Christmas Card Kit #2 from Marina: "Cute Christmas"

Hi guys!

It's again time to post cards me, Marina and Pia have been making from the same materials. This time the wonderful Marina send us the items to play with and I had real fun working with the cute goodies she included in her kit! Let's get right to the cards. In the end of this post you'll see the photo of the whole kit. 

Card #1 is my favorite. Marina included wonderful, snowy acetate in her kit and I just looooooved it! The bad news is I was only able to use the acetate in this one card... I experimented with heat embossing ON the acetate and that DID NOT WORK... Which was a real shame because I absolutely loved the acetate. Anyway, for this card, I sponged a night sky background, heat embossed a sentiment on that and adhered the acetate on it by hiding the adhesive under the die cut snowbank. I also used a wooden Christmas tree from the kit which I heat embossed twice: first with pearl white powder, then with transparent glittery powder. The embossing powders still show some wood through so I thought a kraft card base would be a good choice to match the natural feel. Please click the photo larger for all the details -I was unable to use the largest photo settings with blogger with this one. It's a nice card! :) 

I like this card so much I'd like to try my luck at the big DT call that's going on at Happy Little Stampers here. I think my card qualifies both for the CAS team and the Christmas team... Would be wonderful to join one of these groups. So, fingers crossed! :) 

Then, card #2, my next favorite. :) The super cute cut out penguin digi stamp is from Marina's kit. I first tried to go for a night sky scene (similar to my first card) with the penguin but in the end it all looked a bit boring... So I ended up cutting out some squares from the night sky and making a sort of layered CAS layout. I also used my own snowflakes embossing folder (bought second hand from facebook crafts group) and colored in the penguin with Copics. The balloon is sparkled up with Stickles. The sentiment comes from an older Simon Says Stamp set.

My cards #3 and #4 are both made around cute images that Marina sent. Both are colored in with Copics. In the dog-card I also used a charm Marina added in her kit. I chose to use a snowflake stencil I own for grounding these images and I think it worked out nicely. Marina's kit also included pretty papers -the second card here has one of those papers as background. I like the layered look of card #3 -cards with tags are one of my faves and I like the look of this card although it's more "full" and busy that my cards usually are. 

Our plan is always to make 4 cards with the kit materials but this time I ended up making five! My card #5 uses patterned papers from the kit and I simply combined them with a stamped sentiment, die cut snowflakes and rhinestones. Super simple. :)

Thank you so much Marina for this inspirational kit! I hope you'll now head on over to Marina's and Pia's blogs and have a look what they have made. I'm sure you'll enjoy your visits! I'll end this post with the photo of the kit. Thank you everyone for popping by! 

New Challenge at Inkspirational!

Hi guys!

We have a new challenge for you at Inkspirational and this time it's a super fun one for me because I've got to choose the topic, yay! I chose

"Use 5 or more stamps"

When you look at my card you might be all "What?!? Where are all the five stamps?!?" I wanted to create a subtle background stamping with several background stamps -well 3 this time to be exact- and used a very light blue ink for this. This kind of stamping gives a wonderful airy look and adds a lot of interest to the eye when you try to catch the light, faded patterns and images from the background. 

My Hero Arts butterfly is colored in with Copics and I added some white gel pen too. I love this stamp-die set, so beautiful. Sentiment is by Chocolate Baroque. I hope you like my card and I hope to see you playing along at Inkspirational! 

Close up: The background consists of stamping with 3 background stamps: a grid stamp (Kaiserkraft) , a "tile" stamp (Stamping Up) and a dotty, mixed media-sort of background stamp (Prima)

Ghost Stamping

Hi friends!

CAS Mix Up Card Challenge has just begun with a new monthly challenge and this time the theme is ghosting. This is not a completely new technique to me but I still enjoyed watching the video tutorials provided in the challenge. In the end I decided to go with stamping with water on distress inked background. The stamp I used is an older STAMPlorations sunflower stamp. I used it both for the ghosted background and then stamping normally with brown ink. Loll suggested using mixed media paper for ghosting in her video and that's what I picked and I do think it worked wonders! My "your choice"-mixed media element is heat embossing and I also used linen card stock for card base for extra texture. 

CAS Mix Up Card Challenge now also has a sister challenge blog: CAS Watercolor Challenge. What a cool and unique idea for a challenge blog! The first challenge is autumn and I made my card this in mind, I chose autumnal colors and a fall flower. It's amazing, the fall has been so warm here in Finland this year that the sun flowers are still growing in my neighbor's garden! They are super tall and so beautiful.

 Both CAS Mix Up and CAS Watercolor challenges have a DT Call and I'm thinking to "throw my hat in the ring" for both of these challenges -would be great to be picked for one of them! Wish me luck friends and thanks for popping by! 

Breast Cancer Awareness Challenge at TIME OUT

Hi friends! 

We have a very special challenge for you today at TIME OUT:

Theme of Breast Cancer Awareness and/or Friendship.  

