I'll be home for Christmas

This month's challenge for the Flourishes' Christmas Spirit Challenge at SCS is Song Inspired.

I have two favourite Christmas caroles- White Christmas (also my favourite Christmas movie ever), and I'll be home for Christmas. It is a hugely sentimental song for me.

Having close ties to the military- husband is recently former military, and I have two cousins who are in, and many friends who are military and military spouses. Also, I work for an organization that supports the military. I'll be home for Christmas has a whole new meaning when you are military- either having a loved one deployed, or even just moving to a new base, where you might not know a soul and don't always have family close by.

As it is posting season (military families moving to their new bases), I have been thinking a lot lately about family and how we make our own families no matter where we are. Some people are family by relation, and others are family members by choice. When you are in the military, or married to it, the friends you make are your family as well.

OK- phew- that got a little heavy there.

On to the card!!

This was not originally what I had intended for this stamp. It's from the Forest of Trees set. I stamped it in green chalk ink, added brads as the ornaments and then put the red paper on the side of the frame, added the panes and overlaid it on the tree. I really like this stamp set and can't wait to play with it more.

Party time!

I had some time to play a bit this weekend, and brought out some of my House Mouse stamps. The first one, I seem to be using a lot lately. He's just so cute and summery. 

I stamped in Momento ink, coloured with copics and used an edge punch. Then, I layered the card onto some orange cardstock, then on top of corrugated paper, which I coloured with distress inks.

This camera mouse I have had for ages, in fact, I am pretty sure it's the first House Mouse I purchased and have never used. I think I was a little intimidated by colouring the camera, but it really wasn't that bad. I also have several birthdays coming up, and thought that by having camera mouse take a photo of the birthday mouse, I could use two stamps on one card. I have to admit, I am rather pleased with how it turned out. 

I hope to be able to play a bit more this week as well- depends on what is going on, but I have come across a couple of challenges I'd like to play.

I like to move it, move it!

It's been a crazy weekend. I was busy yesterday, busy puttering today, and finally got a chance to play this afternoon. I went to my favourite LSS this weekend with M, and there were new House Mouse stamps... this one called my name. It fits in perfectly with the Less is More challenge this week, which is THINGS THAT MOVE. We could make a moving card, have an element that moved, or depict something that moves. So, mousey it was.

I actually stamped, coloured and punched the mouse yesterday, but I was in a bit of a bad mood, and nothing was turning out, so I put it to the side and came back to it today. It turned out that I didn't like the colour of the flower (pinks), so I decided to colour over it using purples. I had never done that before- colouring over one Copic job with another, but I like the way it turned out- it added a bit more depth of colour.

I finished off the card by punching the mouse out using a 3 inch circle, layering it on a 2 inch strip of purple and putting it on a base.

The more I play with the Less is More challenges, the easier the clean and simple method is becoming.

Can't wait to see what's in store next weekend!

New stuff

Oh, how I love new toys! I have my eye on this Boss Kut die for quite some time, and last time I went to Scrapyard, it was mine.

As with most cards I make, there were lessons learned. I cut out two of for the flower and leaves. Then, I covered them with Versamark ink and Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE). I learned that UTEE is a wonderful tool. However, it goes EVERYWHERE, and I mean everywhere when you are heating it. I have little balls of melted plastic all over my work table. It also gets really hot. Fortunately the cooling time is relatively quick.
I layered the flower pieces on top of each other, punched and then used a brad to hold it all together.
I needed a piece of ribbon to add a little band of colour to the card. I didn't have any colour that I wanted to use, among my (approx) six kazillion rolls of ribbon, so I took wide white ribbon and coloured it with pine needle distress ink.
I dried it with my heat gun, but for some reason, it didn't dry right away. There was green ink everywhere. Next time, I'll let it dry over night. 
This card was incredibly quick and easy to make, and I love the results. I think it'll make it into the card rotation this year.

LIM- one layer get inky... take one

This week over at Less is More Mandi and Chrissie have us making a one layer card, using ink. Now, everyone uses ink to make cards, you say... but there are lots of ways to make cards without ink- embossing, ribbons, embellishments, stickers, etc. I usually use ink on mine, and have no problems getting inky... in fact, my fingers are green and black at the moment, thanks to a wayward ink pad.

