Round 3 for Make it Monday and a card for the Retro Holiday Challenge at Festive Friday

Hi all,
Still playing with some perfect pearls this morning for the Make It Monday #113 - Perfect Pearls challenge over at Nichole Heady's blog Capture the Moment.  After a very long day yesterday including baseball practice with my son last night until 7pm....I decided I deserved a little craft room time this morning.  I checked in at the Festive Friday challenge and this time it is all about Retro Christmas Cards....

"Retro" to me can mean traditional or even some vintage or "retro" graphics.  I remember the cards we received at Christmas when I was a young girl having felt or velvet on the images.  I also remember receiving cards with vellum overlays and cute images.  For today's card I incorporated perfect pearls into a traditional Christmas card with some felt and some vellum....

Supplies:

All items are from Papertrey Ink except for the adhesives and perfect pearls used as well as the Memento Tuxedo Black Ink.  

Stamps:  Layered Postmarks Holiday 

Thanks for taking a look at my card!

Happy Tuesday!

:) Jill

Merry, Merry, Merry....for Festive Friday, Friday, Friday!

Hi Everyone,
I am here today with some very MERRY cards for the Festive Friday "MERRY" Challenge: FFC04.  As soon as I saw the trigger I knew I wanted to use my Merry word die from Papertrey Ink with the tons of Christmas Paper scraps sitting in my scrap bin!!!!

I got into a card making zone last night after spending several free hours working on purging and organizing some of my crafty items. This zone allowed me to make three cards in the time that it usually takes me to make just one!  Love it when this happens!!!!!

 

This is the CAS card of the three.  I find CAS hard to do....I always seem to get ink on the card at the very end for some reason.  And I did this time too but a lovely white eraser came to my rescue!  Yeah!  

The snowflake is from Folk Art Flurries - WPlus9.  Love how it frames the word!  The embossing folder is from Lifestyle crafts...love those thin diagonal lines! 

 This is the most elaborate of the three.  With sewing (I cannot sew a straight line to SAVE MY LIFE - I think I will pre-draw lines with a pencil and ruler next time to see if it helps - its either that or go FAUX!!), lots of layers, and some lovely tiny rusted jingle bells added to the twine bow.  It uses Folk Art Flurries from WPlus9.  I used kraft and red ink on the snowflakes on the background and on the focal point.  Love this look and will probably try this again soon! 

This was the last card I made....and I am still not sure it is quite right. I started with an idea but it took a turn in the middle.....now I don't like the doily edge on the paper as I don't think it goes with the stars at all....

Also I think I need to put a brown pen line or maybe some red ink around the word  "merry" so that it doesn't look so lost?  It is when I look at photos of my finished cards that I most often see the glaring thing I didn't do even though I didn't notice it while creating in the first place.  I am debating with myself but I will probably do something (change everything about it!) before I ever give it a way.  I am posting it anyway as I think I learn from every single card I make - the good ones and the not so great ones.

This card uses PTI's Background Basics Postmarks and Layered Postmarks Holiday stamp sets.  I absolutely ADORE these two sets - alone or together!

Well that is it for this post....sorry for being so long-winded!!!  Thanks to everyone over at Festive Friday for the wonderful MERRY inspiration!  Love all of your cards!  And thanks too for my shout out from the last challenge with this card:  HERE .  If you didn't see last week's shout outs for Moriah and Sonya as well as all of the incredible "SNOWFLAKE" entries I hope you will go to the Festive Friday blog and check them out!  Also challenge three's winning card is a must see - it has incredible hidden depths!!!  Congratulations to Ardyth Percy-Robb who created it.  You can see her blog post:  HERE 

Bye for now...
:) Jill

How much liberty can I take with a sketch?....

 

Hello and Happy Saturday!
I hope you are enjoying your weekend and if living in the USA I hope you also enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving Holiday!

I am here today with a card for the Waltzing Mouse Sketch Challenge #125

Here is the lovely sketch:

When I saw this sketch I wrote it down in my sketch notebook and then flipped it 180 degrees.
It then looked to me like two trees standing up in the forest...and my brain went...ahhh Christmas Trees.  I asked myself - just how much liberty are we allowed to take with a sketch before it is too much?  This may be too much!!!!  But as inspiration is such a wonderful thing and as as I am TOTALLY in Christmas Card and Tag making mode right now I quickly pulled out my Waltzing Mouse "Vintage Banners" stamp set and came up with this card:

The sentiment is from Seasons of Love tags and says "Hearts ALL come home for Christmas".  I love this sentiment - one of my all time favorites!

 

Anyway I am not sure if my card will count but there it is nevertheless!

And I still have all week to play with this sketch so you never know...maybe another card idea will pop into my head this week.

Thanks for taking a look!

:) Jill

 

 

Some more Christmas Cards 2011...

