Christmas in July

The Happy Little Stampers challenge this month is Christmas and Tree.  Luckily I made good on my promise to start my Christmas cards in July this year so I have a card to use for their challenge.  Okay, this is where I confess I started this card last year at a Stampin Up workshop.  Somehow it didn't look finished to me so I set it aside and just found it as I was cleaning. 

At the workshop we started with a stamp from the enduring Stampin Up Lovely As a Tree set.  We used the dryer sheet technique to make it a glittery snowy day (can you see it in the picture?) and a silver ribbon for embellishment.  To "finish" the card, I cut it down and layered the panel on green because I thought it needed to be grounded.  My friend Lola loaned me a vertical Happy Holidays; if it had been my own stamp, I would have unmounted it and used the Misti.  As it was, I used a positioner but still it was crooked.  I had to cut it off and went with this sentiment from Inkadinkado which is much easier to layer on.

Now can I start some other Christmas cards this month??
Thank you for stopping in.

Inependence Day

My belated greetings to my U.S. readers for Independence Day.  I signed in to post on my blog last week and picked up a virus. Yuck! I clicked 'yes' on a pop-up without thinking, and instantly knew that was not a good thing.  I have a good anti-virus program that stopped it from doing great damage and was able to retreat to an earlier point on my computer.  Whew. I was so discombobulated that I couldn't finish my post that night.  If that wasn't bad enough, another nasty old virus made its way into my throat so I spent most of the weekend in bed. But I am back in business now.

I made three versions of this card since I had only two 6x6 inch squares of the patterned paper.  One version that I gave to the Cardologists used a triangular piece of the patterned paper at the top with a diagonal strip of blue embossed paper.  In these two versions, I used up the scraps of the patterned paper.

The embossing folder used on the blue paper is by Darice; the sentiment is by Serendipity stamps purchased a while ago from a local store that has gone out of business:-(  Inside the card is a larger white star stamped with "Have a Star Spangled day!"  The stamp is by CC Stamps and purchased years ago at a stamp convention.

Because the nasty viruses threw me out of schedule, I missed entering these cards in the Retro Rubber challenge for the 4th of July.  Please check out the winners of that challenge now. I can enter these cards in the Pixie's Snippets Playground 184 challenge though since I used up my snippets of patterned paper on these designs.

Have a good day.

Ray of Sunshine

I am working on a couple projects this weekend - cards for Independence Day and Luminaries (bags) for next week's Cancer Walk.  Since I am not ready to post those I will show you the card we made Thursday night.  Jules got her new dies from Taylored Expressions and we decided to use the Ray of Sunshine die.  Our inspiration was on the Taylored Espression's blog found here. 

This is our version:

We sponged glossy paper for the background; glued on the yellow diecut rays rather than using them as a mask.  We cut and sponged some green patterned paper for hills leaving them rolling in the horizon.  The tree and a Stampin' Up "hello" are diecut in dark brown because all we see is the shadow of them as we are looking into the sun.

As the sun sets on another glorious day here, I will say good-night to my readers. 

Happy Fathers Day tomorrow.

Convention

I didn't post last weekend because Molly and I went to the Stamp Convention in West Springfield and this past weekend I went to a Stampin Up workshop. I am very behind in reading posts and leaving comments.  This card was started on Thursday and I must confess you are seeing my second attempt at watercoloring this image.  I still am not happy with the coloring, but wanting to finish a card before midnight, I decided to cut around the petals and pop them up, somewhat disguising the fact that I need practice with watercolors.

We haven't been to the Stamp Convention in a couple years for various reasons.  I was a little disappointed to see that it is down to only twenty eight vendors making it very crowded on Saturday.  I think next time I may only go on Sunday, a much more relaxed day.  My favorite find was the Peerless Watercolors sold by Technique Junkie. I have been wanting them for a while and I used them on today's card.  Best new product (to me at least) were the new StazOn pads.   They are smaller and the lids click on.  I used Cloudy Sky to stamp the Artful Stamper (Stamp On It) image on watercolor paper.

I die cut the pink layer and the watercolored piece the same size, then cut down the one on the inside line by hand. A line of washi tape and some brown leaves on an embossed olive layer to keep it from being too centered; a butterfly and some gold dew drops to embellish; all mounted on a white card.

No time to find a challenge to enter....you were kind enough to visit anyway.... thank you for stopping by.

Merci

Exciting news today; I was promoted to supervisor in my unit at the Post Office.  I don't know whether to be happy or scared because this is a step in another direction.  I had been a Union officer for sixteen years, but now am crossing the line to the other side.

Talk about a step in another direction, this card is not my usual fare either. Compared to the card I made a few days ago found here, it is a bit grungy.  Lola die-cut this Eiffel tower in white for me that I didn't use on for my earlier card. 

Once I distress inked it - sort of old, rusty metal, I drew criss-cross lines by hand.  Then I found this gold patterned paper to use for the bottom half of the card.  The top part is a cream paper stamped with the SU French word background in Creamy Caramel.  The leaves overhanging are the stamp from  SU Thoughts & Prayers again stamped with Mellow Moss. 

The skunk, are you thinking Pepe le Pew, was probably the first stamp I purchased years ago from Dots (Close to My Heart).  The birds are a NBUS die by Memory Box that I received as a gift recently.  The sentiment is another gift and from the Hero Arts Paris set.  A few well-placed black gems finished the card.  All is mounted on a Mellow Moss card with black trim.

I am linking this at the Paper Players Tic-Tac-Toe challenge 247 since I have the bottom line: die-cut, pattern paper, and shade of yellow (gold).  There is a little blue and a tiny flower, too.

A warm welcome to my thirteenth follower, Therese.  Thank you for visiting... or "merci de m'avoir rendu visite".