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It's that time of year ... the super-fun Coffee Lovers Blog Hop. Amy T works her coffee-lovin' buns off to bring us this amazing sharing of coffee-themed card designs.
I'm sharing some lovely Alexandra Renke Treats images ... I prefer a mug of hot cocoa for my warm morning drink ... especially if there are marshmallows involved.
The 12x12 sheet of Treats images provided inspiration for lots of card designs ... this mug added some fun holiday peppermint too.
I hope you'll come join the fun.
We've finished our year of taking back December one holiday card at a time at Jingle Belles. I love that most of my holiday cards are done & already in the hands of the recipients. Lauren & I genuinely have so much fun creating together all year.
I need 50+ cards for co-workers, so Jingle Belles makes sure each one gets something unique.
That's a whole lotta Christmas ... love it.
Don't worry ... we're already making plans for our 9th year in 2019 ... hope you'll make plans to join us (so you never have to put away those holiday stamps & papers)
Another week of blogland adventures:
Have a tremendous Thursday!
The current challenge at Impression Obsession is to create with Autumn Colors. Since I needed to re-stock my wedding card stash, I went with my favorite die ... the Heart Couple. I die cut it from a lovely rusty orange.
I mounted the die cut on a piece of watercolor sprayed with gorgeous Technique Junkies Shimmering Bliss Sprays and finished with a sentiment from Impression Obsession Kind Words.
I'm also excited about my new No-Tie Apron from StylinStitchesShop ... so comfy and such fun colors (mine is an XL for reference ... I wanted it loose).
The Challenge theme at Shopping Our Stash is to make a card inspired by a Food or Beverage Label. Hunting for my inspiration took me back to the years of hosting the Inspiration Challenge at SplitcoastStampers ... during that time, I looked at everything I saw as a potential item to inspire a card design. I loved looking at the world that way ... and it was fun to revisit that frame of reference for this challenge.
I chose this package of honey candies in my pantry as my inspiration.
I started with the Cuttlebug Honeycomb background embossed on light blue cardstock ... then I made it *spongeworthy* for the TGIF Challenges (I have often used that Seinfeld reference to items that I love that have been discontinued) ... by sponging on a slightly darker blue ink to bring out the texture of the design.
Next I went searching for a bumble bee ... but settled on a butterfly from Concord & 9th Floral & Flutter that I die cut from gold glitter cardstock (to incorporate the golden crown on the bee).
Then I added a champagne pearl flourish to bring out the bee flying pattern that was on the packaging. Finally I incorporated the dark chocolate brown and added a AlteNew Wings of Hope Sentiment to finish my design.
Here they are side-by-side to see the inspiration.
The Retro Rubber Challenge is celebrating its 100th Challenge with a little Tic-Tac-Toe inspiration.
I pulled out two old favorites from A Muse Rubber Stamps (dating back to at least 2006 when I first have record of using the Happy Birthday Sentiment and was taking pictures on my lovely shag carpet ... gotta love those vintage pictures too).
I used the vertical elements on the right side - Metallics (Copper Glitter Cardstock & Copper pen on the candle flames); Die Cut or Punch (I went old school with two vintage punches for my circle & scalloped circle); and Cake (because ... birthday).
The layout is this week's Freshly Made Sketch. The stripes are a recycled paper bag that came with one of my recent stamp orders (The Ink Road I believe).
The challenge at AAA Cards is to create a Mostly White Design.
Normally I would go straight for the snowflakes, but since the challenge is sponsored by STAMPlorations, I reached into my STAMPlorations stamp stash and chose Becca Cruger's Reindeer Games set.
Taking a page from the Lauren Bergold playbook, when you're creating with lots of white ... make sure you add lots of textures. I embossed white cardstock with Taylored Expressions Nordic Holiday & Plaid before trimming into strips to use with the Sketch from The Paper Players.
I finished by creating my own Mistle-DOE with a few punched branches and some white pearls hanging from a gold star ... and adding a tiny bit of color to his hooves & hat.
I also took some inspiration from the {PIN}Spirational Challenge Photo with all that white and a little pop of color.
Today I'm joining in the November Papertrey Ink Blog Hop to create a project inspired by this photograph.
I have a fair number of PaperTrey Ink Stamps, but always, none for Christmas ... so since Christmas is the celebration of a birthday, I made a birthday card inspired by the photo.
To pull in the stripes of the ribbon & the candy canes, I embossed Red Cardstock with PaperTrey Ink Picnic Plaid Impression Plate. I loved the pop of blue ribbon in the photograph, so I added my own ribbon wrap before finishing with a sentiment from PaperTrey Ink Stylish Sentiments: Birthday.
The round 365 is reminiscent of the round suckers in the inspiration photo as well.
Tonight I was packing-up supplies for our annual work outing where we make Christmas Cards to deliver to local nursing homes. I usually provide most of the supplies from my stash, and enjoy spending time with many people who have never made a card before.
I always pack lots of washi tape, since it is forgiving and easy for a first-time cardmaker to use. As I was packing, I decided to take a break and make a few washi cards of my own with my selection of holiday tapes.
I took my inspiration from Rhodé's lovely card at the CAS on Friday Challenge. I didn't have a curved die with stitching on both sides, so I had to get creative and do two cuts while flipping the paper to frame my washi middle (this one is from Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside Borders)
I started by applying rows of Washi Tape to a scrap of white cardstock.
I cut my cardstock into two pieces to make two more holiday cards.
The sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp Coolest Yulest.
These designs are great for masculine cards.
I'm also linking-up at Hiding in my Craft Room where they are celebrating Any Holiday!
I use feedly blog reader to browse hundreds of blogs each week (which is how I discovery my link love that I share). I have a folder where I save all of the card-making challenges I find, so I have a single place to go for inspiration ... and sometimes (like now) when I have a lot of challenge ideas saved, my brain tries to combine a bunch of them when I'm dreaming about potential ideas ... like it did with this card.
I started with the More Than Words Mini Challenge, which is to use the word SHINE in a design.
I went searching for stamps with SHINE and settled on a vintage wood-mounted stamp Inky Antics called Openings in Heaven that has one of my favorite Sympathy Sentiments (and one of my favorite fonts too).
As I thought about the subject of *STARS* shining, I decided that the CASUAL Friday's Challenge to Use Shades of Gold & the TIME OUT Challenge to use Black & White and 1 Color (that one color being gold) would also inspire my design.
The TIME OUT Challenge also had a twist to do a single layer design, so I decided to use Gold Metallic Ink and my A Colorful Life Star Stencil (remember code TJ10Stephanie gets you 10% off everything in the Technique Junkies store) with my sentiment ... only one problem ... I apparently put all my Metallic Inks together somewhere in my studio (for safe keeping ... who knows???) and I couldn't find a single ink pad. I did however find a pot of Brea Reese Matte Metallic Gold Texture Paste, so I moved on to plan B.
I wanted the texture of the paste to really shine through, so I used my finger to apply it in a rough coat.
I added a wrap of gold metallic thread to finish the design.
