Pretty in Gray Shadows

Hello Again!

What a beautiful day it has been here today! I have actually been able to open the windows and have a nice breeze - such a major difference from the heat and humidity we have had recently. Hopefully fall (such as it is in NW Florida) is on its way!

For inspiration today I went over to Splitcoast Stampers to check out this week's color challenge. The challenge today was to use Pretty in Pink, Going Gray, and Sage Shadow. In the description Emily mentioned that she likes to use pink in her Christmas cards. Now just this morning while I was out walking I was thinking, "How can I work some pink into some Christmas cards?" So I figured this was a sign, and I should do this challenge! Here it is!

I pulled out a Christmas set that I have had for quite awhile, Season of Joy. I really like this tree. I stamped the tree three times, once in each color, and cut them all out. I added some Dazzling Diamonds glitter on the swirls for some sparkle. I mounted them with dimensionals on a piece of Whipser White cardstock cut to 2 3/4" x 3 1/8". This was matted with Going Gray (2 7/8" x 3 1/4") and Pretty in Pink (3 1/8" x 3 1/2"). Notice that the difference in measurements from the Whisper White to the Going Gray is 1/8", while the difference between the Going Gray and the Pretty in Pink is 1/4". This creates mats of varying thickness. I like to vary the thickness of my mats to add a little visual interest to my cards.

My card base was cut lengthwise (4 1/4" x 11") and folded in half. The front of my card was stamped all over with Versamark ink using the snowflake stamp from a current level 2 hostess set called Christmas Punch. The knot tied around the bottom was created with Whisper White Organza ribbon and Pretty in Pink taffeta ribbon. I layered the two pieces of ribbon together and tied them as if they were one piece. On the inside of my card, I stamped some pink snowflakes and a sentiment from Four the Holidays.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a beautiful day!

Tammy

Two cards from one sketch!

Hello! I hope you all had a wonderfully relaxing weekend! Today I chose to play along with the Saturday Sketch Challenge posted on Stamping 411. Yes, I know it's Monday - but that's okay! I made two very different cards using the same sketch. The nice thing about sketch challenges is the layout work is already done for you! All you have to do is follow the sketch with your chosen colors and stamps and have fun!

Here's my first card:

This card was made with a card base of Old Olive, a mat from Elegant Eggplant, and Cottage Wall Designer Series Paper. I stamped the butterfly from the Great Friend stamp set with Orchid Opulence ink and then used a sponge dauber to add Elegant Eggplant ink around the edges. Once the stamp was all inked, I huffed on it to make sure the ink was moist before I stamped my image. After the butterfly was stamped, I cut it out and mounted it on a medallion created with my 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" circle punches and my Scallop Circle punch. The butterfly is only attached along the center, so the wings can be curled up for a 3-D effect. The sentiment came from the Trendy Trees stamp set. The background of this card was textured by running it through the Big Shot with the Flourishes Texturz plate (after the sentiment was stamped).

On the inside of this card, I added some Whisper White cardstock as a writing surface. I "fancied up" the corners a bit with my Scallop Edge punch. Here is how I did this:

I placed the corner of my cardstock into the punch at a 45 degree angle, centering it on one of the scallops, and punched. Nothing to it! After I punched the corners, I sponged the edges with Elegant Eggplant ink and stamped the leaves with Old Olive.

My second card was created with the Winter Post and Four the Holidays stamp sets. I used a color combination of Real Red, Chocolate Chip, and Kraft. All of my edges were sponged with Chocolate Chip ink to give the card a vintage look. The great scallops around my 1 3/4" circle were created using this great tutorial from Selene Kempton. Thanks for the awesome idea, Selene!

So, that's it for today! I hope you all have a great day!

Tammy

Getting Ready for Christmas

I know it seems a little early, but as all crafters know, if you don't start early, it doesn't get done in time for Christmas! My card share for you today is one of the cards we will be making at my Christmas Card Stamp-A-Stack in October.

