August Christmas Cards

Well, Tracy posed another great challenge for us for our Christmas cards this month - designer paper needs to be the focus!

Here's a picture of my parts and pieces:

I know that I have seen this paper saving technique somewhere before, but I thought I'd just put this up here to illustrate a way to save some paper. You do not need to have anything except the border showing, so why not use the insides to punch out some of your elements! I ended up with a bunch of extra ornaments and scallop ovals to use on other projects.

Here's the finished product:

Inside:

All together:

Card base is Always Artichoke. First layer is Brushed Gold, embossed layer is Always Ivory. Ornaments are punched in gold and the dp is from The Paper Company and is called Florentine Green & Gold. Sentiment on the outside is from PTI and is embossed in gold and punched and layered on gold. Inside sentiment is from Many Merry Messages and the ornaments are stamped in Apricot Appeal, Riding Hood Red and gold metallic and are from the Tree Trimmings set. Of course I had to use my trusty Fiskars corner punch too!

Thanks for visiting today!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Christmas Cardinal

This is the first card I've made with this new set. Not too happy with it. I think I will skip the embossing and use white cardstock for the next one. Good learning experience though. What do you think?


Tonight is a bluegrass picking pot luck with some very old and dear bluegrass pals. Everyone brings their instruments and a dish to share. DH will bring his guitar and I'll bring my knitting. I made a roasted garlic and red pepper hummus to share.

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

A Purely Innocent Christmas

The ever talented and always enabling Allison (Stampin' When I Can) featured this adorable card on her blog the other day. The image is from a gal named Heather Ellis who has an Etsy shop here. You really do need to go and check out her images! I did and grabbed this one (and a couple more that I will show off in the future).

I colored her with my Koh-i-noor pencils and OMS and then added some teeny tiny bling (Taylor's Tiny Twinkles) that I got from Taylored Expressions. I had the Brilliant Blue cardstock and a couple of pieces of snowflake embossed white just laying there crying out to be used along with my trusty Fiskars corner punch, of course!

Thanks so much for visiting. My wayward hard drive is due back at work today and I will hopefully be a much happier IT person! We'll see ....

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Digital Delights Freebie Friday Image

This delightful little kitty (doesn't she look like Maude) with her pumpkin was a freebie on the Digital Delights blog last week. I printed her out and colored her and realized she was jut a bit too large for the card base I wanted to use. This is the joy of digital images - I just resized and reprinted then recolored and voila!

Digital Delights has some wonderful images and I encourage you to stop on over and pay them a visit!

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Digital Tuesday Design Team Call

The folks at the Digital Tuesday Challenge blog are looking for design team members. Hmmmm .... I love working with digital images! Maybe they will pick me. What do you think?

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Christmas sample #3

Looks like my first Christmas Card Stamp Camp will be September 13 (email invites going out this week gals). We will be making 15 cards - 5 each of 3 designs. You saw two of the cards here on Tuesday and here is the third. I wanted something made with Serene Snowflakes, the new snowflake set in the Holiday Mini catalog which will go "live" on September 1. It is a really delicate and gorgeous set and I fell in love with it in spite of the fact that my studio is totally overrun with snowflake sets! You can never have too many, can you?

I also had these really pretty little glue on gemstones that I thought would look very elegant with these snowflakes. I like them - what do you think? Too much?

Card base is Brilliant Blue (a neglected SU color in my book). Whisper White panel was run though the Big Shot with the snowflake CB folder. A little silver elastic cord (also in the mini) was just right I think. The blue and white panels were cut using my square nesties and the snowflake was embossed in silver.

Thanks for visiting today!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

From Courtney's Closet - at last!

I have been away from this challenge for far too long. Allowed myself to get distracted from what's important - shame on me! This is one of my very favorite challenges and I have really missed playing along each week. Going to try to get myself back in the swing of things! Here's darling Courtney all spiffed up and oh so very cute!


Here's my card.


I know she has cherries on her dress, but I couldn't help myself, I'm in Christmas mode and it just reminded me of this fun digi paper from pcCrafters!

