Woodware Sketch Goes Wintery

Both the Woodware USA and Woodware UK teams are celebrating the new year with a sketch challenge as seen at left. Christmas may be over, but it's still winter, so I kept with a winter theme and featured the cute Woodware Polar Magic Clear Set. Stamped in Danube Blue Memento ink, shaded with pale blue markers, and highlighted with Stampendous Multi Crystal Glitter, the simplicity of the sketch was perfect for this sweet set. Visit the team blogs on both sides of the "pond" for more inspiration this week. You can find their links through the Woodware USA site, and the Woodware UK site. Come play along!

Time Flies...in Pink and Brown and Gold and Cream!

 This post finishes off the last of the 2011 Stampendous Challenges, with the December challenge colorway of pink, brown, gold, and/or cream. I sort of went with a New Year's theme...threw in some music and some time, and the reminder that time flies...Tempus Fugit! I used two of my favorites of the October released Perfectly Clear sets, Time Flies and Vintage Piano. The wings were stamped and embossed on acetate with Shabby Pink Embossing Enamel. The pocket watch was stamped, embossed with Aged Gold Embossing Enamel, and cut out to be popped up with the wings. The pink panel features the music notes and vintage piano, with the sentiment embossed with Vintage Mahogany Tinsel...one of my faves as it has this rich, subtle glitter in it with a lovely chocolate color. Along with the chocolate is a gorgeous bow from May Arts ribbon. Remember, you have until January 5th to link your own creations with this color scheme for the opportunity to win the Perfectly Clear Amore Frame set! For more inspiration, visit these team member blogs:

Stampendous Impressions Blog

Wendy Jordan

Kristine Reynolds

Janelle Stolfus

Jennie Black

Wendy Price

Stephanie Lee

Jennifer Ingle

A New Recipe for the New Year

 It's my week to design the Gourmet Rubber Stamps' Weekly Recipe as seen above. For my version, I chose to use the December Diner's Club "Let's Celebrate", embossed the bells and sentiment  in silver, popping the violet cardstock against the more subtle gray and black patterned papers. Come play along with us this week and post your own version on the Gourmet Rubber Stamps' Facebook page.

Take advantage of the great sale going on now...

Gearing Up for the New Year!

Are you ready for 2012 yet? Well, Dreamweaver Stencils has seriously been "gearing" up for it. We just added three new extremely talented members to the Dream Team as was announced last week on the Dream It Up! post. We plan on making a few changes with the challenges and posting that the team does regularly, and we're super excited! Be sure to visit the Dream Team next week for the latest news, and especially, how YOU can win prizes by playing along!
Our challenge this week was to create with a New Year's/Celebrate theme. Since I don't happen to have specific New Year's stencils, I took a different look at what I do have. New Year's Eve is all about midnight celebrations. Midnight is a time. Time is clocks. Clocks have gears. See where my mind went? Scary, isn't it? Lol. I added a mirror silver cardstock panel of embossed Gears to my teal card, plus a black panel embossed and reversed (photo doesn't show this very well...), and then I embossed the Kaleidoscope stencil on the mirror silver to represent the "clock". Recently, my Dream Team Secret Santa, Georgia, gave me some Tim Holtz Sprocket Gears, so I used a couple of these for the center of the clock between the minute and hour hands. To really highlight the midnight theme, I paste-embossed in Matte Black the 12 on the punched circle, covered with black glitter, and popped it higher on the card. The sentiment was also paste-embossed and covered in glitter. I had to add the bling for New Year's!
Now be sure to visit the rest of the Dream Team to see how they are celebrating the end of 2011, and the beginning of a promising 2012!

Getting Romantic at the Diner's Club!

Done with Christmas? Yep. Me, too. I'm thinking I'll skip directly to Valentine's Day now. Well, maybe not completely, but at least for today. Today is preview day of the January Gourmet Rubber Stamps' Diner's Club set, "Sealed With a Kiss"...obviously aimed at the romantics in the world. My creation features three images from the set...the script background, the carved heart, and one of the great sentiments in the set. This set, like most of the Diner's Club sets in the Lizzie Anne Designs' line, have a mix of the cute, the pretty, and the fun, as you can see at left. Plan on seeing several more creations featuring this set! The project for today's post, is quite CAS. Both the card and box were created from Dotted Swiss Bazzill cardstock...the box with a C-Thru Take Out Box Template. Using this pretty marbled ivory cardstock, I stamped the script background over several strips and adhered them to the box and card. The carved hearts were stamped in the same Rhubarb Stalk Memento ink, with the hearts cut out in order to thread this yummy matching ribbon through into a bow. I created a tag using the sentiment for the top of the box. Visit the Gourmet Rubber Stamps blog as well as treats from the team listed at right for more inspiration. 

 

Thankful for a Wonderful Holiday?

Did you have a nice Christmas holiday? Unwrap plenty of goodies? Okay...now it's thank you time! The Woodware UK team is providing lots of great ideas for thank yous this week. Since I still had one set of Christmas images from Woodware that I hadn't used, I thought why not create a thank you for a Christmas gift with Christmas themed images? This set is called, "Snowglobe Magic", and has several cute critters and snow-themed items to place inside your snow globe. For mine, I chose the cute penguin (love penguins!), colored quickly with markers, and cut out to fit inside. The snow globe was stamped and embossed in Stampendous white embossing powder on acetate, and adhered over the top of the penguin atop panel of glitter paper. The background of the card was a panel of blue cardstock machine-embossed with the Dreamweaver Stencils' "Snow Splatter",  and the white card machine-embossed  with the Dreamweaver Stencils' "Snowflakes". The sentiment at the bottom comes from a fantastic Woodware Clear Magic set, "Tiny Phrases". I love this set as it has just about every sentiment for every occasion and the just because kind as well! Great to have on hand. Be sure to visit the rest of the team blogs as we rotate through the week for more thank you suggestions. Each day you can find the links on the Woodware UK blog.

It's Christmas Eve! Are You Feeling Challenged?

 If you actually have time to visit blogs on Christmas Eve, I guess I better provide some real eye candy...one of my favorite projects created for the Stampendous October catalog. Fortunately,  it happens to fit in with the December color challenge to use three of these four colors...pink, cream, brown, and gold. On the card, I paper pieced the Cling Rose Corset, embossing with Vintage Mahogany Embossing Tinsel. For the background I adhered and stitched bands of ribbons and trims, some vintage, some May Arts. The sentiment is from the Rose Branch Border Perfectly Clear set. Plenty of frou frou in the form of tulle, ribbon, paper roses, and tiny pearls help to create the perfect card for someone special. Then add a small decorated paper mache box to match. The perfect gift to hold a special treasure, or chocolates...or both! Since I was slightly less chatty today, it leaves you time to check out the other team posts, as well as the Stampendous blog:

Stampendous Impressions

Janelle Stolfus

Taylor Usry

Kristine Reynolds

Pam Hornschu (me)

Don't forget...if you play along with us this month, and link your creation(s) on the Stampendous blog InLinkz, you can have an opportunity to win the fabulous Perfectly Clear Amore Frame...perfect for creating Valentines and wedding cards, or smoochy cards for that special someone...just because.

Wondering who won the blog candy from my post last week? It was:

Jan Garber

 Congratulations, Jan! Please send me an email with your address to: phornschu@hotmail.com,

and your Perfectly Clear Happy Messages will be on their way!

To everyone else, hope you have a wonderful Christmas holiday with those you love near!