Caffeinated Christmas

 There's a new challenge starting this month called Caffeinated Christmas, with (you guessed it!) coffee/tea/beverage themed cards with a Christmas theme.  Every month has a little something extra, and they're starting with snowflakes.  It's the last day to enter, so I rummaged through my file of Verve bits to find some mugs, and pulled out my Verve Holiday Treats stamp set to make the sentiments.  Some Echo Park papers and a little glitter cardstock and they came together pretty quickly:

And these are my first two Christmas cards made this year!  I hope to play along with the challenge often.

More tags...

 I'm on a bit of a roll making up Christmas tags - I love tucking a few into cards that I send out to friends and family.  I think this makes 26 as the total for the week's efforts!

This is one of Studio Katia's dotted tag dies, using up some patterned Echo Park paper that I've had for a few years.  Sentiment is from The Greetery.  I cut out a second tag from some patterned red paper to finish off the flip side where you can add your To & From:

For My Stud Puffin

Yup.  Had to buy this one.  Lawn Fawn comes out with the cutest stamps... but the sentiment is what really got me!  So here is what my hubby will be getting on Feb.14th:

 I kept it pretty simple, using some Dots & Stripes paper from Echo Park,  and matting my image with an orangey-yellow that matches their feet.  The puffins are coloured with Copic markers.  The image and sentiment were die cut with stitched square and rectangle dies, and matted with black.  I added a few red die cut hearts.

Lawn Fawn - Clear Photopolymer Stamps - Stud Puffin
from: Scrapbook.com

Crazy Birds Valentines

Well, you may or may not know that I've always loved the Crazy Birds stamp set by Tim Holtz from a few years ago... I hadn't used it in a while, but have pulled it out several times recently to make masculine birthday cards.  Today I've made up a couple of masculine Valentine cards.  I have a nephew whose birthday I missed around Christmas, so he's getting a valentine from his aunt instead!

 After colouring with Copic markers, I fussy cut out the hearts (they are part of the Crazy Birds Accessories stamp set), used an x-acto knife to cut slits in the wings, and tucked the heart between them:

 I used the fun polka dot papers from Echo Park, enamel dots and sentiments from Close To My Heart.  Inside says simply "Happy Valentines Day".

Building the Christmas stash

I had three days on my own this weekend (gasp!) and was determined to get a good kick start on my Christmas card stash, so I managed to get 6 of these done! 

I really love this paper from Crate Paper's Falala collection - the purpley/blue shade is just gorgeous!  I picked out some melon cardstock that matched the berries on the paper, die cut a large snowflake and a little circle that I stamped my ampersand onto.  I cut out my Echo Park "bright" word die in some silver paper and actually added a rhinestone as the i (after the photo was taken!).  Happy to have 6 frosty cards in my bin ready for the holidays!

Sketchy Saturday Christmas card

I am just sneaking in a post using last Saturday's Sketchy Saturday sketch from Laurel's blog... and I try to use her sketches for Christmas cards whenever I can, so I managed to get two made this week:

I used Echo Park's A Perfect Winter papers, my new Echo Park Holiday Season Word Die set, and my Alpine Stitched Snowflakes from Poppy Stamps.  I added a little zigzag stitching on each of the stripes.  Two more Christmas cards in my stash!

Dashing Through the Snow

I came across a Christmas card that I haven't blogged, so thought I would sneak it in before the big day.  This is using Eskimo Kisses from Sugar Pea Designs:

The papers are Echo Park, and the snowy tree die is from Dee's Distinctively.  I am also entering this into the December Mix It Up Challenge #50 on the Sugar Pea Designs blog.

Sugar Pea November Challenge

I made a sweet card today that I'm really happy with for the November Sugar Pea Designs Mix-It-Up challenge.

I used the sketch portion of the challenge, and picked the polka dot paper, because it made me think of falling snow.  I added a couple of stitched banner die cuts and snowflakes in the top corner, and secured them with some silver staples.  I rounded two of the corners like the sketch, and mounted the whole panel with 3D adhesive onto a white card base. 

I hope to play along again this month... and will try to incorporate the yarn/colours next time!

Stamp set is Eskimo Kisses by Sugar Pea Designs; Patterned paper is A Perfect Winter by Echo Park; Copic Markers.

Freshly Made Sketches #362

I am YET AGAIN bringing out these Echo Park papers to make some Christmas cards... I still have a whole pile of it, so you'll be seeing it often.  Today I paired up the current Freshly Made Sketch with the Eskimo Kisses stamp set from Sugar Pea Designs:

I added a red and a white snowflake to each of them, and used a sentiment from an older CTMH set.