This card uses the The More the Merrier stamp set from Stampin' Up! This is a level 3 hostess set that can be earned by hosting a workshop. I used my new favorite color combination of Melon Mambo and Bermuda Bay, and colored the image with markers. There is some Dazzling Diamonds glitter in the snow, and the background is textured by running it through the Big Shot with the Perfect Details Texturz plate. The sentiment is punched out with the Word Window punch and matted on pieces punched with the Modern Label punch.

That's it! Pretty simple, but quite pretty, if I do say so myself!

Make today a great day!

Tammy

Top Note Jack

Good Morning!

So yesterday my post ended up to be much longer than I had anticipated. I guess maybe I should have stretched that set of cards out over a couple of days! Anyway, today I just have a quick little project to share with you. Lately I have seen a lot of little pumpkin treat baskets on various blogs created with the Big Shot and the Pillowbox die. Well, I don't happen to have the Pillowbox die yet, so I decided to make a pumpkin treat box with my Top Note die instead!

This was so quick and easy to do and only required one sheet of cardstock and a few scraps! I cut one sheet of Pumpkin Pie cardstock in half (5 1/2" x 8 1/2"). I cut one of those pieces in half again and ran them through my Big Shot with the Top Note die. Then I sponged the edges of both die cuts with Pumpkin Pie ink.

For the box I used the remaining piece of Pumpkin Pie cardstock. I cut it to 5 1/2" x 6" and followed the instructions I found here to score and fold the box (she made a purse, I omitted the top for my box). I glued it all together with Tombow Multi Purpose Adhesive.

For Jack's face, I punched some scraps of Basic Black cardstock with the Photo Corner punch. I used the smaller corners to create his mouth and eyes. I then cut a 1" square and cut it in half diagonally for his nose.

For his jaunty little leaf, I ran some Old Olive cardstock through the Big Shot with the Leaves #2 die. I sponged the edges of this with Old Olive ink before attaching it to my box.

Inside my little box I have placed a small cello bag full of candy corn. Since I don't really care for candy corn, it will be safe! If I were to fill it with chocolate, I would have to refill it evey day! I tied the top of the bag with a piece of Pumpkin Pie 1/4" grosgrain ribbon.

Make today a great day!

Tammy

Delightful Decorations....How Fun!

Hi There! I hope you are having a great day stamping, scrapping, or doing whatever makes you happy!

I was blog-hopping the other day and came across this post by Debbie Naylor and thought "How fun is that?!" So, I had to give it a try myself! I have had the Delightful Decorations stamp set for awhile now, but just haven't had time to play with it. The idea of a one sheet wonder type of project appealed to me, so I gave it a go and this is what I came up with:


I chose a color combination that isn't exactly traditional for Christmas - Melon Mambo, Bermuda Bay, and Lovely Lilac. While not traditional Christmas colors, they are very much "Tammy" colors! I was told once by one of my swapping buddies that they can always tell which swaps are mine - they just look for the ones made with pink, purple, and green! Ever since then I have become conscious of just how often I use these three colors - in different hues, of course. It happens all the time! And not on purpose.....I can start out with a totally different set of colors and somehow I end up with shades of pink, purple, and green - I have no idea how that happens!

Okay, back to my project. The first thing I did was simply stamp ornaments on Whisper White cardstock and punch them out with Stampin' Up!'s new Ornament Punch. It's so great to have a coordinating punch with this stamp set! It makes life so easy! I didn't have a plan for card layouts at this point, so I just stamped and punched a bunch and figured I could always make more if I needed them!

After that, I took a full sheet of Whisper White cardstock and randomly stamped all over it with the three small stamps from this stamp set. This is the "one sheet" in a "one sheet wonder" project - basically you create your own designer paper that coordinates perfectly with your stamps and colors. This really is a fun technique that you can use with just about any stamp set.

At this point, I chose to just go where creativity took me, rather than creating or following a template for my one sheet wonder. The good thing about this is that I made some layouts that I might not have come up with otherwise, the bad thing is that I didn't keep notes, so I'll have to go back and take measurements, etc. if I want to re-create this project.

