Sunday, November 15, 2009

Christmas with Fred She Said Flower

Splitcoast Stampers had Virtual Stamp night this weekend. The theme for the Virtual Stamp night has centered around a Masquerade ball. When I think about this theme, I reflect upon the fashions worn for a Masquerade ball and the beautiful gowns and jewelry. So I created this with that in mind.

The challenge was to create a card other than a 4-1/4" x 5-1/2". My card is 6 x 6. I used the beautiful Red Chrismas Flower digi from Fred She Said along with this beautiful paper pricking pattern from Fred She Said. I just love Tracey's digi images. They are so easy to work with and just delightful to add bling too!!!Here you can see I have three layers on the Christmas flower. I used gold glass beads for the center and stickled around all the edges. Gold stickles were used around the pin pricking.
This is a look at the inside of the card. I used a whole sheet of the Christmas flower to do this card. You see the one on the top left has two layers and the bottom right is one layer. I distress inked in gold. The lace is the new Martha Stewart punch.
I hope you have enjoyed viewing my card today and have found some inspiration for your own Holiday Card Crafting. This is a quick and easy project and one I know you will enjoy. Thanks for stopping by. If you have the time, please let me know what you think. Your comments mean so much to me and really make my day.

Carol

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Poinsettia Christmas Wishes

This is a card I made with a PSX Poinsettia stamp that I got at a yard sale some time ago. I just love the bright vibrant colors of that very pretty Christmas Flower. The center of the poinsettia has gold seed beads that I glued in the middle.Here is a nice close up of the poinsettia. I stamped them three times with gold embossing powder and water colored them with Rangers Distress Fired Brick Distress Ink. Then I went over the top of the flowers and the leaves with glitter pens. IRL the poinsettia are glistening. I distressed the edges of the scalloped nesties and this Spellbinders Fancy Tag with Versamark's Brilliance Gold Galaxy ink. The sentiment was gold embossed. I used the new Martha Stewart doily lace trim punch. (I really like that one-and see myself using it a lot...good investment)
This is the inside of my card. I made the holly with Martha Stewart's branch punch. I highlighted the center of all the pretty flowers in the lace with red rhinestones.


One last look at the whole card. I stamped the corner of my envelop with the stamp and water-colored and glittered to match the main image. I hope you enjoyed viewing my card as much as I enjoyed making it. I love Christmas and will be making lots of Christmas cards. I hope you get some inspiration and create some poinsettia of your own!

Carol

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge #27

Welcome to week number #27 of the Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge. Last week while visiting your blogs, I saw some very creative and inspiring ways you created the fan element on last weeks sketch. Here is this weeks sketch:
When I chose this image from Michelle Perkett, our sponsor for this week, there is one phrase that kept going through my head and I just couldn't shake it. When looking at this image called "Autumn", I kept thinking of "Fruit of the Spirit". I wrote a poem to place inside this card about the "Fruit of the Spirit".
I printed three images and layered them on the square scallop nestabilities. I used Plaid's Antique Liquid Embossing Glass Finish on the image. I colored this with pencils and blended. My flowers are hand crocheted from my own pattern and embellished with a pearl brad. I used some shiny glitter leaves and rhinestones for the corner.Here is a nice close up of the details of the layering and the embellishments used on this wonderful card. I actually dyed these flowers in Rangers re-inkers-they were crocheted with white crochet thread. The image was lots of fun to color. I used a combination of red, brown, and gold for her hair. I love red hair and most times your will find my girl images with red hair. Here is the poem I wrote to correspond with this card. What a way to take your cards to another level. I encourage you to give it a try. Be inspired by your images and see where your creativity will take you!
Here is another picture of the entire inside of the card. The left side is blank for a personal note and salutation. Would you like the crochet pattern for these little flowers?


Congratulations to our Midnight Madness Award winners this week:
Every week it gets harder and harder to pick a winner. We narrowed it down to these great card crafters:

Our Gold Star Award Winner this week is:
1. Grace N.

Our Remarkables Winners this week are:
9. Super Nan
16. Connie M.



A big thanks goes out to this week's sponsor Michelle Perkett. I used her wonderful image Autumn. Please check out all of her wonderful digi images, I am sure you will find lots of wonderful images to spark your creativity.

Michelle is giving away my 8 1/2 x 11 digi page called, "Christmas Delights" and 6 of her "Winter" greeting cards.



Michelle's Scrapbooking & More is a Monthly Bonus Prize Sponsor for the month of November. Please be sure to check out the Midnight Madness Blog for the huge list of goodies in this wonderful prize. Thank you so much Michelle!!
Thanks everyone. I hope you all have a great week. Some of you may have Wednesday (Hump Day) off for Veteran's Day. Be sure to "Thank" a military person in your community for their service to our Country. It will surely make their day. I'll be around visiting your blogs!!!

