Christmas Dove

Well, I did a few Halloween cards earlier this week and then decided to change the pace and get back to Christmas cards for today. I should say "card" though as one is all I managed to get done. I am slowing up in my old age I guess!

Last year I won a grab bag and inside it was this pretty little dove image from The Magic of Christmas set by Gina K. Designs. So I decided to use that on my card. I colored it in with my Copics and then fussy cut it out.

The embossing folder from Cuttlebug called Joy & Cheer was color enhanced by also embossing a sheet of blue Easy Color Dry Embossing Paper with it. I purchased this color embossing paper some time ago from Cheery Lynn Designs and this is my first try at using it. I think I like the subtle colors that were picked up in the embossed design too!

I die cut the Spellbinder Medallion One on red card stock and then backed it with green card stock. After adding a ribbon to the embossed background I then added this medallion. I assembled all my layers to the red base card and popped the dove over the medallion. The card was finished by adding some green pearls.

I am going to use this as an entry in the Stamp TV Mix It Up Monday challenge in which we were to use critters of any kind including winged ones. So this certainly qualifies I guess in that respect.

Thanks for stopping by on this cold and rainy dreary day. I hope you are having a good day no matter what the weather is doing. Let the sun shine in your heart!

God bless,
Verna

What's Brewin"?

Well, by the stretch of the imagination I took a fish bowl from Repeat Impressions Plate 9700 and made it into a cauldron sitting on a fire. I added some bats from Sparkle N Sprinkle and computer generated my sentiment for a different kind of Halloween card. I also added a handle and used a silver paint pen for that. I colored it with Copics but around the outside edges I used a sponge and added Gina K. Designs Moonlight Fog, Blue Denim and Navy dye inks. I also used Black Momento to stamp my cauldron.

I don't know why but for some reason I dreamed up this design last night when sleep eluded me. LOL I guess I had Halloween on my mind.

I guess I will enter this into the challenge at Repeat Impressions DCC924-Fall and also the Modsquad Blog challenge which is a word challenge-namely HOLIDAY.

Thanksgiving Card

I decided to get started on my Thanksgiving cards today since it is raining this afternoon. I already did my gardening earlier and got the carrots in the freezer so I deserved a break I figured! LOL

Created by Verna Angerhofer

I used Gina K. Design stamps again from the latest Stamp TV kit called The Simple Things and these images and the sentiment are from the stamp set called The Simple Things.

My card stock choices were Gina K. Designs Ivory and Dark Chocolate. I stamped the brick background with Gina K. Designs Faded Brick ink but I stamped it off twice before actually putting it to the card stock. I wanted a more faded look. The wheat images I stamped with Gina K. Designs Prickly Pear dye ink directly over the brick wall. And, the pumpkin was stamped onto an additional piece of the Ivory card stock with black Momento ink. I proceeded to color the pumpkin in with my Spectrum Noir markers and then fussy cut around the image leaving just a small margin. I then added glue with my tape runner and fastened it over the lower part of the brick wall and wheat background. The card was finished by stamping the sentiment in Momento black ink before I adhered it to the brown layer and the ivory base card.

A fairly clean and simple card again but I really love the results and really adore all those fantastic images in this stamp set. This card will be entered into the Mix It Up Monday challenge at Stamp TV in which we are to use leaves on our cards or creations.

Thanks for stopping by and this will do me for this week. I am having company this weekend so I have to clear the kitchen table of my stamping supplies and dust a bit and mop floors. Yuck! Not nearly as much fun as getting crafty, but it will be fun to have company too!

God bless, 

Verna

Christmas Leaves

Yes, it is true according to Wikipedia that the poinsettia is actually a cluster of leaves and not a flower. It originated from Mexico. So today, I am showing you a beautiful Christmas cluster of leaves.

Again I used a Cuttlebug folder to emboss  part of the front panel of the card. This time I used the stamps from A Year of Flowers 2 which is similar to the other set of Gina K. Designs A Year of Flowers but these designs are more whispy looking. I am not sure that is the correct way to describe them, but they are slightly different and I love them. Both the sets are illustrated by Melanie Muenchinger. The sentiment is from the Gina K. Designs Season's Greetings set.

I stamped the poinsettia with black Momento ink. Then I colored one in the pink tones and one in the green tones. When assembling my card I cut up the green one and placed leaves here and there behind the pink poinsettia. I then added a two tone pink ribbon across the front panel before layering it onto Christmas Pine card stock. The sentiment was stamped in Christmas pine dye ink too from Gina K. Designs.

Anyway, since the challenge for this new week's Stamp TV Mix It Up Monday is to use leaves, I will be entering this card in that challenge.

Have a great rest of the day everyone. Thanks for stopping by.

