Happy New Year, Ombre Coloured Embossing Paste and Light!

Hello Everyone,
I trust your holiday season has been full of joy and hopefully some rest too. I must say that compared to last year's deep freeze, this year's weather has been much milder, however it has meant the first green Christmas I can remember in a long time. Today I am happy to play along with  CAS-ology where the cue card is light. I did want to link up to Make It Monday over at Nicole Heady's blog, but I don't have any PTI schtuff on my card.

Over at Make It Monday, it is an a la carte challenge - you can choose from any of the Make it Monday tutorials. I decided to use one that Laura Bassen did on creating backgrounds with embossing paste. I decided to combine this with the CASology cue card this week. I created my embossing paste background a little differently than the way Laura did it. I mixed some translucent paste with transparent microfine glitter from Glitter Ritz and then spread it on the cardstock using a stencil from Simon Says Stamp. Once it was dry, I placed the stencil back over it to create a mask and then I sponged the paste with Distress Inks: Picked Raspberry, Spiced Marmalade, and Mustard Seed. How does this tie into the cue word light? Well the result is like some of the spectacular colours of morning light first thing in the a.m. I love the way inking the embossing paste really brings out the glitter. I die cut the Hello from several pieces of white cardstock and then used my Xyron to add stick to the front, so that I could cover it with white glitter. Once covered, I inked it up with the same colours of Distress inks. It needed more depth for the Sentiment to pop, so I die cut it out of black cs and offset it. Then I added the black shadow panel before mounting it on the cardstock. After all that beutiful morning light does create shadows! Here is a closer look at the glitteriness of the background.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I love to hear your feedback, so feel free to leave a comment. Have a Happy New Year!

Paper Smooches Sparks: Anything goes

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all enjoying the lead up to Christmas. I am so glad to be off for the Christmas break. I am not sure how I did it, but I managed to get all my Christmas cards done on time. Today I am playing along with Paper Smooches Sparks. It is an Anything Goes challenge. So, I broke out my favourite die sentiments from Paper Smooches. I am now on a mission to have all my "thank you" cards done prior to the hols and this little die is perfect.

The background is stamped with Hero Arts Looped Circle BG stamp embossed in white on watercolour paper. I watercoloured it with Picked Raspberry Distress Ink. I used a bit of Perfect Pearls with the water and it gives the watercolouring a beautiful sheen. I did a general wash and then when it was dry went back to darken the centers of the looped circles. I die the "thanks" four times and layered them. The top layer has been glitterized with Glitter Ritz glitter. It has the most beautiful glittery effect.It is hard to see in the photo - here is a close-up to try to capture it.

I love the way this simple card turned out. Thanks for stopping by and leaving your feedback.

Happy Stamping,

Meg

Bling on the Silver

Hello Everyone,
I have been crafting like mad trying to catch up on my Christmas Cards - not having my craft space for a couple of months and a super-busy school year has made it difficult to create. I am way behind, but having fun all the same! Here is another entry for CASology's Silver Challenge and I am going to link it up to Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Bling it on! Here is my creation:

I used a Memory Box die to create the ornament. The base is a dark purple paint chip that I coloured with Wink of Stella and then clear embossed - it is quite sparkly in real life although it was really hard to photograph. The fancy loopy overlay is cut from some silver metallic paper. The branch is a die I had in my stash - I don't know what company it is - I also cut this from a paint chip and treated it with Wink of Stella and clear EP. The sentiment is from a PTI set called Holiday Cheer. I am pleased with the solid colour block effect. The deep purple is gorgeous on the rich red. I wish you could see the sparkle. 

Not even this pic shows it off - oh well. Thanks for stopping by - I love tohear your feedback!

Happy Stamping,

Meg

CASology: Silver

Hello Everyone,

What a week! I have never been so happy to arrive at the weekend. School has been crazy busy - I have been out of school at least one day almost every week for the last month or so because of meetings etc... at the school board. Most of the time I enjoy this time out as it is invigorating for the old brain to have adult conversation all day; however, the frequency of this time away has become a little disruptive to the classroom. Every time I am away, it requires about three hours of prep work to provide lessons for my supply teacher... Anyway - as I said, so happy it is the weekend.

I was thrilled with this week's CASology cue card: Silver. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a fabulous 12 x 12 pad of metallic papers. There was one silver one with a hexagonal white pattern throughout it that just really looked cool. So  I die cut the Avery Elle sentiment from it and placed it on a white embossed panel; Then I layered this diagonally across the card base. It looked a little to stark on its own, so i added the strips of the metallic paper. Still felt it looked a little unfinished, so I popped on the holly and berries - Perfect! I love the way it turned out.  It was really hard to photograph - here is a side view, so that you can see the sheen of the metallic paper.

We got quite a bit of snow this week and the silver on the card reminds of the crisp sparkliness of the snow in the sunshine! Thanks for stopping by... It is always great to hear your feedback.