Thanks for visiting!

~chris
(Three posts in one day - what's up with that? Maybe I'm getting back on track!)

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Lime Light Task #10

The Lime Light design team gals made cards for soldiers this month. It's always so rewarding to be able to do something for our folks in uniform and this was no exception. They needed all occasion cards so we were pretty much free to make anything and everything. Lots of variety in this bunch of cards. Be sure to visit the Lime Light site and see what the other gals made too!

Here's a slideshow of the cards that went off in the mail today:

Thanks so much for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

ATC - revisited

Well, thank goodness I had to go and find the address for this ATC swap --- the cards were supposed to be summer themed! Don't think that the Christmas ones quite fit the bill. Luckily, I had several other versions in the wings as I couldn't decide what to do initially. Here's another version - this time keeping with the swap theme!


Thanks for visiting.

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Christmas Stamp Camp Possibles

Sabrina came over last night and helped me put together a couple of possible cards for this month's Christmas Card Stamp Camp. This one was inspired by this card. Card base is Soft Suede. DP is from the Thoroughly Modern pack. Sentiment is from Four the Holidays and the ornament is from Delightful Decorations, embossed in gold and punched with the ornament punch. Pretty straightforward, but elegant I think.


This one is pretty much a direct copy of this card. Card base is Close to Cocoa, layered with Not Quite Navy and the image panel is Naturals Ivory. Stamps used were Lovely as a Tree (one of my all time faves) and Wandering Words.


I also am mailing out my ATC's today. Still not sure they are up to snuff, but....

The ornament stamp is from the Flourishes set All that Glitters and the little accent is from Timeless Quotes. The sentiment is from PTI. The ornament is embossed in gold and painted with Shimmerz in various colors. I used my faithful Fiskars corner punch and a little holly leaf punch with some red bling thrown in for good measure.

Thanks for visiting today!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Clean & Simple #29

Today's CAS challenge on SCS was to use an inspiration piece from Anthropologie: Shoes & Bags to create a card. Here's the bag I chose to be inspired by:and here's the card I made inspired by that bag:

I love the papers from this Level 3 hostess set! Card base is Old Olive layered on Melon Mambo. Sentiment is layered on Crushed Curry and Old Olive.

Thanks for visiting today!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Kaboodle Doodle Challenge #12

There's a new challenge posted on the Kaboodle Doodle blog and this is a challenge after my own heart - it involves purple and black and white! What's not to like about that! This card also uses one of the paper's from Kaboodle Doodles newest paper kit! Here's my card:

Our prize this week is 5 (yes really - 5) images from the wonderful Victoria Case Art Designs. I think that you should all hop on over and take a look at the other dt's great samples and play along!

I played a bit with some of the things I learned in a Jessica Sprague online class that I took recently. Talk about a great teacher - click here to go and take a look at some of the classes she is offering. They really are great classes - now I just need a little more time so that I can really pay attention and learn all she is teaching!

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Halloween Hybrids

Just a quick post before we head up to the lake till tomorrow. These are what I consider to be "hybrid" cards. They start out with a digital graphic and I add stamps and what not to finish them. These are all graphics from - surprise - pcCrafters and some new (to me anyway) stamps from the Mike's $1 bin and some old standby SU halloween sets. Used my deckle label nesties and punches and cb folders to make them special.

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Boxes, boxes, more boxes!

I've been on a kick lately making boxes and boxed stuff. These are all made with digital paper and digital images from pcCrafters. These two are boxes of love notes - 3x3 cards with envelopes. The pattern for the love notes box can be found in the Handy Tools section on the right side of my blog. These are great little gifts to give and I think these notes would be perfect little Thanksgiving favors!
The treat boxes below are from one of Lauren Meader's wonderful templates that you can find on the Papertrey Ink website here it's called Tucked Away and it is so easy to make! I printed the paper and then flipped it, put it back in the printer and printed the template, cut it out and assembled it. I got the idea for the handle from a video on Lauren's blog here where she used binder clip pieces. I decided to try it with some hodgepodge antique brass hardware, but I'm planning on try out the binder clip idea too! The fun spooky die cuts on the second box are from a Cuttlebug die/folder combo that I picked up in the discount bin after Halloween last year. Kael is a big fan of spiders and I couldn't resist getting it so that I can make spiders for him! (BTW - first day of school was reportedly FUN!)


