Easy Christmas #5

Sorry I missed posting the last couple of days.  There were too many Halloween possibilities to attend with the little ones, so this got put on the back burner.  I do have another easy Christmas card to share with you today though.  Hope you're enjoying these quick ideas for multiple cards in a hurry.  Have you gotten started on your cards yet??  If not, I might have an idea that will fit the bill for you.  Keep checking back with me to see what's new.

 Stamps:  Joyful Christmas, and More Merry Messages(ret)
Ink: Pink Pirouette, Strawberry Slush, Pistachio Pudding, and VersaMark
Paper:  Pink Pirouette, Strawberry Slush, and Whisper White
Accessories:  Heat Tool, Winter White Embossing Powder,  Rhinestone Basic Jewels, Sponge Daubers, and Dimensionals

This card doesn't look like it should be included in a quick and easy Christmas card collection, but I think it's much easier to make than it looks.  Instead of trying to watercolor the poinsettia and leaves, I just sponged color on over the embossing.  So quick and you can get such a delicate color too!

I will admit that cutting out the embossed images will take some time, but I do things like that while watching all those Christmas specials on the Hallmark Channel.  In fact, those movies are starting up soon, so I need to get some busy work ready to take advantage of that time!!

I chose to use a retired sentiment on this card because the font looked like it should go with this card.  I hang on to all my retired sentiments, 'cuz you never know when you're going to need just that special one to fit your card.

Thanks for checking back with me today.  Hope you like these ideas I've been sharing with you and this one in particular.  I think it's one of the prettiest cards in the batch.  Come on back for more ideas throughout the next week or so.  And be sure to leave a comment!              Sharon

Easy Christmas #4

Welcome to my series of quick and easy Christmas cards.  Today is a quiet Sunday afternoon and I'm just enjoying all the peace and quiet around the house.  No little grandsons running, jumping around, and playing extra loud in the background.  I love the little guys, but yes, I'm enjoying the quiet today.   Today's card is very clean and simple and super-duper fast to create.  Just a couple of layers, a few rhinestones and you're done.  Can't get much simpler than that. 

Stamps:  Christmas Star, and Greetings of the Season
Ink:  Cherry Cobbler and Gold Encore
Paper:  Very Vanilla and Cherry Cobbler
Accessories:   Rhinestone Basic Jewels

Didn't I tell you this was a simple card?  It could easily be embossed with gold if desired, but I wanted the look of a softer golden color.  I also debated about using pearls for a softer look, but liked the rhinestones on the finished card better.  The only thing I might change is the center rhinestone.  I think I might like a dark red one there instead.  I'll have to see about finding a dark red Sharpie marker to do that.

Ok, that's it for today's post.  I'm going to settle down with my Nook and just chill for the rest of the afternoon.  I've got to recharge my energy for when the grandsons show up tomorrow morning ready to go full speed ahead!  Enjoy your Sunday - or whatever day it is when you get around to reading this post!  Sharon

Quick Christmas #3

Ok, back again with another fast and fabulous Christmas card for you.  I love the new stamp set called O Holy Night.  It gives the whole Christmas story in just a few words and no images.  Quite different from the usual stable scene depicting the Christmas story.  Anyway, here's my take on the 'greatest story ever told'!

Stamps:  O Holy Night, Festive Flurry, and Gorgeous Grunge
Ink:  Midnight Muse, and Whisper White Craft Ink
Paper:  Smoky Slate, Midnight Muse, and Silver Glitter Paper
Accessories:  Big Shot with Adorning Accents Edgelits, Whisper White 3/8" Taffeta Ribbon, Glue Dots, and Dimensionals

Whoever thought that Grunge would work on a Christmas card??  But it does make for a lovely smattering of snowflakes, doesn't it?

When I first made the card, I worried that it was all a little dark looking.  It was just what I had planned, but I started second guessing myself as usual.  But after looking at it awhile, I love the muted, night-time feel of the card and that's the way it's staying.  The fancy strip of silver glitter paper along the edge brightens it enough and makes it look festive instead of gloomy.   I debated about a silver ribbon instead of the white, but liked the softness of the taffeta ribbon for this card. 