Happy Stamping,

Meg

Paper Smooches Sparks: Anything Goes

Hello Everyone,

I can't tell you how great it is to be back in my craftroom again (we had a basement flood at the end of the summer and the renos were recently completed)! The best part of being out of my room was setting it back up, as I was able to reconfigure it to better suit my crafting needs. Today I have created a simple little Christmas card for the latest Paper Smooches Sparks challenge. I love the Anything Goes challenges, but this time i was almost stumped because I wanted to make a Christmas card, but I don't have any PS Christmas sets. So even though this is a simple little card, it actually quite a while to make as its composition is thanks to the combining of Four PS sets... none of which are Christmas sets! Talk about stretching my stamps!

The "holly" branch is from Botanicals 2, the "berries" are the little open dot from the Reflections set filled in with a little red Wink of Stella, and the sentiment was created using the Mini Monograms set. Finally, I felt the sentiment just needed a little something extra, so I added the tiny heart from the Sweet Hearts set! It is hard to see the twinkliness of the Wink of Stella (I also added some clear to the leaves on the holly sprig), but in real life it adds just the right amount of shimmer. 

Thanks for stopping by, I love to hear your feedback!

Happy Stamping,

Meg

CASology: Eat

Hello Everyone,
I was thrilled to be picked as an honourable mention at CASology for last week's challenge. You can see my entry here. It is time to play along with CASology where the cue card this week is "eat". This almost had me stumped until I remembered the Cheeky TAWS stamp set Tooty Fruity! I kept this card very simple by colouring the tomato with my copics. How does relate to eat? Tomatoes are edible after all...

I am thrilled with the way this simple cheeky card turned out. Thanks for stopping by and as always, I love to hear your feedback.

Happy stamping,

Meg

Muse: Keep it Sweet and Simple

Hello Everyone,
I am thrilled that I was to see that I was a top three featured member over at Muse! You can see my card here. This week the challenge is to keep it sweet and simple with this card as our inspiration:

I am taking my inspiration from the simple colour scheme and the tag focal image. I decided on a white on white with a pop of red and green. I mounted the focal sentiment on a central panel to mimic the tag. Here is my card:

I die cut the fabulous Avery Elle sentiment from some beautiful gold foil paper. The holly is part of the sentiment die and I simply coloured the leaves with a green Wink of Stella and the berries with a red one. The background panel is embossed with a holly embossing folder. Here is a look at the gorgeous golden foil paper.

I am thrilled with this simple card.

Thanks for stopping by - I love hearing your feedback.

Happy Stamping,

Meg

CASology: Flag

Hello Everyone,
Today I am playing along with CASology where the cue word is flag. My card is inspired by my wonderful country Canada's flag. I have always loved the simplicity of our red and white beauty with its proud maple leaf front and center.

I bought this set of Memory Box coordinating tree dies last Holiday season and didn't use them as much as I thought I would. As I was moving back into my craftroom and unpacking all my schtuff, I rediscovered them. I also came across some foil paper that I had forgotten about. This card just popped into my head - colour scheme (red and white) and the red central image were inspired by our flag. The sentiment is from a retired Stampin' Up set - I think that was one of the first stamp sets I ever bought. The foil paper was really hard to photograph - only an angled shot would capture the glorious red.

Thanks for stopping, I always love to hear your feed back!

Happy Stamping,
Meg

One More for Less is More

Hello Everyone,
I was sad to see that I missed the deadline for the Virginia's View challenge, but am happy that the card I made fits the Less is More challenge for More than One tree!

I bought this Impression Obsession die in the summer and have been waiting to be able to use it. I love the way the bright white pops on the craft background. This die makes me think of my cottage and its beautiful paper birches. I smeared a bunch of Tsukineko Delicata ink on white cardstock to create my own metallic paper. Then, I die cut the fabulous Avery Elle Christmas sentiment from it. This has got to be my favourite gold ink because it really sparkles in real life.Once I glued the craft panel to the card base, it looked a little too plain, so I added the thin strips of red to either side.

Thanks for stopping by - I love to hear your feedback. Don't forget to head over to Less is More to see all the beautiful creations posted there.

Happy Stamping,
Meg

One More for Muse and Less is More

Hello Again,
I am back with another card for this week's Muse Challenge and I was thrilled to see that it qualifies for the the Less is More challenge, which is more than one tree! You can see the Muse inspiration card here; it was created by the fabulous Marion Vagg. I love the ombre-esque quality to the balloons and the way the black sentiment pops against the colour and all the white space. This is the source of my inspiration.

While I was at Home Depot yesterday, I was ambling by the paint department when the paint chips hollered at me. So, of course I had to pick some up in all sorts of colours. I die cut my trees from them to capture that ombre effect. I wanted dimension, so I didn't die-cut the sentiment out fromthem directly. Instead I die-cut it in white and popped it on top - I wanted it to pop the way the black panel pops on Marion's card. The sentiment is from a Papertrey Ink die as is the snowy hill. The tree is a die I picked up from a local craft store - I don't remember the company name. I also embossed the background with my trusty Swiss Dots EF - that was the very first embossing folder I bought! I love the way the monochromatic colour scheme and the white space create a very clean look.

Thanks so much for stopping by - I would love to hear your feedback. Please head over to Muse and Less is More to see all the wonderful creations.