Christmas Ornament Shaker Card

I love the colours that Julee chose for this month's Viva La Verve contest-and her latest cards are just gorgeous!  She inspired me to play along with both the Diva Dare and the Viva La Verve November challenges.  I decided to have a go at making a shaker card.  I was aiming to make a frosted ornament using vellum (the theme for the Diva Dare) using one of the ornaments from Verve's 'Ornamental Christmas' stamp set.  I didn't follow any specific instructions, just sort of winged it, and was happy with how it turned out.  The background and the sentiment were both created using the same stamp set.

As I was browsing some of my favourite challenge blogs, I was happy to see that my card also qualifies for The Paper Players colour challenge this week:

Thanks for stopping by :)

Supplies Used:
Paper: All CTMH; Recollections vellum
Stamps: Verve 'Ornamental Christmas'
Inks: CTMH New England Ivy, Bamboo, Holiday Red
Other: Verve 'Shine Bright' sequins; green & red sequins unknown; Cuttlebug; The Paper Studio Woodgrain embossing folder; Stickles; 3-d foam tape; ribbon & gem unknown

The Paper Players #177

Well, it's been quite the winter so far here in Ontario. Over the last couple of weeks, Mother Nature has generously provided us with: an ice storm (in which we, along with 250,000 others, were left without power for days, some even spending Christmas 'power'less); freezing cold temperatures reaching -40 C; and as a result: frost quakes! For those of you who aren't familiar with this term (I wasn't either until I experienced my first on Christmas Eve), basically it's when the temperature drastically drops, thus freezing the water that has seeped into the ground which causes the newly-formed ice to expand to the point where it 'cracks' the ground surrounding it. The result is an incredibly loud, thundrous noise-a loud BOOM-that has literally caused me to jump out of bed more than once! It's an amazing phenomenon, as well as frightening, to experience for the first time, but one that many of us have gotten used to over the last couple of weeks. As for the ice storm and resulting power outage, we were forced to find creative ways to keep ourselves busy and warm, one of which was to crowd ourselves (my sister's family included) into room one room and put on shadow puppet shows using candles, a bed sheet, and cardboard cut-outs! It's been a crazy end of the year, but definitely can't say it's been boring!  

Here are some photos of the ice storm. Everywhere you looked, ice, ice, and more ice.

Sadly, many of our cedars are drooped over at a nearly 90 degree angle, and our Maple tree on our front lawn broke in five places :(  
Although it caused a lot of damage, it also left breathtakingly beautiful scenery in its tracks.

Every single branch of every tree and bush was covered in ice:

Icicles, icicles everywhere!

Here's my son and nephews taking advantage of perfect skating conditions - If you look closely, you can see the ice that has formed on the tree branches in the background:

Now onto fresh starts/clean slates for the new year: My first card challenge of the year comes from The Paper Players.  Nance created a challenge that involves using the chalkboard technique, which I've never attempted before but have always wanted to. Here was my chance!

The card is actually much more sparkly and bright in person, which makes for a striking contrast against the black, and allowed me to keep it simple. The sparkles in the light pink cardstock even shine through the darker printed pink acetate paper :)  

Supplies Used:

Paper: Recollections black, pink & black glittered; K&Co. patterned pink acetate

Stamps: Verve 'Making a Statement'

Embellishments: CTMH baker's twine; gemstones unknown

Other: Versamark; Recollections Snow embossing powder; CTMH White Daisy Ink; heat gun; sponge; Scotch Vellum tape; Verve Rounded Scallop Frame die; Cuttlebug

Shaping Paper - Religious Christmas Card

I woke up to a gorgeous view of a blanket of freshly fallen snow out my front window. The snowfall is calling for me to bundle up, throw my boots on, and go for a winter walk.  I wish! Gotta get the boys off to school and head to work. Reality check :(
But first, a post:

Pick a shape - any shape! What a fun challenge that The Paper Players has this week! And what a wonderfully talented group of designers. Their 'shapely' cards are amazing!  When I saw the challenge for this week, I didn't think I would bother playing along, only because I rarely use anything but a rectangle (maybe a circle once or twice??). But I was so inspired by the design team that I gave it some thought and changed my mind. I'm so glad I did. I was anxious to use the beautiful Mary and Babe stamp from CTMH that I recently acquired and thought a good shape to use as its base/background would be a manger. I searched for a template, to no avail, so started drawing one. During my failing attempt, the thought of using a star instead came to my mind. I ended up printing off different types of star shapes in a couple of sizes on cardstock, cut them out, and used them as templates. I stamped the image with Memento Tuxedo Black and coloured it with Copics. I then fussy cut it out, glued it to some gold cardstock, and again fussy cut it out to create the gold border. I layered the different coloured stars, added some strips of gold paper, 3-d foam-taped the image, added the sentiment, and finished it off with a glitter-threaded bow.

