Advent Calendar Extravaganza with Taheerah Atchia

Welcome to a very special Christmassy event!

Advent Calendar Extravaganza is -the- festive event of the season! This ‘hop with a twist’ was dreamed up by Taheerah Atchia and features surprise destinations each day! Joining in the fun with Taheerah are ONE HUNDRED special guests - each serving up some fantastic Christmas inspiration! Just like an Advent Calendar, you’ll never know where you’re going to be visiting next until you ‘open the door’!

And that’s not all! With 25 *amazing* sponsors taking part as guests as well, your crafty wish list is bound to get a boost with a chance to win a prize EVERY SINGLE DAY!!

Join in the fun every day at taheerah-atchia.com to see what special surprises await behind the door!

This is also post number 19 for my "Challenge me a Christmas Card" series - it's been so much fun, I might just do it again next year! This card comes from two challenges - one set by my crafty friend, Teresa Xanthos, who challenged me to make an interactive card. So I made a snowflake shaker card. The other challenge was from a sciencey friend, April, who wanted to see a window card.

Not only are shaker cards difficult to make (well, for me, anyway), but they're difficult to photograph, too!!
I used some older stamps - the snowflakes are from Stampin' Up, and the sentiment is from an Australian company called Annabelle Stamps (unfortunately, they are no more - which is very sad).  I was going to use some newer snowflake stamps I have, but I couldn't remember whether white StazOn ink and StazOn cleaner should be used on photopolymer stamps, so I decided to stay on the safe side and use good old fashioned rubber stamps for stamping on the acetate.

It’s not a party without a prize - and with prizes every day there are several chances to win! Today’s prize is generously supplied by Wplus9 so you’ll definitely want to win! Simply leave a comment on this post - then head back to taheerah-atchia.com and leave a comment there too! You must leave a comment on Taheerah’s blog as well as mine in order to be eligible to win! Don’t forget to grab the other surprise destinations from Taheerah’s blog and head over to them to leave comments there as well to improve your odds even more! You have until 23:59 EST on 31st December 2016 to enter.

I wanted to use some Wplus9 stamps in my card today, but I realised that I don't have any Christmassy stamps from Wplus9! Shock Horror! I'm going to have to rectify this situation very soon!
 

Don’t forget Advent Calendar Extravaganza runs from 1st-25th December inclusive so make sure you visit taheerah-atchia.com every day for fabulous inspiration and amazing prizes every single time! Merry Christmas!

Thanks for visiting :) 

A girly birthday card

I haven't had much time to make cards for challenges recently, so I went looking for challenges, and found four that I wanted to join in with - and then I made one card that fits all 4 challenges!  This card is for a very special friend of mine, Stella - Happy Birthday, lovely lady!

I stamped a bouquet of Wplus9 flowers on the white base card in strong colours, so that they would show through the vellum window (which was die cut with Lil' Inkers designs stitched rectangles and stitched circles).  The die cut and stamped flowers and leaves in front of the vellum were stamped in softer tones of Hero Arts shadow inks.  I die cut the word "birthday" (from Simon Says Stamp) twice and glued them together to give the word a bit more stability.  The pink stamped, clear embossed word "girl" is from a Hero Arts set of sentiments called "birthday sayings". The final touch was some Zig "Wink of Stella" onto the die cut blooms and flowers. It's a pity the Wink of Stella is so hard to photograph - it gives such a lovely, subtle glimmer that really lifts the whole card.

The four challenges I'll be submitting this card to all have different themes!  They are Virginia's View - Layers and Dimension, ColourQ CQC #285,  CASology "Spring" and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge "Birthday".  

I hope you have a lovely day - thanks for visiting :)

Hello, twins

A friend of mine asked for a baby card for twins, so I thought I'd join in with both Lawnscaping's Clean and Simple challenge, and Virginia's View Shaker card challenge.  Now, I've never made a shaker card before today.  Never. So it was a bit of a steep learning curve, and I must say I'm not very inclined to make another one!  However, I am happy with the finished product. 

On the background, I used the technique of using Versamark to create shadows on a panel of solid ink (Hero Arts Shadow Ink in Soft Pool), which I learned in the recent Online Card Class.  I created a stencil to apply the Versamark using some Lawn Fawn cloud dies.   All the stamps are also Lawn Fawn - from "Plus One" and also "Hello Baby".  I had to create an extra bundle for the stork to carry with some creative masking (I've done this a number of times before with this stamp).  The window was cut with a Stitched Circle die from Lil' Inker Designs. 

 Thanks for visiting :)

Online card class! YAY!

You know I love the Online Card Classes.  I say it every time there's a new one!  I particularly enjoy the holiday ones, but this year, it is coinciding with exam marking for me, so I can't join in as much as I want just yet. 

