Simon Says Anything Goes

Today I am joining in a few challenges.  I wanted to take one of my favorite background stamps and use it to make a Christmas Card for the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge and the Simon Says Stamp Flickr Challenge. I'll also be linking up at the Muse: Christmas Visions Challenge Blog and the CAS on Friday Challenge Blog. The Muse Christmas Visions current challenge lasts until December 23rd, so I have lots of time to still join in there, and still a few days to join in the others.
I've done so many holiday cards in every sort of variety so I wanted to take an older (but not very old) non-Christmas Stamp and make it into a very Clean and Simple Christmas Card. I like both styles of card making - lots of layers or clean and simple and everything in between.  These are very simple.  I stamped three backgrounds in Versamark onto Canson Bristol Watercolor Paper using my MISTI and heat set them with Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.

Next I used a variety of inks with a Mini Round Ink Blending Tool to ink blend the background.  The red card is done in Gina K Designs Cherry Red, the Green is Simon Says Stamp Lucky, and the mocha colored card is done with Brilliance ink in Pearlescent Beige.  I then misted the Mocha and Green backgrounds with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Iridescent Gold.  For the Red background, I left it plain red.  I die cut these panels with the WPLUS9 Stitched Rectangle from the Gift Card Layers Dies.

I cut a couple of different banners and a label for the sentiments and stamped them in Versamark and heat set in the Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  "Merry & Bright" is from the Gina K Designs Merry & Bright Stamp TV Kit and the other sentiment is from Papertrey Ink Beautiful Berries: Winter Stamp Set.

I ran some gold foiled cardstock through my Xyron to make it have a sticky back and then die cut the Tim Holtz Woodland trees to have one behind each banner or label. These dies are very intricate and it was much easier to have a neat looking card by using the Xyron instead of my usual Multi Medium Matte.

I adhered those two panels to card bases made from Papertrey Ink's Stamper's Select White Cardstock.

For the Red Card, I used a little bit of  the Pearlescent Beige Ink applied lightly to the bookplate label which gave it a more ivory appearance so I made a card base for that one from Papertrey Ink Vintage Cream Cardstock.  I attached all three sentiments using Scotch Foam Tape.  Since the rest of the cards were flat, I wanted that little touch of dimension.

These three cards went together super fast and the Gina K Designs Inks blended like a dream as did the others.  Since it was my first time using Gina K Inks in this way, I didn't know in advance how it was going to work out.  Again, I am so impressed with the Gina K Designs Inks. I made room in my cabinet to add several of those by moving my Distress Inks to another location in my studio.  I'll get a few at a time until I have the colors I want.

Thank you so much for stopping by and spending a few minutes with me today.  The supplies I've used are linked below for your convenience.

Stamper's Select White Cardstock Shop at: PTI	Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder Shop at: SSS	Kokuyo Long Dot Runner Adhesive Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Lucky Ink Shop at: SSS
WPLUS9 Gift Card Layers Designer Dies Shop at: SSS	Gina K Designs Stamp TV Kit - Merry & Bright Shop at: GKD	Papertrey Ink Beautiful Berries: Winter Shop at: PTI	Papertrey Ink Keep it Simple Frames Shop at: PTI
Versamark Ink Shop at: PTI | SSS	Wagner Heat Tool Shop at: SSS	Papertrey Ink Vintage Cream Cardstock Shop at: PTI	Cuttlebug Die Cutting Machine Shop at: SSS
Scotch 3M Faom Tape Shop at: SSS	Tim Holtz Mini Round Ink Blending Tool Shop at: SSS	Gina K Designs Cherry Red Ink Cube Shop at: GKD	Tim Holtz Woodlands Thinlits Shop at: SSS
Simon Says Stamp Rebecca Lace Background Stamp Shop at: SSS	Teflon Bone Folder Shop at: SSS

Merry Monday #256 Challenge

Over the course of the last year I have been on some Challenge Design Teams and through this, I've found a lot of other card makers whose work I really enjoy. One of the most recent people I found is Kelly Lunceford.  I just adore her work! When I saw that she is now designing for the Merry Monday Challenge, I just had to play along.

