WWC167 - Gail's "All About Christmas" Challenge

I just looked at the calendar and it's precisely eight months until Christmas Day!  Can you believe it?  Thank goodness I'm getting some of my Christmas cards created ahead of time, thanks to our challenges.  This week Gail is our host for the "All About Christmas" challenge.  Any layout, any colour, anything goes, as long as it's Christmas.

I have to admit that I could not bring myself to use anything pertaining to snow for my Christmas card.  Call me crazy but there is still snow in my yard (although it's finally creeping back and melting) and I'm just so ready for a world without snow.  Until next winter, that is.  So I went for a fun card featuring that adorable little Dachshund and some Christmas cookies.  How fun is that!  And it's definitely about Christmas without adding the white stuff.  Bonus!

You won't recognize the yellow which I've used behind that wonderful sentiment.  It's one of our new In-Colors and is so much brighter and "yellower" than the others in our colour families.  For all the hand-colouring I've used my Stampin' Blends.  Otherwise I've added the new Pineapple Punch (yellow) and the Lovely Lipstick (red matte and red sentiment).  The gorgeous greens are stamped first in Memento Black and then in Tranquil Tide.  I love all these colours and love the happy feelings that this card evokes.  All the images are from one stamp set, the wonderful Ready for Christmas set (which is carrying over into the new catalogue---YAY!).  Whoops!  Wrong.  The yellow image behind the sentiment is from the brand new Love What You Do set.

I hope you'll check out the awesome creations by the other Watercooler Artists over at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.  And then, by all means add to your Christmas stash and link up your creation for us to enjoy.

WWC166 - Kath's Masculine "Anything Goes" Challenge

This week's challenge, hosted by Kath Ricks, is one of my favourites because of all the men in my life.  It's our Masculine "Anything Goes" Challenge.

For my card this week I decided to use a brand new set which will be in the new Annual Catalogue, launching June 1st.  It's called Animal Outing and comes with a set of framelits (yay!).  I decided to use the adorable kangaroo which is giving a ride to a good friend of his, the little koala bear.  For some reason I couldn't get the thought out of my head to combine this set with the One Wild Ride set, so I went with it.  I think the sentiment is perfect, don't you?

My base is the Heavy Whisper White followed by a layer of the retiring Dapper Denim cardstock and then a layer of the retiring Myths & Magic Specialty Designer Series paper.  I love the colours in that paper and decided to use them throughout my card.

I hope you'll check out the cards created by the other Watercooler Artists at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.  I look forward to seeing what you've created and linked up this week.

I'm also entering my card in the Cardz 4 Guyz Challenge #192 - Travel or Transport (because this is clearly both travel and transport).

Pets - the April Twofer Challenge

One of my Mum's favourite pets was her budgerigar, Ringo.  Now you have to understand that Ringo was her favourite Beatle and she felt the bird's beak was on a par with Ringo's rather well-formed nose.  Mum had taught her Ringo a number of words and phrases, one of which was "hurry up".  Apparently my sister and I were told that so many times in the morning, getting ready for school, that the bird began  nagging us as well.

Imagine my delight when Stampin' Up! came out with the Bird Banter stamp set.  It included a pair of budgerigar stamps which I knew would be perfect for my cards.  I was over the moon with delight when I discovered that the Twofer Challenge decided on the theme "Pets" this month.  What a great reason to ink up this adorable bird!

I made two cards, of course.  The first could be used for friendship or a bit of "mush" for your sweetie.  I used only the images from the Bird Banter for this card and then coloured them using my Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol.

The second card is for someone who is under the weather with illness or is just having a rough time.  For this card I combined the images from Bird Banter and from the Weather Together bundle.  I cut the umbrella from a piece of scrap retired Designer Paper and propped  it up on Dimensionals.  The handle is cut from a scrap of dark brown cardstock and that centre rod is cut from silver foil.  I fussy cut the budgerigar (the feet almost killed me) and placed him on the rod, looking out at the weather.  I used my Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol to colour the bird but the wet ground is actually my Stampin' Blends with the drip swirls hand drawn using my white marker.

