Wonderful Keeping Christmas

It's the 25th of the month and time again to join some of my crafty friends for our monthly Keeping Christmas Inspiration Hop! The idea of the hop is to both to bring you a little dose of holiday inspiration throughout the year and also have some Christmas cards and projects in our stash all ready to go for December 2018. If you've already been hopping along, you should have arrived from Claire's blog. If you're just popping in, read on for all the details!

For my May installment, I played paper roulette and closed my eyes and blindly pulled out a pad of paper from one of my Christmas bins. It happened to be a lovely collection by Teresa Collins. The vintage images and feel to the papers was enough to get the creative juices flowing.

I have amassed a huge collection of blank tags and have recently been trying to challenge myself to use them, so pulled out a chipboard tag to start off. I liked the wonderful time sentiment (except the grammar error where the apostrophe is missing) from one of the collage papers, so cut the little collage pieces apart and then layered them on the tag, inking all the edges with old paper and walnut stain distress inks to pull together the vintage feel.

For stamping, I pulled out the Glad Tidings set and the coordinating Snowflake Tidings die set. Not only are Christmas sets 25% off today at Verve, our current sale is buy a stamp set and get the coordinating die for 75% off so this is a great time to pick up this combo if you want it! Anyhow, I embossed the snowflake in white on patterned paper, then die cut and sponged with the same inks as before.  One snowflake is popped up on dimensionals with a fancy brad as it's centerpiece and the other is tucked behind the tag near the sentiment.

I added some wrinkled seam binding, then layered all my papers and attached to a kraft card base.

Okay, now it's time to hop along and check out all the other fabulous posts on the hop. I'm so excited to hop along and see everyone's creations! The hop is hosted on the fabulous Kelly Lunceford's blog, so head over there to start from the beginning. Or continue on to visit Kim Heggins if you've already been hopping along!

Kelly Lunceford

Lesley Croghan (taking a break)

Anita Madden (taking a break)

Broni Holcombe 

Claire Broadwater

Julee Tilman {You are here}

Kim Heggins

Lori Tecler

Nance Salkeld

Nina Forsyth taking a break)

Rachel Bergfeld

Vicki Finger (taking a break)

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Enabler's List
Stamps: Glad Tidings (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Santa's List (Teresa Collins), kraft, chipboard tag
Ink: versamark, old paper, walnut stain distress ink (Ranger)
Accessories: Snowflake Tidings die set (A Cut Above by VERVE), white embossing powder, crop-adile, fancy brad, seam binding

Joyeux Noel Viva la Verve

Hi friends! It's the first Friday of the month, and that means it's my turn to host the sketch challenge over at Viva la Verve. I'm starting the month off with this fun, layered sketch perfect for using up some paper scraps. Hope to see you in the link-up this month, for a chance to win a Verve gift voucher!

For my card, I wanted to use the new Autumn Blessings set for a Christmas card, making a big circle wreath.  So I die cut a large stitched circle and used the laurel image, overlapping the beginning and ends when I stamped around the circle to form a continuous wreath shape in mossy meadow. I colored the wreath lightly with a blender pen and mossy meadow ink, then stamped the leafy flower medallion in cherry cobbler and colored with a blender pen.  I cut  the flower with the coordinating Autumn Thanks Die Set, then embossed the flower center and also die cut it to pop up.

The sentiment is from the Glad Tidings stamp set and I embossed it on gold and cut one end with the Stitched Pennants Die Set.  A few scraps of some MME Christmas paper and a damask embossed cream layer finish the layout. I added a thin gold border made by inking my cardstock mat with versamark and embossing in gold just around the edges. Then I pulled out a fabric reindeer I had in my stash and swiped it with Versamark as well and embossed in gold.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you have a fabulous start to your weekend. If you're in the mood to shop, be sure to check out our Fallidays Sale with all of our holiday faves and new releases on sale 25% off.

