Peaceful Forest & PPA 18

I hope everyone had a fantastic fun-filled holiday weekend.  We're about to gear up into high anxiety mode with December 1st on Tuesday.  So, this card for Pals Paper Arts latest challenge helps calm and soothe my December-induced stress.  Even though we live in Florida now and I don't miss 4+ months of snow, I do miss a quiet walk in the woods when the snow blankets everything and brings a calm, soothing hush to the forest.  This card reminds me of snowy walks and is a perfect fit for PPA's KISS challenge.  The construction of the card is pretty simple to figure out just Kraft, Whisper White and Always Artichoke cardstock but the Lovely as a Tree stamp set is the star.  I inked the background trees with Always Artichoke and stamped off once before stamping on my cardstock.  The single tree is also inked in Always Artichoke and stamped directly on the cardstock. The little bird from Branch Out (dormant list) adds just a touch of Real Red which coordinates nicely with the Real Red sentiment from the classic All Holidays set.  Lastly, it wouldn't be a holiday card without sparkles so a few strokes of the glue pen on the focal tree and a sprinkling of dazzling diamonds bring the forest to life.   I hope this has brought a little calm to your busy day!

Supplies:

stamps: lovely as a tree, branch out, all holidays

ink: always artichoke, real red

paper: kraft, always artichoke, whisper white cardstock

extras: scallop edge punch, glue pen (martha stewart), dazzling diamonds

Minty Fresh Turkey!

I saw these peppermint patties all over Splitcoast Stampers--particularly this one--and I just had to make them!  Aren't they the cutuest?  My kindergarten-age daughter and I had a blast punching, snail-ing (is that a verb?) and drawing together.  She passed them out to her classmates at her school's Thanksgiving feast today.  All the parts were made completely with punches, except for the eyes which were hand drawn with a stampin' write marker--how cool is that?  The "feathers" are half of a scallop circle punch attached to a 1 3/4" circle.  The face is a 1 1/4" circle of soft suede topped with two whisper white 1/2" circles, one petal cut from the 5-petal flower punch (crushed curry) and the horizontal slot punch makes the wattle (riding hood red).  Sticky strip holds it firmly onto the peppermint patty and another 1 3/4" circle (chocolate chip) is attached to the bottom.  As an afterthought, I stamped the Happy Thanksgiving sentiment from Falling Leaves on the back in chocolate chip (sorry the pic is poor quality).  It fit perfectly in the center and was the finishing touch!  Happy turkey day!

supplies:

stamps: falling leaves

ink: chocolate chip

paper: chocolate chip, crushed curry, dusty durango, soft suede, whisper white, riding hood red (retired)

punches: scallop circle, 1 3/4" circle, 1 1/4" circle, 1/2" circle, 5-petal flower, horizontal slot

Loungin' Rudy: PPA16

Oh my gosh, it's been a long time since I last posted.  Whew, what a month it's been.  Life just takes over sometimes, right?  So anyway, I'm back with a post this week for the PPA16, Christmas Cheer, challenge over at Pals Paper Arts.   My card is one we made last month in my stamp club featuring two favorites this holiday season--Dasher & the Holiday Lounge designer paper.  The star here is the every-handsome Dasher himself and the non-traditional color combination.  I am really loving the teal & red combo lately.  The retro feel of these colors coordinates well with the Holiday Lounge paper, dontcha think?  Dasher is embossed in silver on a 3" circle of Whisper White.  The mat was made from Sahara Sand cardstock by dialing up on the Circle Scissor Plus to create the perfect 3.25" circle mat.  Love it!  The rest of the card is pretty simple but I want to give a shout out to this video for the stay-put-bow.  I love this technique--especially for tricky-to-tie material such as the silver elastic cord used here. Thanks for looking!

supplies:

stamps: dasher, christmas greetings

ink: real red, versamark

paper: sahara sand, real red & whisper white cardstock, holiday lounge designer series paper

xtras: silver stampin' emboss powder, circle scissors plus, SAMJ, silver elastic cord, scallop edge punch, rhinestone (my stash)

easy, breezy butterflies @ PPA

It's a great day when I have time to play at the PPA! Here's my entry for the PPA12 sketch challenge. It's a great sketch by the talented Margaret Moody. I love her clean and COLORFUL designs. With the SU exclusive Beautiful Butterflies die (#114507) and this great sketch my card came together easy-peasy. There's an A2 card base in soft suede with two panels from the Thoroughly Modern dsp spaced evenly in the middle. It looks like I cut out the middle with a circle punch but it's actually a 3" circle cut with my Nestabilities and placed in the center--much easier! The big beautiful butterfly comes from more coordinating Thoroughly Modern dsp and she is held firmly in place on the circle with two mini glue dots. The rhinestones, from my stash, are a perfect match for the bermuda bay color, don'tcha think? The sentiment, Garden Greetings (retired), is inked in coordinating soft suede on whisper white cardstock and popped out with the Large Oval (#107305) punch. The bottom strip where the sentiment lands is actually two bermuda bay labels punched with the Modern Label (#116630) punch attached together with some SNAIL. The oval lays on top and the whole thing is popped up on dimensionals. Easy, breezy, beautiful butterflies!





Supplies:
stamps: garden greetings (retired)
ink: soft suede
paper: whisper white, soft suede, bermuda bay CS; thoroughly modern DSP
extras: beautiful butterflies bigz die; large oval punch; modern label punch, circle nestabilities, mini glue dots, stampin dimensionals, rhinestones (personal stash)

PPA11

I couldn't resist making another version of my curried moon card to answer the challenge posed by the design team at PPA. This week it's a color challenge: old olive, pumpkin pie and perfect plum. Great fall or halloween colors and I thought these colors worked pretty well with my card from yesterday's post. (Please take a look for directions on how I made this card.) The challenge did allow us to add neutral colors so I also have basic black, basic grey and just a tad of whisper white. It was a challenge to fit the perfect plum in there but I relied on the Cast-a-Spell designer paper to pull all the challenge colors together for me! Since I used just a bit of it on the actual card, I carried more designer paper into the lining of the envelope. Cute!

I also can't resist showing you my new personalized stamp! Another thing I've held off purchasing... don't know why... I'm glad I did because I love it! What a great way to advertise our craft and the best part is, the butterfly stamp meets SU!'s Angel Policy which allows individuals to sell any cards you make as long as they bear this stamp--done! This is actually the Hand Stamped by stamp (#115602) AND a one-line Text-Only Stamp (#115576). They are ordered separately but the wood block was big enough for both so I mounted them together--otherwise, I would never get the blog address lined up exactly where I wanted it, LOL!

Supplies:
stamps: woodgrain, season of friendship, forest friends, all holidays
ink: basic black, stazon jet black, perfect plum
paper: basic black, basic grey, pumpkin pie, whisper white cardstock, cast-a-spell DSP
extras: 1 3/4" circle punch, SAMJ, modern label punch, word window punch, crop-o-dile, 1/4" old olive grosgrain ribbon, whisper white medium envelope