Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!  The challenge sketch twist at Try Stampin' on Tuesday is "sparkle it up". Well duh?!!? Isn't New Years all about the sparkle?!!? The party chick stamp is a very old Inkadinkado stamp. It sure was perfect for this challenge. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see all the glitter and bling on it. 

 I had such fun with this sketch that I made two cards. Hubby will get the house mouse card as he just loves cute cards with cute little critters on them. 

Wishing everyone a healthy, creative and blessed 2014!

  

Place mug here...

I have been so busy working on school, holiday stuff and challenge team commitments that I have not had any time to participate in other challenges. 

Over at Just Add Ink they are having a "Just Add Your Christmas Project" and I thought YAY!! I have a gift project I make every year with my niece and nephew for their teachers. The art teachers go gaga over these!

 I color stone tiles, easily available at Home Depot or Lowes with alcohol inks or in this case copic markers. I then stamp my image on tissue paper. I spread a layer of Future floor finish by Pledge on the tile and lay the tissue paper on top and it embeds itself into the tile. If any areas seem dry, I add more floor finish. I tear off the excess tissue paper. (by this time everything is so saturated it tears easily.) When it is completely dry, I spray it with a few layers of Krylon triple thick crystal clear glaze. I adhere cork to the bottom of the tile and the coaster is ready to use. 

One of these day I will make a video or photo tutorial. Let me know if you have any questions and I will try to answer them.

Embracing trends

2014!!! Yikes that is so scary! Where did 2013 go? I mean here it is 2014 in just a few days and I am finally getting around to embracing the sequin trend. Sometimes it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks! 

I gotta tell you though, that the photo challenge this week at Just Us Girls just had sequins written all over it! 

Off to the store I went for a sequin fix. I tried not to go overboard, remembering the old adage that "less is more".

I hope you find my interpretation of the photo fun and will give the sequin trend a try if you haven't already.

See you all next year for another great JUG challenge.

Warm Christmas Wishes

This card fell together quite by accident. Isn't that the best way? I was searching for another sentiment stamp and came across this stamp set from StampinUp and the Christmas sentiment jumped out at me.

Since Swanky Snow Dudes have been my go to set for this years holiday cards, naturally I grabbed them. I stamped the snow flake background from Hero Arts first, then the sentiment and added the snow dudes. A quick and easy and ever so cute card!

Hope you are enjoying the hustle and bustle of Christmas!

Be Jolly!

I don't know about you, but this holiday season has been a whirlwind. I haven't stopped from Thanksgiving and don't see any stopping till December 26th! But heck, isn't that what the holidays are all about, hustling and bustling. My studio time has been my outlet to decompress and relax. My art is what keeps me sane.

This is my first time hosting over at Just Us Girls and I picked a color challenge that is a fav of mine.

I just love reds and browns for holiday cards! The card I am sharing with you today, could so easily be done with blues as you can see, but how fun is the same card done with reds and browns. 

It is fun to make the same card and switch the color scheme. This is something I do quite a bit. 

 

I hope you will take some time over the next week to participate in the color challenge over at Just Us Girls. 

Wishing all of you a peaceful and blessed holiday!

Faux Silk Technique Challenge

This week at Just us Girls, Sue V. is hosting a technique challenge. The challenge is using the faux silk technique. You can see a tutorial and video here. 

I switched it up a wee bit. I layered my tissue onto kraft paper and swiped some antique linen distress ink across it, to show up the wrinkles. 

Here's what I did with the snow cutout from the front of the card. I put it in the inside of the card. I rarely decorate my insides. I like the way the whole card came together.

I hope you are inspired to play along this week with us at JUGS!

Vintage Christmas sketch

Boy, did I escape from my CAS look with this card! I went totally vintage- something I am not real good at. See this post for more of an explanation. It wasn't that hard though, these great vintage papers from Authentique made it easy. I worked my card around them.

Here is the challenge sketch from Just Us Girls that I was was working from. Fun huh?

I used a stamp from Picture show, they have these whimsical vintage images. I wish I could give you a link, but they never went the online route and only did stamp shows. Unfortunately the last convention i was at they weren't there. Makes me think they went out of business. 

I asked my at home art critic, Mr. George what he thought- immediately he said to busy. He is a real proponent of CAS and can not go outside of his critic beliefs.

My sweet girl Pinkie loved it though.

Please join us at JUGS and show me your take on this great sketch!

CAS card from Memory Box with a surprise.

Today I am posting over at Memory Box's, Outside the Box blog. I am featuring this CAS card. It has a little surprise to it. What is it you ask? Well you will just have to go over to Outside the Box and see the surprise and the tutorial! 

Getting my art on.

Usually I don't bother with tags, but this year I have had a few requests for them. At Try Stampin On Tuesday, we are skipping our usual sketches to provide all of you with holiday tag ideas.

It was the perfect opportunity for me to get my art on and forget about CAS - if just for a wee bit. :) 

The tags I will be showing you harken back to a number of classes I took from the king of distress himself- Tim Holtz.

Here is how I made them.

First- I gathered my supplies.

Second- I stamped my image with white pigment ink and embossed with white powder.

Third- I sponged on a variety of blue distress inks.

Forth- I grabbed a big background stamp and stamped over the whole tag with walnut stain ink.

 The baby tag, I stamped my sentiment with espresso truffle and sponged it with the same distress inks from the base tag. I added a ribbon at the bottom as an accent and lastly I tied the baby tag to the base tag.

Here are each of the tags by themselves.

 

Please join us at TSOT with your tag designs!

House of Cards Holiday Blog Hop

Welcome to the House of Cards term one blog hop using this photo inspiration. This is my first blog hop and I sure I hope I get it all OK. It has been so exciting being on the ground floor of this awesome new stamping challenge blog. I have been blown away not only by the art of my fellow designers but by all of you. My hat goes off to those that have entered in all of the styles.

I had fun with this photo inspiration and had variety of cards done but I just love this one. It features the washi tape stamps from Inspired by Stamping, who are one of our sponsors for this blog hop.

If you have come here from Daen'Ys blog then you are in the right spot. If you have stumble here and would like to participate, please hop over to House of Cards challenge blog to get started! Be sure to leave comments at each spot for a chance to win some fabulous prizes from our sponsors!

Thanks for stopping by! Please join in the fun of our hop and make your way over to Tara's blog for more inspiration!