I must say, it took several tries for me to achieve the look I was going for but, I'm ahead of the Christmas Card "Game" now because I already have about 8 cards made, which is one of the reasons for Merry Mondays. This is a weekly year round challenge with the idea that if you make one card a week for the whole year, you'll have your Christmas Cards well started or maybe even finished by the time Christmas rolls around.  I make a lot of one-off's during the Holiday's so that I can showcase new products that have been released and since blogging and card making are my job, there are usually many Christmas cards shared here between now and the first week or two in December.

This week's Merry Monday Challenge is "Holiday Movie List" and the Movie I chose is "It Came Upon a Midnight clear".  As I said, I had several tries to get to a finished product I was happy with, not for the work itself but to clearly convey my movie choice.

Can't you just picture peeking out through snow laden branches in the deep, clear, still night and seeing the stars? There is something so magical about the stillness of a snowy night.  This card is incredibly simple in the design but a bit trickier to capture.  I still didn't get it nearly as good as I would like but sparkle is very hard to capture. In fact, I felt it was really only captured in my last card photo and even then, not very well.

For this card, I started with a Cover Plate: Winter Floral cut from White Shimmer Cardstock and a background panel of Night Sky Shimmer Cardstock.  I misted both with a heavy layer of Tsukineko Sparkle Sheer Shimmer Spritz and let them dry while I did some other things. Even though the paper is shimmery, it doesn't sparkle until you add the sparkle spritz. Once they were dry, I adhered them together with Ranger Multi Medium Matte.  I applied that to a top folding card base made from Stamper's Select White Cardstock.  I knew I wanted to use the "Believe" die from Simon Says Stamp (it was my favorite from last year) but I also wanted to be able to have an iconic symbol for Christmas in that night sky. It just so happens that Memory Box makes a die called "Star of Wonder", available from Simon Says Stamp and other retailers.

So as you can see, this design was very simple and easy to execute.  The hardest part was finding the right color and style of cardstock to really emphasize the sparkling white and starlit night.  If you look closely at the top photo, I think you will see the shimmer, I took a photo from that angle so that you could see a tiny bit of that sparkle.  It is truly stunning in real life!  Of course after I had this blog post all put together, I decided I need to add a gem to the center of that star, so I did, but I did not take a picture of it.

Thank you so much for stopping by today and I hope I've inspired you in some way.  As always, if you'd like to leave a kind and encouraging comment, I really appreciate them!

Addicted to CAS and AAA Card Challenges

This morning I have a card made for the AAA Card Challenge #90 - Embossing and Addicted to CAS Challenge #111 - Code Word Pink so I thought I would combine the two to make my card today. I made a card this morning using the same technique (called Distressed Elegance) I featured here on my blog since all of that is still sitting on my desk. I love the combination of Pink and Gold, no matter which color of pink it is. Since this was simple and both of the challenges focus on Clean and Simple Cards, I just rolled with it.

I still have several panels of 4.25 x 5.5 inch cardstock sitting on my desk.  I primarily use color for background panels so it seems I always have lots of these. I have a folder next to my desk that I keep anything smaller than a half sheet in so I can check there first if I need or want a certain color.  This particular shade of pink happens to be Papertrey Ink's Lovely Lady Cardstock. This is definitely a cool pink color, but it's quite vibrant.

I used dry embossing for my background and heat embossing for my sentiment. The Embossing Folder is Anna Griffin's Pirouette.  I've had mine for a while but I checked and you can still get one on Amazon. You could also check Hallmark Scrapbooks and Crafts or Scrapbook.com. I die cut the panel using Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Dies in the largest size. The sentiment banner is from Tag Sale: Quilted and the sentiment is a stamp from Botanical Blocks, both by Papertrey Ink. The butterfly is from Concord & 9th's Floral & Flutter Die and is my second favorite butterfly die. 

This was a super fast card in a perfectly CAS Style.  I hope you enjoyed it and that you'll come back soon.  I promise to move on to a new style of card today!