A few more cards made for the Holidays:

A few tags and cards on a lovely Thursday afternoon....

Well I spent last week and weekend decorating for Christmas and having lots of company so not much card making got done.  The past couple of days I have had a little bit of time in the afternoon and did get some cards made.  One is a baby card for my friend who is due at the end of December and the rest are more Christmas cards...here are some of the pics...I will add the rest later when I take them...happy crafting... : )

A Snowy and cold Tuesday in Seattle....and my son and I are crafting...

Hello everyone!  Today marks the second day of snow in Seattle which is still a fairly rare occurrence.  Unfortunately it is a dry snow and not so great for snowman building to my sons great disappointment.  However it was great for making snow angels and he did so last night with our neighbor Eric.  Today - since he had a sore throat last night - we are staying inside and crafting.  Tim is making ornaments and I am making Christmas cards....here are some from today:

This card is made using an Amuse Art Stamps card base and the bird diecut is from Crafty Secrets.  I used some spellbinders labels and circles and a martha stewart snowflake punch as well as a snowflake sticker.  I also used the cuttlebug and my new snowflake embossing folder from Tim Holtz.  And of course my staple of stickles glitter glue to brighten things up a bit and make them shine!  A day without glitter is a day I don't have fun!  LOL!

My next card also uses a die cut from Crafty Secrets and the same supplies mentioned above:

Sorry the photos are so blurry....need to retake them I guess!

And 1 last card using a Christmas Cut from Crafty Secrets...I love this one of the angel and his flock watching over the baby Jesus as the star shines down in the night sky....beautiful!  As I look at the pictures though this one doesn't look balanced to me so I may add some diecut shapes behind the image...hmmm I am never satisfied!!

Oops...I couldn't take it...I had to fix it so here is an updated picture of the card above....

I am still not 100% in love with the card but I sure love the die cut from Crafty Secrets...some cards are just harder to make than others...plus it was actually my first card of the day and I always start out slow and get better as I go on....especially since I don't get to spend much time in the craft room these days...

My last card for today is more masculine in style and uses Tim Holtz Embossing folders and a stamp from Ms. Theresa Collins.  I may send this one to my brother for Christmas as I know he would like the style of it... 

Well that is all for now...I am going to have to try and take pictures in the morning when the light is better...it is a dreary day today and the lighting indoors in my basement is not the best for photo taking....I will try and repost better photos tomorrow morning.  Happy Card Making everyone!  : )

A Saturday afternoon working on some Christmas Cards...

Well today was one of those days when staying inside was the only option - it was freezing outside and super windy!  Clear and cold and windy is not a good combination for working in the yard or taking a nice Saturday afternoon walk....sooooo.....since my husband was napping and my son was playing video games I opted to make some cards (of course!). 

Here are my results....
This first card is from a stamp by Pink Cat Studio (http://www.pinkcatstudio.com/).  I just discovered them while blog hopping and ordered some stamps.  I haven't had time to try all the wonderful stamps I purchased but I did try this one that was sent digitally:

The sentiment inside of the card says: 

"A handful of love and another of kisses 
An angel sent on a snowflake
to deliver winter wishes"

It is a sentiment stamp from Amuse Art Stamps.   http://www.amuseartstamps.com/   They have a lovely retail store near the Woodland Park Zoo if you live in the Seattle Area but do most of their business online.


By the by I am looking forward to trying the "Itty Bitty Christmas Stamps" set and the "Lily and Billy Winter Stamps" set from Pink Cat Studio too once I have some more time to make cards...


The second card I made today is a "Let it Snow" snowman card using a Snowman stamp I purchased last year from Inkadinkado. 

I had a lot of fun making this card.  I used my cuttlebug and embossing folders as well as spellbinders dies for the circles.  I made the little "let it snow" sign by hand.  And as always when making Christmas cards I of course used lots of stickles glitter glue to brighten things up.  Sorry it was such a gloomy day outside as the lighting for the pictures does not do them justice.  But with my husband having cancer I am finding that sometimes I do better to post a picture as is than try to wait and hopefully post it after taking photos in the morning hours.  Mornings are taken up with school and doctor's appointments these days. 

Well off to do some more crafting....Happy Weekend Everyone!

A start to some christmas cards....

Well I know I should be making my Thanksgiving cards to send to a few of my family members who live far away but I found myself instead making some vintage style Christmas cards instead...though I did pull out a lot of Thanksgiving products so that I can work on those and some Thank You notes next.  I love this time of year when the air is getting colder and the Holidays are in sight.  I just adore the Christmas season as it is a time when the whole world shows there love!  And that is what it is all about - LOVE! 

Here are the first couple of cards that I have made....lots more to make I wonder if I will be able to make one for everyone on my list....we shall see....happy crafting!  : ) Jill