May Rudolph Days Winner

May saw 48 entries to the Rudolph Days Challenge. That makes me happy!
Once again, I used Random Org to pick our winner...

Here is a photo of the number chosen by Random Org, #20 Carol L

Carol, could you please email me at maureenkane@telus.net and let me know if you would like the stamp or the die. Give me your mailing address and I will get your prize sent off to you.

Starry Nights

If has been quite some time since I posted any photos of my front porch.

Here is a shot of the hessian bag of annuals that sits beside my front door. I thought you might enjoy the new petunia I  bought at my local garden shop. It is called Starry Night and I just love it. It is a beautiful purple with various sized white polka dots. Of course they are now sold out, so I can not buy more, but sure wish I could!

The wee nest is an actual birds nest I found in a shrub last winter. I was pruning and there it was...so pretty with intricately woven grasses and bits of dried greenery.

Right away I knew I wanted to use it in my planter and I had just the right accessory for it.  The wee egg says GROW...perfect for Spring and Summer inspiration!

The funny wooden thing in the background is my hand shovel...often needed for working in the front garden.

Christmas Card Club - Mistletoe and Wine

Todays theme at Christmas Card Club is Mistletoe and Wine, chosen by our lovely Rita at RMG Creations.  After you read this post you will see that I made a Mistletoe and Whine card!

This card was a bit of a disaster in the making.
There are actually two finished images. Yes, two, on the same card.

I stamped this NBUS Penny Black Mistletoe image and coloured it with Prisma Pencil Crayons. I stamped a NBUS Hero Arts sentiment (CL722) direct to card and breathed a sigh of relief that I managed to stamp it straight!

I was then very silly and forgot to blend with the Gamsol. Instead, I chalked the background to look like sky.  I then started to blend the pencil crayoned leaves, and when I got to the very last leaf, I managed to drip two large drops of gamsol right over the top leaves of the image.

Weill, let me tell you, gamsol on chalk dries with the droplet showing as the chalk has changed composition once wet.

I then cut a second image and sentiment,  coloured it with the pencil crayons again, painted liquid pearls on the berries and then chalked the edges.Whew! No Spills.

I then flipped the image over to place the two sided Sook Wang tape on the back...AND THEN...
flipped it back over to see a new splodge of gamsol just beside the "yours". Oh No! There must have been a small droplet of gamsol on my desk.

I then tried to ink the edges with black momento ink, hoping to minimize the look of the splodge. But in doing so, I managed to over ink and I am now not so much liking this card.

I don't know why I didn't wash all the chalk with the gamsol and thereby hide the splodge. I was too afraid that the gamsol would pick up and bleed the black ink of the sentiment and muddy the area all around it., but I think I should have taken the risk.

So, instead, here is my card...with a definite shabbied up look!  I am sure you have notice the lack of wine on this card. The inside of my card has two teensy wine glasses in the right bottom corner, well under the sentiment. Sadly, my camera ran out of charge so you will have to trust me on that, Rita.
I will update this post with that photo, once my camera is charged.

Recipe
Card Base - prefolded Silver glimmer card and matching envelope, from my stash
DP - DCWV - Premium Glitter Basics Stack ( NBUS) new
Stamps - Penny Black Festive Florals Mistletoe image (NBUS)
Sentiment Stamp - Hero Arts CL722 (NBUS) new
Bling - Ivory Liquid pearls , From my stash

May Rudolph Days Challenge

Once again it is time for the Rudolph Days Challenge.

Here are the rules for your perusal:

 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. Please leave a comment on the challenge post.
8.   The winner will be selected by random draw and announced on the first day of the following month. Prizes will be mailed anywhere in the world.

Our designers have been busy this month. They have some beautiful Christmas Creations to inspire you!

Sam from Whisper's Cards has made this very cute and fun Christmas card. I love the vivid colours and great design! This little reindeer faces made me grin assoon as I saw them! 

 I think they just might be decoupaged. There is also some lovely stitching here. If you pop over to Sam's blog, you can check out just how she made this card.

Jenny from Cardsarus blog has made the beautiful cardinal card. It looks to me that Jenny has cut a frame of red embossed card and then added the lace cut paper to peek out underneath it.  We shall have to check out her blog post to see just how she created this effect.

We have Pat from Colourful Card Creations blog here as a guest designer this month. she has made this beautiful card. Is that not the most wonderful Santa image ever? A real old fashioned Santa! He looks great on that embossed background.

Finally, here is my card. I picked up a package of lightweight, matte finished cardinal note cards at a local thrift shop. They were still sealed tight, in the original package. I think they were somewhere between 20 to 50 cents for a package of 10...I can not remember exactly!

As soon as I spotted them, I knew I wanted to place a raised frame around the cut down image. I do not own a frame die and my attempts at creating one by layering two dies were not successful.  I cut the frames at my local papercrafts store where they had this lovely frame die for their customers use! I cut it from heavy weight, red glitter paper.

I made my card base from some heavy weight, wood grain patterned DCWV 12x12  scrapbook paper. The teal woodgrain paper is another snippet, from a Simple Stories 12x12 DP. The dotted paper is left over from a card I made earlier this year. The woodgrain border is the cut off strip from when I made the card base into a 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 size.

I managed to use a Studio G dollar stamp for my sentiment. I have been making an effort to use a couple of these stamps a month as 'i seem to have hoarded so many!  This NOEL sentiment is my NBUS item on this card. I stamped it on a snippet of the teal woodgrain I used for the top of the card. I would have liked the red glitter mat to be slightly larger but that was the largest snippet of red glitter paper that I had! The stars were punched from another snippet, with the larger one pop dotted forward.

Our prize this month is a choice between this Hampton Art Christmas Stamp

Or, this Sketchbook Peace Memory Box die.

Birthday Card For A Fisherman, or in this case, a Fisherboy

I  am making up some birthday cards for a Thank you gift. Three boy, and three girl themed cards
 I will show the rest of these cards over the next couple of weeks. Here is the first.

The tied fly hook is an image I picked up at the thrift shop. I cut it out with a Lawn Fawn stitched square die and matted with a snippet of Bazzill heavy weight card, cut with the larger stitched die. I pop dotted the image off the mat for some depth to the card.

I covered the white card base with some snippets of DP from my stash.  The party hat DP is a snippet of Crate Paper, Party Day. The bottom piece looks like cork strips and was the perfect colour to go with the snippet of birthday party hats. I think it is another Crate Paper selection...this time, Party Time.

The HAPPY banner was left over from a set of cards shown in a previous post. I pop dotted it forward too. The BIRTHDAY word sentiment  was left over from that same set of cards. It is stamped on a Stampin' Up  word punch.

My NBUS item today is the tied fly image.

I am entering this card in the following challenges:

1. Allsorts Challenge Blog - Birthday theme

Birthday Flights of Fancy

I have a quick and easy Birthday card to share today. It was made at my Langley Stampers club.

I cut a pink mat  from cardstock and then punched a scalloped oval and die cut some butterflies, from the center of that mat.
I then embossed a piece of white card with a swirly EF that has butterflies within the swirls.
Mounted the embossed panel onto what was left of the pink card mat, and the attached all that to a white card base.

The butterflies were pop dotted over the embossed butterflies on the embossed swirly panel. I hope this gives a feeling of movement to the card. A wee bit of bling was placed on the centers of each butterfly.

Happy birthday was stamped onto a snippet of white card and then punched with a Stampin' Up scalloped oval. This was placed off center onto the pink scalloped oval and pop dotted forward as well.

Easy Peasy!

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

Christmas Card Club - Nativity

Mary H at Carolina Cards blog  chose a Nativity theme for this fortnights Christmas Card Club.
I always love to make a Nativity themed card as it is a chance to focus on the true meaning of Christmas.

My NBUS item today is the Three Wise Men decoupage  sheet.  I bought this eons ago, so long ago that I am not quite sure where!  I think it was perhaps at a papercraft garage sale as there is no labeling of any sort on the page...

I used another of my pre-folded dull sheen, platinum 5x5 cards. I did not want any DP to take away from the focus on the wise men. I thought this dull platinum sheen suited the robes of the kneeling King, and went with the misty sort of background of the scene.

The kit came with the gilded border strip and the sentiment strip, but they are all slightly different shades of gold. Not sure if I like that part of it...  

I trimmed up the Merry Christmas to have an uneven hand cut look as it was the only way to remove and blend in the wee tabs of paper that hold the sentiment on the decoupage sheet. They are always such a nuisance to trim off evenly.  I hand cut a gold satin mat to slide behind the sentiment and popped it off the card with one layer of pop dots.

Finally, I added some various sized gold stars  that I punched from some snippets of gold satin card and threw on a few darker gold tiny rhinestones.

If you would like to join our Christmas Card Club, drop me an email. To check out the other members cards, click on any of their names and hyperlinks listed on my right sidebar.            

April Rudolph Days Challenge Winner

This month brought us 54 entries. I am so pleased with that number and also wish to share my delight in viewing and commenting on all the lovely cards entered here this month.

Once again I have used Random Org to choose our winner, #23 Loll

Congratulations, Loll!

Will you please email me your mailing address to maureenkane@telus.net  and I will get your prize sent off to you.

 Let me know whether you wish the Inkadinkado  Evergreen Holiday Stamp

 or the Lawn Fawn Scripty Merry die.

Thanks to everyone for playing along this month at the April Rudolph Days Challenge..