Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! In honor of the day, today I'm going to share with you a Halloween card that I made. I usually do not make Halloween cards, but the new set, Sweet Centers, just called for a Halloween shaker card. So that's what I did. I used the Night & Day DSP, Sweet Centers, and Bead Duos.

Hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloween!

Holiday Lineup

On Monday, I helped Laurie design her cards for Tuesday's Christmas Card Club meeting on Tuesday. Nothing like last minute, huh? Anyways, she had two sets that she wanted to choose from and two different DSP packages. I picked the Holiday Lineup set and she picked Merry Moments DSP and off I went to designing. Here is the first one that I came up with.

The red grosgrain around the corner was not part of the original design, but I'm using it to cover up a boo-boo I made when stamping the sentiment. This was fine and dandy, but we needed to prep for 80 plus cards and didn't have enough DSP for everyone. So in came the second design.

Which one do you like best?

LNS Challenge

Sorry for being MIA lately, but I'm back and have a few things to share with you over the next few days. This week, in honor of Halloween, the LNS challenge is to design a card after your favorite candy. One of my favorite candies is the vanilla tootsie rolls. Target usually sells alone in bags around Halloween, so you can imagine how sad I was when I went to Target last night and they did not have them. This year, they are selling the vanilla and chocolate combined in bags. I guess it is better than all the different colored tootsie rolls together, which is where I only usually can find the vanilla ones.  Here is a picture of the candy. Notice the colors, Tempting Turquoise, Brilliant Blue, and Whisper White.

And here is the card.

This is a card that I have previously posted, but I could not believe how close the colors were to my favorite candy, so I had to repost it as part of the challenge, hope you don't mind too much.

Stay tuned tomorrow for two Christmas cards.

More Ornaments

Here are two more cards with Ornaments on them. One uses the Ornament punch and the other uses a circle punch. I did not make either of these cards, one of my upline's sidelines made the sample for me, wasn't that nice of her?

For this first one, the ornament punch was used with Delightful Decorations and the strings were drawn on. Colors are Bravo Burgandy, Night of Navy and Handsome Hunter. A color combination that I find very striking.

This next one uses the circle punch with the Sweet Centers stamp set.

More Christmas Samples

Here are two more Christmas samples using Delightful Decorations and the ornament punch. Both of them are cases from some swaps my upline received. The first one I changed out the colors. The original used Crushed Curry for the ornament punches.

This second one I used a different embossing folder and do not recall if I changed the colors. The colors used were Soft Suede, Tempting Turquoise, and Sahara Sand.

Stampin' Success Case and LNS Challenge

Last night, I got my new Stampin' Success magazine in the mail and as always, I sat down and paged through it and noted a few cute cards that I liked and would maybe someday case. This is something I do most every time I get my new magazine. Now what happened next, is something I've never done before. I actually sat down and MADE a couple of the cards I noted as cute. Yes, I'm one of those stampers that like to take note of cool projects to someday CASE and never seem to get around to it because my sample projects are numerous! Anyways, this first one also meets the color challenge of using Old Olive, Ruby Red, and Real Rust. The picture does not show the colors very well so you will just have to take my word for it. Stamp set is Delightful Decorations.

The second card I created from Stampin' Success was actually made to display the printed window sheets in the Holiday Mini. I do not have any of them, so I made my own printed window sheets using white Stazon. Colors are Rich Razzleberry and Basic Black. Stamp sets used were Serene Snowflakes and Snow Swirled.

I won!

I'm part of a Yahoo Group (SURubberArtScans) and I participate in what they refer to as SMAK, which is where we send out 5 cards to 5 different people and received 5 different cards. Each month, there's a winner for the design and quality of the card and the timeliness (cards are supposed to be postmarked by the end of the month). And for the month of September, I was the winner! My card is now displayed on the home page of the Yahoo Group for the upcoming month. Here is a sample that is very similiar to the one I swapped, but I don't believe I have shared the actual one with you yet, so for now you'll have to go check out the group.

Another Swap Sample

Here is another swap sample that I created with two stamp sets that I do not own. They are Wandering Words and Scenic Season. Again, I copied another card and made it my own and ensured that it met the requirements of the swap. Here is the card I copied.

And here is my card. I do not know if you can tell from the picture, but I added a red brad to the nose of the first reindeer in this one (for Rudolph's nose). But when I went to mass produce the cards, I actually counted the reindeer and realized there were only 8, so Rudolph was not part of the scene and I removed the brad. I also did not stamp the little bird in the trees on my final card either.

A Day Late and A Dollar Short

Okay, really a week late, but no money short. So here is yet another LNS Challenge that I didn't get posted in time, maybe this week, right? The challenge was a flat card, no layers, no embellishments. So here is my take. I used Snow Swirled and Night of Navy cardstock with Whisper White Craft Ink.

And because that does not meet the requirements of the several swaps I signed up to participate in, I stepped it up to be this, which I did use in one of my swaps.

Extreme Skateboarder

So when I first saw the Extreme stamps, I thought they were kind of cool, but what would I ever use them for? Well, I've seen a few cool samples with them and then one of my sidelines made this cool card with the Extreme Skateboarder and Extreme Elements. And I think I have to move over to the dark side. Darn her anyways.

Shaving Cream Technique

I participated in a Technique page swap, where everyone does a 6x6 page with the instructions and a sample of a technique. The technique I did was the shaving cream technique. And since I was making samples for the pages, I figured I might as well make some extra to make some cards with too. Here is the card that I copied. It used Punch Pals, Rich Razzleberry, Gold, and Always Artichoke (I beleive) cardstock.

