January 2019 Keeping Christmas Blog Hop

Hello there!  I have my first round of Christmas cards for the year on my blog today for our Monthly Keeping Christmas Blog Hop.  Kelly Lunceford started this many months ago (February 25, 2017) and eventually the former "The Challenge" designers came to be a part of it.  We share Christmas cards and projects with you on the 25th of each month to show you different ideas, techniques or projects to help you get a jump start on your Holiday cards and tags for the coming year.

I think it was right after Christmas that Concord & 9th had a sale and I picked up a few things that I had been wanting.  One of them was the Deck the Halls Turnabout Stamp.  Since I make Christmas Cards all year long, I knew I would be able to use it, so I went ahead and ordered it.  I must say, I love this even more than I thought I would!  The stamp looks like the image on the right.  You rotate it three more times after your initial stamping to get a completed background panel.  Isn't this just incredible?  This is one of the biggest innovations in the stamping industry in the last couple of years.  And let's face it - with stamps, innovation if a pretty big thing.  Concord & 9th came up with this brilliant idea and I have 4 or five of this style of stamps from them.  They have several styles and bundles available, but their January Release sold out so quickly that those are currently not available.  The thing I most want right now is the templates that go with the turnabouts but even those are completely sold out.  This is not a bad problem to have if you are a stamp company!  They've already ordered more so just sign up for the e-mail notification and you'll know when that is back in stock.

You can use a single ink color or multiple ink colors, or even heat emboss any or all of the layers.  I didn't try that today, but it's on my "to try" list for sure!

For the first group of cards today, I used four different colors on each background.  For the second batch of cards, I stuck with a monochromatic look and used inks from  Papertrey, Altenew and Gina K Designs.  Since Altenew Inks come in color families, they are perfect for this technique.  I'll share each of the colors as I go along so that you can replicate them if you like.  I really love the coral one even though it has non-traditional colors.

As much as I love adding dimension on my cards, they cost quite a bit more to send so when creating the cards that I mail or that my Sisters-In-Law mail, I try to keep them fairly flat.  I did add a poinsettia to each one using the Spellbinders Layered Poinsettia Dies.

For these first three cards, I used 4 different colors.  I always end up with an odd number of cards because I do a test run first.  That is the first card on the left here.  The colors I used on this one are Papertrey Ink, Vintage Jadeite, Pure Poppy, Pinefeather, and Scarlet Jewel.  The middle card also uses Papertrey Ink'ss in Sweet Blush, Autumn Rose, and Ocean Tides with Gina K Designs Christmas Pine.  The Christmas Pine has a little less black in it than Pinefeather, making it a little more green.  The last card on the right-hand side is Altenew Coral Berry, Ruby Red, Sweet Leaf, and Just Green.

The first card on the left uses all Gina K Designs inks in Sea Glass, Ocean Mist, Turquoise Sea and Blue Lagoon.  Next up we have the Sweet Dreams Collection of inks from Altenew; Dew Drops, Aqualicious, Teal Cave and Galactic Stream.  The third card uses Gina K Designs in Powder Blue, Blue Raspberry, Blue Denim and In The Navy.  The last card uses Papertrey Ink's Lilac Grace, Lavender Moon, Amethyst Allure and Gina K Design's Plum Punch.

Here's a close up for you of a few of the cards.  Using my MISTI, I heat embossed the sentiment 3 times on each card.  I used Antique Gold Embossing Powder from Simon Says Stamp for all but one of the cards.

I think this is my favorite of the group.  I like the slightly larger poinsettia and the deep rich color of the 4th layer.

For the Blue Monochromatic Card, I used Silver Embossing Powder but it definitely doesn't stand out as much as the gold.  Unless I am using dark cardstock, I pretty much never like Silver Embossing Powder but it's good to try new things once in a while.