God bless,
Verna

Embossed Border Poinsettia Card

Gina of Gina K. Designs has a video showing how to make an embossed border on your cards. I just had to give it a try and the best way to learn is to watch her video.


This time I used a portion of the Cuttlebug folder for which I don't know the name. However, Gina says you can use any folder and any type of embossing machine to do this technique and I did it with the Big Kick. She used her Cuttlebug.

Here is a close up of the embossed area of the card. It appears much clearer in this photo.

I used the beautiful large poinsettia from the Gina K. Designs Year of Flowers set illustrated by Melanie Muenchinger. The sentiment is from the Gina K. Designs Season's Greetings set. The Gina K. Designs card stock colors used were Christmas Pine  and Ivory and the Gina K, Designs inks used were Christmas Pine and Cranberry Tart. I stamped the image in Cranberry Tart and colored it in with Spectrum Noir alcohol pens, CVR8, CR10. CR11 and for the center GB5. I also added a Wink of Stella to the poinsettia image.

I had a great time working with this new technique and I have to admit, the first try, I did emboss it wrong. But I am sure it still can be salvaged and made into a lovely card none the less. Let's say it takes this old gray mare a few tries to pick up on things some times. LOL

Anyway, I hope you get a chance to try this as well. It really dresses up a CAS card.

God bless,
Verna

Clean and Simple: My Kind of Style

Well, doing a clean and simple card is more of my style and I seem to be more in my comfort zone with that too. I only had time to do one Christmas card today and it was one I stamped. I needed that special therapeutic need today to help me forget how the weather was affecting my arthritis. It worked too! LOL

I used the poinsettia image from the Gina K. Designs Holiday Basket set illustrated by Melanie Muenchinger. I also used the sentiment from the Gina K. Designs Season's Greetings set.  My poinsettias were stamped with Gina K. Designs Cranberry Tart dye ink and the sentiment was stamped in Gina K. Designs Christmas Pine dye ink.

And, yes, I got the sentiment a little out of kilter. Do they say that anymore? It was my ancestor's words for saying not quite straight. LOL

I used my Spectrom Noir pens to color in the poinsettias. Namely, numbers CR8 and CR11. For the centers of the poinsettias I added a pearl center using a Viva Sunny Yellow pearl pen. Card stocks used were Gina K. Designs Pure Luxury Ivory and Christmas Pine.

Since this is a CAS card I am entering it into the Mix It Up Monday challenge at Stamp TV.

Have a great rest of the weekend and thanks for stopping by.

God bless,
Verna

Heartfelt Creations Christmas Cards

I always admire those who can take a pre-printed design and add things to it to make them super outstandingly beautiful! Well, guess what? I don't think I seem to be able to emulate them at all, as I just can't seem to get out of the CAS mode for card making. It just is not my style! And, for some reason by using these beautiful pre-printed papers and designs I almost feel like I am cheating! One of my friends said I feel that way because my MUSE is not happy about not being able to come up with the ideas on her own! LOL

 At any rate I am going to show you some of the cards I did with the huge tablet of papers I received with a free gift certificate. I love all the lovely designs and I hope that people won't be disappointed with what I did with them. And, for me, this is not a quicker way to make cards. I thought it would be but it seems I go over and over trying to add things to perk them up and it takes me longer than if I had just stamped a design and colored it.

First one here is my favorite and it involved using some lovely die cuts to frame it. I also happened to have the holly stamp set that goes with these papers so I used the stamped images and the dies that match them to create this card. I also sponged on extra color around the sentiment to match the reds a bit more. A little Wink of Stella on the star and a ribbon bow completed my design.

My next one is a beautiful poinsettia image and I die cut around it to make it a circle. I sponged on some extra kraft color and then added it to a Spellbinder die frame. The base card is made from some two tone green duplex card stock that I had for ages in my stash. The sentiment is also from Heartfelt Creations and I added that along with a ribbon to complete the card. Oh, yes, I used Wink of Stella pen on the yellow centers of the flower but this photo does not do it justice.

The third card is a cute and darling snow man design which was originally to be a square card but since I only send A2 size mainly I cut out just the framed snowman image. Added it to the card base which matched fairly well to the colors in the design and then along the edge added some snowflake ribbon. I also added the Merry Christmas which is part of the HC paper pad. Again some Wink of Stella was added to the snowman, snow and to the tree. Hopefully, you can see a bit of the twinkle of it in the photo.

My final card I am posting is one I used only the sentiment and added some HC dies around it to sort of showcase the beautiful "Jesus is the reason for the season" theme. I layered this onto some matching card stock, added some glittery ribbon and placed it onto the white card base.

