Dec 1, 2023

Four Seasons December Challenge - Christmas Blessing

Hello and welcome! 

So hard to believe it's December!! I'm not sure where the time went and I wish it would slow down a little bit! We already had our first snow of the season then some below freezing temperature but thankfully it's been warming up a bit since yesterday. As much as I love a beautiful winter scene, I am just not a fan of winter weather anymore, especially when it comes to the unpredictable road conditions!!  

A new month means a new challenge at the Four Seasons challenge blog and we are also switching seasons as it's time for WINTER for the next 3 months. So we would like to see all your winter themed creations of course that includes winter holidays. As always there is a wonderful mood board to inspire you but it is completely optional.

Here is what I created:

And here is our December mood board:

My inspiration came from the bottom right image, the icy holly berries. I used this as an opportunity to ink up the beautiful Penny Black stamp Holly Berry Birds. This is a large stamp so instead of using the full stamp, I first stamped the end of it on the top left then the part with the birds on the bottom. I colored with distress inks, the background was also watercolored using only Chipped Sapphire Distress ink, I love the variation of colors this ink gives when diluted. 


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I created a snowy background with a white Posca pen then added the die cut Snowflakes (Dancing Snowflakes dies by Penny Black). The sentiment is from the Penny Black Christmas sentiment set Festive Cheer.


This post may include some affiliate links, meaning I may earn a small commission if you purchase something through the links. As always, this is at no cost to you. Thank you so much for supporting this blog!


I plan to share with these blogs:
PS: If you've been thinking about taking part in this year's Papercrafters Year in Review hop, there are only a few more days left to sign up for this hop which takes place at the end of December. Please visit this post for all the details! Would LOVE for you to join in!! 


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Nov 26, 2023

Papercrafters Year in Review Hop - Who Wants to Join In??

Hello everyone, as I haven't done a "proper" post for this year's Papercrafters Year in Review sign up post (and instead had just included it with other posts), I thought I better prepare one before it's too late! We already have a few who signed up to take part but there is still room for a few more and still a bit of time so here is all the info you need:


Details:

  • Create a blog post featuring YOUR OWN favorite creations of 2023 to be scheduled on your blogs for Friday December 29th 6am CST (12 noon UK time)
  • I will provide the html code for the linky tool to each person signing up as a co-host. It would be great if you included this in your post on your own blogs but not neccessary as long as you post a list of each participant.
  • Your blog followers are welcome to link up their own favorites during that time period should they decided to create their own "year in review" posts. The linky tool will be open for one week.
  • You must have a blog to participate.
  • This will be a blog hop, so please plan on visiting and commenting on each participant's "Year in Review 2023" post when time allows during hop week.
  • This sign up is for any paper crafter with a blog. You don't have to have a papercraft only blog - as long as you have some favorite handmade cards or other papercrafts to share in your review post you are welcome to sign up. 
  • Optional: You are welcome to offer a small prize to a winner selected from those who commented on your post (including other co-hosts) but that is totally up to you and it is absolutely not needed or expected to offer a prize in order to be a co-host. 
  • The blog hop will run for one week (December 29th - January 4th)
  • To get an idea of how it works you can click here to see last year's hop.
  • As always, you may select any amount of favorites to share, this can be a top 10 or top 5 (etc.), maybe you are extremely proud of one of your creations you'd like ot highlight, or you can select a favorite of each month which is what I usually do to make the selection easier :)

I will close the sign-up linky tool on December 9th (may close sooner if enough sign up before that date), then I will message everyone with the hop list by December 15th so everyone will have plenty of time to prepare their posts even before Christmas should you want to work ahead on it. 


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Nov 25, 2023

Winter Trees

Hello and welcome! Time for a new theme already at Allsorts challenge and it's Sarah's week to host. As winter is just around the corner (definitely already feels like winter over here!!!) she would like to see "Colors of Winter" which is optional so all your new crafty makes are welcome for a chance to win one of our great prizes or to be selected in her top 5. We have a great assortment of prizes for the next two weeks, by AALL and Create who by the way still have some fantastic discounts, many 50% off or more. So if you haven't taken advantage of their fabulous sale yet, don't miss your chance! 


For my card today I went with a simple winter scene using the Penny Black stamp Gorgeous Grove.


I used a mask made of torn copy paper and a circle for the moon then inked the sky with Chipped Sapphire Distress ink. The trees were stamped with Gathered Twigs Distress Oxide ink. A white Posca pen was used to flick some "snowflakes" onto the background and then I added the die cut snowflakes which were done using Penny Black's Dancing Snowflakes dies. On the sentiment portion I used Lawn Fawn's stitched border die. Sentiment is an oldie from Stampin Up. 

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Another view:

The tiny sentiment inside the moon is from the Penny Black set Holiday Snippets.

I plan to share with these challenges:



PS: Still some time to sign up for the Papercrafters Year in Review 2023 hop where we share our favorite creations of the year. If interested, please visit this post where I shared all the info about it at the end of that post. 


This post may include some affiliate links, meaning I may earn a small commission if you purchase something through the links. As always, this is at no cost to you. Thank you so much for supporting this blog!

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Nov 18, 2023

Christmas Elf

Hello and welcome! It's Saturday meaning a new challenge starts today at Allsorts and Lorraine (Lolo) is hosting this week. Her theme, which is optional is Christmas Time, so if you haven't started yet with your Christmas cards then this is your chance! Almost time to send them off!! Of course the Anything Goes option is there too, so hopefully we'll see you joining us this week! Prizes for the November challenges come from Stampendous and Oakwood Direct and WOWVOW and winners will be announced on the last Friday of the month.

Here is what I made with an image inspired by a couple of other Christmas challenge I found.

This cute image is a Penny Black stamp (Little Elf Present) illustrated by Mo Manning. It was part of a mixed lot I purchased from the resale site Mercari earlier this year and my first time using. I was inspired by the Christmas Craft Creations challenge where the theme is Hats and I thought this image was a perfect choice. I'm not sure why this stamp seems to be so rare... I did find one listing of it on eBay and another on Mercari, and Mo Manning should have it in digi version for those who prefer that.

At the current Christmas Kickstart challenge the theme is Christmas, but not as we know it, which inspired the non-traditional colors. The skirt and hat were paper pieced from some patterned paper scraps, the rest of the elf colored with Copic markers. I was really hoping to find a bigger piece of the same patterned paper to mount the image panel on but could not find any more of it in my stash, so I chose some polka dotted paper instead. I embellished with some small punched circles and Stickles glitter.

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For sentiments I chose a larger verse from the Penny Black set Season's Gifts and "Happy Holidays" is from a Stampin Up set I found at a thrift store.

Below are the challenges I plan to link up with (this list includes the two I mentioned above):


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This post may include some affiliate links, meaning I may earn a small commission if you purchase something through the links. As always, this is at no cost to you. Thank you so much for supporting this blog!


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