's old enough and Redheadedson is MORE than ready! He's known about it for weeks but didn't tell us until today. 

Meanwhile, the JUGS challenge this week was a color combination:

I find blues of any kind hard to work with so my card definitely emphasized the red and cream.

I used Papertrey's Winter Swirls (again - better learn to pick up a different stamp set!) and Basicgrey paper from a couple of season's ago. The ribbon is on sale at Michaels this week and the buttons are from Papertrey's new vintage mix. I adapted the sweater pattern from an old one I save published in Papercrafts a couple of years ago.

Thanks for reading! (If you're a dog fan - there are photos of our first grandchild and Emma in the post "Please Pardon the Interruption".)

It's Beginning to Look a Little Like Christmas

So I think I've got it together. Found a sketch and a color challenge that I can use with each other and I got them done well before the deadline. Ha. Completely forgot about the photography issue. I've learned I'm much better off outside in natural light. But that same natural light starts to fade quickly in October. What seemed like all the time in the world rapidly became just a couple of minutes. I got the photo and my accomplice looks pretty good in it!


The card is for Scrapmaster's Paradise Color Combo #19 and There She Goes Sketch 24

My accomplice is a hand made bear from my aunt. She rescued pieces of a quilt made in 1886 and created this bear for me in 1986 when my first son was born. Pretty nifty huh? And he's a great help - never says a negative word!

I used the stamp set Winter Swirls from Papertrey Ink and it's rapidly becoming one of my all time favorites. I like all the options it offers - focal points, backgrounds and sayings. And it dresses up and down very easily. I used the snowflakes and Versamark to create a subtle pattern on the purple cardstock. Did that again on the white cardstock before I sponged the blue ink over it to create the hill and sky. And I used the snowflakes one more time with white ink on the brown cardstock. The cute little tree is covered in glitter because Christmas always needs a little bit of extra glitz.

The sunlight here is almost gone and I promised the Emma dog one last frisbee session before it got dark. Enjoy!

Hello Pumpkin!

There's a just a hint of change in the air here this morning. If you didn't live here you probably wouldn't notice, but it's FALL! The forecast shows us only in the upper seventies over the weekend. I'm not a cold weather person, but Emma is going to be thrilled! And it'll be nice to have the windows open while I finish painting the den and kitchen.

Here's the sketch for 2sketches4you this week:

 And in the spirit of the season, here's my card:

It has a cut-out front so here's the inside:

 

Sadly it took longer to line up the letter stamps for the saying than it did to make the rest of the card. Even with tweezers! The paper used is from K&Company, I picked up the ribbon and charm at Michaels on clearance and the flowers are probably all Prima of one kind or another. The stamps are a zillion years old from Close To My Heart.


We're off across Alligator Alley this morning to visit Redheadedson - hope you enjoy your weekend as much as we will!

A Step in the Right Direction

I finished and posted my previous entry at the last minute. Sadly, this is typical. What isn't typical is that one of my kids came home for the weekend. So Saturday night, just before the challenge deadline, I tried to photograph cards in the kitchen while Brunetteson and some of his friends watched his school's football game. This, however, is the South, we live in Florida, and my sons go to THAT SEC school. The one with THE quarterback and the CHOMP. A game here is something of a religious, although loud, experience. My photos reflect the situation. This week's are better.

These cards are for the JUGS2 challenge, using the technique of paper piecing and for the Taylored Expressions challenge TESC86. They're a set of note cards for a friend:

Working on these reminded me how much I prefer paper piecing to coloring. I HATE coloring. Probably because I smear most of it while coloring left-handed. The stamp set used is from Hero Arts and the papers are all from K&Company's Berry Sweet collection. Sadly, I'm not at all organized and didn't have black brads for these cards. I cheated BIG time and colored brass brads with a Sharpy marker. I edged all the background papers with the Sharpy too. 

If you were here, thanks so much for looking!

Tea Bags for Two Challenges

Hear that sound? It's the sound of deadlines passing by. I've missed several challenges but gotten some of the family room painted. Probably a fair trade.

This set of cards is for the Scrapmaster's Paradise  color challenge and 2 Sketches 4 You's challenge:

Here are my cards. Again, please excuse the photography - it's a work in progress!

The inside of the cards looks like this:

The cards themselves are just about 4 inches tall. The stamp is from Unity and the paper is absolutely beautiful but I have no idea who made it. Again, from the supplies I've had for too long.

