Christmas Card Challenge #20

Good Morning, welcome to Challenge #20 for our Christmas Club Challenge. This time our challenge theme was selected by Rachel. Rachel wanted to see turkeys, camels or sheep. As always, if a member does not have any supplies that fit with the particular challenge for the week, it can be anything goes. I have plenty of turkey images, but they are for Thanksgiving or Fall cards, rather than Christmas. Discovered I don't have even any digi images of a sheep! So it had to be camels. As for those, only have camels with 3 Wisemen riding them.

So here's the card I made for today. As usual, it didn't end up as I'd envisioned when I started out.

SU Come to Bethlehem set for the 3 Wisemen and the sentiment

Die-Versions Bethlehem die

Taylored Expressions Poinsettia EF
Cuttlebug Snowfall EF

DI Dusty Concord, Seedless Preserves (DOX) and DI Chipped Sapphire for the sponged sky, and Aged Mahogany DI for the ground.

Brutus Monroe Copper Penny, Gilded Gold EP -(Star) and Ranger Queen's Gold

After sponging the watercolor weight c/s, stamped the SU image and heat embossed. My idea was to mask and have the city of Bethlehem in the distance. That didn't work. Sponged another c/s, used just the wisemen to stamp part of the image and again emboss. Die cut the Die-versions City of Bethelem and that didn't fit my idea. Decided to fussy cut the Wisemen from the first boo-boo. Cut the City die and placed it on the card so that I could layer the Wisemen in front of the buildings. Used some dimensional foam behind part of that die. Placed the cut out Wisemen over the stamped Wisemen- which created a shadow effect.

Edged this piece with some more Copper Penny to frame it. Cream lightweight c/s was embossed with a Taylored Expressions Poinsettia EF, and another cream piece embossed with the Cuttlebug Snow EF. Cut a border from the Snow EF, adhered all to a tent fold card base. Lastly the sentiment from the SU set was heat embossed with Queen's Gold, and colored with gray & lavendar copics, hand cut to fit the space, and edged with Queen's Gold.

Please take time to visit my CCC team members to see their ideas on this challenge. Their blogs are listed in the right hand sidebar. As always, thanks for taking the time to visit, and have a wonderful Sunday. Hugs

A House Mouse for Rudy Day September 2018

Hap-PY Saturday! Checking in with the September Rudolph Day card (will be back later for a Christmas Club Card post).  For any readers who don't know about Rudolph Day (or as I call it "Rudy Day") - it's a Christmas themed Anything Goes challenge that opens each month on the 25th and runs until the end of that month. There's always lots of inspiration from the cards submitted and our Dear Hostess Mo has some nice prizes as well. So if you have never played along with this challenge, give it a checkout, using the link above, ok?

We have an 80th surprise birthday party to attend in a little while, so best get to it. Here's the Rudy Day card:

Stampabilities - House Mouse Monica - You Cane Light the Way

Spellbinders Super Ellipse Die (S5-188)

Memory Box Holly border die

Cottage Cutz sentiment die

Copic coloring, used the Gina K Amalgam black ink - I'm liking this ink, and have been using it along with the Momento Tuxedo Black that I normally use with copics. So far, have had no bleeding problems.  This also has some WoS on candy cane, and Nuvo Crystal Glaze on the lights to give a 'glass' effect.

Die cut the image with the S/B Ellipse. Red mat done with drawing the _inside edge_ of the next size larger die, then trimmed a little off where needed. The red paper was a snippet that was just large enough to cut this mat.

VOS red & white stripe paper.

- snippet of Coordination green cut 2 Holly borders, then added some red Nuvo drops for the berries.
- snippet of same green cut the Ho Ho Ho (left off the exclamation points) and under top layer, had 2 white snippet layers which were colored a dark green). Applied Nuvo Crystal Glaze once this was down. On the first "H" too much glaze came out, and had to try to pick it away with a straight pin. The photo picks it up, but not noticeable IRL. Sometimes the ease with which this product comes out of the tip, is not always a blessing. But guess it's better than fighting with the clogged Glossy Accents, ...maybe!

For the lights glow: Yellow copics colored around the lights, then added versamark and some Chunky Glitter mixed with white EP, and heat embossed. After I had the holly borders down, I remembered that I have a border die that has little bulb lights on it. Story of my life!!!

Off to link up with September's Rudolph Day, and hope to see you there. Back later with the Christmas Card Club post, due tomorrow! Ya'll have a wonderful afternoon, and thanks for joining me. Hugs

A Bucket of Flowers for a Sympathy Card

Welcome....recently needed to send a sympathy card to a blog pal who lost her husband very unexpectedly. Thought this image would work well for this occasion. Didn't realize until I saw the photo, that the central image doesn't look as though it's on straight. Why is it that I check, recheck, things look ok, until I see the photo?! Honestly, I do double check the cards...I don't think my eyesight is _that_ bad!

Inky Antics image  colored with Copics and WoS, a Pentel silver pen for the rim around the oval. A S/Binder die scored the frame on the outer white oval.

Dry Embossed the background, then added a border. SU punch for the sentiment.

That's all folks! Come back when you can ...and I'm still having some comments stay "awaiting publication", some are coming into the Hotmail address and some are going into the spam folder. So I'm having to check several places for any comments, and my apologies if I miss you. Or if I miss returning a visit if you've left a comment.

Hugs & have a great day.

A Crazy Dog Birthday

Good evening, and welcome. We've had cooler weather the first 2 days of the week so far(75F), and it's been quite overcast. Today there was just a tiny sprinkle of rain. Had I not been driving, wouldn't have known it was raining, except for seeing some drops on the windshield. We were out early for me to have a 'swallow' test - trying to find out why my voice has gotten hoarse. Was expecting it to be most uncomfortable, with nasty tasting stuff. Nope, none of that...the different liquids I had to drink (different consistencies I mean) were not anything I'd want a lot of, but it didn't taste terrible. Some kind of machine - sort of like an ultra sound type - showed the liquids & solids as it went down my throat. Weird to watch. Nothing was uncomfortable, and no abnormalities were apparent. I have a tendency to get choked or strangled very easily and when I was seeing the specialist for the hoarseness, he sent me for this test.  That's my exciting social life- medical stuff.

DD's 51st birthday is October 1 and she loves dogs. So of course she gets 'dog themed' cards usually. DH & I both thought she'd like the THoltz Crazy Dogs - which is why that set found it's way home with us. Here's the card:

Had the elements colored (Copics) and couldn't think of a single idea as to how to use them - did some Pinterest searching. I saw something with this goofy dog holding balloons on his bone, (don't remember who had it pinned, else I'd link to that  card). That gave me the balloon idea. Found some pattern paper snippets. Sky background, then the 'grass' to create the card front. Hunted up a SU balloon set that I knew I had. Used a metallic water color set (VOS) to watercolor these fussy cut balloons after heat embossing with a gold twinkling EP. And when that got embossed, no twinkling did I see. The same EP was used for the Elizabeth Craft Birthday sentiment.

Dog did not die cut well on first effort, so stamped, colored and die cut another pooch. Layered the boo-boo doggie underneath the 'good doggie' - raised up with dimensionals. Food bowl and ball also popped up. The big red balloon is just adhered, but the lavender and blue balloons had some dimensional foam. Cut under his nose, so the bone could hang out of his mouth. The hardest thing about this card was trying to glue the balloon strings under the balloons - should have done that first!!!

Thanks for joining me this evening, and hope your week is off to a great start. Big hugs and lots of Blessings - We can ALL use some of both of those things I'm sure.