Hurricane Thank You card

 

Long story short, we had to mandatory evacuate from the island for hurricane Matthew and a friend of the family allowed us to stay in his vacation home on the mainland.  When I say vacation home, it conjures up images of a little cottage or condo.  This house is GORGEOUS!  Instead of a lifeboat, we stayed in a luxury cruise liner.  Our house didn't have any significant damage outside of some large limbs down, but our electricity was out for 3 days and we weren't allowed back across the causeways for 2.  We ended up spending all three days in his home which only lost power for a total of 3 minutes.  It was just incredibly generous of them to help us out because it was a 90 year old woman, my parents and my husband and I and 3 cats.  Finding hotel rooms at that time was near impossible and my grandmother wouldn't do well if we had to drive for 8 hours.

Anyway, there was nothing out there stampwise or sentiment wise for our particular situation so I made it up as I went along.  I fell in love with this card and while I will be doing something with the stamp set later today, this is the technique I used to make the spinner card: Kelly Marie Alvarez - Jump For Joy Card. I do not own the slide cuts die, so I kind of duplicated the idea in my Silhouette.  I found a random map and traced it in Silhouette and filled it with the Palm pattern from Summertime Designs (she no longer maintains a page).  I found a picture of a hurricane and traced it as well.  This was a fun card to make and I highly recommend heading over to see the technique used.

No Peeking!

I'm still not sure whether or not I like the overall card.  I did several versions but this one is my favorite.  I did have one that was shaped as a snowglobe, but it just didn't work with this stamp.  Anyway, the stamp is a front and back stamp from Art Impressions.  The paper is from Summertime Designs Believe paper pack and the acetate is actually some overhead projector slides I got from the thrift store and cut in my Silhouette. I used a plain sheet of cardstock for the front embossed with my Cuttlebug and the 'Swiss Dots' folder. I still have some of this beautiful glitter paper from Recollections i used for the snow portion of the globe.

Simple Snowflake

 

Here's another shameless rip-off card.  I saw this one on Pinterest from I'm in Haven when I was looking for different ways to use the Funky Snowflake Die from Simon Says Stamp.  I loved the idea of using the negative space with stripes.  It's hard to tell from the picture, but the dimensional stamps really add....well, dimension to the card.  I did not have a single striped paper that I like, but I played with this digital paper until I had the stripes the size I wanted.  The paper is from Summer Driggs 'Believe' paper pack (of course it is, I use it so much I may qualify as a stalker at this point). The sentiment was just printed on the paper before I cut it out using a font I have installed.

Victorian Carolers

 

I SHAMELESSLY ripped this card off of a Splitcoaststamper named GeneologyJody .  i absolutely fell in love with her card so much that I just had to not only get the die, but plan this as one of the projects for this year's Pinterest Party.  The die is Tim Holtz Victorian Carolers Die.  I just used plain black card stock but both sides of the paper are black so i can put the carolers either way.  I looked at the sentiment on her card and copied it (sort of ) on my Silhouette.  I like how it turned out and proud I actually did that part from scratch using her card as a guide.  The Holly cut outs are graphics of vintage holly, run through my Silhouette and the Deck the Halls you may remember from a project last year, Children's Choir.  The paper is from  .

Summer Driggs Designs 'Believe'(One of my favorite paper packs of all times and 100% better because it's free!).Overall, I am very pleased with how it turned out. thank you Geneology Jody for putting your design out there.  I truly hope that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Have your Elf a very merry Christmas!

Technically, this little guy isn't an elf.  He is a Swedish pixie, one of the Nøël desTømtes.  There are a bunch of illustrations to be used as coloring pages here and here.  I, of course, have used him as a stamp.  There are many more so I will probably be doing several cards with him as the star.  I used the 'Believe' papers from Summertime Designs again as well as one of her elements for the tag.  I just added the script and printed/cut it on my Silhouette.  You cannot see it in this picture (or any others I took) but I used some snowflake stickers I had laying about as well as stickles on the main snowflake he cut out.  Looks really pretty at night under a small lamp, no so much in the Florida sunshine.

Spectrum Noir markers used:
Skin (FS2, FS3, PP1), Hat & Shoes (DG3, DG2,DR7, DR5), Scissors (BGR1, BGR3) Shadow [in beard as well](BGR1)

Making Spirits Bright

OK, so here is fair warning for anyone who actually reads my blog (Hi, Mom!), I just received the first of my Spectrum Noir markers.  This means that I, with my zero experience in alcohol markers, will be posting poorly colored, stamped cards for the foreseeable future.  Somehow, watching a plethora of Copic/Spectrum Noir tutorials has not yet made me an expert.  I am, however, LOVING THEM!  I have read scores of complaints that when using digital stamps, there is excessive bleeding of the printer ink.  I have a Canon MX410 and haven't had any problems, even using the blender pen directly over the ink.  I am just using standard, 110 weight cardstock and that bleeds like the devil though I'm trying to be careful (especially with the reds).  Anyway, back on topic for this mornings first card (Oh yes, there will be dozens in the next few days with no cohesive theme *evil cackle*:

This one wasn't inspired by anything but the stamp itself.  The stamp is from Stampin' Up Making Spirits Bright stamp set.  The candy cane paper is a from a free digital paper pack, 'Believe' from Summertime Designs.  If I haven't already mentioned it, her designs are GORGEOUS and the absolute BEST quality.  Seriously, go grab every single pack she offers.  I imagine you'll see tons of her papers here.  The branches are, of course, the Martha Stewart medium branch punch.  For the greencardstock, I didn't want to use a bunch of printer ink for 5.5" of cardstock that would be mostly covered, so I coordinated by using one of my markers to border it.  I then distressed my edges.  I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.

Spectrum Noir markers used:  Reds (DR7, DR5), Greens (CG1, CG2), [for the drink] Pale Hues (FS2), [the ribbon] Citrus (CT1, CT2) ad to shadow Blue Greys (BGR1, BGR3)