Canopy Crafts: November 2016

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Frosted Pines & Sugarplums PP323

I hope all my friends in the US enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday weekend. It was beautiful weather here in north FLA and we spent a fun-filled day with family. Today, at The Paper Players, our sensational Sandy has a sketch challenge for us--my favorite--and it's a good one!

I have a confession to make.....I am not fond of red and green together--gasp! I know, right?! How could this be? Well, I'm a frosty winter kind of girl--pastels, silver, white and grey. Those fantastic mercury glass ornaments in shades of pink, blue and green. All of them hanging on our vintage silver aluminum Christmas tree--really we have one! I might add, our tree trimming sessions are always accompanied by A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra. So, it was with dreams of frosty sugarplums dancing in my head that I made today's card...

Happy sigh....these colors are gorgeous together. Trust me, lay your ink pads next to each other and see how pretty they look. Sweet Sugarplum, Pool Party and Smoky Slate/Silver. Like a frosty winer wonderland!

The Pool Party base was stamped with snowflakes from the Christmas Pines set. Over the Sweet Sugarplum layer I added a slightly smaller piece of Vellum cardstock embossed with the Pine Bough embossing folder. Love how the vellum cracks and turns white when embossed. The Pretty Pines thinlits were cut from Dazzling Diamonds glimmer paper--love its icy iridescence.

I repeated the same colors on the inside using Smoky Slate for the snowflakes, Pool Party for the pine boughs and Sweet Sugarplum for the sentiment. Did I mention that I love these colors together?! :-)

I hope you've enjoyed today's card as much as I enjoyed making it. Be sure to check out the rest of The Paper Players design team for even more fabulous inspiration! Come along and play with us before our challenge ends on Friday, December 2nd at Noon (PST).

The Paper Players Design Team

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Chai Latte Inspired CAS: PP322

I was picking up my favorite fall drink at Starbucks the other day and I saw this gorgeous sign that stopped my in my tracks. I'm sure the people behind me didn't appreciate me stopping to snap a pic but I was totally inspired:

The white on black, the cut border, the winter foliage....I was smitten. Our dear, sweet friend Claire is hosting a Clean-and-Simple Christmas challenge this week at The Paper Players and I knew instantly how I would turn this inspiration into a card.

How did I do?! I used a retired stamp set called Watercolor Winter for the beautiful holly sprigs. They were heat embossed in white on basic black cardstock. I simply trimmed around the edges of the images and layered a piece of silver foil paper behind. The sentiment, from Holly Berry Happiness, is embossed in silver to match and die cut with the new Stitched Shapes Framelits.

I stamped the holly leaves and berries from the same Holly Berry Happiness set and punched them out with the coordinating Holly Berry Builder punch--yeah for a coodination punch! I stamped the holly leaves in [retired] Mossy Meadow on Old Olive cardstock and the berries are in Cherry Cobbler on Real Red cardstock. I love the way the green/red pops off the black. You may see some bits that look like stray embossing powder but that's actually Wink of Stella that I brushed around the holly for some added sparkle!

The Holly Berry Happiness set has some gorgeous sentiments and I love that they can be used on the inside of my cards. This one is particularly nice and reminds me what the holiday season is all about!

I hope you've enjoyed my Starbucks inspired CAS card...I hope it inspires you to look around you everyday. You never know where you will find YOUR inpspiration! You might find it among the lovely projects created by the rest of the design team so be sure to check them out. Maybe you'll even be inspired enough to play along with us before the challenge closes on Friday, November 25th at Noon (PST). For all my US friends....happy, happy Thanksgiving to all of you! I'm truly grateful that you stop by my little corner of blogland. ((hugs))

The Paper Players Design Team

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Pretty Pines of Festive Color PP321

Happy Sunday, friends! I hope you're having a great weekend. This week at The Paper Players our sweet and talented friend Joanne is hosting a color challenge for us:

These colors are so festive together! Emerald Envy and Mint Macaron complement each other nicely. I had an idea in my head for these colors but I just couldn't translate it to paper. Sometimes that happens, right?! Anyway, here's what I came up with:

I just love the Christmas Pines stamp set and coordinating Pretty Pines Thinlits. I also used the Pine Bough Textured embossing folder but in a slightly different way. I wanted the embossed pine boughs to radiate out from the center sentiment but the way the folder is made the pine bough comes down from the upper left corner. I cut my card front in half and embossed each half. Then, I flipped one of the pieces so the pine bough went in the opposite direction. I adhered both of them to a Real Red card base and covered the seam with a piece of [retired] Real Red satin ribbon. That gave me just the look I wanted with the pine boughs!

I used several dies from the Pretty Pines Thinlits to embellish the sentiment panel. Even tucked in some Metallic Real Red Thread behind as well. And speaking of the senitment, did you notice those fabulous Stitched Shapes Framelits? Newly released by Stampin' Up, I was so excited to receive them this week that I coulnd't wait to use them. I love the extra detail the stitched edge adds without any extra bulk.

Before I let you go, I want to share a picture of a special visitor we had to our pond Saturday morning. I apologize for the poor quality photo--my phone was all that was handy and he was far away--but I think you will recognize his shape:

A Blue Heron paid us a visit and waded around in the pond on our property. So cool to see him swoop down into the water and then wade around ever so gingerly. I know you can't see his detail--and I couldn't either--but I could see that he was a beautiful gray-blue color. I don't know that we have any fish in that pond but there certainly are tons of frogs to keep him fed!

That's it for me today...please go check out the lovely inspiration from the rest of our design team over at The Paper Players. I hope you will join us before our challenge closes on Friday, November 18th at Noon (PST).

The Paper Players Design Team

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Acorny Gratitude PP320

Hi peeps! Here we are, rolling on into November. I can't believe it. I don't even want to think about Christmas yet! It's finally feels like fall here in North Florida and I'm thankful for that! Sweet Laurie is our hostess this week at The Paper Players where we are celebrating just that....being thankful:

I have much to be thankful for and try to remind myself of that as often as possible. I like sending cards for Thanksgiving to the people in my life that I am thankful for so it was with that in mind that I created today's card:

I havent' used the Acorny Thank You stamp set in ages and I was so happy to see it return to the 2016-2017 catalog. I thought it was the perfect set for this week's fabulous sketch over at Create with Connie & Mary. The Cable Knit embossing folder sets off the acorns nicely and I wanted to mimic a cozy sweater in Very Vanilla. The acorns are kinda like a necklace on the sweater in pretty jewel tones of Deligthful Dijon, Rich Razzleberry, Island Indigo and Cajun Craze.

The acorn toppers look gold here but I promise you, they are punched from Copper Foil paper. I thought they needed to be "grounded" by something--I didn't like them just floating--so I added two oak leaves from the Vintage Leaf set and cut with the coordinating Framelits. Of course, I added a little Wink of Stella to the leaves and acorns because, well...why not?! The Linen Thread was just looped behind the acorns and attached with glue dots.

It's really a simple card and while I strayed from the sketch a little bit, I think you can see the inspiration:

For even more inspiration, check the rest of The Paper Players design team. I hope you will consider joining us before our challenge closes on Friday, November 11th at Noon (PST). Thanks for stopping by, friends!

The Paper Players Design Team