Enabler's List

Viva la Verve October Sketch 1

Stamps: Autumn Blessings, Glad Tidings (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Cozy Christmas (MME), cream (Neenah)
Ink: mossy meadow, cherry cobbler (SU!), VersaMark, blender pen, gold glitter pen (Spica)
Accessories: Autumn Thanks Die Set, Stitched Pennants Die Set (A Cut Above by VERVE), stitched circles stax (MFT), gold embossing powder (JudiKins), damask embossing folder (Darice), reindeer embellishment

Mixed Peace

Hi friends!  I'm excited to be guesting again with The Card Concept this month. I got to pick my style this go round, and it's probably no surprise that I chose mixed-media (although my mixed-media always seems to have a bit of the shabby/vintage look as well).  Had so much fun getting my hands all paint and ink stained!  {happy sigh}

I found a new snowflake die and embossing folder set at Tuesday Morning last week and couldn't pass them up.  I've been trying not to buy any new Christmas supplies this year, but 2 beautiful embossing folders and a die for $7 made me re-classify these as winter supplies, not Christmas!  LOL

Anyhow, when I saw the challenge graphic, I had an idea to do a resist over the embossed snowflakes and then fill in with blues like the graphic.  I attempted first with MicroGlaze, then with soft gloss and this final attempt was with glossy accents applied to the tops of the raised snowflakes.  What I wasn't cluing in on was that even though the top portion I place the mediums on was resisting the ink and paint, the sides of the raised embossing were still exposed, so blue seeped underneath in all three attempts and added a bit of blue to my snowflakes.  Still a great look and I love the way this third attempt turned out.

After embossing with the snowflake folder, I applied glossy glaze to each of the larger snowflakes and let it dry.  Next I added some distress stain in broken china, stormy sky and faded jeans.  I followed this up with Adirondack paint in pool and denim. Next I finger painted a bit of white paint around the edges, then added some frantage embossing powder to the two corners and heat embossed.

For the sentiment, I embossed the peaceful wishes stamp from Glad Tidings on vellum in white, then I took my fine tip applicator with some glossy glaze and did some squigglies all around and embossed with frantage.  The snowflake die cut is covered in VersaMark and then embossed with frantage and I layered this onto a chipboard snowflake from my stash and added a snowflake blad to the center for a super dimensional frosty flake.  A bit of white burlap in the background and distressed edges all around finish things off.

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you have a wildly creative and productive day!

Enabler's List

Stamps: Glad Tidings (Verve)

Paper: white cardstock, vellum cardstock

Ink: Versamark, broken china, stormy sky, faded jeans distress stain, pool, snow cap and denim Adirondack paint (Ranger)

Accessories: Branches and Snowflakes embossing folder set (BasicGrey - Sizzix), Snowflake Small Embossing Essentials die (Darice), snowflake brad, frantage embossing powder (Stampendous), Classic circles dies (Spellbinders)

Joyeux Noel

Hi friends!  It's Mojo Monday time again and this week is a tall & skinny sketch.

My card was super quick, as I let the patterned paper do most of the work.  While I was cleaning up my craft area the other day I found a few Christmas paper scraps under a box and set them aside to make sure they got used.  They seemed like the perfect jumping off point for the sketch.

I sponged all of the papers with antique linen and vintage photo distress ink, then stamped the Joyeux Noel sentiment and medium snowflake from Glad Tidings in Versamark and embossed in gold.  The ribbon trims were in some Webster's Pages trim packs I found at the bottom of the closet, and I added a snowflake charm and hot glued a golden ribbon for my final accent.

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  I hope you have a fabulous start to your week.  If you were away for the weekend, this is the final day of Verve's Thankful Sale.  Everything is 30% off and we have free US shipping on orders of $30 or more.

Mojo Monday 426 Sketch

Enabler's List
Stamps: Glad Tidings (Verve Stamps)
Paper: cream (Neenah), patterned paper scraps
Ink: Versamark, antique linen, vintage photo distress ink (Ranger)
Accessories:  trims (Webster's Pages), snowflake charm, gold ribbon, gold embossing powder, hot glue gun