Tuesday, November 11, 2014

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
                  

Sunday, November 2, 2014

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