I am also entering this card into The Addicted to Stamps and More HOLIDAY challenge this week, where you can choose ANY holiday and make your creation with its theme :)))

Thanks for looking - Have a great day :)

Supplies Used:
Paper: Recollections Silver, Gold (both foiled & glittered); CTMH White Daisy
Stamps: CTMH Mary and Babe
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black; CTMH Chocolate
Other: Copics; 3-d foam tape; glittered thread

'Going Ape' Over The Paper Players 168

I was curious to see what The Paper Players had in mind for this week's challenge, and when I saw that it was a CAS challenge (with a masculine birthday theme), I was quickly discouraged because CAS cards don't come easily for me!  But....I took on the challenge anyway and glad I did :o)  

I don't have many masculine stamps to choose from, but I did have 'Camilla the Gorilla' (and for the purpose of this challenge, let's pretend that she's a he) that I thought would be fun to use. Here's my card:

I coloured the gorilla in using Copics, fussy cut him out, and glued him onto a pile of leaves that I cut out with my Lorelai Leaf die using various green papers and then layered.  I then stamped and coloured a banana image, cut around it leaving only the skin so that it looks half eaten, and glued it onto the pile as well.  For the tree, I simply cut out the trunk from a piece of patterned paper.  The grass was cut out free-hand and touched up with a Copic marker. The branch is also cut from the same die that I used for the leaves, and the vine is made with a strip of kraft paper that I twirled using my quilling tool. Speaking of vines, excuse my ignorance, but I just wasn't sure if gorillas actually swung on them!? My son insisted that they don't and so I should remove it.  Well, there was no way I was going to get rid of it - after all, it's my favourite part of the card! - so of course I Googled it, and lo and behold, they do! Well, mostly the little ones.  
And so, the vine stays (yay) and please do consider the gorilla a baby :o)

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day!

Supplies Used:

Paper: CTMH Kraft, Colonial White, Black; Graphic 45; Recollection Autumn Designer Paper & Green Faux Canvas

Stamps: High Hopes 'Camilla Gorilla', 'Go Bananas'

Ink: Memento Black

Other: Poppystamps Lorelai Leaf die; Cuttlebug; Copics; Quilling tool; 3-d foam tape

Spooky Fun for a Little One- The Paper Players #166

The theme this week for The Paper Players is to come up with a Halloween card or treat holder:

Well, I decided to combine the two and came up with this interactive (see below) Halloween card:

The skull acts as the treat holder, and the treats? Well, that's where the fun comes in for my little nephew: He gets to pick the 'mommy' spider or the 'daddy' spider and depending on which he chooses...

(Daddy spider)

(Mommy spider)

[In case it's not obvious, the baker's twine was my attempt at imitating their webs :o)]

...he gets a trick or a treat:

I tried this 'game' with my own little boys, who aren't so little anymore, and they couldn't help but smile - so I hope my nephew enjoys it when I give it to him on Halloween, which also happens to be his birthday!

The skull and spiders are My Grafico digistamps, on which I used black glitter as well as Liquid Glass and Liquid Pearls for dimension and fun.  The stamped sentiments are all from CTMH and were heat embossed.  

The patterned cardstock is from K & Co.

Thanks for visiting!

A Grand Card for a Grand Father - The Paper Players #165

It's time to play Tic-Tac-Toe over at The Paper Players this week:

I went with a vertical line:  Birthday/Patterned Paper/Ribbon.

I've never made a card this large before, but considering it's my father's birthday and he has 4 children and 8 grandchildren, it offers lots of space for everyone to sign :o) AND he's much deserving of its grandeur.

I purchased the Circle of Love CTMH stamp set a long while back and find it hard to believe I've never used it until now because I think it's just gorgeous.  After stamping the image on watercolour paper, I used my Blending Pen with various inks to add colour to the feathers. I then added sparkles to certain areas using glitter sprinkled onto Liquid Glass (to give it demension). A few rhinestones and dotted Liquid Pearls finished off the peacock. 

I then heat embossed the sentiment as well as the blue background paper with the feather image offered in the set (I just realized I made another 'line' in the game!)  I assembled the card with a few layers of cs and added some ribbon using Glue Dots to make it wavy.  

I'm sure my dad will love it :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies Used:

Paper: Canson watercolour paper; CTMH Magnigique paper packet

Stamps: CTMH Circle of Love & For Every Occasion

Inks: CTMH Pear, Garnett, Lagoon, Moonstruck; Versamark

Embellishments: Liquid Pearls; brown ribbon and rhinestones from my stash

Other: Stampendous Translucent & Blue Tinsel embossing powders; Martha Stewart glitters (Charoite/Aquamarine Crystal/Peridot/Lapis); CTMH Liquid Glass, Blending Pen; Heat tool; Glue Dots

Mojo Monday 309 & The Paper Players 161

I had so much fun participating in last week's Mojo Monday sketch challenge, here I am again with another entry!  This week's sketch:

My card also qualifies for this week's fall-themed challenge at The Paper Players:

With the kids back in school, I'm considering summer officially over and I'm beginning to set my mind into 'fall' mode.  I figured, what better way to do this than to have some fun creating a fall-themed card:

When I was going through my stamp sets, Verve's circular Christmas ornament stamp ironically stood out as an obvious choice to use as a backdrop for the sentiment.  I started out with the intention of a creating a clean and simple card, but I quickly realized that I couldn't resist the urge to distress, especially with the idea in my mind of 'crinkled' autumn-coloured fallen leaves.  Speaking of which, to achieve a similar effect, I stamped and cut out various leaves in different colours, curled the ends, layered/scattered them on one of the panels, and then framed it with burlap ribbon.  I eventually managed to tie in some clean lines with the chevron patterned paper and circular sentiment. I finished it off with some felt pumpkin ribbon and some copper leaves to add a rustic feel.

Thanks for taking a look!

Supplies Used:
Paper: scraps; CTMH Colonial White, Cocoa, Bamboo; Recollections patterned
Stamps: Verve "Amazing Wishes" & "Ornamental Christmas"; CTMH "Summer's Wave"
Inks: CTMH Autumn Terracotta, Cocoa, Chocolate
Embellishments: Recollections pumpkin ribbon; CTMH burlap ribbon, copper leaves
Other:  Fiskars Circle Cutter