And here are the two together.

I hope you'll check out the awesome samples and entries at the Twofer Card Challenge Blog.  #twofercardchallenge

I'm also entering the second card in the Inkspirational Challenge #158 - Rain Photo

WWC165 - Tenia's "All About Occasions" Challenge

I'm so excited for this challenge!  Tenia Nelson is hosting our popular "All About Occasions" Challenge and I've made a birthday card.  But wait, it gets better.  First of all, however, I'd better display our challenge icon for this week.

So "what is so exciting about making a birthday card" you ask.  Well, it's what I used to make the card which made it such a lot of fun.  This past weekend I went to one of Stampin' Up!'s OnStage Events.  This one was held in Red Deer and was more special than many previous ones since this is their 30th Anniversary year.  Exciting?  Definitely!  Not that many companies keep growing and keep going for so many years.

Besides learning about so many new products and having fun making some awesome projects with a few of those products, those who attended lucked out by receiving some of the new stamp sets and products early.  That's what's so exciting about this card.  I've made it using a brand new stamp set and some gorgeous new Designer Vellum.  They're both from the Graceful Glass suite.

What I love about the vellum is that it has been embossed in black with some gorgeous "stained glass" designs.  They're perfect for colouring with some of our Stampin' Blends or with the Stampin' Markers.  I've used the Stampin' Blends for the Vellum and then used the Stampin' Markers for the stamped butterflies.  I love the way all the images in the stamp set have that stained glass look and the sentiments are all in gorgeous, fancy script.

My base is the Heavy Whisper White.  The solid layer is Tranquil Tide cardstock and the next layer is a pretty ombre piece from the still current Naturally Eclectic Designer Series Paper.  That lovely green faceted dot is from the new, not-yet-released Annual Catalogue.

I love the way the current products work so beautifully with the soon-to-be-released ones, don't you?  I can't show you photos of the stamp set but I can tell you it's awesome and that it is paired with a great set of Framelit Dies.

This week Gail Allen is away from electronic devices as she travels and in her absence we've welcomed Stephanie Lanzalotto as our Guest Designer.  I hope you'll check out her awesome card as well as those by our Watercooler Artists over at the Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.

WWC164 - Marsha's Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge

I love our Feminine "Anything Goes" challenges!  And this week Marsha is hosting it.  What fun!  The great thing about feminine challenges is that there are so many wonderful stamps that are absolutely perfect for them.

Of course with all the wonderful choices, it's easy to get lost trying to decide what to create.  I was going to stamp some flowers and then Mr. Winter came and covered everything up with his white mantle and somehow I didn't feel that inspired any longer.  So I turned to our fantasy set, Myths and Magic, and had a great time ignoring the cold outside.

I have to say that the Myths & Magic Specialty Designer Paper is the heaviest I've ever had the pleasure to use.  Because one side of each double-sided sheet has iridescent glittered images or designs, the paper is as heavy as our Whisper White cardstock.  That's one of the reasons I love cutting out some of the images and using them in my designs.  The colouring is sensational and, of course, there is that wonderful glitter.

You can see that I've carefully fussy cut the gorgeous mermaid, the gallant knight, the seahorse and the castle.  The sassy dragon, however, has been stamped and cut with its coordinating die.  I had such fun colouring him and adding a bit of glitter to his scales and wings with the clear Wink of Stella.

The rocks on which the mermaid is perching?  Those are from a retired Designer Paper Stack.  I've heat embossed the sentiment from the Myths & Magic set on vellum using black embossing powder and then cut around the shape tightly before adhering it using Tombo liquid glue.  The black stamped sentiment beside the knight is from the Magical Mermaid set.

I hope you'll check out the wonderful creations by the other Watercooler Artists over at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge blog.  I look forward to seeing what you create and link up this week.

I'm also entering my card in the TGIFC #153 - March Madness! Anything Goes!

And the Addicted to Stamps & More ##286 - Anything Goes

And, finally, the Inkspirational Challenge #157 - Mythical