Well the weekend is supposed to be bright and sunny and we have a potluck dinner and a movie on the docks at the lake that will be lots of fun. I'll take my knitting and hopefully have something to show you next week!

Enjoy your weekend! Thanks for visiting.

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Same Image - Different Cards

This is another pcCrafters card using an image from their Blooming Seasons set. I saw this card on LeAnne's blog yesterday and just had to try the punch/die combo for the sentiment. Card base is Old Olive and the purple accent is Perfect Plum with Groovy Guava cuttlebugged on the other card. I love the versatility of these graphic images!

Hopefully my stress level will improve enough to get back to stamping and coloring again very soon. I'm having a hard time concentrating and am really hoping that next week will be better.

Thanks for visiting today!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Quick & Elegant (I think) Card Set

I needed a quick gift for a special person and this is what I came up with. The card base is my fave of the moment - Soft Suede stamped in Soft Suede using the Weathered background stamp. The images are from pcCrafters from a set called Classic Garden and I just love them. The insides are a combination of computer generated sentiments and gold embossed sentiments from Elegant Greetings, a retired classic from Stampin' Up! that I received as a prize from my wonderful upline Pat. I'm not sure how I'm going to box these up just yet, whether they'll get some fancy gold ribbon or a decorated "inbox" type of box, but hopefully the recipient will like them.


I'm a bit late getting this up today, my stomach is feeling the results of two weeks+ of severe stress over my yet to be fully recovered hard drive at work. Hopefully by next week I will have it back and everything will still be intact!

I'm working on my very first ATC swap on Splitcoast using Flourishes stamps. I'm really nervous and have gone through at least 4 different designs trying to find one that will be "up to snuff" with some of the ladies that are swapping. I'm also working on my current project for the Lime Light Design group and you'll be seeing my cards for that project very soon too!

Kaboodle Doodle will have a new challenge up on Monday too so hop on over and get in on this week's challenge before it's too late! While you're there, get to know our four wonderful new design team members. I think it's going to be a fun, exciting place to be!

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Clean & Simple Challenge #31 - Masculine Cards

This is the first time that I have played in the Splitcoast Stampers Monday clean and simple challenge. I thought I would try out what I learned from Cheryl (thanks again Cheryl!) before I forget how to do it. I stamped the fish from Nature Prints ...one of my all time favorite sets ... in Stazon on the canvas. I brushed it with Traditional Tan acrylic paint that I had thinned with water. On my first try I painted on the fish with more acrylic paint, but I really didn't like it as it was way too dark. This time I used distress inks to add some color instead and I like it a little better.

I have to figure out how to get the image to stamp darker - maybe I need a different kind of stamp though. I frayed the edges and mounted it on a piece of Soft Suede. The card base is also Soft Suede - I just love that color! The poor dp took a real beating. I stamped on it with two of the other stamps in the set and then put it through the Big Shot in an abstract embossing folder and then I sponged distress ink on the edges. The sentiment is from my birthday box and is from Stampendous. I used the punch/slider die combo on this. The little wheel is from some charms I got so long ago that I don't remember where I got them!

I had fun making this card and am definitely going to play with canvas and paint again!

Thanks for visiting.

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Getting ready for Christmas

I have slowly, but surely, been making Christmas cards. Tracy has her monthly challenge and that has really helped build my stash, but I've also been making a few single cards as well. Here's one I made that was inspired by this card.

Another hectic work week ahead, but hopefully will have time to work on some of my projects too!