The Merry Christmas greeting came from the Concord & 9th Very Merry Sentiments stamp set.  I wish they had made a coordinating die but maybe another time they will.  I love the size and style of this font!  This was a quick way to make my own designer paper for Holiday Cards and once that was done, assembly was fairly easy.  Heat embossing three layers took the most time of anything for sure!  It requires a lot of patience, care, and powder tool to get it in the same spot each time!  But I do love how bold it looks.  I tried out some large particle embossing powder, but that was not a good thing to do.  I'll go into the why's of that in another post sometime.

If you haven't seen the genius of the Turnabout Stamps from Concord & 9th, be sure to stop by their store and check out the video tutorials they have here.  In addition to that, Jennifer McGuire has several on her YouTube Channel here.  That links to her turnabout playlist and right now there are 15 videos there!

Thank you so much for stopping by today.   Here are all the stops on the hop!

Kelly Lunceford

Anita Madden

Broni Holcombe

Claire Broadwater

Julee Tilman

Kim Heggins

Lori Tecler

Nance Salkeld

Nina Forsyth

Rachel Bergfeld

Vicki Finger (You are Here)
Nancy Guse

I hope you enjoy all of the projects for today!  

Inspired By All The Little Things #74

Today's card is for the Inspired by All The Little Things Challenge. I wanted to create a card that was less fussy and more graphic feeling to fit in with the challenge. I like this sort of card for sending to some of the men in my life in particular, although I know some women who have a definite preference for clean graphics as well. I never feel like I do a very good impression of shabby chic but I do try once in a while.  Some people (Melissa Phillips comes to mind) can do that look so very well and I'm always inspired by the use of so many colors, layers and textures.

There are a lot of fun challenges going on right now for the holiday season and I am having a lot of fun playing in as many of them as I possibly can. But, as you know, I like to give you some general tips and guidelines for how I created my card.

I started by choosing a wood grain paper for my large star.  It's okay to change the shape of that element, but I didn't need to. I have several sheets of this and if you don't like the color it comes in, you can change it up easily by coloring over the top with a Copic Marker.  In this case I used a Black (100) Copic Marker to deepen the color.  It doesn't show up that well in the photos, but you can easily see the wood grain pattern when looking at the card in person.  I also created a card base from Soft Stone Cardstock.  I wanted a slight pattern for the main background panel and I chose this repeating text background paper.  It's hard to tell in the photo, but the text is done in green on a pale ivory paper.  To highlight that green, I also created a narrow mat behind it from Pinefeather Cardstock.

My wood grain paper is a text weight paper so in order to make it a somewhat more substantial weight, I cut three stars from True Black Cardstock and glued them one of top of the other.  I used my powder tool on the wood grain star and placed the negative into my MISTI to hold the positive in place in case I needed to stamp it again (which I did). I stamped the Merry & Bright sentiment from the Gina K Designs Merry & Bright Stamp TV Kit in Versamark and heat set it with my favorite Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder, twice. I love this technique so much!  It makes such a difference in how bold your sentiment is. I did a light mist of Tsukineko Sheer Shimmer Spritz over just the star and when it was dry I adhered it with some Scotch 3D Foam Tape to my card front.  For the lower part of the greeting, I die cut the "holiday" word from Gold Foil Cardstock, and the "Greetings" banner from Concord & 9th's Season of Cheer Die.  All together, the sentiment says "Merry & Bright Holiday Greetings".  It's festive yet crisp and graphic.

Most of my Christmas Cards have already been sent out but I will still do a few more for things as they come up. There's always a few I don't think of when doing my initial list.

Thank you so much for stopping by today to see my project.  For your convenience, the supplies I've used are linked below.

Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder Shop at: SSS	Kokuyo Long Dot Runner Adhesive Shop at: SSS	Gina K Designs Stamp TV Kit - Merry & Bright Shop at: GKD	Versamark Ink Shop at: PTI | SSS
Concord & 9th Season of Cheer Dies Shop at: SSS | C+9	Cuttlebug Die Cutting Machine Shop at: SSS	Papertrey Ink Pinefeather Cardstock Shop at: PTI	Papertrey Ink Soft Stone Cardstock Shop at: PTI
Papertrey Ink True Black Cardstock Shop at: PTI

A Season of Cheer

Today's card is for my first time participating in the Concord & 9th Challenge, Where Creativity Meets,  that can be found here:  http://www.wherecreativitymeetsc9.com/.  I don't have very many Concord & 9th products so I normally don't even look at the challenges, but I had ordered this set of dies last week and they came yesterday, so I wanted to make a card to send to my brother, Eric.

One of the things I really like about these dies is that they aren't too feminine but they also aren't over the top masculine so they will work for either gender.  I was actually working on a project kind of late last night for a blog hop that is coming up this weekend and that got totally off track as I was working because I thought of what a great card this would make for my brother so I just rolled with it and this is what came out.

I started with a 7 x 5 top folding horizontal card base made from Vintage Cream Cardstock.  Next, I pulled out this sheet of fancy wood grain designer paper that I found last time we went to Dallas. It's cream colored and the wood grain is done in gold foil. It says "I'm Classy" without being overly fussy.  I die cut that panel with the Spellbinders 5 x 7 Matting Basics A in the largest size and also embossed with the tan Spellbinders Embossing Mat it to keep that frame around the edge. I actually didn't realize the details this added to my cardstock for a while but now I use the embossing mat all the time. I adhered it with my Kokuyo Long Dot Runner Adhesive. Next, I added a strip of plaid paper across the upper part of the card that has a little bit of gold foil in the design and then die cut all the dies from the Season of Cheer Die Set using Metallic Gold Cardstock from Gina K Designs. I adhered those pieces with Ranger Multi Medium Matte. This gold is a different shade than any other I have and I would say it is more of an Antique Gold color, than actual gold.  It has a deep, rich, warm tone and I think it is perfect for this masculine looking card.  So far, all the dies from that set are still attached to each other and I don't think I will take them apart but you never know.

I love the little banners that are part of the set because you can leave the letters in them or take them out, whichever way you like.  You could even cut them in other colors and stick them back in the banner.  I kept mine in place by running a piece of 1/8th inch score tape on the back side to keep them from falling out. Using the same cardstock, I die cut both of the pine branches from Tim Holtz Holiday Greens Thinlits Die Set a couple of times and then arranged them on my card front and attached them with more Multi Medium.  For the finishing touch, I added some Red Berries to the pine branches.

Thanks so much for coming by today and spending a few minutes with me.  I've linked all of the supplies for you below.  In case you didn't realize it before now, I did no stamping on this card.  I simply die cut all of the pieces using my Cuttlebug and assembled my card.  Since I added the berries to the card, I will use a padded mailer to send this card.  I really like the look of the Season of Cheer die and I plan to use it for some of my other cards as well. I'll also be entering this card at the Case This Sketch Challenge Blog.

Kokuyo Long Dot Runner Adhesive Shop at: SSS	Concord & 9th Season of Cheer Dies Shop at: SSS | C+9	Papertrey Ink Perfect Match Vintage Cream Cardstock Shop at: PTI	Gina K Designs Pure Luxury Gold Metallic Cardstock Shop at: GKD
Tim Holtz Holiday Greens Thinlits Shop at: SSS	Spellbinders Matting Basics Set A Shop at: SSS	Nuvo Crystal Drops - Red Berry Shop at: SSS	Cuttlebug Die Cutting Machine Shop at: SSS
Ranger Multi Medium Matte Shop at: SSS	Spellbinders Embossing Mat Shop at: SSS

Dahlia Turnabout

Today's card is courtesy of an ingenious design from Concord & 9th that I've been working with for a few days.  I'm going to give you fair warning here that this is going to be a very picture heavy post.  Concord & 9th has some of the most innovative and well engineered products on the market and this one is phenomenal. In recent months, they have released several of the "Turnabout" Style stamps but they were all geared to being background stamps. Customers had asked for a smaller version that could be used in a Mini MISTI and they delivered as well as trying out a new type of die in the same Turnabout Style.

