Gotta love the color blue

My cards both use some shades of blue, always a fun color.

 First up I wanted to use the retro sketch for this week along with my super brand new Simon Says Stamp stamps!!! I just feel in love with this cute little house. I pulled out my BasicGrey Aspen Frost mini pad of papers. These papers are meant for Christmas/winter but I knew I needed to get more use from then then just one season.

 The two label shapes are cut with the Cricut. The stamp set comes with a couple doors to stamp and a couple windows plus the cut cloud outline and some sentiments. It was just made for stamping on patterned paper.

 This is the retro sketch, I just turned it.

 My next card uses some wonderful paper tapes from Recollections and a great stamp sentiment from Verve stamps.

 Are these tapes yummy!

 The pretty border is a punch and I just love this sentiment set that is a few different sentiments that can be the focus of a card.

And for a couple fun photos...

 We have had a fair amount of rain lately and I caught a glimpse of the rain drops on my plants while looking out my kitchen window.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Craft Dash - Quick and Easy

CAS-UAL Fridays challenge for this week is to do a Craft Dash - a 10 minute creation. This also fits the Simon Says Stamp challenge for something Christmassy.

 First of all, quick and easy is usually not in my crafting vocabulary. It takes me more then 10 minutes sometimes just to pick the color I want!!! So I figured I just had to put my mind to the challenge and to see what I could come up with. Well, guess what, I have two cards to share with you and they use my brand new Paper Smooches stamps that arrived at my door recently.  I think that NEW always has a certain piece of inspiration that comes with it.

 I picked a folding tag from one of my Cricut cartridges. This took seconds to cut out and then what made the stamped images so fast is I put three different stamps on the same block at the same time and then colored it very simply. The plaid piece is paper tape from Recollections.

 For my second card, I opened a mini pad of papers from Carta Bella, Winter Fun. The silhoutte kids, the trees and the blue flourish are all printed on the paper already. I just cut the piece to fit my card.

 I stamped the Paper Smooches sentiment and a few extra snowflakes and then gave the flourish extra accent with some blue Liquid Pearls, self adhesive rhinestones to the stamped snowflakes.

Here is the CAS-UAL Fridays challenge.

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

SnowGlobe day

I love snowglobes and thought that would be a fun accent for some cards.

 I went to my Doodlecharms Cricut cartridge. Since you can pick the size you want to cut an image, I could make my snowglobe in more then one size.  I wanted a shaped card so after I had my snowglobe assembled I glued it to a folded piece of red cardstock and cut the shape.

 The little snowman is also a part of this cartridge.

 I had to add some snow to the bottom of my little creation. I tore a piece of white cardstock and used Glossy Accents to add some chunky glitter - it is from Impress Rubber Stamps.

 I used the same image again and just cut it smaller. The card shape is also cut with the Cricut. 

That wonderful, silhouetter couple are stickers from Flower Soft. I also added some snow with some white Flower Soft.

See that card on the cover, the one with the Hero Arts heart? That is mine!!! Always a nice surprise.

 

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Can't have too many snowflakes!

I need to share fun news, I have a couple layouts in this issue, look for it on your newstand!

 

I guess you can tell I love having snowflakes on my cards, all kinds of snowflakes.

 For this card, I used one of the snowflake stamps in The Craft's Meow set. I wanted it to fit the retro sketch and the CAS-UAL Fridays challenge to use a score tool.  I love the Martha Stewart score board so I pulled that out to help make my pleats in the pink patterned paper.

 I stamped the snowflake with pink ink on a watercolor paper. I took a watercolor brush and slightly went over my stamping to have it bleed a bit. The snowflake button and some pink Liquid Pearls finish it.

 Here is the CAS-UAL Fridays challenge.

This is the retro sketch.

 Next up, I wanted to use the Dynamic Duos color challenge. I also pulled out one of my absolute favorite stamps, a chevron background stamp from Hero Arts.  I embossed it with a neat Ranger gold embossing powder. This makes it fit the Simon Says Stamp challenge to use a favorite.

 The black snowflake transparency is from Maya Road with a punched snowflake on top of that and a button and rhinestone on top of that.

 Here is the Dynamic Duos challenge.
And for a few fun photos...

 We had two Christmas programs this last weekend. First up, my grandson's school program.  He picked out that adorable bow tie!!! At this point, he all of a sudden started directly, following his teacher!

 One moment he was not singing, the next singing with all of his heart!

