August Rudolph Days Challenge

August brings a new set of Rudolph Days Challenge Designers. I know their beautiful cards and design styles will bring you with lots of inspiration for your own Christmas cards.

In no particular order,  I am happy to introduce...

Gloria Lee @  Gloria's Craft Room
Hello everyone! I'm Gloria Hayoung Lee. I was born in South Korea and now live in Ottawa, Canada with my husband and two boys. My hobbies are drawing, painting, and paper crafts.
I really love to make various types of cards and share my creativity with you. I am also excited to be part of the Rudolph Days Challenge Design team.

I am loving Gloria's inky Xmas ornaments and the pretty nontraditional colours she used here.

Linda S @ Snails Space
Hello from Ontario, Canada. I've always had a creative outlet, but severe Rheumatoid Arthritis forced me to give up all of my hobbies so I was happy to discover that I could stamp and return to my childhood love of colouring.
 I usually paint images and create backgrounds with Twinkling H2O's, but I also use distress inks and watercolour pencils. I'm happy to be a designer for the Rudolph Days Challenge - Thank you , Maureen..

You can see Linda's signature painted image style here on this adorable Xmas Teddy card.

Donna Rinckel @ Indiana Inking
Greetings! My name is Donna Rinckel and I live in Bloomington, Indiana. I have three grown children and am married to my best friend, Tom. I was introduced to stamping in 2008 after my mother passed away. My Mom sent cards for every occasion and after I discovered stamping, I decided that I wanted to honour her memory by continuing her tradition. I love to paper craft, crochet, and cross stitch.
 I am about to retire from Indiana University. I am so excited to be part of the Rudolph Days Challenge Design Team and look forward to inspiring you with my creations.

Donna's Nativity themed plethora of Christmas cards are so peaceful looking. I love the way the mats are the burst of colour on each!

Shaz @ Calligraphy Cards - Shaz in Oz
I am delighted to be a part of the Rudolph Days Challenge Design team for the next few months.
I have been doing card making since my Primary years and Calligraphy since my teens.
In 1990 I delighted in the new joys of stamping with ink and embossing, after a trip to Cairns, Qld.
In 2009 I discovered the brayer, 2010 the Cuttlebug, and also that year I started reading crafting blogs and  then began one of my own, Calligraphy Cards - Shaz in Oz

I am loving the glitter paper used for the beautiful diecuts used here. Shaz always has the perfect Xmas themed sentiments on her cards.

Dr Sonia SV @ Cards, Crafts, Kids Projects
Hi! I am an ENT surgeon and a Mom to a crafty little girl. I share crafty projects, tutorials and crafty tips on my blog, Cards, Crafts, Kids Projects.  I love making Christmas projects so thank you Maureen for having me as part of your Rudolph days Design Team.

I love the sweet dioramas that Dr Sonia has created here. They are so full of pretty embellishments! Of course there are full instructions on her blog that are always clear and easy to follow. .


1. The Rudolph Days Challenge will start each month on the 25th, and will close at midnight PST, on the last day of that month.
2. The theme is always Anything Goes, as long as it is Christmas.
3. One entry per person and you just need to enter one Christmas card or Christmas project.
4. You may combine your entry with other challenges (maximum of 10 in total).
5. Your card (or Christmas project) should not have been previously posted to your blog. It should be posted to your blog during the current months Rudolph Days Challenge, (between the 25th and last day of the current month)
6. Please link back to or at least mention, the Rudolph Days Challenge.
7.  Prizes will be shipped anywhere in the world.

8. The winner will be selected by random draw and announced on the first day of the following month.

The prize this month is a choice of this Woodware stamp

 or this Memory Box  Holly Leaf Border die

Good luck!

Christmas Card Club - Layers

It is my turn to host the Christmas Card Club this fortnight. I chose the theme of layers. I hope you will like my take on this. If you wish to pop by and see what the other ladies have created, you will see hyperlinks to their blogs on my right sidebar. If you wish to join our group, drop me an email.

My card is made from snippets and although it does not look like a lot of layers, it actually has 5.  Some of these are hidden and now I will explain how that was accomplished.

