More is More

I promised another Elzybells card and here it is.  🙂

Isn’t she just the sweetest thing?  This image is called Hopes, Dreams and Wishes and once I stamped it I discovered the that the jars are labeled Hopes, Dreams, Wishes…aaawwwwwwww!  Even though these are NOT Christmas colors I used this Christmas sentiment and stamped “Merry Christmas” inside.  This was another case of coloring an image without picking out the paper first.  But when I went looking through my stash I found this fabulous Heidi Grace paper (Glittered Paper/Heidi’s Flowers/Stripe Decor) that I had set aside for a specific project.  Oh the dilemma…do I cut into it?  Well I just had to – it’s perfect!  I sure hope I can get some more for my project from eclectic Paperie.  It’s shimmery/glittery/shiny all over!

Card base is Regal Rose.  Image was stamped on shimmery white and cut and embossed with nestabilities.  The little round embellishments at the bottom are an image from Snow Flurries stamped in YoYo Yellow on shimmery white, punched out and attached with pop up glue dots.  A Muse twinkle jewel in pink finishes them off.

Hope you had a Happy Halloween!  Looks like I’ve blown right past Halloween and straight on to Christmas!  LOL!  All that Dashing stuff got me into Christmas mode and I’m guessing that a lot of what I stamp for the next month or so will be Christmas oriented. I have two different batches of 20 Christmas cards each almost finished.  Plus I have about 10 single cards ready.  I’ll need at least 30 more than that, so I either need to do another batch of 20-25 or I need to stamp a single Christmas card every day for a month.  Hmmm…we’ll just have to see how that goes.

Thanks for stopping by. 

It’s time to announce the winner of my Dashing Challenge.  I used the highly scientific method of writing names on slips of paper and drawing one from a bowl – LOL!  Thanks to everyone who played.  I loved seeing your creations.

And the winner is Rhondag!!!  As soon as I get your snail mail address I’ll get your little prize out to you Rhonda.  🙂

I’ll be back later with a card…stay tuned.

Would you like to be entered into a drawing to win this cute little gift set from me?  You still have time to play my Dashing Challenge (click here for details) to qualify.  Entries will be taken until midnight Pacific on Tuesday October 30th.  One name will be drawn on Wednesday to win the Holiday Cheer stamp along with the little gift box, matching notebook with pen and card.  🙂

If you’ve been on Splitcoaststampers much lately you’ve probably seen the banner ad for Elzybells stamps.  When I clicked on the link it was love at first site! If you want to see what I mean click here, but be forewarned…reisitance is futile!  When you get to the blog look on the right hand side and click on the Holiday or Winter Collection under “shopping”.

Now you have to know that I have been resisting non-SU stamps for the most part lately.  I bought a couple of Memory Box penguins from eP and just a couple of stamps from the latest Whipper Snapper release, while I’ve managed to avoid ordering MFT, Lizzie Anne, CHF, Hannah, and even Paper Trey (that was a tough one).  But when I layed eyes on those Elzybells my reslove melted like butter on a hot chocolate cake just out of the oven!  I wanted them ALL!!!  I finally managed to pare down my order to a few to start with and they arrived Saturday.  I was absolutley bouncin’!

Here’s my very first Elzybells card – this image is in the Holiday Collection and it’s called Reindeer Star.

The image was stamped on Shimmery White cardstock with Palette Hybrid Noir Black ink and colored with Copic markers (which I’m not very good with) and cut using square Nestabilities (playing a friend’s supplies *wink*).  I wanted to use the purplish color to depict the night sky and I wanted red for his nose.  Oh my goodness, have you ever tried to make a Christmas card with red and purple?  What was I thinking?  I think I managed to save my efforts by using a piece of Close to Cocoa cardstock as the main piece layered onto a purple Bazzill card base.  The snow is Liquid Applique and Dazzling Diamonds glitter.

The Cocoa cs was stamped with the SU retired background stamp Ticking in Chocoloate Chip.  I love that stamp and I think they should bring it back!  I then used a tiny star from the PTI set Text Box and a tiny snowflake from an Inkadinkadoo clear set stamped over the Ticking to acheive the type of background I wanted.  The edges were then rubbed with SU white craft ink direct to paper.

The sentiment was embossed with white craft ink and white embossing powder.

Outside:  The star that led the wise men then…

Inside:  still shines to guide the hearts of men.

   May the light of Christ fill your heart and home

This is a set from SU from 1998 I think.  I so wanted to use this sentiment with this image, but I really didn’t think the font would look right – I couldn’t remember exactly what the font was.  When I dug out it out last night I was excited to see that it would work. I thought it was a great way to have a cute image, but still convey the true meaning of Christmas.

I should have another Elzybells card for you tomorrow.  If you love the images like I do, you might also want to check out their original UK site here.  The Spring images are to die for also!  Elzybells originated in the UK and the images there are larger.  A Muse is the exclusive North American distributor of these images and has had them all sized down which is more in line with the A Muse style.  I’m really thinking I would also enjoy some of the larger stamps and have been sitting on my hands to avoid placing an international order!

