Calendar

I have to admit this is a bit of a departure from my norm in the color department. I usually design with more subdued colors. I guess it must be the gloomy winter weather that made me want to use bright and cheerful papers for this project. This is a 6" x 6" easel card with a white cardstock base. My designer papers are from DCWV The Whimsy Stack. My last post was a New Year's card made from the same paper. I thought it would be nice to give as a set for a little New Year's gift. Everyone needs a calendar, right! I will enter this in several challenges:

• Allsorts (http://allsortschallenge.blogspot.com/)- Anything but a card
• Creative Card Crew (http://creativecardcrew.blogspot.com/)- Anything goes
• Saturday Challenge (http://thesecretcraftersaturdaychallenge.blogspot.com/) -Last minute gift
• Crafty Creations (http://craftycreationschallenges.blogspot.com/) -Anything goes

I gave these calendars to my hairdresser and my massage therapist. They were a big hit.

My bird on this calendar is cut from Cricut's Storybook cartridge. I cut him at 2 1/2" from the same blue print paper the calendar is sitting on. I shadowed it with a bright yellow. I embellished the bird with some pearls from Creative Cafe. I used a little lace and ribbon to dress her neck up a little. I doodled a few dots around the bird with a Sakura 3-D glaze pen. I attached it off the edge a little and used foam dots. For the inside of the card with the calendar I used the blue print paper and edged it with an orange cardstock punched with a Fiskars punch. I cut a flower and a little paisley design from the front design paper to place on each side of the calendar and popped them with foam dots. Now, don't you think this would make you feel cheery if it was sitting on your desk?

Cricut Cardz Challenge #6

Wow! I can't believe this year is at it's end. This year was much better than the last (when I was diagnosed with breast cancer). My husband and I have our retirements to celebrate and the birth of grandchild number eight. I can't believe we have not worked in six months. Boy, that sure went by fast. So far, retirement is the best thing ever. I love not having to get up at 5:30 am with the alarm clock blaring. It is so odd though that every day is the same. I never know what day it is. It's like everyday is the weekend. I wanted my card to be bright and cheerful so I used bright colors and lots of sparkle. My print papers are DCWV The Whimsy Stack. I really mixed it up with the Cricut cartridges for this card. "Celebrate" is from Gypsy Wanderings, "It's" is from New Arrival, "New Year's Day" is from Designer's Calendar, and my party horn is from Sweet Treats. I designed this card with my Cricut Gypsy. My favorite thing about my Gypsy (besides it's portability) is being able to get images from different cartridges to be combined on one mat without having to change out the cartridges in the machine. Of course, you can do that with Design Studio also, but it isn't portable. It is so much more convenient. I still refer to my cartridge booklets though. I used Stickles, MS glitter pens and rhinestones for embellishment.

PapertakeWeekly/CreativeCardCrew/PinkElephant

I'm so excited that I actually did it. I handmade Christmas cards for my entire family. They're all addressed and getting mailed in the morning. So now I have time to play. I chose Papertake Weekly's (http://papertakeweekly.blogspot.com/) sketch, Creative Card Crew's challenge
http://creativecardcrew.blogspot.com/ for anything goes, and The Pink Elephant's challenge
http://thepinkelephantchallenge.blogspot.com/ for a Christmas Card. I used a 6 1/2" x 5" white base card. I went around the edge with a gold paint pen then placed my patterned paper from Ta Da Creative Studios on top. I stamped on white cardstock embossed with my Cuttlebug using a cute little bird from an Inkadinkado Holiday Stamp set called Pattern Play. The sentiment also came from this set. I used gold ink to stamp. I embellished with lace and ran a gold cord through it for sparkle and a bow. That's it for this card. Quick and easy. I'll use this card in case I get a stray Christmas card in the mail from someone I forgot on my list. I accidently deleted my mailing label addresses before I got them printed. Don't even ask how I stupidly managed that. So I had to start from scratch and I'm terrified I left someone out. I had to use my old address book. Some of the addresses in there are from people who, unfortunately, are deceased and some from people who aren't married anymore. I guess I should have backed them up on my new little portable hard drive. I'll have to do that now before I forget.