I told you I was not one to do the fancy designs. I tried adding more to some of the cards and the more I tried the worse they looked to me. So I decided that I would stick with what I am most comfy with....CAS designs. I hope Heartfelt Creations won't be too disappointed in me, but maybe this will be an encouragement to some others who cannot get out of the CAS mode too!

Well, I know it is early for Christmas cards but believe me when you send out around 90 cards or more, one needs to get started early. Too bad I did not do that this year as most years I start in August and here it is already mid September. Yikes!

Well, have a great weekend everyone and thanks for checking out my blog posts.

God bless,
Verna

Welcome to Autumn

Yes, indeed! Autumn is right around the weekend and so in honor of that lovely season I did a very CAS design with my new stamps from the Gina K. Designs set from the new The Simple Things Stamp TV Kit. I just love the images in that kit and know I will be using them a lot. And Autumn is my favorite season with all it's gorgeous colors.

I used Gina K. Designs dye inks to ink up the images on my card. I sort of did a dab here and there with various colors of inks, starting with the lightest to achieve my colorful tree. And, I went clean and simple in design as that was the  Mix It Up Monday challenge for this week at Stamp TV.

Many of the trees are starting to drop their leaves since we had an early frost in our area last week. Even before summer was over which I think is the earliest I have ever seen frost in my lifetime. So with that event I found myself trying to get the last minute pickings of some of the veggies from the garden. We did get the tomatoes covered and so we are still getting a few ripe ones, but many of the other vegetation got hit hard enough so that we are not able to use the produce anymore. And, I started to dig the carrots and am processing some of them for use this winter. Oh, my! We have been blessed as my freezer is so full with goodness from our garden this year.

I hope this summer has blessed you as well. Isn't that a most wonderful sentiment on this card? I was thrilled when I saw that in the kit.

Well, have a wonderful Autumn my friends.

God bless,
Verna

Bisters, Stampinback Paper and Distress Inks

In the last post I said I would try the Distress Inks with the Bisters and the Stampinback paper. So I did three cards with them. The first one is pretty I believe but I should have used Staz-On ink instead and as you can see it sort of smeared when I colored with the Distress Ink markers. Never the less, I still like the card and I am sure someone will find enjoyment from it too. I used images from Gina K. Designs Always Autumn set which was just newly released. As always Theresa Momber is a great illustrator and this set I thought was a must for Autumn card designs.

The next card I made used images from I Brake for Stamps. This time I went with roses and used Staz-On ink to stamp them. Again I used the Distress Markers and I did not see as much of a muddy look so I think the inks used on the Stampinback paper really make a difference. I also used a white gel pen on my card too. Not sure it was necessary but wanted to try it and so went with it.

My final card for this post sort of developed as I went along. I used green and natural to make the background but I found that the natural was too overwhelming once I had the background all completed and colored. I had embossed the poinsettia and pine image from Gina K. Designs  from the Joyful Holiday set by Theresa Momber with tarnished gold embossing powder. And, the whole design just did not show up well. So I decided I had nothing to loose, so I took my bleach and cleaned off as much ink as I could all around the design. Once this was done I then took some Shabby Shutters Distress ink to give a softer green look around the image. Oh, and this time I used Distress Ink pads to color in my design by taking an old dried up Le Plume marker and picking up the color direct from the ink pad. I then die cut the focal image out with a Spellbinder Classic oval and then layered it over the red and green die cuts from the Spellbinder Opulent Ovals set.

This kept me busy nearly all afternoon and evening working with these cards. I did more backgrounds as well, but I think for now I am going to put the Bisters away and really get down to business on making my Christmas cards. I did not mention the embellishments I put on each but I am sure you can see what I added.

I hope that my experiences with the Bisters, Stampinback paper, Gina K. Designs pure luxury paper, and the various inks has given you some insight as to what not to do and what to do. At any rate, all of you who called me an Enabler, I guess that is okay. I think I have been called much worse in my day. LOL

Have fun and enjoy the Bisters and I can't wait for many of you to share what you have done with them as well. Thanks for stopping by.

God bless,
Verna

Bisters and Stampinback Paper

Oh, yes! I am still experimenting with the Bisters but this time I am using the Stampinback paper that is featured in the video instead of the heavy weight white Pure Luxury card stock from Gina K. Designs. And, this paper is a coated matte finish on one side and non coated on the other side. I used the coated side to create these samples with the Bisters. I noticed that the coated card stock from Stampinback does not absorb the inks as well so therefore, one gets a different look with the papers. Personally, I like both types of paper. It depends on what look you want to achieve.

On this particular card I used the yellow, red and green bisters to create the background. And, after it was dry I then added the Cardinal image from I Brake for Stamps. I used water base markers but I found them to streak somewhat so I think next time I will use a make up sponge and add color that way to my images. Again I also used a white gel pen to add more dimension.

