Well, happy New Year everyone.  It is a new year and the possibilities are endless.  There is something very exciting about this time of year.  Anything can happen.  I have some big plans this year with my art, so stay with me to watch what happens.

As for now, I keep practicing and growing, taking full advantages of these card making challenges.  I have been asked why I work on cards when canvases are my true passion.  The answer is simple, cause I like it.

But honestly, it is two parts.  One, big projects can be draining especially when it takes a long time to see the finished product.  And with the way I work, you go through a lot of ugly to get to the pretty.  Working on these cards allows me to see a pretty finished projects in a short period of time and gives me a chance to clean out the artistic blocks from the major projects.

Secondly, every time I work a card, I am practicing and getting stronger in my mediums.  Not only that, but I am pushing my boundaries of thought.  I think of doing things in new ways or push my own ability to see.  I am not naturally a pretty artist.  I work pretty grungy, so every time I make a clean simple pretty card, it strengthens me.

I am looking forward to what this year is about to bring with the lessons that card challenges create for me (or at least this is the lie I tell myself).

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The first card I have to share with you today is from one of the more unique weekly challenges, Cupcake Inspirations.  This week they gave us some great little snowman cupcakes with the colors sky, white and poppy to utilize.

Now Santa (0r my husband in this case) was very good to me over Christmas and got me a Big Shot die cutting machine,

and I am a little obsessed with embossing right now.  Making my paper three dimensional is so very cool.  (Yes, I am aware I am way behind the curve here.)  So needless to say I started out my card (all day) with an embossed sheet of card stock.  In this case I used Darice’s Brick Wall embossing folder.  Then I cut out some card stock (ironically sky blue colored, but you would never know it) and ended up laying layers of washi tape over it so there would be sparkle.  I hand cut out a little snow man from Paper Smooches Swanky Snowdudes stamp pack, and colored him with my Spectrum Noir alcohol markers.  I die cute the banner from My Favorite things Sentiment Stripes 2 steel dies and stamped a sentiment from the same stamp pack.  I added a few brads, and added the little snow flakes into the recesses of the embossed paper.

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Next up we have a simple little sketch from Can You Case It.  This is there 100th card challenge, so that is something to celebrate.  Way to go designers and crafters.  Keep up the amazing work.

So there is always a challenge I have with simple sketches.  How simple do you really keep it to go with the sketch, but keep from being boring?

Today, I decided to be as simple as I could, and yet interesting.  I re-found this great peacock feather stamp from Deep Red, and loaded it up with like five colors from Distress Ink.  I think I used (sorry I didn’t really note it at

the time) peacock feathers (obviously), mowed lawn, seedless preserves, mermaid lagoon, and something else, but at this point who knows.  If anyone can figure out, I’ll send you a gold star.  I then mist the stamp and pressed it into some watercolor paper.  I stamped on the sentiment, and I regretted it immediately.  I isn’t that I don’t like the sentiment, it just is the wrong font.  I wish I had used something in a script.  But I liked the way the feather turned out so much I didn’t want to start over.  I did go through several variations of banners before I settled on the strip of gems.  I love how elegant the whole thing ended up.  This is so not my normal style, and looking at the card, I wonder why I don’t do things that look like this more.

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Finally we have a card from Sunday Stamps.  They have given us a really simple sketch to play with.  Now I am trying to be simple at this precise moment in time (don’t worry, I’m sure it won’t last long), so I went with my unnatural urge to keep it CAS.  I think I may have failed.

I pulled out my Big Shot (cause like I’ve said, I’m obsessed) and embossed some card stock with Darice’s Fall

Leaves Swirl embossing folder.  I cut the card stock in half and trimmed down the large section to measure 4.25 inches with about an inch missing from the middle.  I pulled out a very old piece of holiday printed paper and adhered it to my A2 card.  Then using dimensional tape I adhered the card stock to the card.  I pulled out My Favorite Things Fall Foliage steel die pack and die cut this maple leaf out.  Using Distress Ink stormy sky I blended some ink on the die cut and stamped out an Archival Ink cobalt blue ink thank you.  Maybe this doesn’t count as simple, but for me, trust me it is.  I mean after all I only blended ink onto one tiny part of it.

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So to my one faithful reader out there, Happy New Year, and please don’t turn yourself away from the possibilities this new chapter may present to you.