Christmas Deer

Greetings all! Welcome to my post for a few fun challenges:

I started with this darling die set from Sizzix called Christmas Deer (NBUS). It is a 10 piece set designed by Jen Long. I just loved these deer and made 3 sets for fun. This is the image from the package:

The colors for CTD#682 are orange, turquoise, green and kraft. I turned the sketch from FMS#525 sideways and added some gold washi tape on a piece of ink blended stencil background.

Here are all three cards made with the color and sketch in mind. I broke out my washi tape and used it on all 3 cards.

This one has a stamped background from my stash and washi tape from Wendy Vecchi Washi Tape Assortment #1:

This one has a mixed media background with embossing paste through a stencil:

I used the grey star washi tape on this card from the Sizzix Making Essential Assortment which as of this port is on sale for $2.00! I love these colors and plan to use the pink for some Easter Bunny Die Cuts. Just lay lines of the washi tape across a piece of cardstock and die cut. Works perfectly!

The sentiments come from 2 sets in my stash: Avery Elle Alpine Christmas and Memory Box Loving Deer. I recently sorted by stamps and dies by holiday/theme. It really is helping in creating cards.

Thank you for joining me today and thanks to the challenges for the inspiration!

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

I Miss Your Face - Covid Cards

Today I am playing along with 2 fun challenges: The Outlawz Monday Challenge: Anything Goes and of course, NBUS:

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I needed to make some COVID cards for my daughter's shop and wanted to use my Dare 2B Artzy Stamp & die called Bear Hugs. My NBUS! Isn't it just the cutest set?!! I made a total of 6 cards.

If you look at the masks below, the dies cut in between the ties which makes it so realistic.

And guess what?! Dare 2B Artzy is having a Black Friday sale going on now through Monday, November 30, 2020:

To start creating the cards, I die cut the bear images from Bristol Smooth card stock. I knew I wanted to use my Arteza Real Brush Pens and I thought Bristol Smooth would be a good sturdy choice. Once the bears were die cut, I could easily stamp 2 at a time by using the negative of the Bristol Smooth paper and inserting the bears stamps in where the die had cut. They nestle in like a puzzle. 

Once the stamps were all set I put 2 of the die cuts in the same negative space and stamped. 6 stampings to create 12 bears.

To color I used Arteza Real Brush Pens, but I really wanted to show you the new case I bought for my Arteza Real Brush Pens. I have the 96 piece set of pens, so I bought the 108 slot organizer. The pens slide in and out very easily. This is great for I have another manufacturer's alcohol marker case and it is so hard to get the markers in and out, I don't use it. I am very pleased with this set. I can bring the entire set to my little craft table I use while watching TV with the hubby. It lays flat to choose my colors. I have them in numerically for I've swatched all the colors by number. Great for travelling, but not doing much of that now!

Here is Arteza's online swatch for the Real Brush Pens:

Arteza is having a sale through the 30th too! 25% off $100 of more using the Promo Code: sweet.

I made 6 cards all together using patterned paper from my stash: Lawn Fawn, MFT and Pink Paislee.

Aren't they cute? All popped with foam squares from Fun Stampers Journey. I know this is a small issue, but these foam squares are so easy to use. They come off release paper so easily and the release paper on the top comes off like a breeze!

Well, thank you to the challenge hosts, the Outlawz Monday Challenge and NBUS.

I hope you are stay safe and "Air Hugs Until We Meet Again"!

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Art Impressions Doggy Kisses

Who doesn't love a card with a cute animal on it? For our family, dogs are the favorites! Our Rottweiler is named Caesar Salad, but we call him Squeeze. He looks nothing like this cutie! The inspiration for today's cards is from the following 2 challenges: Inspired By #IB139...give a dog a bone image & sketch challenge and...

My Time to Craft #439: Clean and Simple:

If you follow my blog you know that I have cleaned the top of my craft table and sorted all my colored bits and bobs into small bags. I have a bag of images from Art Impression's Doggy Kisses which had been colored with Kuretake Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers and cut out with my Brother Scan 'n Cut. I choose the Dachshund cutie for today's card:

The background was made by using Prima Finnabar Elementals Stencil to mimic the circles on the sketch challenge. After adhering the stencil over an A2 size piece of Neenah White card stock, using my Wendy Vecchi Make Art-Stay-tion, I gently ink blended Altenew's Silver Lake Crisp Dye Ink from dark to light over just some of the card. As usual, I used Scrapbook.com's Foam Ink Blending Tools. They are domed and work perfectly for smooth ink blending. Once saturated, they work even better! They come in multiple sized packages and I keep a supply of clean domes on hand at all times. 

You can see the dark to light ink blending better here:

The border was created with Spellbinders Nestabilities Hemstitch Rectangle Dies - one of my all time favorites! It leaves a nice clean border but gives a lot of interest.

I messed up the sentiment on the card, so Plan B called for a popped up sentiment. I ink blended the same Altenew's Silver Lake Crisp Dye Ink over a scrap of white and then stamped the sentiment and cut it out with a die from my stash. Happy accident, as they say. I like it better!

The card base is from WPlus9 Dove Grey card stock. This is a pale grey with the perfect weight for a base, easy to score and fold with the right amount of contrast against white for a very Clean and Simple card. 

I hope you've enjoyed our little Dachshund card. I've left the inside sentiment off until I need to use the card and can personalize it to the situation. One of the many benefits of being a card maker. Thank you to the 2 challenge blogs for the inspiration today!

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

MFT Sketch Challenge 504 Slimline Birthday

Hi crafty friends! Ready for another Wednesday Sketch Challenge from My Favorite Things? #504:

I am also playing along with Cupcake Inspiration Challenge for their 500th Challenge: Birthday Celebration! Wow, 500...that's a lot!

Also, another NBUS (I am starting to get worried...am I a stamping hoarder?)!

I started with MFT's Celebrate Speech Bubble, new to me, but unfortunately retired from MFT (I did find it on FranticStamper.com). 

Last weekend I cleaned up my desk area. I usually color all the images from a  stamp set at one time and have lots of images left over. I was keeping them in random little cups, but the walls started to close in on me! Umm...I thought if I put them in little plastic bags, they would take up so much less room, and they do! Also, I now know what I have. Now my goal is to try and use up all the bits and bobs in the bags! We'll see how that works out. 

I thought in lieu of the flag shown in the sketch, the speech bubble would be perfect. The stripes underneath are from MFT's card stock, Lemon Chiffon, Pineapple and Orange Zest, which matched my little "Sweater Weather" tiger guy perfectly (he was from my bags of colored images - Yah!). I had colored him on Ranger's Inkssentials Water Color Paper (love this paper!) with Derwent Inktense Water Color Pencils. Can you see how vibrant these watercolor pencils stay? They don't fade back.

In order for everything to fit in proportion, I made a portrait styled slim-line card. I used MFT's Cement Grey card stock and created a stitched border using Trinity Stamps Slimline Series: Stitched Frames:

The sentiment, from MFT's You WOW Me set (also retired from MFT, but available from Amazon), was white heat embossed on MFT's Orange Zest card stock. I used Honey Bee's Sentiment Banners die cut to cut out the sentiment. I have the hardest time cutting sentiments straight either by hand or my cutter. I much prefer to use sentiment banners and have several different sets in my stock. These particular ones have flag ends with a nice selection of sizes.

Both the sentiment and the little tiger were popped up with 3M foam tape for some added dimension.

Thank you for joining me today and thanks to the challengers: MFT's Weds. Sketch Challenge, Cupcake Inspiration Challenge and NBUS (Never Before Used Schtuff)!

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.