Carol

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

3D Pumpkin-Scalloped Spellbinder Tutorial

Hello everyone! As promised from the Midnight Madness Blog Hop, I am going to show you how to make these adorable pumpkins so that you can make them in time for Thanksgiving to have for your table place settings to impress your guest!For 1 (one) pumpkin you are going to need the following material.
1 sheet of your choice of orange card stock (1 sheet will yield 12 scallops-you need 11 scallops for 1 pumpkin
Scraps of brown and green cardstock for leaves and stem
1 scallop spellbinder nestie, I used the next size down from the largest- it measures approx. 3-1/2 inches end to end.
Distress Ink-I used tea dye
A small brush to apply distress ink
Some type of instrument to roll your cardstock- I have a piercing tool here, or a toothpick works well.
Any leaf punch from your collection (you can see mine has really been loved...LOL)
Paper trimmer
Glue Runner
Any kind of bottled glue
Optional-Cuttlebug embossing folderYou will need to cut your 12 x 12 orange card stock into four (4) - 3" strips.Run your cardstock through the cuttlebug with the scalloped die cut. You will run lengthwise and get three cuts per strip. Cut 11 scallops.
It is optional to emboss the pieces, it's up to you. For the blog hop pumpkin, I did not emboss. I left them plain. You can fit two per folder as shown here.I distress inked all the edges of my scallops (total of 11) with a brush. I like to have control of the ink so that is why I used the brush. It's just a matter of preference.Once you have your scallops distressed, you are going to fold all of these scallops in half. Make sure that they are truly in half. You are going to fold these with the raised embossing and the distress inking to the inside of the fold so that it will show in the end result to the outside.Now we are going to start to assemble all of these scallops!Run you tape at along the folded end and start putting your folded scallops one on to of the other. Be sure to use your tape on each one and line them up evenly.It should look like this once your get them all lined up together.Now take the top and the bottom and join together as seen above. Run some tape as close to the edge as possible and seal.You see it starting to take shape here nicely. Tape each of the 11 loose ends together.Here is another close up where you see I am taking my time to line them up nicely so that the scallops will match.Once you get all the loose petal attached we are going to flip the pumpkin to the bottom and cut out the middle scallop, this makes the bottom flat and will allow your pumpkin to stand straight.

Now we are going to make the stem, curly vines, and leaves. You are going to cut a piece of scrap brown approx. 1 inch by 3", wrap around your toothpick tightly, tape the end and secure the roll, place some glue on the end and push it down into the middle hole of your pumpkin and leave about 5/8" showing.Cut your scrap green cardstock about 1/4"-1/2" x 4" and roll on a toothpick.Take the end of each of the curly vine and glue one on either side of the stem.Cut out two leaves and glue opposite the vines on either end.And here is your end product. I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial. If you use my tutorial, I would love to see a picture of your pumpkin. I would be happy to come and visit you at your blog or the place where you pictures are hosted. Just leave me a comment on my blog at Chocolate Crafts and Bears Oh My and I will visit. Thank you all for all the wonderful comments regarding this little pumpkin from the blog hop, it was so nice to see how much you enjoyed it and I am happy to help you make your own!

Hugs,
Carol

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge #26

Hi everyone and welcome to another week of the Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge. Our sponsor for our weekly challenge for this week is Heather Ellis from Digi Stamp Characters who has provided us with wonderful images to use on our card this week.Here is my card using the design called "Pure Innocence". Isn't it just as sweet and adorable as it could be. I love working with digi's because I have control over the size of my image. What was a lot of fun for me this week is I got to try out "Fun Flock". I haven't used this before and I have attached it to the sweet little girls outfit and the Snowman's Hat. I love this stuff!!!You can see a better close up in the above picture of the fun flock and the glitter I used. I also took some liberties with the image and drew in the plaid on the scarves. I enjoying doing stuff like that!!This shows all the detail in my card. I stitched with my machine to get that snowflake border, I embossed the metallic paper with a snowflake embossing folder. The big snowflake is from spellbinders and the little snowflakes are a Martha Steward Punch.I put some glitter over all the snowflakes and put a rhinestone in the middle of all the small snowflakes.
This is the inside of my card. I went wild with the snowflakes....huh!!!! LOL I can't help it, I miss snowflakes....I haven't seen a for real snowflake in 20 years. Instead of putting Snowmen on our lawns for Christmas, we put Pink Flamingos with pink lights wearing Santa hats..ahahahhah...It's true..no lie.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our Monthly sponsor Michelle's Scrapbooking and More. Please check them out for all your scrapbooking and card making needs.The weekly sponsor for this week is Heather Ellis of Digi Stamp Characters. We would like to thank Heather for the beautiful images provided to us for this weeks challenge. Head on over to her Etsy shop and check out all the wonderful images she has to meet your needs. Thanks Heather, I enjoyed working with your digi's!

What a wonderful response to last weeks sketch challenge. I saw so many beautiful cards it was so hard to pick. You are all so talented and inspiring to me. I enjoy visiting you each week and seeing your creations. Congratulations to our winners. This week our winners are a follows:

Our Gold Star winner for last week is #58 Craftypagan

Our Remarkables:
#3 Karen Wallace
#9 Karen Lynn
#40 Pam 124

Thanks to everyone who participated. See you real soon!!!

Carol

Friday, October 30, 2009

Vintage Santa With Bear Christmas Card

Hi everyone. I haven't done a bear for a while...so you know me...I had to find something with a bear to do today. I was feeling "Vintage" and pulled out this image and went to town putting it together.This sketch comes from the Sketch Challenge at Split Coast Stampers from Wednesday's challenge. I really liked the looks of it and had to try it with this lovely card. I crocheted this Poinsettia from a pattern that I made today. You will find the pattern for this in the post below this one. Please let me know if you tried it, if you liked it, or if I had anything incorrect or confusing. This shows the details of my card. I used crystal effects on the image and lots of layering. A Fiskar sunburst border punch was used as well as a sizzx die for the corner treatments. I used seed beads for the center of the Poinsettia as well as a bit of gold stickles. This shows the inside of my card. I crocheted another flower to match the front. The sentiment has been gold embossed.Here's one last picture to show all the details and layers.

Hope you have a terrific day. I would love to hear what you think!

Carol