First Christmas Card of the Season

I'm excited to show you my first card of the holiday 2014 season! And I'm even more excited to announce that I've won a seat in the coolest class, A Very Trendy Holiday 2.0! There is no doubt in my mind that this class will be a huge inspiration to me as I work on this year's cards and tags.

So this card popped into my head as I was reading and watching videos about using stencils. Full disclosure: The background was the inspired part, but the rest was a bit of a struggle. I think it came out okay, though.

I started out with a stencil by Memory Box and some Shaded Lilac and Salty Ocean distress inks. After gently tapping the color through the delicate stencil onto Distress Watercolor Cardstock, I spritzed it with a wee bit of water to soften up the look of it. (D'oh! It would have been even cooler if I had used a shimmer spray.) I chose Lovely Lilac (retired) for the base of the card and the large snowflake. I embossed the snowflake from Festive Flurry using white Zing embossing powder, then layered it onto a circle of Dazzling Diamonds glimmer paper that I sponged the edges of to make it stand out a bit from the background. I attached this piece with Stampin' Dimensionals. The sentiments on the front banner as well as the inside are from the photopolymer set Endless Wishes. I added some small circles of matching glimmer paper to jazz things up a bit. Here's the inside:

I haven't yet decided what I'm going to do next, but I'm sure a little bit more time in the class will get me going!

Snowy smiles,
Joyce Spear / StamperJoyce
                  

Cat-Themed ATC Book

Here's a project I've been working on FURever!  

Six of us got together many months ago (when I was much younger) and decided to do a swap that (1) had to have five cat-themed Artist Trading Cards, and (2) had to bind the five ATCs together somehow. The other five ladies did their projects over the summer while I was going through the ordeal of moving twice because my apartment building was being renovated. They told me not to worry about it, just get mine done and mailed whenever I could. They know me well enough to correctly predict that I would put a lot of effort into it and the wait would be worth it. I never dreamed this would drag into November!

Anyway, here are photos of the project. (Remember, you can click on any picture to see a larger version of it.):

The individual cards:

The individual pages/pockets in the book with their corresponding ATCs:

The majority of the stamps in this project are from two of Raisin Boat's stamp sets, Purrsonality and Cattitude. The cute cat on the cover is a digital stamp by Hambo Stamps. There's one stamp, a decorative border, in the Butterfly stamp set from Hot Off the Press. If you see anything else you'd like to know more about, please let me know.

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What's next? you ask. Well, I've got a lot of projects rattling around in my head. I have some thank-you cards to make, and of course a ton of Christmas/holiday cards. StampNation is having a Christmas card swap, and I've decided to participate in that. I also want to make a batch of gift tags for a friend of mine to use for her Christmas presents. And then there are the dozen birthday cards I want to make as a gift for a friend whose birthday was back in August. Hmmm... think I have enough to keep me busy?

I'm still haven't made much progress with unpacking, but a friend moved a whole bunch of boxes around for me a few days ago and helped me find my heat tool, SU! marker set, and a bunch of other stuff I've been seriously missing. The only thing I'm desperate to find now is my craft mat. I need to clone myself so that I can unpack and make cards and tags all at the same time!

Smiles,

Joyce Spear / StamperJoyce