My version also used Punch Pals and Rich Razzleberry, but I also used the shaving cream technique and Basic Grey cardstock. Additionally, I used the ribbon instead of strips of paper. here is my take.

And now the shaving cream technique.

1. Spray shaving cream onto a pan, spread it out to ensure it will cover the size of paper you are using.

2. Add a few drops of a few colors of reinkers. (I used Basic Black craft and Rich Razzleberry classic refills.)

3. Swirl the color into the shaving cream with a fork.

4. Lay Whisper White cardstock into mixture.

5. Pull cardstock out of mixture and wipe of excess shaving cream.

6. Use pattern paper as desired.

Hope you enjoy!

Kitty Pictures

If you are a regular follower, you know that I stamp frequently with my friend and fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrator Laurie Lenertz. In fact, she is my unofficial photograher. You are probably also aware of the fact that she has two cats, Oscar and Felix, that like to "help" me when I'm stamping. Well, here is another picture of them helping. This is of Oscar is sitting on my chair, when I got up to get something, and I'm trying to coax him out (very unsuccessfully) and you can see Felix in the background supervising.

As I am posting this, I realize that I have not posted pictures of my two kitties. This is Oliver 2 (Oliver for short). If you recall, I did have another Oliver that I had to put to sleep shortly after getting him.

And this one is Toby. I realize you probably can't really see what he looks like, but I thought it was such a cute picture. This was actually taken this morning.

Both are around the same age, 9 months, although Oliver is much smaller than Toby. Their namesakes are from Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. TC actually picked out the name Oliver for the first one and I picked Toby to go along with the same theme. TC has yet to actually meet either cat, so that could be an interesting time.

Christmas Cocoa DSP

Here is a sample I created using the Christmas Cocoa DSP. This one I CASEd. It uses Serene Snowflakes along with Almost Amethyst. I have the hardest time finding the right colors to use with this DSP.

My Shoebox Swap

So you may be wondering what I did for my shoebox swap, well wonder no more. Here is it. Using the skinny tins that were available from Stampin' Up! and the Christmas Cocoa DSP, I created a tin for Christmas tags. The DSP used for the tags was Holiday Lounge. The stamp set was Christmas Punch. I was able to use all the different stamps, except for the snowflakes.

Help!

Help! There is something missing from this card, what is it? Or maybe it's too much Chocolate Chip? What do you think?

Remaining Shoebox Swaps

Here are the remaining shoebox swaps (that I completed). There is one more, but I haven't finished it yet. And I haven't taken any pictures of my swap. I will sometime and post them.

The first one is from Shelly and she used the Manhattan Flower Impressionz plate, cut it out and then rubbed ink over it.

The other one that I have for you is from Sue and uses the Autumn Days stamp set.

I see have a couple of other cards to share with you that were made during retreat, so stay tuned!

Shoebox Swaps

At the retreat this past weekend, we did shoebox swaps and I thought I'd share what I made with you over the next couple of days.

The first one is from Jolene and uses Scenic Season.

This one is from Tara and uses Inspired By Nature with sponging. I really liked the way this one turned out. This week's challenge on LNS is no layers and I might have to CASE this one for the challenge.

The final one for today was from Tammie (I think) and uses Trendy Trees. I like her idea of only using the trunk part and not the branches. It avoids the use of the Stamp-ama-jig (or however that is spelled).

I hope you enjoyed these samples and tomorrow I'll share the rest of them with you.

CASEing Sandi MacIver

While at the retreat I was browsing blogs and came upon this sample on Sandi MacIver's blog here and I decided to copy it. I did not really change much but the colors. I used Branch Out and Winter Post with Rich Razzleberry and Soft Suede.

LNS Challenge - Stepping It Up

Yet another challenge that I completed but never submitted on time. This was a stepping it up challenge. And this is something I find myself doing every time I CASE a card. The example here uses Serene Snowflakes, Night Quite Navy and Whisper White cardstock. Here is the swap card that I CASED and (hopefully stepped it up).

And here is my sample. I changed the ribbon used, I chose not to postcard back it, and instead of making the Not Quite Navy circle with the snowflake on it the same size of the hole, I made it smaller and added white behind it. I attempted to use the Mover and Shaker die from the Holiday Mini, but did you know the circle in that set is the same size of the Jumbo Circle punch? This I was not expecting as all the other Mover and Shaker dies that I've used are slightly larger than the corresponding punch. Anyways, the last things I changed was that I used silver embossing powder instead of white (might not be able to see that in the picture though) and I added a rhinestone brad.

A Few Things

I have found the picture for the sample I posted here. All the details can be found in that posting.

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted, as you I mentioned before I am attempting to study for my actuarial exam and work has been really busy. I was on a retreat this past weekend with other demos (sidelines and upline and her sidelines) so I have a few samples to share with you. It was a weekend of firsts for me. First of all, I created a swap with a stamp set that I do not owe. I then created a card from scratch again with a stamp set that I do not own. These may not seem like big things, and they aren't, but just something that I have not done for a while. I usually just design with the stamp sets I own, so I can recreate it if I need to. And lately I've been really go at CASE others and making them my own, other than designing from scratch. Why reinvent the wheel? Especially when there are so many good ideas out there.

The card I'm sharing with you today is a design that I made up on my own AND with a stamp set I do not own, Winter Post. The colors are soft suede and whisper white. I also used the Christmas Cocoa DSP and a Library Clip.