Kreativ Blogger Award

What fun today with this!  I got my first "blog award" today from my friend Jenny--Yay!  I have to, first of all, sat thank you to Jenny for the Nomination for this Kreativ Blogger Award.  Jenny has been a huge inspiration to me the last few months, she really has given me inspiration to take my blog and card making to the next level.  You can check out her blog here:  Playing is a Passion

And as I've been nominated, I get to participate in the fun activities, and nominate some other folks, more on that below.

One thing I get to do is share with you some interesting trivia about myself.  I had a hard time figuring out what you might be interested in, and here goes:

1.  I love farms and the countryside and seeing live animals like cows and chickens and lambs.
2. Chocolate and Shellfish are my favourite foods (but not combined!)
3. I enjoy having a garden full of pretty flowers to look at but don't like gardening itself (weeds, bugs, UGH!)
4. I would pick a library of books over a tv and cable any day
5. I was introduced to Cardmaking by my SIL via an invite to an SU party that I went to with a sense of obligation, sure I wasn't interested (That's the funniest thing, I think!)
6.  I'm willing to scrimp and save and do without on all kinds of day to day things so that I can have money for vacations and craft supplies.
7.  My day job (which pays for said day to day things as well as fun things) is uncreative and very rule based (Corporate Accounting).

So, does that give you a better picture of me?

Now on to Nominations (this is the tough part).

Crystal, Maryvel, Carla, Lesley, Susan, Christyne, Jenn

To those of you who I am nominating, you will want to follow these steps:

1. thank the person who nominated you.

2. copy the logo and place it on your blog.

3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.

4. name 7 things abut yourself that people might find interesting

5. nominate 7 kreativ bloggers

6. post links to the 7 blogs you nominate

7. leave a comment on each of the blogs, letting them know they have been nominated.

Couldn't resist...

Ok, ok, got errands and chores to do, but couldn't resist one more challenge card...obviously got my mojo today!

The sketch is another from Our Creative Corner, SASSC42.  The trees are all from a Gina K set, Tree Silhouettes, accented with white gel pen on the edges for snow.  I added flowersoft on the "ground" and stamped snowflakes over it all with white craft ink.

I didn't have any velum tags, so made my own by cutting a larger circle, dabbing it with silver ink, and then cutting out the centre with a smaller circle nestie, and then glueing the velum in the centre.

In real life, it's fabulous, looks like a snowy winter evening :-)

And another challenge

And here's a couple cards made for another challenge I came accross this weekend, at Squigglefly (Challenge 29),  to do a ROUND Christmas card in non-traditional colours.

Now, the question is, what is a non-traditional Christmas card colour now-adays?  I see cards in all colours, so this was hard to figure out.  I made one in beige/cream and black, and the other in cream/eggplant and black.

I was excited to get to play with one of my newest stamps, the SU Baroque Motifs (the swirly in the background).  The dove is a stamp from the bin at Micheals, and it's been covered in both cards with liquid pearls (wonderful stuff!).

Weekend challenges - what fun!

I've really been enjoying playing with the online challenges this past week, and here is a card where I managed to use three of them at once :-)

First of all, I used the sketch challenge from Our Creative Corner that they posted on Saturday--It's such a simple sketch, but how to make it unique or special was what really challenged me.

Then I remembered the challenge my online friend Christyne had set, on her website Handstamped from the Heart, to use something new you've been saving for that special time, and also to use those goodies that you usually think are too precious to use.  And I just happened to have some Tsukineko Platinum Shimmer Paint in my cupboard that was still in the plastic packaging.  In the spirit of this, I also dug out my precious velum paper, which I never use since I always "save it" for a special occasion.

Finally, I decided to follow a snowflake theme for the snowflake challenge at KL Stampin, and made my snowflakes using ideas from their tutorial.

What do you think?

Village Christmas - Again

If you've been following my blog you know I love this stamp, Village Christmas, part of the Thomas Kinkaid line of Cornish Heritage Farms.