The Dahlia Turnabout Bundle is the stamp set and the die in one bundle and because you are buying them together, you get a bit of a discount vs. purchasing them separately. They are each available for purchase separately if you aren't sure about the die. The cool thing about the die is that it works the same way as the stamp, requiring anywhere from 1- 4 rotations depending on the look you want.  For the first card I made, I opted to use just one die cut position to allow my Rose Gold Metallic Cardstock to show through.

For this first time using the stamp, I didn't get my paper lined up perfectly for the stamping, but it is good enough.  I don't say that lightly because I am a perfectionist.  But the petals on a flower wouldn't be all perfectly symmetrical so this is okay. I used Sweet Blush, Berry Sorbet and Pure Poppy Inks for this card and some Rose Gold Metallic Card stock that I found at Michael's when I was doing some borders for a wedding album back in the spring.  I bought extra sheets because I had such a hard time finding it. I die cut the "awesome" (a Waffle Flower Die) from the same Rose Gold.  The "You're" is from an older stamp set by Concord & 9th called Being Classy and I stamped it in Versamark on a little angled banner and heat set it with Ranger Copper Metallic Embossing Powder.  That was the first Concord & 9th product I ever bought.  It was the perfect size for this card.

I think you can see where the die cuts from this photo that I took this morning.  It was dark outside when I tried to photograph this card last night so I didn't post a very good picture although I did get one up on Instagram.

Greg from Concord & 9th did a video and so did Jennifer McGuire on how to use the stamp.  When I made my first card, Greg's video was the only one up. Jennifer's went up just as soon as I finished my card. Jennifer highlights a few ways to use this set and shows a few other products as well.

These cards are for a card drive that I am participating in and shows just a few of the many color combinations that you could use.  The colors are listed below in the linked supply list.

After I had made a few of these, I wanted to make a Christmas Card so I grabbed some Jewel Toned Inks and some gold foiled cardstock along with the Believe Stamp and Die Set from Simon Says Stamp and made this lovely card.

One of the rotations of ink is stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder done twice.  Jennifer McGuire showed this technique a couple of weeks ago and since I love gold, I loved learning it.  It just helps make the embossing pop a lot more and I only did two layers here on the bloom.  The Sentiment was only done once.  It's a little hard to see the gold foiled die cut sentiment, so I popped another view in here for you so you can see that it is there.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  I'll be adding this Christmas Card to the Simon Says Stamp Flickr Challenge #84 and to the Tic Tac Toe Challenge.

Stamper's Select White Cardstock Shop at: PTI	Pure Poppy Cardstock Shop at: PTI	Pure Poppy Ink Shop at: PTI	Simon Says Stamp Merlot Ink Shop at: SSS
Simon Says Stamp Evergreen Ink Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Believe Stamp Set Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Believe Wafer Die Shop at: SSS
Concord & 9th Dahlia Bundle Shop at: C+9	Waffle Flower Awesome Word Die Shop at: SSS	Concord & 9th Being Classy Bundle Shop at: C+9	Kokuyo Long Dot Runner Adhesive Shop at: SSS
Simon Says Stamp Maliblue Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Audrey Blue Ink Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Island Blue Ink Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Soft Navy Ink Shop at: SSS
Papertrey Ink Hawaiian Shores Cardstock Shop at: PTI	Papertrey Ink Perfect Match Sweet Blush Ink Shop at: PTI	Papertrey Ink Perfect Match Berry Sorbet Ink Shop at: PTI	Ranger Copper Metallic Superfine Detail Embossing Powder Shop at: SSS
Simon Says Stamp Lucky Ink Shop at: SSS