I had lots of time to mull over my creations today- the dogs had me up at 6:30, and when they were out, I checked the blog, went back to bed for a while, did some errands, and when I went to my stamping space nearly 12 hours later, I had some pretty good ideas about what I wanted to do.

The additional bit to the challenge is to do something you don't usually do, or use a technique you haven't tried. One of these cards fits into that.

I really admire Chrissy's cards, especially when she uses bands of colour, such as this one. I decided to give it a try. This one incorporates four distress inks- honey, marigold, rusty hinge and marmalade. I sponged them onto the card and then washed over it with a baby wipe. I find that the paper curls much less doing it that way. Then I stamped the Inkadinkado image over it in Momento black.

Seems as though I am on an orange and black kick tonight. I stamped the butterfly and sentiment in black, then coloured with distress inks. I put some colour onto a stamp block and painted it on with an aqua pen. For a little more dimension and sparkle, I ran a bead of glossy accent over the body and let it dry. 

I think I'll be taking full advantage of my weekend and playing with the one layer challenge more tomorrow. I usually do a card front and add it to the base, but Less is More is becoming easier for me, and the one layer challenges are helping to save paper.

Sometimes, you just have to play...

I've been playing with Distress inks quite a bit lately, and wanted to see what this LaBlanche stamp would look like distressed. I stamped in brown Momento ink, and coloured with Distress inks- the sunflower was done in Honey, the leaves in Shabby Shutters and the centre of the sunflower was (I think) sepia.

Then I decided I was going to play... and that's where it went horribly wrong...

I thought that I would add some dimension by adding glossy accent to the centre, and the centre only. And then the distress inks started to run. So, I decided to smear it all over the card to add some extra texture and interest, which I liked. Then I dried it with my heat gun, which caused the paper to curl. To get rid of the curl, I took the paper and ran it over the edge of my desk. That softened the glossy accent, and gave it an interesting feel. I attached it to the brown cardstock with brass brads. The butterfly was punched out and placed over an ink smear.

Harvest hues

A few months ago, I trekked to a stamping store that I don't usually get to- the Scrapbook Cottage in Steinbach. I was looking for a Queen Ann's Lace stamp, and came across one I liked (Inkadinkado's Meadow). It also included a wheat image, and I decided I wanted to play with that... I am a prairie girl, after all!

For this one, I took a piece of white cardstock and sponged on Distress inks in honey and marigold. Then, I rubbed a baby wipe across the card to intensify the colour. The image was stamped in dark brown and then added onto a brown piece of cardstock and the ribbon was wrapped at the bottom. You can't really see it on the card, but I also spritzed it with copper shimmer.

Swinging mouse

I was checking out splitcoaststampers for inspiration tonight, and came across a new challenge in the Try a New Technique forum. The technique was for a swinging z-fold card. Doesn't matter if you say zed or zee- this card is pretty easy to make, and it took me longer to pick my paper and colour than it did to make the card.

The tutorial is here. I have a few more ideas for cards like this.

The paper was a sale find, and I have been looking for something to use it for. The paper is reversible, and I didn't need to worry about finding matching papers (BONUS!). Once I stamped, die cut and coloured the House Mouse stamp, I attached it to the card front. It wasn't quite finished, so I added the flowers, which I coloured by pressing a yellow stamp pad onto the flower and held the four pieces together using a black brad. The inside has a 1.75 inch piece of white cardstock with a hello sentiment stamped on to it.

Patriotic challenge

This week at Less is More, the challenge is to use colours of your nation's flag. I love red and white together- it always looks so clean and classic. So, to pay tribute to the True North Strong and Free, here are my cards...

I love this stamp set. I can't remember whose it is. (edited to say it's Inkadinkado winter silhouette) I stamped in versamark and then embossed with white embossing powder. The sentiment was stamped the same and embossed, then the layer was added.

 Last time I went to Scrapyard, they had a Christmas in July sale, and I purchased these flowers. I doubled them up, added a flocked red brad to the centre and attached to a 2.5 strip of Cherry Cobbler paper from Stampin' Up (all the red paper for these cards is Cherry Cobbler). Added the sentiment and it was done. I love quick and easy cards sometimes, and this one came together in no time.

The third and final card for this creation is my beloved Dancer stamp. I had a small piece of Cherry Cobbler left over from a cutting area, stamped in versamark and embossed in white then layered it onto some white. I used a little bit of ribbon to tie it all together (no pun intended).