It is Sunday night, the kids are asleep, the husband is quiet and I’m pounding away at my keyboard.  It has been raining here all day in So. Cal, which is weird in itself, so I spent the day making pretty things.  The kids had school off all last week, and the good news is they are going back tomorrow (yippee).  Ironically, they like school and may be more excited about going back, than I am relieved and ready to stop cooking three meals a day (packing lunch at breakfast time doesn’t count as an actual meal).

I had a nice holiday week with my family, thank you for asking.  We had more planned, but the weather did not cooperate with us, so there were several days where we did family movie nights on the couch instead of trying to seek outdoor adventure.  We spent Thanksgiving with a bunch of family friends, and managed to sneak off to the movies and finally saw Fantastic Beast (it was awesome, and only a little scary- official review of a six
year old).

I spent the week playing with some mixed media canvases, one I adore, the other had some promise and I may play a bit more with it to see what I can do to increase my feelings toward it.  But for now, here are some cards I really did like.

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The first card up today is one from Muse, where you get to inspire yourself off someone else’s card.  It was a really fun, cause the card was all kind of puny.  I like puns, especially in cards.

I liked the all the pretty die cut things behind our little ewe in the Muse card, so I pulled out a great die from Spellbinders and die cut the back ground in red card stock.  Then I pulled out the Avery Elle stamp and colored it in with my copics and fussy cut the viking out.  I added just a few of the punched out hearts to the bottom of the card, and left it that simple.  I love the sentiment on my little viking and let the pun from his beard echo the pun in the Muse card.

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Next up is a color challenge from the gals over at Color Throwdown.  This week they are looking for the colors light blue, sage green, gray and amber.

I knew I wanted to do something pretty that hopes for peace for someone who needs it.  I pulled a stamp pack from Stampendous and stamped out the sentiment first in grey ink.  Then I added the leaf stamps around it (also in grey ink) hoping that the leaves led your eyes right to the words.  I colored the leaves in wiht my copics and then added some blue around the stems.  I added a bit of soft blue printed paper behind the card stock and left the card just that simple.  I know this is very different from what I normally whip up, but sometimes something just needs to be pretty.  Sometimes you need the words to do the work for you.

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The team over at The Paper Players handed out a really fun sketch this week.  It has some fun angles and nice layers.

I pulled out a Inkadinkado warm holiday stamp set and stamped out a fun beach Christmas tree.  I felt like changing things up a bit and colored in the tree and shells in with my prismacolor colored pencils.  I pulled some old beachy printed paper out of my stash and trimmed it up and layered my tree over it.  I added a banner and a green oval to finish the sketch, making sure to stamp ‘happy holiday, warmest wishes’ into the oval.  The mean part of me wants to send this holiday card out to someone who will have buckets of snow on Christmas day.  The small child within me, wishes that I could have snow for Christmas day.

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The designers over at Freshly Made Sketches passed out a CAS sketch.  It is a pretty simple sketch, making a whole world of possibilities open.

I decided to make the circle image of the sketch be my main focal image as well.  I pulled out a Hero Arts stamp set and stamped out the pretty ornament.  I colored it in with my copics, trying to make the prism to look like glass.  I put a hole in the top of the ornament and strung some floss through the top of it.  I snagged a sheet of holiday printed paper and added the ornament to it with a bit of dimensional tape and secured the string with some tape to the back.  I adhered the paper to an A2 card base.  Finally I pulled out a sentiment from the same stamp pack and stamped it on to the printed paper with versamark.  I added some gold embossing powder and heat set it.  I decided against any other embellishment, since the back ground paper is pretty busy.

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Exciting news on the card challenge front, or at least for me.  The sleuths of design over at Can You Case It called in their retirment (ending forever one of my first challenge groups) back in October.  Well, their retirment didn’t last long, and now they are back (under a new team leader).  YEAH!!!!  And this week they are featuring a sketch challenge.

I wanted to do something very clean just like the sketch, so I pulled out a tiny little Lawn Fawn stamp and some brick printed paper.  I trimmed up the paper to set on the bottom of the card like a wall.  I then stamped the fun little jackalope onto the card.  I added a large stamp sentiment from Fiskars and the small sentiment from the same Lawn Fawn pack.  I colored the jackalope in with my copics and added just a few crystals to finish off the
mirror image of the sketch.

CYCI, I am so glad you are back up and running.  It felt weird without you on my computer each week.

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Finally today I have an inspiration photo from the team over at Inspired By All the Little Things.  It is such a pretty chalk board image, and I knew I needed the black chalk board look to my card.

I pulled out a stamp set from Recollections and stamped a sentiment out onto some black card stock with versa mark.  I then added white embossing powder and heat set it.  I found a fun and festive holiday card stock and added it to an A2 frame.  I added the black card stock and then found a frame chip board piece and added it over the sentiment to make it look like a real chalk board with really color hand lettering on it.  I added a bunch of jewels so that the sentiment would hold true and left the rest of the card just that simple.

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That’s it for tonight.  Hope you all are looking forward to your full week as much as I am.  Big things are happening here, so stay tuned for what comes up.  (sneak peak…I start teaching two whole new grades this week…eek).