Do you want to be entered into a drawing to win a little gift from me?  You still have time to play my Dashing Challenge – details here.  Deadline is Tuesday at midnight and you must post to that blog entry.  So come play!

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Monday!

I realize it’s not even Halloween yet, but while we were in Portland everyone fell in love with this Rubber Stampede Santa image that Leann had.  So a few of us got involved in a challenge  to use him along with Stardream Metallic cardstock in the color Mars.  A couple of the girls got some on the Portland Paper Zone run, but it’s also available at a great price at CutCardstock.com .  It’s a shimmery reddish/burgundy/pomegranate and it’s yummy!  Lori was kind enough to share her cardstock with me and then I passed some on to Leann.  So check out what Sharon, Lori and Leann did.  As I write this I haven’t seen their cards yet and I’m really excited to go take a look!

Here’s mine

This is actually my second version.  I did not like my first one at all.  Maybe some day I’ll have the guts to show you…but not today.

Santa was stamped on white shimmer cardstock with Palette Hybrid Black Noir ink.  I watercolored his face with Blush Blossom (marker scribbled onto a cd) and then the trouble began.  So much of the image was white that I didn’t quite know what to do.  After a couple of tries I decided to just watercolor around the edges a bit with Almost Amethyst and Going Gray (again the marker on cd method).  Santa’s glasses were painted silver with a Zig painty pen and the lenses were colored with a clear glaze pen.  Next I highlighted the snowflakes with a Sakura silver gelly roll pen and Santa’s beard and eyebrows with a Stardust gelly roll pen.  I bought some silver snowflake embellishments at Paper Zone in Portland and one found it’s way to the perfect spot on this card.

The snowflake background is kind of interesting.  It starts off with Blush Blossom cardstock stamped with SU Snowflakes in Brilliance Pearlescent Poppy ink which is a fantastic match to the cardstock.  (oh I just noticed that the Brilliance inks are on sale at eclectic Paperie – they are pearly/shimmery and you need some!) Then I covered that background piece with some snowflake sheer fabric I had left over from wrapping up baskets at Christmas last year.  It’s hard to see in the photo, but it is a sheer white with silver snowflakes and they seem to just float on the card.  I used silver cardstock to layer the background piece and the main image.

My intention was to use SU wide satin pomegranate ribbon, but when I got it on the card it just didn’t look right so I had to search for something else.  I came up with this combination of yummy red/burgundy and gray velvet ribbon.  The red is from my local ribbon warehouse and the gray is from TexasJodyLynn.  Finally I finished off the card with a velvet bow.  I wasn’t quite sure of the best way to attach velvet to velvet, but I ended up using a pop up glue dot – seemed to work great.

I want to congratulate Leann on getting her brand new blog started – I know you’ll all enjoy seeing her creations.

Remember there is still plenty of time to play my Dashing Challenge and be entered in a drawing to win a gift from me.  Scroll down to see all the challenge details.  Hope you have a fabulous weekend.

No I’m not nearly finished with the Dashing dp yet!  I want to share with you another one of the projects we’ll be creating at my Dashing Christmas Stampin’ Up! class.  Participants will get to make one of these two bags:

The are just plain white handled gift bags covered front and back with real red cardstock and Dashing dp.  Then I attached a strip of red cardstock and hung a gift card from it with ribbon (olive grosgrain or ivory tafetta). 

The little gift card is 3″ x 3.5″.  It is scored .5″ from the top and two eyelets are inserted to hold the ribbon.  Super simple.  I think I’ll add some red tissue to finish them off.

I’ve gotten such a great response to my Dashing Christmas class on Friday November 9th that I’ve added a second class on Saturday November 10th!  Woo Hoo!!!  The registration fee is $20 and we’ll be making four projects

• a gift bag (as seen above)
• a card (your choice from the set I posted yesterday)
• a mini tin project
• a manila file folder album

I only have a few spots open so you need to register right away if you want in!

Hey do you love Stickles?  What a silly question!  Who doesn’t love Stickles?!  Run over to Joy’s blog where she is giving away Stickles for Free Friday!  You just need to provide her with a link to one of your projects using Stickles or glitter!  Bling it up baby!!!

Be sure to check back tomorrow when I’ll have something special to share with you that does not involve designer paper of any kind!  *wink*  Thanks for stopping by!

I promised one more card in this series and this one is NOT a Christmas card.

Looks quite a bit different from the others in this group, yet uses the same supplies.  This is probably the simplest card I’ve ever made and been happy with.  The Take Three image was stamped in Old Olive then stamped again on a scrap in Real Red and just the middle square was cut out and adhered with foam tape.

Here’s a shot of all six cards in the series.

If you’d like to play along just scroll down to read all about my challenge.  Remember I’ll be holding a drawing for everyone who participates according to the rules listed below.  I’ve had so much fun creating these cards!  I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing them and perhaps gotten some ideas for your classes or even your own Christmas cards.  There is more Dashing to come as I will be sharing my upcoming class projects over the next week or so also.  Thanks for stopping by!