Another Sketchy Saturday

Laurel's Sketchy Saturdays are back up on her blog... so I've been working away all week to get six cards made up for my stash.  I recently bought a little kit of Echo Park's "A Perfect Winter", and it came with matching Enamel dots, phrases & shapes - so I used a little of everything.

Here was the sketch:

Ai Lots of Layers Challenge

I am sharing a couple of cards that I made for Art Impressions to take to the Mixed Media show this past summer when they launched their latest collection.  They have just released their 2018 Christmas stamps on their website - you can find them all here.  Today I'm using Sleigh Bells Set (Sku #5040) along with Echo Park's I Love Winter papers:

The current challenge on the Art Impressions blog is "Lots of Layers"... and I never have a problem doing that!

More Eskimo Kisses

Two more sweet cards are in my stash today... here again is Eskimo Kisses from Sugar Pea Designs, and some I Love Winter paper from Echo Park:

Keeping it brief... Trick or Treaters arriving any minute now.  Happy Halloween!

Mojo Monday returns!

I was very happy to read that Julee Tilman was resurrecting Mojo Monday on her blog this week.  It's going to be a bi-weekly sketch challenge, which is perfect.  She does amazing sketches!  Having said that, I did a simplified version of this one... I'm in need of several masculine cards for November, so I put a couple of these together.  I edited the sketch a little, as it was just getting too busy for me:

Patterned papers are Echo Park; Stamps are Hello Life, Close To My Heart; Star dies are Taylored Expressions, Inks are Sunset & Chocolate, CTMH.

Sketchy Saturday is back!

Sketch challenges are my favourite... so I couldn't be happier that Laurel Seabrook has brought back her Sketchy Saturdays.  She does great sketches!  Such a great way to have a little fun, and get another Christmas card done.  I don't often use stickers out of my paper packs... but I'm determined to make use of a lot of the ones that I have.  Here's what I came up with:

Patterned papers/stickers are Season's Greetings by Echo Park.  Stitched Snowflake dies are Poppy stamps.  Here was the sketch:

Did y'all hear that Mojo Monday is back?? That's on my list...

Inspired By - Christmas card

This week's Inspired By inspiration photo has a nautical theme... so turning it into a Christmas card may be a bit of a stretch!  But I'm hoping you can see that I was inspired by the colours, and the piece of driftwood when I went to make my card...

Quick & easy - works for me.  Here's the photo:

Patterned papers & sticker are I Love Winter by Echo Park; Sea Glass & White cardstock & tag die are Close to my Heart; Twine from The Twinery; Alpine Stitched Snowflake dies are Poppy Stamps.

Dashing Through the Snow!

I got another Christmas card made last night... using this sweet penguin from Sugar Pea Designs 'Eskimo Kisses'.  You're going to see a lot from this set, as I think I coloured up 16 images this weekend - now they're all ready to be made up into cards.  I've used I Love Winter papers from Echo Park:

Patterned papers are I Love Winter by Echo Park; Stamp set is Eskimo Kisses, by Sugar Pea Designs; Alpine Stitched Snowflake dies, Poppy Stamps; Stitched Circle & Fishtail dies, My Favorit Things;  Coloured with Copic markers.

Sketchy Saturday & Inspired By

Like the rest of the continent, we're having a chilly, snowy spring.  So maybe that's why I took Laurel's Inspired By photo and turned it into a Christmas card?  Not what I set out to do... I had this wonderful Lawn Fawn "Knit Picky" paper that reminded me of the knitted throw in the photo, and then I went searching to see what papers I had in blue tones... and there was Echo Park's I Love Winter.  And of course, it turned into a coffee/hot chocolate type of card, too.  I used Laurel's Sketchy Saturday sketch as well:

 And when you make a Christmas card... you always make a second one :o)

I used a couple of Memory Box dies for the snowflakes & mug, and added a few tiny rhinestones for a little sparkle.

Cupcake BFF's

And here is the final card from the Ai BFF trio that I put together this week.  Scroll down to see all three together.  Here is Cupcake BFF:

 I used the same paper pad for all three (Summer Dreams by Echo Park) so that they would coordinate together nicely, and I love the warm, bright colours!

Coffee BFF's

Here is my second card using the Art Impressions BFF's... this is Coffee BFF's:

I loved this pretty ombre background paper, and wanted to show it off a little, so again I went with a larger 5" x 6 1/2" card.  Cardstock is Sunshine, Outdoor Denim & Colonial white by Close To My Heart.  Coloured with Copic markers.  Patterned paper is Summer Dreams by Echo Park.

Coffee Lover's Hop - Fourth Post

Two variations of the eggnog/wassail cards that I posted a few days ago for the 2017 Winter Coffee Lover's Blog Hop:

Patterned papers are Echo Park and Fancy Pants Designs; Stamps are Verve; Copic Markers; Dies are Memory Box & Your Next Stamp