Papertrey Ink's World Tour Challenge Cards

In honor of World Card Making Day, Nichole Heady  of PaperTrey Ink  (PTI) created a world tour of card making. First country up on the tour was Japan, using the colors or images Japanese art evokes. 

I used PTI's Greenthumb stamp set to stamp computer printer paper and then folded an origami crane. Sadly, it's the only origami piece I can remember how to fold. The background paper is from Daisy D's and the word 'peace' is from PTI's Winter Swirls. I chalked the paper just slightly to make it a better match for the background paper.


Next stop on Nichole's tour was Mexico. I thought of serapes, stripes and brightly colored flowers.

If the flowers don't look like PTI's, that'd be true and false. They're PTI's, but they're the ornaments from Take A Bough. I really don't know what paper line this is. Again some of the stockpile collected but not used. I fringed the bottom of the paper - shows up much better in real life.

Third stop on the PTI  world tour was India. Nichole suggested we think bling!

The stamp set used here is PTI's Winter Swirls again. I stamped it with Versamark and then chalked over it for what I hope is something of an Indian fabric feel. The background paper is also Daisy Ds and the flowers are assorted Prima's. The saying is from PTI's Everyday Button Bits.

The tour ended in Australia. Tough to reproduce their impressive art so we got a break - use dots or mask. I opted for dots and cheated big time. 

See? Plenty of dots. I just didn't create them. And I don't have any idea who made the paper. I'm not much of a blue person, but I suspect you figured that out. The stamps on this card are PTI's Little Lady. I'd admired this set literally for years. Finally ordered it and it came in the mail the day I broke my leg and ended up having surgery, three screws and a bone graft put in and had to wear a brace and stay off it for two months. Little Lady is not so lucky for me!

Thanks for touring with me, if you're not familiar with PaperTrey Ink I hope you'll check them out.

Please Pardon the Interruption!

This is my new grandson! Don't say I didn't warn you, this is the cutest thing ever!

 

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That's Nigel. He's a nine week old Welsh Corgi. Told you, cutest thing ever isn't he? Nigel belongs to my middle son and his girlfriend. They're pretty darn cute too but I promised the youngest son that all names and current photos would be withheld to protect the guilty. That's Emma with Nigel. She's our 14 month old German Shepherd. She thinks Nigel's just for her. Fortunately, he's crazy about Emma too!

It's the JUGs inaugural sketch!

Two bloggers extremely high on my personal inspiration list have begun a sketch challenge. Really, if you don't know these two, please check them out: Kristin Bueter and Stampin' Pam. Their artwork will impress you every time, they have post frequently and they're incredibly nice. So how can we NOT join their challenge? I promise you'll be glad you did! Here's the first sketch ever for the JUGs challenge

Decisions don't come easily to me so if I can limit my options when designing it's usually a good thing. This time I created the card for the JUGs challenge using the Color Throwdown

Here's my card:

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I made an editorial change by using a circle instead of an oval. I'm one of the very few remaining souls on earth without an elaborate die cut system of any sort and just couldn't get my oval cutter to cooperate. The papers are from Die Cut With A View's Indian Summer line. The stamps are Hampton Art. The little brads are from the dollar section at Target last year and the ribbons are from that mess of a basket I have. I think the little squirrel honestly looks like he's asleep or meditating!

A Cupcake for the Raspberry Suite Challenge 17

It's getting late on Sunday night and I have way too many cards and projects started and not finished. I can't be the only one out there with wreckage from World Card Making Day! This card is supposed to cover two challenges, Dawn McVey's Raspberry Suite Challenge and the Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge #84. I'm late for that one but did at least finish the card. Here are the inspirations from both:

And here's the card:

Knowing I combined two challenges helps make some sense of this card doesn't it? The Cherry and Chocolate papers are from Die Cuts With A View. Sorry, I have no idea where the other papers are from. I had a very ugly habit of collecting subscription scrapbooking kits for a while. And that's just what I did - collected them - didn't use them. The stamps are Inkadinkadoo and the ribbon and grommets are FTS (from the stash). I embossed the stamping so the ink wouldn't smear and reverse masked to fill - I'm pretty inept in coloring. Possibly a left-handed issue!

Hope you're getting lots accomplished with your World Card Making Day plans.