Wednesday, November 26, 2014

th acorn nks

We celebrated Thanksgiving last Sunday since there is no Thanksgiving holiday in Germany. But for about 20 years we've been cooking the dinner and enjoying it with friends who either are American or who have spent time in America so that they really "get" it. There were 12 of us this year and I'm still enjoying the leftovers :)

I'd like to take this chance to wish all my American blog buddies a wonderful Thanksgiving, filled with laughter and good eats. This one's for you.


Did some paper piecing with fall papers and one of my favorite MFT alpha dies. The papers are Simple Stories Harvest Lane. Substituted the acorn from Paper Smooches Falling for You for the "a". Kinda fun, eh?

Big hug to ya'll. Thanks for making me a happy blogger. And don't eat too much, at least not in one sitting ;)

I'm joining the fun at:
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Thanks
AAA Cards - Thanksgiving

Catered Crop - a great challenge that is closing its doors with an Anything Goes






pti november blog hop

It's the 25th of the month and it's time.


This month it's all about snow so this is what I did. I must tell you, I spent awhile at Tracey M.'s today, perusing all the tags she and her guests have made for her series 25 Tags of Christmas. My tag is a morph of several beauties I saw over there.


Used the Snowflake Flurries from PTI heat embossed with glitter powder to give the ornament some pep. Die cut a window to create a shaker which I filled with a medley of glittery sequins and backed with some PP.  Created an ornament topper with silver glitter CS and added fuzzy silver thread through a punched hole on the back layer to hang it with.

TIP: Instead of messing with foam adhesive, die cut a "frame" from craft foam and use that between your layers. See the shadow of mine? It's red foam. I use Matte Medium to glue it all together.


A close-up of all that sparkly embossing. I'm joining the ladies at Festive Friday for challenge #45. And Fusion for Sparkly Christmas. Yep! And lastly, Uniko Studio where it's Anything Goes.

Happy hopping. Happy turkey eating. And may you have snow only if you're not travelling this weekend!



Tuesday, November 25, 2014

not quite leger

The adjective "leger" in German means casual. In fashion, casual and somewhat sloppy. As in, laying around the house in your sweats. Certainly not what Herve Leger had in mind with this:



If you zoom in, there's a golden sheen to the dress which made me grab my shimmer CS from DCWV. I stamped some Inkadinkado mistletoe on it and then added some bling in a nod to the pink and orange on the rest of the dress.


Then I framed the stamped piece with black CS and heat embossed some beaded corners with gold in a nod to the studs running along all the panels of the dress. A WMS sentiment from Festive Foliage finished it off.


I'm also joining the gals at Time Out where #19 is about Embossing with the optional element of sparkle. Got both! Thanks for looking.

Monday, November 24, 2014

STAMPlorations sketch #24

Time for the last STAMPlorations sketch of 2014. Crazy eh?


A sketch so much to my liking, I used it for a card I made for a multi-ink stamping submission call. It wasn't accepted. Turns out no cards were. Paper Crafts and Scrapbooking magazine is closing its doors. Bummer. Tangent.


Aren't these Trendy Leaves fabby? I inked them with Distress and Adirondack inks. Spritzed with some water. Stamped them a second time, just inking the edges of the stamps with a darker shade of ink. So much fun.

Added a sentiment from Holiday Artsy cuz I thought they looked like the last leaves of autumn. Kinda sad. And added one dew drop (Glossy Accents) to the red leaf.

The challenge will be open until December 28th. As always there are prizes to be had. You can even enter three times. Julie B. is joining us as guest designer. Check out her card and those from the DT. Join us if you have a moment.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

krafty Christmas part 2

Finally got my package off to Vera Y. for the Caring Hearts card drive. Do you know about it? Handmade cards to be distributed to people in nursing homes. I spent a lot of time in one when I was a kid, visiting my Grandma. Lotsa residents don't get many visitors. It must be rough at the holidays. If you live in the US or Canada you can probably still get your cards in before the deadline on November 28!

I played along with the Curtain Call challenge.


Here is one card.


Here is the whole family. So easy using the SSS Layered Tree which I die cut from five PPs, then assembled mixing and matching. Added a sentiment from STAMPlorations (sponsoring the Curtain Call challenge) Joyful and some twine.










I'm in trouble if the recipients can read German. The old book page is from some ten cent book about why women want to get married and men don't!

These krafty cards with tags are going to The Card Concept #23


Saturday, November 22, 2014

krafty Christmas part 1

I was totally inspired by the color schemes over at Make the Day Special recently.


Pulled out Paper Smooches Winter Groves, Warm Hearts and Christmas Sampler stamp sets and my Avery Elle Word Fill in the Blank and this is what happened.

First off, same design using the first and second color schemes.


Added the red glitter die cut letters to the sentiment and a silver shimmer star to the top of this one.


And some embossing paste stencilled Falling Snow to this one. So I'm hooking up at a new-to-me challenge (it's already #7) at Stempelkueche.

Next up, a card design using the first and third color schemes.



The first colored with markers, the second with colored pencils. Nothing fancy but a nod to the trend of grouping illustrated images.

I'm playing at:
AEIU challenge #18

The Card Concept #23

Thanks for looking. Enjoy your weekend wherever you may be. Sunday is Turkey Day in our neck of the woods. We'll be eating leftovers when you are eating your bird. Guten Appetit!



Friday, November 21, 2014

day 5 of STAMPlorations november release hop


Welcome to Day 5, the last day of the November Stamp Release Blog Hop here at STAMPlorations! For complete info on our hop, including how you can win stamps, click here.

Today, we're putting the spotlight on Trendy Leaves. Don't forget to leave comments for a chance to win the set.

stmp1080.jpeg

For my project I combined this set with Typografia: Encouragement. Cuz when I saw the sentiment I thought of "mighty oaks from little acorns grow". Amazes me every time I see that power burst forth from that little nut.  (Crazy squirrels bury these things all over my folks' property. I'm talkin' from experience here!) Tangent.

Meet my mighty-oak-in-training.


Too lazy to look for a line stamp, I painted a seedling stem with Gathered Twigs Distress Ink. Inked up the two oak leaves with Shabby Shutters . Then inked just the outer edges - left leaf with Peeled Paint, right with Hero Arts Field Greens -and spritzed with water before stamping. Splattered before heat embossing the sentiment with Liquid Platinum powder.

TIP: If you use an acrylic block to dab DI onto to paint with, use your water brush to flick the leftover as teensy splatters onto the card. Thanks for the tip, Julie Ebersole ;)


Look at that shine. Purty, isn't it? I love this embossing powder. Hope you've enjoyed our week of hopping. The entire release is 15% off until November 25th. Just sayin' ;)

*** The stops in the hop*** 
Debra | Deepti | Kylie | Maria | Monika | Nonni | Shery | Shirley |Vicki