Welcome to Wednesday and another round of card challenges.  Lots of fun things have been happening around the house while at the same time life has been, well, difficult.

The art has been good.  The fair submissions for this summer’s fine art competitions is looming, so there has been some really fun stuff happening on my easel.  I am also back in my art journal experimenting and seeing what I can get the mediums to do.  I am pretty focused, and that is always fun.

On the other hand I’ve got a sick kid, who isn’t really sick, but does not feel good, and we are in a holding pattern waiting for stupid lab results.  I hate having sick kids and not being able to do anything about it.  However, today while I got to play with the art, my sick kiddo sat next to me making her own art mess.  That might have been worth it, having her home and not feeling well.

But onto the cards.

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Up first today we have our weekly dose of Christmas.  The gals over at Jingle Belles have challenged us to make a card this week using layers, at three to be precise.

I decided to layer with printed paper, starting with a dark blue one with gold stars.  Then I snagged a strip of coordinating paper with lots of gifts.  Then I stamped out a Penny Black stamp onto so watercolor card stock and painted in the image with my Gansai Tambi trying to make my watercolor match up with the papers.  I stamped out an old rubber stamp sentiment in some cobalt blue Archival Ink.  I fussy cut out the sentiment and image and adhered them to pieces of burlap.  I added a bit of paper string and pieced the whole card together.  I like the blues in this card.  I’m not crazy about my watercoloring, but I like how the burlap gives the whole card a rustic look.

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Next up we have another mid-March Christmas card.  I reached out for a new holiday card challenge and found a new group that I wanted to experiment with.  The group I found, 52 Christmas Card Throwdown, who celebrate christmas cards year round.  This week their designers handed out a sketch as a challenge and this one is very

layered.

I pulled out a bit of card stock with a faint grid pattern on it and punched out some torn paper cut images.  I then trimmed some christmas paper that looks like holiday stamps adhered it over the notecard card stock.  Finally I pulled out some gray textured card stock and stamped out an Inkadinkadoo image.  I applied three different Memento inks onto the one image and stamped them.

Yes, the card is very simple, but yet, I like it.  I like how I skipped the oval layer and just used the stamp image to elude to it.

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The designers over at The Paper Players have challenged us this week with an theme challenge.  They’ve asked us to work the the theme of ‘Rain or Shine’.

You would think this would actually be an easy theme to work with, but when I went searching in my stamp and die cut collection for a sun or rainy something and found nothing.  So, needless to say that made everything more complicated.

However, I found in one of my Inkadinkadoo sentiment stamp pack a stamp that said ‘Count your rainbows, not your thunderstorms’ and figured that stamp was almost like rain and sun, since rain and sun combined make rainbows.  I pulled out an old scrap of acrylic paper, and covered it heavily in Distress Ink making a rainbow out of the colors.  Then using a sort of rainbow shaped stencil I pulled up some of the ink with a wet wipe.  Finally I added Ellen Hutson Essentials cloud stamps and a My Favorite Thing girl stamp onto the color.  I only colored in the girls skin, hair, and sunglass lens, wanting the white to be impactful.  I think it worked.  Finally I added a bit of glossy accents to the clouds and glasses.  If nothing else I think the girl image is diffidently cool.

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Rounding the corner of today’s challenges, is a color challenge from the gals over at Sunday Stamps.  This week they are challenging us to use the colors light pink, chocolate, and white.

I stamped out some Distress Ink ground espresso onto an

old rubber stamp that I have never been able to get to stamp crisp images, hoping that it once again would leave a rough unclear image onto some light pink card stock.  I then stamped the Inkadinkadoo sentiment ‘All You need in Life is a friend who has Chocolate.’  I stamped out a Santoro Gurjuss teddy bear out and colored it in with pink alcohol markers.  Finally I embossed a sheet of white card stock with a cloud embossing folder and assembled everything together.  I don’t think what I was aiming for worked but everything ended up cute anyway.  If nothing else I really like how the highlighting on the bear worked out.

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Finally I we have another sketch challenge from the sleuths over at Can You Case It.  They have designed an interesting sketch with a circle image that falls off the edge of the card.

I decided to use a die of clocks to make the sketch work for me.  I used four different colors of card stock, black, red, white and light gray.  Then using another die I cut out a red, black and white banner.  I stamped out a sentiment onto the white banner and pulled out some printed paper of clocks and numbers and used it as a base to the card.  Finally I stamped out a burgundy wine bottle and assembled it.  I love how this card came out.  I like how the red punches out in the card and the whimsy of it.  Yes the card is fairly simple, but I like it regardless.

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That’s it for today.  I am going to go curl up with my sick girl and watch a movie or something she wants to do since she painted with me earlier today.  Hope you all are having a good day and that what ever is on your desk or easel is making you have fun.