Victorian Christmas Cards

Hello everyone, and happy Weekend. I hope those of you in the States had a good Thanksgiving. My turkey turned out great and we are still working on leftovers! Did you get out shopping? I am not a fan of crowds so I usually stay at home, but I did find some great online deals over this last two weeks.

Today is my turn to host a new challenge at Allsorts, and I would like to see creations inspired by a Christmas carol or winter themed song. I decided to make two cards, because I wanted to use both of these stamps and I couldn't decide on just one Christmas Carol.

My first card was inspired by Silent Night. It is my favorite Christmas Carol (the German version) and whenever I hear the song I picture an evening scene like this one, where people head to Church. If you are interested in the making of Silent Night read the info below...

I love this stamp, it was one of the "had to have" ones from PSX that I discovered last year. I might have paid a little too much for it, but it was well worth it! As all other PSX stamps, they are only available on the secondary market now like ebay or etsy.
I heat embossed the image and used Zig clean color markers for coloring. Wink of stella was applied to the snow and I used a tiny Merry Christmas sentiment from the Penny Black set Holiday Snippets. Gold card stock was used for framing. I love this victorian scene!

My second card was inspired by "We Wish you a Merry Christmas". This stamp is also by PSX. There is just something about this old victorian style at Christmas time that I love! 

Again, embossed on bristol vellum cardstock and colored with a mix of Zig Clean color and Distress markers. The sentiment is from an old set by Whimsy Stamps used along with a matching die.

This week we are sponsored by Tattered Lace and we have a wonderful set of dies to give away.

I hope you'll come join us for a chance to win. Details can be found here on the challenge blog. 

I would also like to enter my cards to the current Rubber Retro challenge where the theme is "Anything Goes" but of course using older stamps. Although I've only owned these stamps for about a year, they are probably 15 - 20 years old. 

Thanks so much for visiting, I hope you have a fabulous weekend!

Glitter and Flowers

Good morning and happy Saturday! It's time for the new challenge at Allsorts, and I am also sharing my Penny Black and More challenge reminder card, so I have two cards to show you today. 

Our theme at Allsorts this week, chosen by Kath, is Glitter. I decided to make a Christmas card using a cute stamp by Penny Black. This is a wood mounted older stamp. It's been heat embossed and colored with Zig clean color watercolor markers. The sentiment is from the Penny Black clear set Season's Gifts, also heat embossed. Dazzling Diamonds glitter (loose glitter by Stampin Up) was applied to the lights and snow and I lined the border of the image panel using a quickie glue pen and added more dazzling diamonds glitter.  A snowflake embossing folder was used to emboss the white card stock and I inked the raised snowflakes with tumbled glass distress ink. A little tree shaped button with natural jute twine was used to finish off the card.

The card above was made for this month's Penny Black and More challenge where our theme is Flower Power. I masked the edges using washi tape and used several distress inks to ink up the paper. I love how distress ink reacts with water, so I spritzed some onto the paper to add a few speckles. One of the flowers was stamped with the mask still in place, then I removed the washi tape and stamped the second flower. I used a white Faber Castell Pitt marker to color the seed pods on the flowers. Sentiment was stamped using versafine onyx ink. The flower stamp is from the set "Sunny Wishes" Sentiment from the set "Sprinkles and Smiles" both by Penny Black. A couple of die cut flowers were added to two of the corners to finish it off. 

We have some wonderful prizes to give away on both challenge blogs, so do come join us if you'd like to be entered into the drawings.

Colors of Autumn at Allsorts Challenge

Good morning and thanks so much for stopping by! Today I am sharing my card for the new challenge at Allsorts. This week it's Tracy's turn to host and she would like to see "Colors of Autumn". We still have plenty of colorful trees over here, which I think is a bit unusual for this area this time of the year, but I very much enjoy the colorful landscape! I was able to take some beautiful pictures at the lake earlier this week. It was freezing cold but well worth it! And I will be able to make some photo Christmas cards this year, which will be prefect since I wasn't able to make a lot of handmade Christmas cards.

For my card today I used a stamp by PSX. The company is no longer in business, but this stamp is usually listed on ebay or etsy, and it's one of their floral stamps that can be found at a better price.

I heat embossed the image on bristol vellum card stock and then colored  using Zig clean color markers. The designer paper is by basic grey I think, it's a double sided Halloween paper, but the side I used is perfect for just a fall themed card. I embellished with some natural jute twine to finish off the card.

This week we have a wonderful prize sponsored by Tattered Lace - a set of 4 embossing folders, hope you come join us for a chance to win! You can read all the details here, and see what the rest of the team made.

I recently discovered a new challenge blog - not new but new to me: Retro Rubber challenge blog, and this week the theme is Fall Colors, so I am entering this card there. The stamp I used is well over 10 - 20 years old so it fits the challenge perfectly!

Hope you have a good weekend. We're expecting another cloudy/rainy one.

Penny Black and More - November

Hello everyone, I am back already with another card. It's the first Sunday of the month and that means it's time for our new challenge at Penny Black and More. This month our theme is "Flower Power". As always we have some wonderful prizes lined up, and I hope you can come join us for  a chance to win. Don't forget you can use any stamp company, our main rule is that the focal point has to be stamped, so no digis, die cuts or stencil as the focal point. The only exception are Penny Black Stickeroos. 

For today's card I used the stamp set "Sunny Wishes" by Penny Black, stamped onto xpress it blending card using Memento Ink. I colored using my Copic Markers and inked the edges using distress inks. The sentiment is from the set "Sprinkles and Smiles" also by Penny Black. 

A really simple card to make, I first stamped the sentiment, then I stamped the flower image on each side of the card stock. After coloring I inked the edges and adhered onto tempting turquoise card stock, then onto the white card base. I did make another variation of this card, but I will show it another time. 

I am entering this card to this month's Flower Challenge where the theme is CAS. It would have been more CAS if I hadn't inked the edges, but I thought it needed a little more color.

Thanks so much visiting!!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! It warmed up a little bit over here, but we're expecting some thunderstorms, the worst is expected to be just south of us with hail and strong winds. We really didn't have many nice fall days this year...and soon winter will be here!

Blue and Brown at Allsorts Challenge

Good morning and Happy November! 

It's time for a new challenge at Allsorts, and this week Wendy wants to see "Blue and Brown". I love these two colors together, I think they especially make great Christmas or Winter cards, so that is what I made.

I decided to use an image from our sponsor Digistamp Boutique for today's card. This cute image is from the set Winter Rosie.

  I printed the digi onto Neenah linen card stock and colored with my copic markers. I do not suggest this paper for copic marker use, the copics left a few streak marks because of the texture on the paper. I had originally planned on using colored pencils, not sure how I ended up using copics, but I didn't have time to re-color another image. It's not as bad IRL as it looks in the photo though, so the card is still fine to use.

I fussy cut the image before adhering to the card front. The snowy hill was made by simply tearing white card stock. Designer paper is from a 6x6 Winter paper pack. Sentiment and snowflake stamp are from the Penny Black sentiment set Season's Gifts. Not sure if you can tell, but I used a clear Wink of Stella glitter brush on the snowy hill and fur trims on the images. 

As mentioned above this week we are kindly sponsored by DigiStamp Boutique, I hope you can come join us for a chance to win! Lots of gorgeous images/sets available in their shop!

Thanks so much for visiting!!