There you have it.  Another card in the quick and easy Christmas card series I'm doing.  Please feel free to leave your comments and let me know how you like these ideas.  I love to hear what you have to say.  If you're interested in getting a head start on your Christmas cards and would like to get the materials for 10 of these cards all cut and ready to stamp and put together, just contact me and I'd be happy to give you the information on how you can get it all sent right to your door. 

Thanks for stopping in today.  Keep watching for more of these quick and easy Christmas card ideas.  I've got more up my sleeve for you!       Sharon

Christmas Card #2

Ok, today's card is the 2nd in my quick and easy Card Make-a-thon series.  Again if you're interested in making these cards yourself and you're not in the area, I'd be happy to sell you the cut cardstock and embellishments needed to make 10 cards at a reasonable price.   All you'd need would be the stamps, punches etc, and adhesive.  Contact me if you are interested.  OK, enough of the commercial, today I'm sharing a lovely card in navy and white.  That's always a beautiful and serene color combo, so it's perfect for Christmas cards in my humble opinions.  Here you go.....

Stamps:  Christmas Collectibles, and Joyful Christmas
Ink:  Night of Navy
Paper:  Whisper White, Night of Navy
Accessories:   Big Shot with Delicate Designs TIEF, Silver 1/8" Ribbon, Christmas Ornament Punch, and Dimensionals

In spite of being a simple card, I think it looks very elegant and is just the style of card I like to make for Christmas myself.  It has a crisp, clean look to it, but it's really not too plain.  Just my speed and easy enough to make multiples quickly when you're under a deadline to get all those cards in the mail!

I love the combo of navy and white with just a smidgeon of silver to fancy it up.  And I think the embossed lace across the card is the perfect touch.  Again, rhinestones, glitter, extra layers could all be added, but that's not my aim with this card.

Hope you're enjoying my quick and easy Christmas ideas so far.  Check in tomorrow for the next one in the series.  Happy stamping!      Sharon

Easy Christmas #1

Have you looked at the calendar lately?  Whew!  It's almost the end of October so the countdown to Christmas is ramping up already!   Along with my regular classes, I have a Christmas card make-a-thon coming up next month.  That means checking Pinterest, Stampin' Connection, blogs and lots of card ideas floating around in my head.  Totally overwhelming most of the time!  But that means I have ideas to share with you, right?  And that's always a good thing.  Here's my first card for the Christmas line-up...

 

Stamps:  Christmas Collectibles and Joyful Christmas
Ink:  Real Red, Old Olive, and Gold Encore
Paper:  Whisper White, Real Red cardstock, and Season of Style Designer Series Paper
Accessories:   Christmas Ornament Punch, 1/8" Real Red Taffeta Ribbon, Glue Dots, and Dimensionals


This was a quick and easy card to make.  Since it's one of the card choices for the card make-a-thon I'm hosting in November, it needs to be easily duplicated in multiples.   The most time consuming part of it was making the bows, and that can always be done ahead of time whenever there's some free time (whatever that is!!).

 

I like the skinny strip of  Real Red cardstock the gives the ornaments something to hang from in a manner of speaking.  I tried using Old Olive cardstock, but didn't like it as well. 

 

I also made a decision not to emboss the gold ornament to keep it quick and easy to make.  Granted there are several additions and embellishments that could be added to make it more stunning like more layers, embossing, rhinestones, etc., but I liked the clean look of this without a lot of other distractions.

 

That's it for the first quick and easy Christmas card idea I have for you.  Check back tomorrow for the next one in the series.  If you're interested in purchasing packets of 10 cards already cut and ready to stamp and put together, contact me and I'll be happy to give you the information.  Happy stamping today!      Sharon

A Little Plaid Thanksgiving

Boy, I sure don't know where the time has gone lately, but it's been slipping by really quickly!  I've been busy with some card making and planning ahead for classes.  There's always so many great ideas floating around out there, sometimes it almost gets overwhelming seeing them all.  But we can always stand to look at one more, right?  Today's card is a Thanksgiving flip card.  I'm enjoying using the two flip card Thinlits sets from Stampin' Up!  I just can't stay away from them.  Truthfully, they're too much fun not to use!!  Here's my latest sample...