So, I just cut up my stamped piece of cardstock and using cardstock in my three colors, I matted my stamped pieces and created my layouts. All of my card fronts were stamped all over with Versamark using the "starburst" stamp from Delightful Decorations - they just looked naked without a little something on them. Several of the cards have stamped sentiments on them from the Many Merry Messages stamp set. I stamped the sentiments with Bermuda Bay ink.

I realized that my ornaments needed a little bling - so I added rhinestone brads to some of them, and I tied silver elastic cord around the necks of all of them. I orginally used the silver elastic cord as "hanging cords" on all of the ornaments, but on some of the cards I felt it was too much, so I removed some of them. All of the ornaments are popped up on Stampin' Dimensionals.

Oh - I forgot about the ribbon! I used Melon Mambo and Bermuda Bay polka dot grosgrain ribbon on some of these cards. I have to tell you, I just love these colors! And I just love polka dot ribbon, so this year's in-colors were just tailor-made for me! Anyway, the in-color ribbon has polka dots on one side and is solid on the other - so you can choose how you want to use it! As you can see on my cards, I used the ribbon in two ways - sometimes the polka dots would show on the strip across the card and sometimes the polka dots show on the knot. It's always nice to have options!

The last piece I added to my little set of cards was the coordinating pen. I just rolled up a small piece of the stamped cardstock and put it inside the pen barrel. So fun - and simple to do! This is a little touch that I always like to add if I am giving a set of cards as a gift.

After I finished this set of cards, I decided to translate it to more traditional Christmas colors, just to see how it would look. I chose Garden Green, Real Red, and Ballet Blue for this final card. I chose my favorite layout from the set I had already made, and only created one card with this color combo. I think I like it just as well as the original. What do you think?

That's it for now! Go out and make today a great day!


Tammy

Happy Autumn!

Hello Again! Well, I had some time to play with my Big Shot yesterday afternoon and came up with this Thank You card. Don't you just love Stampin' Up!'s Top Note die? It just makes everything look more elegant - like you put so much extra work into it - when all you really did was turn the handle on your Big Shot a couple of times!

The focal point on this card was also created with the Big Shot. I cut the Daisies #2 die twice from More Mustard cardstock, then I sponged the edges with Chocolate Chip ink and bent them up slightly for some dimension. I stacked them all together using a little 2-way glue to hold them in place, then attached them to the Top Note with a Chocolate Chip corduroy brad - LOVE these! The leaves were cut from Old Olive cardstock using the Little Leaves sizzlet die. These were also sponged with Chocolate Chip ink. To add some interest to the background, I stamped the cardfront with the Sanded background stamp using Chocolate Chip ink. The sentiment stamp is from the Thank You Kindly stamp set. I'm really pleased with how this card turned out. I just love all the dimension of that daisy!

I hope you enjoy this little taste of autumn! It is still very much summer-like here in Florida, so this is as close as I'll get to autumn for awhile.

Go out and make today a great day!

Tammy

Just swimming by......

Good Morning! Well, I have decided to join the world of blogging! I feel like I'm off to a slow start here, so please be patient while I figure out how all of this works. I expect that if you stop by again in a few days or weeks, things will look different as I learn how to add all sorts of cool things to my "baby blog".

So - to get to the point today. I am in a monthly swap group with a group of friends that are scattered all over the states. What started out as a monthly swap get-together years ago has become a "by-mail" swap as most of us have relocated with our military husbands. Our swap theme for September was "sea or ocean" cards, and this is the card I dreamed up:

I am especially pleased with this card because it actually came out of my own brain! I usually CASE all of the wonderful things I see on the internet, but this one is my very own!

The images are from the Ocean Commotion stamp set from Stampin' Up! This set is no longer shown in the current catalog, but it is still available from the dormant list. The seaweed images are stamped in Green Galore ink, and the fish images are stamped in Pixie Pink and Tempting Turquoise. The seaweed sparkles with Dazzling Diamonds glitter, and the fish are cut out and popped up on Stampin' Dimensionals. I used the shaving cream technique to create the background paper. The ink colors I used for the technique are Tempting Turquoise, Green Galore, and Brilliant Blue.

I hope you like my little creation and will come back and check up on my blog as it unfolds!

Make today a great day!

Tammy