Basic Pomegranate Color Challenge

The color challenge for this week was to use Basic Gray (or any dark gray or Going Gray), Purely Pomegranate (or Rose Red) and Soft Sky (or Bashful Blue). I don't have Soft Sky, so I went with the alternative Bashful Blue.

Before Sunday, I probably wouldn't have paired Bashful Blue with Purely Pomegranate, but I just used those colors (along with Basic Black and Certainly Celery) on my featured stamper card for this week. I was surprised to be using them together again so soon and had quite a bit of trouble deciding what I wanted to do for this card. I designed a card in my head while I was at work Tuesday. When I started to work on the card late in the evening, it just was not working for me - let's just say the card looked tons better in my head than it did on paper. I had gotten home later than normal and had to bake a cake for my last cake decorating class this week, so I finally gave up on it and went on to other things. I think it might be missing something, but I can't for the life of me figure out what to change. I have to frost my cake tonight though, so it's staying the way it is!

My card base is a 4 1/4 x 11" piece of Basic Grey. To that, I added a 4 x 5 1/4" piece of Bashful Blue. I stamped the swirl from Priceless in the upper right corner in Bashful Blue. After I had assembled the whole card, I added the sentiment, from So Many Sayings, at the bottom in Basic Grey.

My focal image is from a CTMH set called Snow Business. I've had it forever - I think even back from when the company was called DOTS, but I'm not entirely sure. I stamped the snowman in Basic Grey and used a blender pen to color his hat and scarf with Purely Pomegranate. I then cut my cardstock so the image was at a little bit of an angle - just to add a little more interest to the image. I then added some doodling around the snowman, added some Vintage brads in the corners, and layered him on Basic Grey.

The middle strip was stamped with Snowflake Spot in Bashful Blue, 2nd generation Bashful Blue, Purely Pomegranate, and 2nd generation Basic Grey. It was layered on Basic Grey. The ribbon is one of my favorites - Purely Pomegranate double-stitched.

Recipe:
Stamps: Snowflake Spot, Priceless, Snow Business (CTMH)
Cardstock: Bashful Blue, Basic Grey, Whisper White
Ink: Bashful Blue, Basic Grey, Purely Pomegranate
Other: Purely Pomegranate Double-Stitched Ribbon, Vintage Brads

Snowflake Spot

I had the Snowflake Spot set out from working on my Christmas cards, so I played around a little bit and came up with these cards. Both use Blue Bayou and Basic Black for the snowflake background on Very Vanilla cardstock.

The card on the left has a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 mat of Basic Black for the back of the card. The Blue Bayou card opening is 3 3/4 x 10, scored at 5 and adhered to the Basic Black mat. The card on the right has a traditional fold.

The other details are pretty self-explanatory, so I won't bore you with a description of everything else.

Recipe:
Stamps: Snowflake Spot
Cardstock: Blue Bayou, Basic Black, Very Vanilla
Ink: Blue Bayou, Basic Black
Other: Basic Black Grosgrain, Vintage Brads
Punches: Scallop, 1 1/4 in Circle, 1 1/2 in Circle (non-SU!)

Christmas Cards

I normally have my Christmas cards at least halfway done by this point in the year, but I had such a hard time deciding what I wanted to do this year. I went back and forth a dozen times on which set I wanted to use. I got Snowflake Spot in my demo Starter Kit, but I also loved the Season of Joy and Merry & Bright sets from the Holiday mini. Anyway, I got the idea one day to combine Snowflake Spot with the swirl from Priceless and these are the cards I came up with. I am really happy with the result, and they haven't been too time consuming so far to put together.

Both cards use Blue Bayou as the card base. The River Rock piece on each is stamped with the swirl from Priceless in Whisper White and Merry Christmas in Blue Bayou from Holidays & Wishes. The snowflake images are from Snowflake Spot. The one on the left is the larger snowflake in the set and is stamped in Blue Bayou on Whisper White. This one was done with the Cracked Glass technique, but I don't plan to do that on all of them - just maybe a select few! The snowflake panel on the right was stamped with Blue Bayou, 2nd generation Blue Bayou, and Basic Black and then cut into sections. Both panels are layered on Basic Black.

Recipe:
Stamps: Snowflake Spot, Priceless, Holidays & Wishes
Cardstock: Blue Bayou, River Rock, Basic Black, Whisper White
Ink: Blue Bayou, Whisper White
Other: Basic Black Grosgrain, Blue Bayou Double-Stitched Ribbon
Techniques: Cracked Glass

Sketch Challenge - Christmas Card

I've really enjoyed doing the challenges on splitcoaststampers lately, so I decided I'd like to try to do at least a couple a week. It's definitely helping me stay out of a rut and try some new things. Today was another sketch challenge. Here's the layout and my interpretation.

I've been working on my Christmas cards, so I had those colors and stamp sets on my mind and decided to use them for this sketch as well. Hey - it gets me that much closer to having a stack of cards to send out come December!

For this card, and my other Christmas card layouts, I used a Blue Bayou card base. This one is stamped with linen on the base. The main panel is River Rock, stamped with the swirl from the Priceless set in Whisper White, and layered on Basic Black. The smaller focal image is stamped with the middle snowflake from Snowflake Spot in Blue Bayou, covered with Glassy Glaze for the Cracked Glass technique, and again, layered on Basic Black. The image was then layered over 2 lengths of Basic Black grosgrain.

Finally, I added the Merry Christmas sentiment from Holidays & Wishes.

Recipe:

Stamps: Priceless, Snowflake Spot, Holidays & Wishes

Cardstock: Blue Bayou, River Rock, Basic Black, Whisper White

Ink: Blue Bayou, Whisper White

Other: Basic Black Grosgrain, Vintage Brads

Technique: Cracked Glass

I should have a couple of samples of my Christmas cards to post soon. I'm doing about 80 cards this year, so I'm working on them assembly line style. I decided to do 2 layouts this year so I wouldn't get bored with just one (and my DH and I couldn't decide which one we liked better).

ETA: If you've never tried the Cracked Glass technique, here's a great tutorial.