Optional Technique Twist: Embossing and/or Use pink

We are being sponsored by CAS-ual Fridays Stamps. Our winner will receive $25 gift voucher to CASual Fridays store! There's also a special prize for grabs for those using pink and embossing: a package from CASual Fridays Calling All Sistahs collection. This collection of stamps were designed to promote breast cancer awareness and to help us encourage our friends (sistahs) to do their monthly self check.

In my card I've used CASual Fridays stamps and dies combined with STAMPlorations heart stencil, a tag die and some pink lace (from you, Sandie!) I colored in the hope-word with Copics. This card is very simple but also quite feminine, soft and pretty -something to give hope, hopefully! 

Thanks for popping by and I'd love to see you playing along at TIME OUT. Conil is our guest designer this time: play along and you could get to guest design for us someday too! Don't miss the cards by DT and Conil, everyone has done wonderful job as always. After admiring their inspiration cards... It's your turn to take TIME OUT and craft! 

New Challenge at Inkspirational!

Hi friends!

We have a new challenge for you at Inkspirational, a word prompt

"Glamour"

When I thought about the word glamour the first thing that came to my mind was women... We are so very glamorous, aren't we?!? Well... Maybe not all the time... But that was my inspiration anyway! When I went through my stamps I found exactly ONE stamp with a woman image and that's what I used. The stamp is a magazine freebie, sometimes received with Craft Stamper. After noticing I don't have any women-stamps I started to think it's actually very weird: I mostly send cards to women, wouldn't beautiful/elegant woman images be perfect for them?!? So, the hunt is on. I've already bought one stamp from a Finnish online shop... So now I have 2 stamps with women. Yay. :)

Anyway, my card:

Coloring with Copics

BG stamping with DI:s with bg stamps by Prima and Stamping Up

Sentiment by STAMPlorations

I can't decide if this card is a hit or a miss but I do love the colors. I've become very brave lately and have used sequins every now and then... Here's an example of this bravery. ;) 

Thanks for popping by, I hope you liked my card and I hope to see you at Inkspirational! 

TIME OUT Challenge Reminder

Hi guys!

A quick post to remind you of our current TIME OUT Challenge here, a beautiful fall photo inspiration.

STAMPlorations is sponsoring us so I naturally wanted to play with their stamps. The leaves are from the first Trendy Leaves set, stamped with Zigs and water on textured card (love my MISTI for this) and the sentiment stamp is from #Authentic stamp set. Really love these sentiments and often, often use them! 

The winner of our challenge gets a $10 GV to STAMPlorations store. We'll also do 2 random draws. One winner will get the stamp set Holiday Expressions and another one will get Trendy Leaves 2. Yay!

This time Claire is our guest designer. Don't miss her card or the second round of DT cards, click here! 

Christmas Card Kit Exchange with Marina and Pia #1

 Hi friends!

Some of you might remember that during this summer me, Marina and Pia have had fun exchanging card making materials and posting cards made with the same "ingredients". After our first round was over we decided to have another go... But this time with Christmas card supplies! I sent the first kit , "Textured Christmas" and you can see the photo of it below: 

The kit included textured paper, burlap paper, woodgrain paper, stamped Angels (Stampendous), gold heat embossed multi-language sentiment stamp, glittery, thick glittery die cuts out and some metallic snowflakes. 

So, my cards! 

In my first card I wanted the glittery, thick snowflake to be the star of the card. I also used textured paper from the kit by covering the whole card base with it. I added rhinestones and a black sentiment strip with white heat embossed sentiment. I love the simplicity of this card and yet it's quite fun and detailed!

In my second card I used both woodgrain papers from the kit and a glittery, green, die cut tree from the kit. The sentiment is heat embossed with glittery copper powder -it's surprisingly subtle in real life and this card did not become so screamingly glittery as I was afraid of! :) I'd like to enter this card to Addicted to Stamps: Trees/Branches and or leaves and Penny Black and More: Add a sentiment. The sentiment comes from Penny Black: Joyous-stamp set. 

In my third card I used the heat-embossed, multi language sentiment stamp as my focal point and "embellished" it with stamping Penny Black poinsettias with my Zig markers and water. I also inked the stamped portion of the card faintly with DI for less stark look. I can't decide if this is way too busy or artsy and pretty. :) I'd like to enter this card to Penny Black Saturday Challenge: Nature.

Then, my fourth card... with the burlap paper. The whole idea for this kit started from the burlap paper -I really don't know how to use it and I have a huge pile of it! I can't wait to see how Marina and Pia use it in their projects. I ended up covering a whole card base with the burlap, added metallic snowflakes from the kit and paper cut snowflakes and sentiment strip (not from the kit). I can't say I absolutely love this but at least I got some burlap used! 

In my final card I used woodgrain paper, the angels (colored in with Copics) and metallic snowflakes from the kit and combined them with a white heat embossed sentiment strip, from Penny Black again. The wings of the angels I of course had to glitter up with wink of stella and the dots in the brown dress sort of shine too. I'd like to enter this card to Glitter'N'Sparkle: Add something metal.

Now you've reached the end of this photo heavy post, I hope you enjoyed what you saw! Do visit Marina and Pia now and have a look what they have created with these same materials! Thanks for popping by!