Colorful Christmas Tree!

 

 
This weeks  MUSE challenge has a great graphic tree. 













CASology's cue card is Festive so it fits in with that too.

 

I love the shape of the tree so I copied it but I wanted to add color in a different way.  For that, I took inspiration from this weeks Make it Monday to stamp an Ombre background.  A submission by Lesley really caught my eye so I CASEd it but used it for my focal point and not the background.  I made the card just 3.5" wide since it's such a skinny tree.  I think it makes for a very non-traditional, but really cute tree!  I put some dots of glossy accents on it to mimic ornaments.

Supplies:
Die - SSS hourglass die
Stamps - PTI
Inks - PTI & Hero Arts
Other - Glossy Accents









I die cut a few of the trees out of the paper I inked up.  Here is another card I made with the rest.

Thanks so much for Looking!
Karen

Mixed Media Tag

 

Oh, this is so far out of my comfort zone!  I lean to the CAS side of card making so this is a bit of a stretch for me.  I've been following along with Stamping with Loll's  Twelve Tags of Christmas and loving all of them, dreaming that I could force myself to layer things, splatter things, cut things and add things.  This is my attempt.  I first made a very clean version of this about 13 years ago, and it's probably been done to death,  but I think it's so cute and it was something familiar to "add to". 

I was happy to find a gold pop tab in amongst my silver ones to use as Santa's belt buckle!

Thanks so much for Looking!
Karen

Ombre for an Hombre

Make It Monday is a fun one this week - Ombre backgrounds.   

If you get the colors right they look great and are fairly quick to make.  I used the Sketched Shapes stamps and die with Spring Moss, Simply Chartreuse, Limeade Ice and Harvest Gold inks.  

The bottom of the white panel is pretty mangled, my cutting blade was getting dull and starting to shred my paper.  While changing the blade I sliced my finger on the new one!  I was so distracted with the blood and the band-aid that I forgot to trim another sliver of the bottom.  Oh well, it's going to my brother for his birthday and he probably won't notice.

Thanks so much for Looking!
Karen

Festive Ho Ho Ho

 

 

I'm lucky enough to be heading to Hawaii in 4 weeks time.  We get home Dec 21st, so I pretty much have to get everything ready and done before we leave!  So, with that desperation in mind, I have a super quick CAS tag today that is bright and festive.  

Challenges:

CASology  where the Cue Card is Festive.

Addicted to CAS where the Code Word is Tag.

ETA - Happy to have an Honorable Mention for my tag on CASology! 

Supplies:

Stamps - PTI

Ink - distress

die - Paper Smooches

Thanks so much for Looking!

Karen

Tag You're It! Challenge #9

I came up with a very shimmery tag to enter into Tag Your It! Challenge this week. CAS can be shimmery, right?

The challenge is based on this great design by Leigh Penner.  I like how her word dies go ever so slightly off the tag.

I'll also put it in for Addicted to CAS where the code word is TAG. 

  

I used some shimmer navy cardstock as a base and die cut the word merry (Wplus9) from the bright, sparkly, striped paper (12 x 12 sheet that I got at a garage sale for 10 cents - score!). I cut another merry from plain white cardstock to fit in as a contrasting color.  The tag die that I used is PTI's tasting tag so it has 2 holes on the right side so you can tie a spoon to the tag.  I didn't want the holes to show so I attached 3 dots I hole punched from the pattern paper to cover them up. Christmas (Wplus9) was embossed with white.

I think you can't just make one tag when you die cut like this, so I made a second tag while I was at it and I used sequins instead of punched dots to cover the holes.  It's definitely not CAS!  I'm toying with the idea of adding a third merry, cut out of the blue shimmer, and gluing it over striped paper in the bottom.

Thanks so much for Looking!

Karen

Happy Birthday Emma!

My neighbors' daughters' birthday is pretty soon so I made a card for her.  She likes things pink and shiny, and I liked this weeks sketch for CAS(E) this Sketch, so here is what I came up with.  

I did my VersaMark Reveal technique, yet again, for the happy banner and the dots.  I used PTI's Background Basics: Random stripes and stamped with VersaMark on watercolor paper then set it with my heat tool.  Then, I painted on some distress inks that I had spritzed with water.  Once dry, I used a PTI dies to cut the HAPPY banner and the dots.  After layering the Happy banner over the stamped & embossed vellum, I attached everything and gave all my die cuts 2 thick coats of Glossy Accents.  As usual, I don't think my pictures do justice to either the pinkness or the shininess of my card. 

Thanks so much for Looking!

Karen 

Spooky!

I've been doing tons of Christmas cards lately, and since tomorrow is Halloween, I thought I'd get in the spirit of the current season!  So, I'm joining in CASology today where the Cue Card is Ghost, and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes!.


                                                   


I started off by cutting a mask for the ghost shape (hopefully it doesn't just look like a blob!) and placing it on my watercolor paper.  Then I inked up the rest of the paper with my VersaMark ink pad.  I removed the mask and dried the clear ink with my heat tool.  Then I blended some distress inks over the whole thing then took a wet brush and brushed over the ink to smooth it out and give it a more watercolored look.  You can keep adding ink with your brush until you are happy with the look.  Then I used the reverse mask to cover the sky and sprayed a shimmer spray over my ghost figure.  I added a few stars (W&W)  and the sentiment on the banner (Lawn Fawn) embossed in classic pewter, then distressed the edges of everything.

The absorbtion difference is quite dramatic.  The same color coverage was applied to the whole paper but the Versamark just sucks in the color!  Here is a  different card I used the same technique with.

Thanks so much for looking!
Karen