Purple Baubles

Our second challenge for 2013 at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown and this week it's a colour challenge - purple, metallic silver and white.  Very contemporary I hear you say! I really love this combination and the photo image also inspired me as you will see.

It's funny, making Christmas cards with Christmas a couple of weeks ago, but keep up with us and you will have at least 52 cards ready to send this Christmas! I used some vellum, with silver stars and  a white card blank. I matted some purple corrugated card onto silver mirri board and cut out 3 baubles using a punch. The white snowflakes, purple butterflies and the sentiment all come from my stash.
Do go and look at the cards from the other girls on the DT- they have some fabulous ideas to show you.
I am going to pop this card into the challenge at Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge.  After Santa had a rest last week, this time it's Rudolf so you can enter any Christmas card which doesn't feature Rudolph (or any of his reindeer friends). By the way, there is an extra competition from crafty Hazel
Crafty Hazelnuts extra challenge which runs for the whole of January- another chance to win!

Blue Cake Birthday

Here is another lovely sketch challenge from CAS Colours and Sketches.

and I have made a birthday card using the Sweet Cake stamp from SU which I chose to stamp in a very, non-cake like shade -Indigo Island.  I have added a pop of colour with the cherry though!  The DSP is from Festival of Prints, which shows that it's not just for Christmas! I made my banner in the same paper, matting it onto pale blue CS, to make it stand out and adding three gorgeous fabric covered brads.

Do go and look at the other cards from the DT - there are some more fabulous ideas from them.
 I am also entering this card in a (new to me) challenge blog, ABC Challenge Blog.  I've been meaning to join in with this blog since it started towards the end of last year and, as they are asking for CAS cards this week I thought I would play along.

Fish

It's really nice to see Make My Monday challenge blog back again after their break for the Christmas holidays.  Their first challenge for 2013 asks for  work featuring dry embossing and I was stuck thinking what embossing folder to use.  Then I had a bit of a brainwave and decided to make my own! I used the die cut I wanted to feature and cut it out of cereal box card several times.  I stuck all of these down onto another piece of card from the cereal box, layering up one or two to get different thicknesses,  and made my own folder! In case you don't believe me, here it is!

homemade embossing folder

 This little chap is a Cuttlebug die, simply called Fish. I then used it in the normal way through my BigShot machine. I matted and layered the embossed panel onto two colours of CS and then cut out more fish in the same colours, sticking them over the embossed ones. It's difficult to make fish look cute but I think the addition of the little one helps.The ABC Challenge is also featuring E for Embossing so I have popped it in the challenge there too

The other fish have little pale green pearl eyes and I thought it was an appropriate sentiment (it's from Pennant Parade)! I couldn't wait to take the photo in day light so the embossing is kind of hard to see. It is, I am sure you will agree, very CAS, possibly LIM so I am going to enter it in the  challenge at 'abc' challenge for a clean and simple card.

Black and White Feathers

I love monochrome cards, especially black and white, I think it is an elegant combination and when I saw that the challenge at Less Is More this week was just that with a hint, a dab or a tiny splash of colour I knew that I wanted to give it a try. Coupled with that I received a post-Christmas present to myself of a new set of stamps from SU called Fine Feathers so I war raring to go. Here is my card

I added my dab of colour with a gem of Peacock blue. I made three versions of this card, the first one was a one-layer (see below), the second I used a scalloped circle for the image, but this one is my favourite. I love that touch of faux stitching around the edge of the die cut. The sentiment is from Sassy Salutations, if you've visited my blog recently you will know that I love to use this one.

The second card I made when I was trying out different layouts is a  one-layer Thank you card, everything else is much the same.  I liked this one too so I will put it into the Cas-ual Fridays challenge, where they are looking for CAS thank you cards, (it would also have made it for their last challenge as it certainly took less than 10 minutes to make!)

Robin Redbreast

Welcome back to a whole new year of Christmas challenges from 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown. We have a weekly challenge, including sketches, colours, themes, recipes, embellishments, techniques and, occasionally, anything goes (as long as it's Christmas!). January challenges have been set by the very talented Ruth. Our first challenge is a sketch

And here is my card - in front of my Christmas tree, which will be gone by the end of today :(

I stamped the Holly border twice onto some Naturals White card stock and matted it onto some DP, after tying some red twine around.  It looks a bit like a present! The little robin is stamped and then punched out after colouring with Promarkers. I love the way you can add his little legs now that a stamp is available to match the bird punch. I picked up the green from the holly image as a background for him and stamped the sentiment from the same set as the holly - Christmas Blessings from Stampin' Up. I have entered this card into the weekly challenge at Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge Blog, where, for this week Santa has gone into hiding after his busiest time of the year and so any Christmas card WITHOUT Santa is welcome.

Fruity Thank You

A Happy New Year!
I am thinking that this will be one of my first posts in 2013, as we have been running challenges over the festive period at CAS Colours and Sketches and this one is going live on 3rd January. Of course, in order to have a well earned break with my family and friends, including much eating, drinking,films, quizzes, family games and a Murder Mystery to solve, I have been posting in advance and this one is no exception.

It is a colour week again and the colours chosen include two of the new SU In-Colours for this year - Gumball Green and Summer Starfruit, along with Crumb Cake. Don't worry if you don't have these exact colours, anything close will do.

I have made another Thank you card as I think I will be needing a few of these and have used one of my favourite CAS layouts- the 9 squares, stamping the apple and pear images from Perfectly Preserved and the little sentiment from the same set.  I have matted them onto Crumb Cake CS and I used Naturals White for the card base and stamping. Just a couple of gems in each apple, like the pips!

Happy New Year

The household has nearly returned to normal, husband back to work, kids still in bed, so I thought I would make a quick card and was inspired by the cue at CASology challenge blog- NEW! Of course, I made a New Year card - not very original but it's the only one I've made this year.

I used my Pennant Punch and some of the In Colours, along with Outlined Occasions, all from Stampin' Up. I stamped the image and coloured it, adding the balloons from Pedal Presents too. The card is double scored to add an interesting frame, but you can't see it so well. I used bakers twine to string my banner and have stuck it down with dimensionals.  It took me a while to decide where to place the banner actually, finally I went for this option. HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!! xx