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Christmas Remake

I decided to remake a card that has some of my favorite colors and patterns. I made the original one in response to a Courtney's Closet Challenge way back in February. I jazzed up the flowers using the new Champagne Mist all purpose ink which will make it's debut in the new Holiday Mini catalog coming to mailboxes and demonstrations near you after September 1. This stuff is really wonderful. Flows on nice and smooth and really gives the surface a nice glimmer without obscuring the color of the cardstock completely. From what I have heard, the platinum version is much more opaque but I have not tried it yet. I also added some rhinestone brads (remember last month's sale!) and added an additional layer of white to make the polka dots pop a bit more. The sentiment is from a retired set called Best Yet. I wish the photo cold show the nice soft shimmer - I'm still working on my camera skills!

All in all a very glittery, somewhat non-traditional, Christmas card. What do you all think?

Well, I'm working away on several projects some of which I will be rolling out this coming week and some that are for dt projects that I'll show in the coming weeks.

Thanks so much for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Playing with some of my new toys

On my recent downline roadtrip, we made a card using distress inks. I got a few and also a couple of stamps. I couldn't resist playing a little bit tonight. I have tons of stuff I should be doing, but sometimes you just have to play, especially when you've had a couple of weeks like I have had. It was a great stress reliever and I really think that I'll be more productive because of it.

The cattail stamp is one of the stamps I got at Rocky Mountain Memories. I've had the sentiment for a while and just hadn't inked it up yet. The button is from my stash. I cut the brown layer with my deckle scissors and used the Black Soot distress pad on it. I used Pine Needles on the green card base and Antique Linen on the image panel. Card stock is Garden Green, Naturals Ivory and Soft Suede. I have really fallen in love with the Soft Suede cardstock and it is the only color I didn't think I'd like in the new in-color bundle.

Can't wait to get back to crafting on a regular basis - - soon, very soon I hope!

Thanks so much for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Downline Roadtrip!

Yesterday was our super fun road trip to Estes Park! I tried to take pictures, but I have a very long way to go in learning to use my camera. All my shots turned out blurry - time to pull out the manual and figure out what I'm doing wrong.

The day started out with a visit to team member Judy's gorgeous home to look at everyone's great convention goodies and swap our cards. We then continued into town to have a delicious brunch and have our meeting.

After that, we went to visit our talented stamping buddy and former team member Cheryl who has opened her own shop there in town - Rocky Mountain Memories (140 Moraine Avenue, Estes Park, CO 80517 - RMMemories.com):

Note to Cheryl - hope you don't mind me using the pix from the website!

Cheryl had a fun make and take for us and I learned about stamping on canvas and painting with acrylic paints and using distress inks.

I came home with a wonderful treasure trove of toys to try out too!

Thanks Cheryl for your wonderful hospitality and for sharing your immense talent with us. If you are ever in Estes Park, Colorado, I would encourage you to stop in and see Rocky Mountain Memories - it will be well worth your while!

Here's a slideshow of our swaps! As always, these gals never cease to amaze me with their creativity and talent.

I'm hoping to get some serious stamping in this weekend - we'll see though 'cause if the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, we'll probably be out on the lake! I can knit on the boat though, so maybe next week I'll have some knitting projects to show you.

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Two Challenges - One Card

Well - you know I must be feeling better - two challenges in one card! Things are still up in the air at work, but they are looking better than they were a week ago, so I'm a happy camper. Plus, tomorrow is our fun downline road trip to Estes Park to play, eat and share some time and creative fun with each other.

I have had this stamp sitting on my desk forever and tonight I just decided that no matter what, it was going on a card.





This card is for this week's Color Throwdown and also for the SCS sketch challenge.




The card base is Kraft and there is Melon Mambo, Crushed Curry, Basic Black, Whisper White and Razzleberry Lemonade paper. The image was stamped in Black Craft and embossed with clear embossing powder and then colored with markers.

Thanks for visiting! Be sure to come back tomorrow for a recap of our road trip!

~chris

personal note: if you want to see what our boat (Belmira) looks like (the one we are selling so dh can buy a new one), check out the page I created for him by clicking HERE.