Here is another fabulous card using this stamp:

I used an older sketch from CPS #92--I was quite excited to see they have a lot of their old sketches archived, and this one caught my eye right away.  The image is stamped with black Versafine onto glossy cardstock.  And let me tell you, it's a good idea to let the image dry before you try to use it!

I cut the cardstock and DP to match the sketch, and then I just glued it all together and added bling--a super fast and really sophisticated end result :-)

CPS Sketch 143

Here is a fun card I made with this weeks CPS sketch 143.  I used one of my fav House Mouse stamps, Swing Chime as the focus image.

There are tiny rhinestones in the centre of each snowflake and Crystal Effects on the surface of the bell, and the red ribbon is coloured with a red glittery Spica pen--in person this card glitters and catches the eye magnificently.  I found in my cupboard an old SU stamp of pine branches that coordinated nicely to go in the background, and used an ornament from my online friend Alica.

Mother and baby

This sweet Elizabeth Bell image is one I got in a swap, and it was so fun to colour--accenting the folds etc.  It's always good to have cards in the cupboard ready for life events, and when friends have new babies that's definitely a time to share a card.

Snowflake challenge

Today's card was inspired by a Snowflake challenge (including tutorial) at KL Stampin N Scrappin Blog. 

In person, the snowflake is amazing, and it was made following the tutorial at the KL Stampin site.  The image is an Ildi Co Snowpal, one of my favorites since it's so sweet and mushy, and how often to you find a stamp of two snowfolk kissing?!  I meant to save this card for my husband for Christmas and then wound up showing it to him, so guess I need to make another.  Maybe if I save it for valentines (it's often snowy then!) he won't remember it anymore.

American Thanksgiving

I've noticed more Thanksgiving cards in my online lurkings, the past few days, and realized that Thanksgiving is coming up in the US.  Here in Canada we had our Thanksgiving in October, but since I know a lot of the folks who visit my blog are from other places, I thought I'd post this in celebration for our Southern Neighbours.

The image is a Precious Moments one which I got in a swap at SCS a while back.  It's coloured with copics.  The Ribbon is old SU ribbon from my stash and I stamped the Chocolate chip paper with chocolate chip ink using a Flannel patterned background stamp.

This is, I think, my favourite Thanksgiving image in my stash.  I think the turkey is cute and the tattered tablecloth etc. remind us to be grateful of what we have and to think on how we can share with others.

One of my college instructors, I remember, taught us that equity is not equality, and sometimes what is fair is to do more for someone else or pitch in a bit more than others and due to your circumstances or situation that balances out to fairness.  It is an interesting concept that bears thinking on.

For those of you celebrating Thanksgiving, have a wonderful day with family and friends and lots of good food :-)

End of Autumn

When I was cleaning my craft space this weekend I came across a lot of half finished projects, scraps of DP and paper, and images that had been coloured but not used yet.  This card is completely made up of these things!  I was so proud to use them up and get such a nice card out of it.  Don't you love the spellbinders leaf?  This card has already gone in the post to a craft friend in the US as they are celebrating Thanksgiving.

Masculine birthday cards

It's always so much easier for me to make cards for girls - you pull out some flowers or cute little girls or other cute things and add some primas and glitter and ribbon and Presto!  you have a great card.  Not so simple for men!
That's what card swaps are good for....things that you find hard :-)  So I signed up for a card swap and came up with one idea that I made a bunch of:

The stamp used is a Gina K one called Tree Silhouettes.  I loved this set from the first time I saw a card with it in a gallery at SCS--when I look out my kitchen window I see trees like this and they are just so beautiful, and this artist rendering of the tree is really good.   I sponged the centre area with sahara sand ink (having masked the circle) and then keeping the mask on stamped the trees with mellow moss. The background is mellow moss paper embossed with my Cuttlebug and the mat is sahara sand.  To liven it up and keep it masculine I used black ribbon and brads.

So what do you think, will the men who receive these cards like them?