But I managed to make 2 cards today - here's the first, based on Jennifer McGuire's card from day 4.

Thanks for visiting - have a great day :)

Fusion #16

I just adore the colours in this week's Fusion photo, and the sketch made me think of a window card, so I pulled out an acetate card base and started from there! 

Isn't it weird how cards sometimes turn out - my original plan had heaps of yellow, and something floral on it. But it turned out as an acetate card with the sentiment on the inside, with baby blue stripes and a happy, bright sun diecut from vellum.

Make sure you visit Fusion challenge blog to see what the other DT ladies have made, and to link your card creation to the linky link ;)

Thanks for visiting :)

Musical happy birthday

This week, Moxie Fab world has a challenge to use a window in a card.  Also, Less is More has a challenge to use black and white with just a dash of colour. I had my treble clef die out on the desk from a card I made on Monday (I wasn't entirely happy with that one), so thought I'd use it again. I also had some Echo Park patterned paper that I thought would add a nice border, and I used my brand new Simon Says Stamp Holiday shapes die for the heart.  All the rest of the notes I handcut, and I hand drew the musical stave and the time signature on the inside of the card ;)

Oh, and for those of you who do not read music, it is actually a musically accurate representation of the first four words of the "happy birthday" song ;)

I'm enjoying wonderfully cool weather here today - 14 degrees C at the moment, and a forecast of 20 - makes a lovely change from 41 the other day - bracing for 37 on Friday! Wishing for a cool change in the bushfire ravaged areas of NSW, Victoria and Tasmania.

Have a great day ;)

A few challenges to kickstart the mojo

I've been busy making wedding invitation samples, I haven't really had any mojo to make anything else! So I decided today that I would check out some challenges out in blogland (I found heaps!), and break open some of the purchases that arrived in the mail from Simon Says Stamp a couple of days ago (Yay!).  Anyway, here's what I came up with.

 The window has some printed vellum that I've had in my stash for years - I originally made the card with an empty window, but I just wanted to add that little something extra - not overpowering, just enough.

The background in stamped with my brand new Hero Arts Looped Flower Pattern Cling stamp, and then clear embossed. The sentiment (from a Stampin' Up set)  is stamped onto my new Small Folded Banners die from Simon Says Stamp.

 I'll be submitting to quite a number of challenges!
The Play Date Cafe colour challenge, 

 Simon Says Stamp "New Something" challenge

 Retro Sketches #45

 A Blog Named Hero - Try Something New

 CASology - New

 And CASual Fridays - Thank you

Have a great day!

Online card class begins!!

Well, yes, class actually began on Monday, but I've only had a tiny bit of time available since class began, so have only made a couple of cards.
I liked Jennifer McGuire's idea of cut outs on the front of the card showing another cut out on the inside, so I gave that idea a go with this card:

Inspiration from Jennifer McGuire

I made a card today after watching Jennifer McGuire's video at Simon Says Stamp (you can see it HERE).  One of her cards had a stamped strip of acetate across the bottom edge, so I used that idea as a starting point.  I also wanted to challenge myself to use up some scraps of patterned papers - these three papers are from 3 different companies, but they went well with the fabric flower that has been sitting in my stash for FAR too long, so putting them all together, I came up with this:

This week's challenge at Simon Says Stamp Challenge is "Anything Goes", so I thought I'd submit this card :)

More pink from another stuff up

Here's another card I made today that started as a mistake - I had a card with a circle cut out of the front, but I smudged the stamping of the sentiment (see the finished, unsmudged card here).  D'oh!   So I decided to cover the front of the smudged one with some patterned paper and make a girly-girl card :)

Will submit this card to CASual Fridays Pretty in Pink challenge  - how could I not!?!!

Twins!

Some very good friends of my family have this week welcomed the safe and happy arrival of twin girls!  Hooray!!
I took Lawn Fawn's oh-so-cute stork stamp, and added a second pink bundle with some judicious masking :)  The background in the window was stamped with two Hero Arts background stamps - the clouds stamp inked in Soft Pool shadow ink, and the magical background kissed to the clouds with Stone Wash mid tone shadow ink.  I coloured the stork using some Copics, and then painted some shimmer mist paint over the top of the pink bundles of joy to add some shine :)

 I'll be sumitting this card to these challenges: Lawnscaping challenge #36, CASE study #96, A Blog Named Hero #6 and CAS-ual Fridays #58.

(PS this week's CASE study muse is Joy Taylor - I can't tell you how awesome she is! Visit her blog here.)

 Have a great day :)

***Update**** so excited to be one of the top 3 at CASE study!! Yay!!

********UPDATE******** over the moon to be "Queen of Green at Lawnscaping!!  YAY!!!!!

****************UPDATE*******************  Speechless!!