Stamps:  Truly Grateful and Four You
Ink:  Pumpkin Pie and Chocolate Chip pads with Chocolate Chip marker
Paper:  Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Chip, and Very Vanilla cardstock, and Sweater Weather Designer Series Paper
Accessories:  Big Shot with Label Card Thinlits, Labels Collection Framelits, Sponge Daubers, and Natural Trim Ribbon

I just love how easy it is to make these flip cards!   And if you have the Labels Collection Framelits, you can die-cut the smaller label and it matches up perfectly. 

The plaid DSP was attached to the cardstock before it was cut - easy peasy!  The skinny strip of the herringbone DSP was added at the last minute because it needed something on the left side of the card to balance with the right side.

I wanted to add something on the back of the flip to finish the 'thankful for...' on the front side.  I found the perfect match with the thankyou sentiment from the Four You stamp set.  I used the Chocolate Chip marker on just the 'you' part of the stamp and it was just what I was looking for.

Hope you  like this idea and it gives you some ideas of your own.  Thanks for stopping in.  Your comments are always welcome.   Have a great week.   Sharon

Bite Me Halloween

I mentioned how much I'm enjoying the clear Photopolymer stamps when using them, and today I have another example for you.  As soon as I saw the new 'Bite Me' set, I knew I 'needed' to get it!  It's just so dog-gone cute!!  So of course I had to sit down and use it as soon as possible, right?  I had the colors chosen and the layout settled on, but it didn't look quite finished.  So I checked to see what other people had done with it.  Imagine my surprise when I found something quite similar to mine already posted.  But she had used the spatter stamp along the bottom with the cardstock colors.  So I tried that with mine, and I love it!!  Here it is...

Stamps:  Bite Me Photopolymer set
Ink:  Stazon Jet Black, Pear Pizzazz, and Elegant Eggplant
Paper:  Pear Pizzazz, Elegant Eggplant, and Whisper White

I had thought of using the lines in the Gorgeous Grunge set along the bottom here, but I really like that the whole card is made with just one stamp set.  I'm lovin' using these photopolymer stamps.  You can see exactly where you're placing the stamp.  It was easy to get the long spider webbing to come down right next to the wording without being on top of it. 

And speaking about the words, there are 4 different sentiments in this set!  WooHoo!  I know I'm always looking for a sentiment to fit on a card and this set has four really cute ones!  Sure makes me happy.

Had the 2nd class this afternoon.  Only one more class this week and that's tomorrow night.  This always seems like such a long week for me, but I love spending time with my friends and sharing what I love about Stampin' Up!  That's it for today.  Thanks for stopping in again today.  I'd love to hear what you think of my stamping ideas.  Please leave me a comment if you've got time.     Sharon

Hot Cider

One of the things I love about autumn is getting out to a cider mill and getting some fresh cider and a hot donut.  Didn't have a donut stamp, so today we have to just settle for the hot cider instead.  Such a hardship! lol  This card is my first attempt at using 2 new stamp sets.  At least they're new to me.  I thought the 'Perfect Blend' would be right up my alley because I love my coffees and Chai teas.  But since it is this time of year, we're changing things up a bit and going with hot cider.

Stamps:  Perfect Blend, Teeny Tiny Wishes, and Designer Typeset Photopolymer Stamp
Ink:  Soft Suede
Paper:  Soft Suede, Pumpkin Pie, Crumb Cake, and Very Vanilla cardstock, Sweater Weather Designer Series Paper
Accessories:   Big Shot with Houndstooth TIEF, Large Oval Punch, Modern Label Punch, Brights Candy Dots, Sponge quarter, and Dimensionals

I chose my colors to go with the season.  All the warm Pumpkin Pie and Soft Suede are perfect at this time of year.  And you know the Sweater Weather DSP prints are all fabulous!  The Houndstooth embossing folder was chosen to mimic the DSP print.  I sponged all of the pieces with Soft Suede ink to keep it more like the cider color as well.