Bitten By the Bug Winter Woodlands Branch

I'm just absolutely in love with SEI WinterSong double-sided papers. This blue, white and red has become my favorite color combo for Christmas cards this year. I new that bird in the red circle would be perfect to go with this branch cut from Winter Woodlands. I cut my branch at 2" from silver cardstock and shadowed with white cardstock. I used Frosted Lace Stickles down the center of the branch and Fired Brick Stickles for the berries. I placed my branch on the blue side of this double-sided paper, the red is the back side. I edge trimmed my blue piece with a Fiskars punch. I accented the small holes in the decorative edge border with pearls. I scattered a few red rhinestones for accent on this blue piece, also.

My sentiment is a digital stamp from The Cutting Cafe's Christmas Gift Tag set. I cut one of the circles out from the DP to put in the middle of the Peace on Earth sentiment. Then I cut it out and placed it onto a metal tag from my stash. I embellished with a red checked bow.

DelightfulSketches/CreativeCardCrew/Allsorts/365

Do you ever forget about cute digital stamps you have? That's what happened with poor Angel Maggie here. So now I've decided that I need to come up with a better system to catalogue my digital images. Sounds like a job for after Christmas. I used Delightful Sketches for my sketch for this card. It has swirls and pearls for the Allsorts challenge and silver for Creative Card Crews challenge. 365 challenge for Thursday asked for "peace" on a card.

I colored Angel Maggie with my Copics and a MS silver glitter pen. Then I added MS Sterling glitter to her wings for a little extra sparkle. I cut my oval with my Cricut machine and then embossed it with Cuttlebug's Divine Swirls embossing folder. Then I highlighted the swirls and went around the edge with the MS silver glitter pen. My sentiment is a rub-on from K&Company. I added pearls in each corner of the sentiment. I embellished with narrow white ribbon and on the bow I added a piece of silver cord for a little added bling.

FridaySketchers/PaperCutz/OCC/SCSC/Crazy4Challenges/CupcakeChallenge

'Tis the Season To Be Jolly....Fa La La La La....What's more jolly than an adorable snowman.
The challenges:

• Friday Sketchers-Sketch
• Paper Cutz-Snowman/Snowflake
• Our Creative Corner-Christmas
• Saturday Challenge-Snow or related to snow
• Cupcake Challenge-Song
• Crazy 4 Challenges-Snowmen or Snowflakes

I finally got to play with my new Cricut Snow Friends cartridge. This is my favorite shaped snowman. I cut him at 4" and he sits on a background of green checks for my 5" square card. I did use foam dots to pop him up a little. I thought he'd look cute with polka-dot clothes. I used black rhinestones for his eyes, but his nose and mouth are cut from the cartridge. I love how each snowman on this cartridge has their layers of clothing and such going down in a row beneath them. Makes it easy to see what goes on each one. Just a simple wide red ribbon and the cool felt snowflakes on a strand. I found this roll of felt snowflakes in the Christmas wrap section at Target. I usually hit this area the day after Christmas for the half off sales, but this was unusual and I didn't think it would be around for long. I'm not sure who made the 'tis the season stamp. For some reason my packaging is missing from this stamp set.

MojoMonday/CharismaCards/Caardvarks/PinkEle/Whimsie Doodles

Mojo Monday had a great sketch this week that I used for this card. I'll also be entering this one in the following challenges:

• Whimsie Doodle-image


• Charisma Cards-Red, Green and White


• Caardvarks-Digital image


• Pink Elephant-Favorite Christmas colors

My printed papers are Me & My Big Ideas, last year's Christmas stack. Tell me this gingerbread angel is not the cutest little thing! She is a Whimsie Doodle digital image. I colored her with my Copics. For her "icing" trim I used a Sakura 3-D glaze pen. I used a MS glitter pen in gold to sparkle up her halo and MS glitter for her wings. I added a couple clear rhinestones on the ornament she's holding. A couple of red and green rhinestones for some bling on the printed paper. I had this cute little gingerbread charm so I added it to the simple red ribbon bow.