I started with a background made from snippets of 12x12 scrapbook paper. I then cut a red border strip from a snippet of red glitter paper, being careful to place a narrow 2way glue strip down the middle of the strip. I then punched 6 Martha Stewart snowflakes from a snippet of white glitter card and cut the top third off each one. I then placed a Zot glue dot on the back of each snowflake and tucked them under the red glitter strip. (Because I only used a narrow glue strip to affix the red strip, there was unglued room at each long edge to tuck the snowflakes under). Two went on the top left of the red border and four went under the border on the right side. A small clear diamond finished off this border.

In the bottom left of the card, I punched a larger Martha Stewart white snowflake and then layered the smaller MS snowflake, cut from red glitter card this time..

So far we have three layers for each of these areas of the card. I know you are thinking where is the 4th and 5th layers...they are hard to see as they are hidden!

The Noel has been cut from the same white Heidi Swapp Marquee card that was used for the snowflakes, but this time I backed it with SookWang two sided paper. I then cut four Noels and laid them down one on top of each other. The red glitter paper is quite thick and the white Marquee paper is quite thin. The four layers made the Noel stand out and not seem dwarfed by the red strip!

I added a couple of small diamonds on the N and on the L. One large diamond on the big snowflake and this card was done!

My original idea came from Pinterest and I just made my version of it. Here is the Pinterest version.

I am entering this card in the following challenges.
1. Christmas Card Club - layers
2. Pixies Crafty Workshop - must use snippets

Snippets and VOS

This post is in tribute to two wonderful ladies, Darnel and Di . These two ladies have blogs that consistently inspire me.

Di  runs a weekly snippets challenge on her blog, Pixies Crafty Workshop. Yes, you read correctly. Di's challenge is that you must use snippets somewhere on your card. Even better yet...on all of your card! Her own cards are lovely. She is brave enough to stamp direct to card and embraces many techniques. Her directions are always clear and easy to understand.

Darnell's blog, djkardkreations, is full of witty posts that leave it  impossible for you to read and not crack a wide smile. Darnell  has created many acronyms that have become used and treasured by other bloggers. She coined the term VOS which stands for Very Old Schtuff ! Darnell has a challenge starting on Aug 27th where she asks you to submit a NBUS card (never before used schtuff). You can find the details on her blog here... hope to see you there!

So, my card today is a tribute to both of these ladies...a card made from snippets and full of Vos items. The triangles of the background DP (dollar store) were leftovers from a previous card. The Dream sentiment was stamped many years ago, using white Brilliance Ink on a purple snippet of card It was then filed away and forgotten (VOS). The two tags, the green Dream rectangle complete with dragonfly accent and the large spotted green paper flower petals, are part of a set I bought a few years ago, at one of my neighbour's garage sales. (VOS)
The butterfly is from a package of butterflies, picked up from  Michaels clearance bins.  The purple and beige petals of the flower are from the glass jars of flowers that decorate my craft room. They are about 10 years old (at least). Very Vos indeed. The black center is a brad...remember when we used those on every card?

So, there you go. A card made with previous rejects, long lost items and some very old schtuff!

I am entering this card in the following challenges:
1. Pixies Crafty Workshop - must use snippets

Christmas Card Club - Baubles

Our own lovely Dutchess (Margaret) chose baubles for the theme of  this fortnight's Christmas Card Club.

When I first joined this club another member mailed me some beautiful Christmas images. So kind of her! She has since retired from our card club but I used one of her gifted images and had some lovely memories of a generous friend.

Not sure of the manufacturer of this stamp but I like the delicate look of it. I got a wee bit carried away with colouring the poinsettia flowers in red copics, and then realized that I had coloured the leaves red as well! Sigh...Oh well, it is now an arty card...at least that is my excuse!

I also managed to get a droplet of red on the diecut shape I had cut the image with. So it was up to my trusty fussy cut scissors to save the day. After fussy cutting the image, I was on a roll and did the same for the silver pearlescent mat and then again for the red mat.

I went over the Holly with a silver Wink Of Stella pen and then went over everything else with a clear WOS. I figured that if the colours weren't right, at least they were sparkly!

When I coloured this image, I knew the DP I would choose. I have had this paper for many, many years. It is 12x12 scrapbook paper and the sentiment "Peace" is actually for another page within the same set. It is a page of words only and I carefully cut this one out and matted it with a snippet of red. Both papers have a pearlescent finish and are quite shimmery.

The scalloped card base and envelope was a gift from another British friend, the sister of my cousin's partner. She knew I was looking for this style of cards when I was over visiting last time, and made me a gift of a large packet of them. I must say I hoard them a bit and only use them sparingly as I don't want to run out!!!

Get Well Wishes

I have a box of  New In Box assorted themed cards from the thrift shop. Whenever I want to upcycle a card, I check there first . The card fronts are in perfect shape and lend well to upcycling. I think I paid 50 cents or perhaps a dollar for a fairly large box of them.

I needed a Get well card in a bit of a hurry and decided this card front needed rescuing!

This is another of my 15 minute cards. Made again from what was out on my desk and my snippets files. The hot pink background DP had been pulled out for another project and seemed to lay there calling out to be used. The vertical panel of  bird themed DP was from my DP snippets and  was matted with a snippet of kraft card.

The stacked circle kraft border was from the papercarft store's garage sale and can be seen on my previous posts outlining my sale bargains. I got a large package of kraft borders for a dollar. A diamond bling was set in the middle of each circle for some extra sparkle.

Quite some time ago, the stars were punched from some more snippets of kraft and the edges were chalk inked and then treated to a coat of Stardust stickles along those inked edges. They were stored along with other random punched, inked, and stickled kraft shapes in a wee plastic drawer unit on top of my desk,  Punching out multiples and finishing them up ahead of time, lends to making up quick and easy cards. Some more gems were added to the stars just for a little impact.

I cut the get well card front down into a square topper, matted again with kraft and touched up the flowers here and there with my trusty Stardust Stickles.

I used so many snippets on this card that I must drop this card by Di's blog at Pixies Crafty Workshop where the theme is always "Must Use Snippets".

Best Wishes

I managed to use up another prefolded card. This aqua card and envelope seemed the perfect colour to give a suggestion of a sky background. I decided to make some quick cards using some dollar store 3D Owl pairs.

To aid in the endeavour to make quick cards, I tried to use stash sitting out on my desk waiting to be filed away, as well as  precut dies. When I am really bored, or when my mojo has gone walkabout, I sit and precut all sorts of dies from my snippets stash. That always leaves me with a healthy amount to take to crops or when we go to the lake. A few days ago, I sat and punched Martha stewart Hydrangea flowers and various small word dies, out of some really teensy snippets. Luckily, these were still sitting out on my desk...waiting to be filed!

Everything on this card was from my precut stash and so in total, this was about a 15 minute card!
I inked the edges of the card to contribute to the sky effect, using a Ingrid Bolme aqua chalk ink.
Placed a stitched Lawn Fawn stitched circle that I had chalked to look like clouds, and then off center matted a larger brown circle behind it. Set that on my card so it displayed just north of my card's center and added the 3D Owls as well as an Elizabeth Craft Best Wishes diecut, dotting the letter i with a pearl.

Used an ivory Lawn Fawn stitched hills diecut that had got a bit bent in my storage system.  I added to the bent look by crumpled it all different ways in my fist and then chalked across it with a couple shades of green.  Added a bit of brown chalk to create an impression of dirt and placed a Memory Box Small Alder Tree tree there.  Slid a scrap paper under the branches and rubbed green chalk over the tree buds with a brighter green chalk.

Added some blue and purple flowers randomly and placed a pearl in the center of each. Grabbed my trusty Stardust stickles and highlighted the buds as well as the flowers petals. I even added a bit to the owls.

The card seemed to be lacking something, so I added a 3D butterfly...another dollar store find.

I am happy as I think this is not bad for a 15 minute card. It would have been faster but I used Dots to affix the flowers and that took precious minutes up to place them! lol

As everything on this card came from snippets, I am taking this card over to Pixies Crafty Workshop
where the theme is always Must Use Snippets...

July Rudolph Days Challenge Winner

Once again, random Org has worked it's magic, and #19 FT Fit Kitty is our July winner.
Congratulations FT Fit Kitty!

Drop me an email at scrappymo1@gmail.com and let me know which prize you would like.