This is the first time for using my Designer Typeset stamps.  These photopolymer stamps are wonderful and easy to work with.  The lettering was small enough for me to stamp cider on the cup sleeve.  I just lined up all the letters on the block and stamped them all at once.  It's great being able to do it all at once instead of trying to line each letter up while stamping.

Hope you liked this idea.  You really need to try the Photopolymer stamps if you haven't yet.  Really cool and easy to use.  That's it for today.  This is class week here, so my ladies will be busy making cards tonight. 3 Christmas and a Thanksgiving flip card.  Think they'll love them and I'll be sharing them with you very soon.  Thanks for stopping here to see what's new in my stamping world.  Sharon

Festive Flurry Snowflakes

Have you used the Festive Flurry snowflakes and the coordinating Framelits and Designer Paper that Stampin' Up! has in the Holliday Catalog?  If not, you really don't know what you are missing out on!  I love how it all comes together and you really don't have to fret about what will go with what else at all.  Just grab those few items and sit down to stamp.  I guarantee you'll come up with something lovely!  Here's one of the first cards I made using just some of the coordinating items.

Stamps:  Festive Flurry
Ink:  Pool Party and Smoky Slate
Paper:  Pool Party, Whisper White cardstock with Winter Frost Specialty DSP
Accessories:   Big Shot, Northern Flurry TIEF, Magnetic Platform, Festive Flurry Framelits Die, Rhinestone Basic Jewels, and Dimensionals

I  love the pretty, soft colors for this Christmas card.  Definitely not traditional at all, but quite lovely just the same.  I used two sizes of snowflake stamps to layer up and give more dimension to the card.  The rhinestones were added to the center of the snowflake and the center of each of the embossed snowflakes too.

Two small strips of the Winter Frost DSP worked out to balance the card.  Actually the strips are the same paper, just different sides showing.

This is a really quick card to make multiples for sending out at Christmas.  At this time of year, I'm always looking for a card that looks a lot more involved than it really is - and this card really fits that criteria.  Hope you like this idea.  I got on a roll making other cards with these same components and colors.  I'm not tired of them yet.  I hope you'll like to see more of these colors and snowflakes together too.

Happy stamping - Sharon

Falling Leaves Wreath

Today I have something to share with you that definitely isn't a card.  The idea started out last year and I started die-cutting some leaves for it.  Then I set it aside for a few months - well, more like 10 or 11 months!  Nothing like getting to it right away!!   But some friends and I were talking about it and decided to make them together.  So last week, there were 9 of us here rustling around in about a billion leaves.  At least that's what it seemed like.  No two wreaths ended up the same because everyone chose to bring whatever cardstock or DSP fit their needs.  Here's what I did for mine...

Stamps: Wonderfall
Ink:  Cherry Cobbler, Always Artichoke, Pumpkin Pie, Soft Suede, Old Olive, and (ret)Baja Breeze
Paper:  Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie, Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive, River Rock, Crumb Cake, Chocolate Chip, (ret)Baja Breeze, and 2 ret DPS sheets - don't know the name
Accessories: Big Shot, Autumn Accents Bigz Die, Dimensionals
Other:   Corrugator(ret), Baja Breeze 1" Stitched Ribbon(ret), Hot Glue Gun, heavy jute twine, and 12x12 heavy cardboard from Specialty DSP packs

It was fun to see what everyone brought to work on.  There were so many colors and types of papers and cardstock.  It looked like we could open a store with all the different papers lying around!  And everyone was willing to share whatever treasures they had brought with them.  That's why I have several leaves made from a glittery, bronzy-brown corrugated cardstock that is gorgeous! 

I have some blues in my kitchen, so I added the Baja Breeze leaves to give it a touch of blue.  I thought it really made a wonderful contrast to all the earth-tone colors.  Some of the ladies used different embossing folders to give some texture while I went with an old corrugator I had from years earlier.  All in all, this was a great evening and we were all inspired from working together.  What fun!  Why not try something like this with a couple of your friends?  There's no right or wrong colors or designs with this, so you can't go wrong.  Have fun bringing the fall colors into your house - Sharon