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Mercy's Tuesday Sketch Challenge

I am slowly but surely getting back into the swing of things. Mercy recently started her Tuesday sketch challenge back up after a bit of a hiatus and as always, her sketches are fun!

Recipe
Paper: Bermuda Bay, Rose Red, Soft Suede, Whisper White
Stamps: Cheery Chat, Charming
Ink: Rose Red, Sahara Sand
Accessories: ribbon, rhinestone brad, corner punch




Tomorrow is a downline road trip! One of the gals opened up a shop in Estes Park and we are all going there to have our meeting (we're making punch sheets which I will show here on Friday), having a fun lunch and then paying a visit to the shop. I think it's going to be lots of fun and I will try to take some pictures to show you all. I'll also have the usual slideshow of all the wonderful swaps. I redid my bleach card from yesterday using just a tad less bleach and so here's what my swaps will look like:


And check this out! I stacked the cards before they were completely dry and the inside looks like this on some of the cards. Wierd, but kinda interesting.


Thanks so much for visiting and for all the great comments on my card yesterday. I really thought the card was pretty lame, but you all told me different and I got so many comments on SCS - shocked me I can tell you! So thanks everyone for your wonderful support!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Splitcoast Stampers Color Challenge - CC231

Well I am struggling to get my mojo back, it's hard as I am still so pre-occupied with the work situation. Today's color challenge on SCS is to stamp with bleach to create your second color. I need some swaps for our downline meeting on Thursday and thought I'd experiment with one of my new sets. I used Soft Suede cardstock which, when bleached, leaves So Saffron! Here's my card:

I think I need to work on getting less bleach on the stamp so that the image is clearer, but this is my first attempt and it's not too bad.

Thanks so much to Sabrina and Diane for coming over last night and helping me try to keep things in perspective! I really appreciate it you guys!

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

New challenge at Kaboodle Doodle Challenge Blog

There's a fun new challenge posted on the Kaboodle Doodle blog today. Be sure to go and visit and check out all the wonderful cards from the design team! Here's mine:


It was good to finally make something, but I'm still at war with my mojo. Too much stress on the job front to be able to concentrate worth a darn. Hopefully it will ease up today with word due from the tech guys on the status of our critical data drives. I'm hoping the Monday night gals can make it over too as we haven't gotten together for weeks with my pneumonia and all the traveling. That will definitely be a big help. Also, Mr. Brown is due today with my goodies from the new Holiday Mini catalog - wow are there some really great things to play with in that catalog!

We'll also be announcing 4 new design team members on the Kaboodle Doodle blog later today too! There are some very talented ladies joining the team and I can't wait to work with them.

Thanks for visiting today and for hanging in there with me through this latest mess I've gotten myself into! Yikes! Your supportive comments have been a huge help in keeping me out of total panic and depression!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Just checking in ...

We are back in Colorado safe and sound. I came home to a nightmare though - major - I mean really major - hardware issues at the office. Theory is that some power problems took out two key drives one with files and the other with the backup copies of those very same files - thus no more files! I hope that it is something that can be fixed and both drives are in the hands of an expert now. Things are going to be a bit hairy scary for the next few days. Anyone know of any good computer support job openings? I am too exhausted when I get home to do much. Haven't been reading my fave blogs or anything. Yikes! Hope to be back on track and have some pretties to share with you very soon.

Thanks for visiting - please don't give up on me!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

New Challenge Blog!

There's a new game in town:

Hop on over and take a look, they have a great giveaway going on right now.

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Hello from Massachusetts!

Well I made it to MA and today is our big family picnic and bluegrass picking potluck! The weather was absolutely gorgeous today - very hot, but NO RAIN!

My train trip from NJ was very nice. Here's a shot I took out the train window as we left NYC. I think I am definitely going to scrapbook this when I get home.

Well, I better get back to the party! We're here till Tuesday morning, our flight leaves for Colorado at 6 a.m. and I will be glad to be home again. My own bed - my crafting studio - the grandchildren! It's been a very long two weeks.

Thanks for visiting today!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles