Simply Winter

Today's card won't be new to a few ladies since it was one of my December stamp a stack cards.  When I make my cards for December I want a card that they can send out for Christmas or for another occasion.  I made two of these cards and one was for Christmas and the other one a Thinking of You card.  It could be a birthday or just for you card too. :)  Well that's what today's mashup from Heidi at the Friday Mashup is all about...

Create a project with a "Winter theme". 

Create a project  with "Snowflakes". 

or Mash it Up! and create a "Winter project with Snowflakes".

In this pic I'm trying to show you that the top layer of the card is actually popped up to give the card some dimension.  Guess it's kind of hard to see even in this picture.

Here are both cards that I made.  Make sure you head over to the Friday Mashup HERE to check out the other great winter cards from the design team and make sure you take the time to play along too! :)

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

Supplies used on this card:

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Faux Leather Birthday Greetings

Happy New Year, Everyone!  I've spent the day spending my Christmas money on new shelving and cabinets in my stamping area and working with my hubby to put all of them together.  I can't wait to get everything moved around! :)   Even after all of that I managed to do the Faux Stamped Leather technique that Melissa B. showed us in a Splitcoast tutorial a couple of weeks ago.  As soon as I saw the technique I knew I would be making a card for my brother's birthday using that technique, and I'm a month early with his b-day card too...amazing! lol  I was also browsing through blog challenges last night that I follow and saw that it's Color Me's... 1st anniversary....congratulations to Tara and Haley and all that have been a part of their design team!!  I've only played along with them one time since I've started following them and decided it was time to play along again.  I checked out all the options I had since we can choose any one of their color combinations over the past year and went with Color Me...subtle which was challeng # 47.  I love these colors together and thought they would go great with the faux stamped leather technique since the colors were pretty close.  Here are a few pics of the card I made...

 

I'm trying to show a little more detail of what I did using the stylus.  Kind of looks like the card is shimmery in this pic, doesn't?  Well it's not!  Somehow I don't think my rock climbing, hunting, body man of a brother would want a sparkly card. lol

Thanks for looking and Happy New Year!

Sara

Supplies used on this card:

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Endless Thank You Wishes

Just a quick post with a bunch of little 3x3 cards today.  I used the Christmas set Endless Wishes, An Open Heart for the Thank You, and the Encore gold and silver ink pads to create this card.  Pretty simple to do. :)  Now on to the reason why I made these...every year my hubby gets gifts on his route from his customers, and we're so thankful for each and every one!  I'm not much of a writer, but I always want them to know how thankful we are that he was on their mind during the holidays. :)

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

Supplies used on this card:

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Merry Christmas!

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas today!  

I was asked by my dad to make a card for my mom since he likes to give her one every year.  Sure, no problem. :)  Since I was doing water coloring at the time I decided to give it a try again using the retired set Evergreen.  I really like how this one turned out. :)

And another pic from the side.

Thanks for looking and have a Merry Christmas!

Sara

Indescribable Gift

I finally got some new sets from the Occasions Catalog that is coming out on January 6 for Stampin' up and wanted to use all my stamps as soon as I could!  I had a few ideas going through my head, but I've only been able to make this one card so far.  Since my niece's birthday is so close to Christmas I've heard it through the grapevine that she would like cards that are NOT winter themed.  No problem this time around.  I chose to use the new set Indescribable Gift.  It reminds me of an apple tree in my back yard.  Every year I go out and take pics of the thousands of beautiful flowers that bloom on it.  Sometimes I stand under it and take a pic up into the sky.  The blue is just beautiful behind all the lovely flowers.  That's where the inspiration came for this card.  I figured why not add the sun in the background.  I know...it's not yellow, but on bright days like that when the sky is blue it tends to be pretty white. :)

I added this pic so you could see how the flowers shine.  That's from using a VersaMarker and embossing over all the flowers, leaves and branches so I could brayer the sky in the background.

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

Supplies used on this card:

VersaMarker

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Lovely as a Tree ~ Watercolor

So glad it's Friday today!  Anyone else?  :)  Today's card is for the Friday Mashup and I finally got around to doing a little water coloring because I've been wanting to do it for quite a while!  Before I go into that a little more, lets check out what our mashup from Holly is...

Create a project using the "Sketch". 

Create a "2 Layer card with a grungy element in the background". 

or Mash it Up! and create a project "using the sketch that's 2 layers only".

I have to admit I cheated a little on the two layer thing, but not because I wanted to!  I was lazy and didn't want to haul out my stamp-a-ma-jig and thought my stamp was on the block straight and it wasn't...err!!  So I had to cut a little sliver of paper and stamp on that and run it across the bottom of the card to cover up my crooked happy birthday.  

Ever since I saw a tutorial over on Splitcoast by Heather T. I've been wanting to try my hand at water coloring.  I've never tried it before other than watercolor wash.  Let me tell you Heather made it look SO easy!  Umm...it wasn't.  At least not for me! lol  She stamped her trees, then spritzed them with water.  When I did that they turned into a big green blob (kind of like the top left corner! lol).  She also added the blue after she stamped her trees.  Again that did NOT work for me!  I ended up doing the blue, letting it dry and then added the trees from Lovely as a Tree.  Then I used water and reinker to go over the tree and make it look like it was kind of water colored.  I certainly won't complain because in the end I like how it turned out for my first time water coloring a scene.  

Make sure you head over to the Friday Mashup HERE to check out all the other fun cards using this week's sketch and two-layered card challenge.

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

Supplies used on this card:

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Shimmering Endless Wishes

I've been so busy I totally forgot to post my card for 'Tis the Season!  I have to say in person this card is just beautiful, but what was I thinking trying to make a card that has heat embossing, the diamond dust technique and metallic silver and gold ink on it.  It was horrible trying to get a decent pic of this card!  From one angle the heat embossing would look great, but the metallic ink pad color would just disappear, or the metallic inks would look great and I couldn't see where I had done the diamond dust technique.  I survived the battle...barely! lol  

Today's card is for our last 'Tis the Season inspiration challenge before Christmas!  I hope you have your Christmas cards done and in the mail.  I do...barely! lol  As you can see I was inspired to use snowflakes and some shimmer and bling.  I didn't stamp the woodgrain on my card, but instead used my embossing folder since I wanted a white background.  Stop by 'Tis the Season's blog to check out all the other great Christmas cards using inspiration challenge #32 HERE

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I also played along with a sketch challenge.  I wasn't planning on it, but happened to be looking at some blogs I follow and loved what they had over at Hand Stamped Sentiments.  I must say this card went together pretty quickly, it was just the picture part that was so hard! 

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

Supplies used on this card:

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog