Winter Wonderland

Good evening my crafty friends - hope you are all well!

Well it's the weekend, and I am running rather late with this card, which is my DT inspiration for the current challenge at Incy Wincy Designs which is Winter Wonderland.

We've been sponsored by the lovely team at Stitchy Bear's Digi Outlet who have kindly let us have some images to showcase and our lucky prize winner this week will also get some Stitchy Bear goodies!!!!!!!

Here is my card featuring a gorgeous image by Stitchy Bear Stamps:

I don't think I've ever done a white/silver monochrome card before (not sure I can truly call it "white on white"!) but I'm really pleased with the result, and the image made that so easy to do!

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card base - is a pre-made A5 card blank in white which I've embossed using a Sheena Douglass Embossing Folder called Ornamental Snowflake - unfortunately this doesn't appear to be on sale any more which is a shame is the snowflakes are simply beautiful! I've "swiped" my Silver Versa Color Ink Pad over the embossed part of the snowflakes, just to give them a bit of sheen and definition.
• Frame - is the largest Die'sire Decorative Noveau Stamping Frame die which I've cut from Snow White Silver Centura Pearl card, and then run back through my Big Shot using the embossing mat to highlight parts of the die.
  
• Image - is by Stitchy Bear Stamps at Stitchy Bear's Digi Outlet and it's called Sunday School. I've simply printed this onto Neenah Crest Solar White card, die cut it using the internal part of the Die'sire Decorative Noveau Stamping Frame die, and then I highlighted all the snowy areas of the image using my Spectrum Noir Sparkle - Clear Overlay pen. Click on the image to enlarge it and check out that super sparkle!
• Sentiment - is from the set which came with Crafter's Inspiration Magazine - Issue 8, and I've stamped this directly onto the card using Silver Versa Color Ink Pad.

I'm really quite pleased with this card, and I think it'll be perfect for my Mother-in-Law! Apologies for the not very white photos ... penalty of trying to get photos under electric lights! Might try again in the daylight tomorrow :o/ !

I hope I've inspired you to have a go with this challenge but if not, head over to Incy Wincy Designs and have a look at the other Winter Wonderland projects created by my very talented teamies. There's still plenty of time to join in with this challenge as it ends on Sunday 6th December 2015.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

• Monthly Stamp Challenge #63 - Christmas in White at Little Claires
• Challenge #73 - Outdoor Scene at The Glory of Christmas Challenge
• Challenge 115 - Brrr It's Cold Outside at Crafting for all Seasons
• Challenge 11 - Winter/Christmas Themed at A Snowflake's Promise

Hope you have a lovely weekend - I'm off to colour next week's DT piece in the hope that I won't be late :o)

Hugs,

Helen x

Deck the Halls!

Good morning crafty friends ... can you believe it's December already!!!!! Youngest Bambino was very excited to be able to open her advent calendar this morning .... it's been sat on the mantlepiece for a week now (you can tell she's a teen can't you!).

It's been quite a busy time at Casa Mia. Saturday saw the Christmas Fayre at our church and I took along some of my cards. I sold about 6 (the same as last year) but had taken quite a few more. I think people came along for coffee/mulled wine and a mince pie, bought a raffle ticket or two and then disappeared as I didn't see many people going out with bags and even the cake stall had to reduce their goodies to half price! Not sure whether it's worth the effort of doing it next year .... will have to ponder. Last night saw eldest Bambino and her fledging band taking to the stage at a venue in town. It was organised by her college and was a showcase for the bands that all the BTEC level 3 music students have formed. Each group took to the stage and performed a 20 minute set of 4 numbers. Most of the audience was fellow students and press-ganged parents but the show was great. Unfortunately, I think my age was showing this morning as my legs were aching first thing from having been stood around for 4 hours last night! I filmed Bambino's group and showed it to Papa Mia when we got in - to be honest, we're totally amazed at how good she and her bandmates were, especially as they've been together for less than 3 months!  Anyway, enough waffle from Casa Mia ;o)

It's new challenge time at Feeling Sketchy and we're being sponsored this time by Deedee and the team at Deedee's Digis and here's a word or two from Deedee about her images:

Deedee's Digis offers wholesome digital "stamps" and printable digital papers that are the original creations of Deedee Anderson. All of our sets include both outline and pre-colored images, in both JPG and PNG formats. Our products are offered in high 300dpi resolution so that they are fully resizable to meet your crafting needs. We are a Christ-centered company, and you will find that many of our sets include KJV Scripture verses, in addition to encouraging sentiments of all sorts. We feel very blessed to be part of such a talented community of paper crafters, and thank you for allowing us to sponsor this challenge!

Our prize for this challenge is a $15.00 gift code to the store :)

You may or may not be aware that Deedee's Digis will be closing it's doors on 31st December 2015. As a result of this, all the digis in the store (apart from the sale items) have whopping 75% off their prices!!! And if you need any inspiration for using Deedee's pretty digis, check out the Deedee's Digis "blog" where the DT are regularly posting.

So, back to our challenge and here's your inspiration sketch, as drawn by Michelle:

And here's my inspiration for you using this sketch (rotated clockwise by 90º) and a digi set from Deedee's Digis:

Now, I have to confess to having cheated a bit this time as when I was creating for this challenge all my craft stuff was (and still is!) in the boot of my car as a result of Saturday's Fayre!!!!!! So, I have digitally created a card topper, which I will print out and attach to a DL sized card base.

I used the beautiful Ornamental (Icy) set (which has the baubles both coloured and as line art, 4 sentiments and 2 papers) by Deedee at Deedee's Digis to make this creation using my word processing package. 

• I started out with a rectangular shape which was correctly sized for my topper and then inserted each of the 5 pre-coloured digis from the set into my "picture". I resized them and rearranged them until I was satisfied with the layout. 
• I then inserted one of the papers from the set into my "picture" and cropped this until it was the right size and then moved this into place. 
• I brought some of the images into the foreground and then added a shadow to each image. 
• Finally, I inserted a narrow line from the top of the bauble hooks up to the paper to make it look like the baubles are hanging from a decorative strip. 
• My last task was to put a colour border around my rectangle to tone in with the teal green colour of the paper.

I hope I've inspired you to have a go with our sketch and make either a card or a layout for this challenge. If you're in need of any further inspiration, please go over to the Feeling Sketchy blog and check out the other wonderful creations from my clever teamies! We'll be back with our final challenge of the year on 15th December 2015.

I would like to enter this layout into the following challenges:

• Challenge #35 - Christmas - non-traditional colours at Scribbles Design Challenge
• Use a Digi at Melonheadz Friends

Hope you have a great week!

Hugs, Helen x