Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Here is the Christmas card design I liked so much I made seven identical cards to send out. Tonight I am addressing them and sending them off. I always include a Happy New Year greeting inside just to cover off the lateness of (ahem) Canada Post.

The sentiment is gorgeous hand-lettered calligraphy that Suzanne at Quietfire Design turns into rubber for those like me who are penmanship-challenged!

I mounted the entire front panel onto a piece of thin foam to uniformly lift it up off the white back panel. I edged the raised panel with gold ink and included a few spatters of gold amongst the red to tie it all together.

I carried the folksy Scandinavian theme inside, too. I am entering this over at the Waltzingmouse Fanatics Challenge Blog, which is singing its swan song this fortnight. I will miss Deb, Tara and Kathy's fabulous inspiration pieces, but will bookmark their personal blogs so I can keep up with their new adventures in papercrafts.

I originally was going for Clean and Simple (CAS) for this mass-produced card, which would have made it ideal for the Christmas Card Challenge, but they are pretty forgiving over there, so I will enter it anyways!

Speaking of mass-producing (7 of one design is a record for me, I think) my MISTI (Most Incredible Stamping Tool Invented) Precision Stamper from My Sweet Petunia has been such a joy to use to enable me to stamp crisp, clear images and serial stamp. After 25 years of stamping, I did not think I would find a new tool as useful and clever as this. Works with unmounted, clear and cling-mounted stamps. Watch the MISTI designer's videos on YouTube and you'll soon see what I mean!

Thanks for stopping by!

WMS Fanatics Sketch Challenge

 Here is the fun sketch for this week's Waltzingmouse Fanatics Challenge:

Sketches can really help kickstart one's creativity. I am exhausted from a tropical vacation - well, not the vacation, but the gruelling travel to get back home - and so my mojo is flagging. Like a drowning man reaching for the life preserver, I was happy for this sketch to get a needed birthday card accomplished.

5 X 6.5 inches

That's a white one layer card. There is no natural light in my basement so I have asked Santa for a light box this year. The flower is from the Waltzingmouse Stamps You're a Doll set, and the sentiment is from the new-to-me Teeny Trees set. I just eyeballed the flower placement, and stamped each one in Brilliance Pearlescent Sky Blue. Small dollar-store sequins finish them off.

Still lots of time to play in this sketch challenge. I am entering this card in the Seize the Birthday Challenge, too.

Flowers for WMS Fanatics Challenge

The Waltzingmouse Stamps Fanatics Challenge is Flowers. There's almost two weeks to play, and the theme is broad, so I hope folks will join in. They can even be Christmas blooms, like poinsettias or chrysanthemums.

I made this card to pop into the post for someone very special. I don't know if I am the only one, but it seems the more a card means to me, the hardest it is to get "just right!" I stamped and heat embossed flowers and leaves in clear on white cardstock, then went around the leaves with green Distress Inks and around the flowers with orange and yellow Distress Inks. Wiped the excess off to bring back the shine of the embossing.

The "miss you" is an electronic cut file that was cut out of the cardstock on my Silhouette Cameo. I cut a few, glued and stacked them together, then added black glitter to the final layer and nestled it back in the words-shaped hole. It is securely embedded, but also raised up a bit due to the layers and the glitter. Neat effect. I echoed the black with a very narrow border of black cardstock cut with my Perfect Layers tool and affixed to an olive card. And here it is upright:

Hope you'll play along, too! Thanks for stopping by.

Scandinavia Themed Tags

It's the Waltzingmouse Pajama Party and I am just in under the wire with the tags I made for the Scandi theme challenge. There were other challenges, but I ran out of time! Enjoy!

 Oh, look at this - the center of one of the Folk Art Medallion Stamps is PERFECT for stamping the ring around the tag hole!

Zingy WMS Fanatics Challenge

 

The 30th Waltzingmouse Fanatics Challenge is to use at least three of the zingy colours found in this photo:

What a pretty Christmas ornament. But I ended up using some of the colours (lilac, bright pink, lime green and purple) for a birthday card.

Maybe a tad too many sequins?

Lots of foam tape to pop up the bouquet.

My background was made with strips of Memory Box papers cut and glued to create a Bargello effect. Then I ran it through my embossing machine to add a little texture.

There is still a bit of time left to play, so pop on over and check it out. Here's one last look:

4.25 X 5.5 inches

Old Pajamas Challenge

Here's my card for the third challenge in the Waltzingmouse Pajama Party.

- to dust off an old Christmas stamp set. I used the Santa's Coming to Town set and the Festive Foliage set.

This card was tough to photograph because of the highly reflective metallic red mirror cardstock I used for a border. Thanks for checking out my challenge entries!

Bedtime Story - WMS Pajama Party

I am still playing along with the Waltzingmouse Stamps Pajama Party.

Challenge Four (I may get to the third Old Pajamas Challenge yet) was to use this sketch as inspiration. 

I used some digital elements. The label and the Baby Blessings sentiment are WMS stamps, though:

This was my favourite card today - nothing broke and nothing smudged! It helps that while I was making it my MISTI Precision Stamping Tool arrived in the post and I was able to test drive it on this card. It's a birthday present. My birthday is in December, but I couldn't wait!