This second sample I simply used only black Bisters on the coated card stock and when it was completed I noticed that it also gave off a bit of light blue and brown too! After studying it over I decided this should be a night scene.

I used the snowboarding bear image and the evergreen tree from I Brake for Stamps and used water based markers again. Somehow this is not as nice as I had figured it would be but still I guess it is not my worst effort. LOL I bleached out the moon in that spot and thought it looked like a cloud covering part of it. Here and there I tried to add some stars but I guess one could say they resemble snowflakes too. Again I used the white gel pen for the stars and for the snow flying up from the action of the snowboard.

* * * Oh, take note! According to Della from I Brake for Stamps one cannot use Copics or any other alcohol ink type markers with this paper. She said it worked great with the Tim Holtz Distress inks so that is my next plan to try those inks with this paper,

Well, that is what I did on a rainy afternoon yesterday. So far today no rain, but it is cold and cloudy. Brrr! Almost feels like the furnace should be given a notch to kick in. But I will try to bear with it and just wear more clothing. If my cold hands permit, I might try a few more experiments. Stay warm if it is chilly where you are, and keep the frost away for a while yet!

God bless,
Verna

White Pine Christmas With Bisters

I made this background last week but never got around to using it. Today I had a few moments and decided since my Christmas card stash is very depleted that I would make it into a Christmas card.

I used the Gina K. Designs stamps again. The white pine cone image is from the Stately Flowers 6 and the sentiment is from the Stately Flowers 5 sets. I stamped them onto the Bisters background with Gina K. Designs black ink. I only colored over the needles with a water based marker and then added some white to have it look like a bit of snow on the needles. The pine cone I stamped with the Gina K. Designs black ink and then used an old Tombo blending pen which went dry to add the bleach. Once I had it bleached out I then colored in with a lighter brown water based marker. And, again over the top of the cones I added some white gel pen to make it look like some snow on the cone.

My snowflake background on the red is an embossing folder from the Cuttlebug Winter Wonderland series of embossing folders. There were several that came as a set. Once I had the red card stock embossed I took Gina K. Designs white ink pad and swiped over the background so that the flakes would pop more.

My focal image on the Bister background and a piece of acetate were die cut from Spellbinders Majestic Labels Twenty-Five set. Before I fastened them together with gold brads I took my Sailor Gold Pen and went around the outer edges of the inside layer. I placed some gold fiber from Gina K. Designs behind the die cut  and then added it with pop dots onto the snowflake background. I finished the design by adding the sentiment which was embossed in gold onto the strip of white vellum. My base card was white card stock.

I tied the design on the outside with the inside by adding a portion of the pine cone in the lower left corner. Only thing left to do with the card is to add an inside sentiment.

Yay! One more card added to my stash.

This card will be entered into the Mod Squad Blog Challenge for this week in which vellum and acetate were to be used on a holiday card.

Color Emboss Resist on Bister Background

Yes, indeed! I am still playing with the Bisters. This time though I made a background I was not too enthused about it but when the challenge came for us to use Fall colors for the Monday Challenge at Stamp TV and to do some embossed resist I figured this was a good way to use up a background that was not as colorful. I was right. I love the result I got with this idea!

I used the leaf image and sentiment from the Fall Foliage set by Gina K. Designs. I stamped the leaves with Versamark ink onto my pale Bister background and then added clear embossing powder and heat set it. When I had it cooled down I then added brown and red dye inks with a sponge dauber. The darker the inks over the top the more clear the leaves popped out. I then took a paper towel and wiped off the leaves so that the ink would not cover the leaves and they popped even more clearly then.

Since there was a hint of pink in the leaves from the Bister background, I layered my design first on dark brown card stock and then onto the light pink. I also layered another strip of brick colored card stock onto the dark brown and pink too. These were then added to the cream base card. In the opposite corners I added a glittery dark brown ribbon. I also stamped the saying in dark brown ink too. My card was finished with just a small bit of cream and brown pearl bling in the upper right corner.

So here is a lesson learned. Even if you are not completely satisfied as to how a Bister background looks, don't toss it. Keep it until the perfect occasion for it's use comes along. I just love the look achieved with this method.

Well, I hope you are enjoying your first days of September. Hard to believe it is here already. I love Autumn but still I want to feel the warmth of summer for a few more days yet. I hope we get some hot and dry weather as the crops in this area need it still. It has been a strange year weather wise and it seems we had more cooler days than normal and lots of rain. But I guess the Lord is in charge and he knows our needs better than we do. So thank you Lord! We are grateful for the rain.

God bless,
Verna