 Next up, the Church Christmas program.  He has to be the cutest little lamb ever!

He picked out this tie too, all his own idea!
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

More stamping fun

Yeah, I got in some play time and what better way right now then with some Christmas cards.

 I have had this embossing folder for a while and found this to be a great time to pull it out. I used The Play Date Cafe color combination on it.

 The sentiment is from a stamp set by WOW! I embossed it with silver embossing powder.

 Here is The Play Date Cafe combo.

 Next up, I wanted to use the color combination at Colour Q.  I used the card sketch at Clean & Simple for my inspiration. I made sure to say "for my inspiration" because it might not really look like the sketch to you, but it really was my starting off place.

 When I saw this snowflake stamp set, I knew I needed it ASAP. It is from The Craft's Meow. Are the colors just yummy!!!

 Here is the Colour Q combo.

 This is the Clean & Simple sketch.

I also put together this little tag the other day. I had recently watched Tim Holtz doing some demo's at a stamp convention and I came home to try a few of the technques he showed. I picked up the Seedless Preserves Distress Stain and needed to use that. The ornament is from Hero Arts. I didn't have any branch stamps so I used the antlers to one of the little reindeer stamps! This does fit in with the Simon Stays Stamp and Show challenge.

For a couple fun photos...

 We had rain the other day (and we even have some this weekend too). This is just unusual for us so we had to go out and find some puddles. I used my Hipstamatic camera and the lens I used turned out this bizarre photo of duplicate pics of my grandson as he was running.

 

This guy loves puddles!

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

A "deer" here and a "deer" there

I get to share a couple cards with some fun deer images on them, fitting for Christmas or Winter.

 

 My first card uses some really neat stamps from Flower Soft.  They released a few different silhouette style stamp sets this year and this deer and the trees are from the Winter Wonderland set. I love that they come in different sizes.

 Along with these great stamps, I added some White Flower Soft to my trees and to the ground below the deer to make it look like a wonderful winter scene.  These stamps are silhouette in style so they could be stamped in just black but it was fun to stamp them with some color.

 I added a snowflake punch to my scene. Some white Flower Soft was added to that too along with some brown ink rubbed on the edges and a pearl for the center.

 This card was so fun and so fast.  I pulled out two rolls of paper tape from Recollections along with some new BasicGrey papers. 

 The label shape was cut with the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge.  I cut the label shape down the center and added in the two rolls of tape along with the stamped sentiment, a Hero Arts stamp.

And for a couple photos...

 Guess where we went this last weekend??? This is the huge ferris wheel at California Adventures. It is lighted up at night and what is cool is the colors keep changing.

And, this photo is from the special lighting ceremony at the castle.  It is so gorgeous to watch the snowy looking lights come on all over the castle.

 

This is Small World, all decorated for Christmas. If you have never seen what this place looks like during the holidays, put a trip on your "must do" list!!! Extremely stunning.
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Black Christmas Trees and Angel Snow Ladies

I am having so much fun creating cards around the themes of the season.

 This first one uses the retro sketch for this week and some really neat WOW stamps I recently won.

 I was a winner of this great stamp set by WOW from Gina Lideros blog.  I wanted my image to be on the simple side so I just stamped it with black ink and embossed it with clear embossing powder. Next came maybe my new most favorite supply, some Heidi Swapp Gold spray. Can you tell how amazing that gold is? I even sprayed it on that little strip of black cardstock.

 I wanted to show off a Kreaxions 4-in-1 punch so I used it on the corners of my square piece of cardstock that I had already embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder. This was also rubbed with some brown and some green stamp pad ink.

 Here is the retro sketch.

 Now for my adorable little Snow Lady, a Printworks stamp.  I just love how girly she is.  She also fits the Simon Says Stamp blog, Snowflakes challenge and the CASology SPARKLE challenge.

 Another new purchase that I am loving is some Rock Candy Ranger Sticklers. LOVING the glittery look. The hat was coated with Glossy Accents.

 This snowflake is cut with the Cricut and another example of the Rock Candy Sticklers. I thought the little heart she is holding looked something like a Bauble to go along with the Addicted to CAS challenge.

 This is the Addicted to CAS challenge.

CASology Sparkle challenge.
And for a couple cute photos...

 We picked up this adorable Santa advent calendar at Ikea and my youngest grandson has had so much fun opening a box each day. He was getting mad that Christmas wasn't here since we said it was Christmas time, so this helps him, I hope!

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)