Bloggers Challenge 182

This week the Bloggers Challenge was a sketch challenge. (Lisa, this was a cool sketch.) I kind of started backwards with this one. I had this background paper which I really wanted to use. Even though it has a distressed look, it also has sparkle. Besides I like deer. For my image I chose this wintery scene from Heartfelt Creations. I thought it was the kind of place you might find the deer wandering about. Since I'm still working on Christmas, I thought the jingle bell punches worked well, and of course, the sentiment is definitely Christmas. I can't wait to see how the other group members interpreted this scene.
I came very close to not being able to play today. My Internet was down for about 24 hours. Six of those hours I spent on the phone trying to get it back up and running. Fortunately, as you can see, it was successful...draining, but successful.

12 Tags of Christmas 2010 -- Tags 1 thru 5

Tag 1

Tag 2

Tag 3

Tag 4



Tag 5



For the last several years, Tim Holtz has shared with us his 12 Tags of Christmas. It's an exciting and challenging time. Last year I pretty much kept up. This year Tim has finished Tag 12, but I haven't. I'm really enjoying the tags, but I'm a bit time challenged. I've finished the first five tags so far. If you've been following the tags, you'll notice that I have tried to keep very close to the actual tag created by Tim. I try to treat this activity as if I were sitting in a class with Tim. I follow his examples and instructions fairly closely. I figure that if I learn or review the technique by following Tim, I can branch out on my own whenever I choose. I'm enjoying making the tags. By being so far behind, I can savor the activity so much longer.

Ornaments

I have to thank my friend Lisa for the inspiration for these ornaments. I had seen one she made and loved it. When I saw the porcelain ornaments at Michaels, I just knew I had to try my hand at decorating them. All of the stamp images are from Heartfelt Creations. I stamped the images on the ornaments with black Staz-on ink. I used my Creative Inspirations paints for the color. The shimmery paint is perfect for Christmas decorations. The finishing touch was to paint the sides with antique gold paint. They have the look of vintage porcelain ornaments. My daughter and grandson put up the tree last night. I'm off now to add these ornaments to the tree.

Bloggers Challenge 181 -- Birthday

Today's Bloggers Challenge comes right on time. Yesterday was my Dad's 90th birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD! We are having a big family celebration on Sunday. I thought this was a perfect sentiment for Dad since he may be 90 in years, but in body, mind and spirit he is considerably younger.
My card is simple. The background is Shimmersheetz embossed using the numbers folder. The numbers are highlighted with blue Stazon. The sentiment is computer generated and die cut with a Spellbinders label die.

Off With Their Heads

"Off With Their Heads" is the challenge at Oh Alice this week. It's a crazy and fun challenge where the challenge is to alter your stamps and mix it up a little by giving them a new head or body. It took me a little thinking for this one, but suddenly the lightbulb went on. I thought about the kids books where the pages are divided and when you flip the top or bottom part of the page different heads are matched with different bodies. The characters on this project are the white rabbit (top photo), the caterpillar, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire cat, the Red Queen, and the frog messenger. Depending upon which page is flipped, you might get the Mad Hatter's head on the frog messenger's body or the Cheshire Cat's head on the caterpillar's body or the Red Queen's head on the White Rabbit's body. You get the picture. There are 36 possibilities, so I'll stop here.

Red and White Ornament Card

The challenge at Bloggers Challenge was ornaments. I guess this may be a bit of a stretch, but I used an ornament as the focal image on a card. It is a swing card and the ornament does hang on the card. It's fun to twist the ornament around several times and watch a person's expression as he/she opens the card and the ornament spins around. The color choice was based on the Play Date Cafe color challenge of red and white. I wish you could see the paper in person. The red ornament is made from very shiny metallic cardstock. The white is paper I received from Paper Temptress. It is absolutely luscious. The base card is some red shimmery cardstock I had in my stash.

This card also fits the Created By Hand challenge. The theme is Christmas countdown. To me the hanging of Christmas decorations definitely denotes the countdown to Christmas.

Try That Technique--Marker Watercolor

I made this atc using the Marker Watercoloring technique from the June/July Technique Junkies newsletter. This was the Try That Technique challenge for the week. I must admit that I have never actually created anything with this technique. I tried a couple of times, but didn't like what I did...perhaps I should have used watercolor paper then like the technique calls for. It does work. I used Old Santa from the Artistic Outpost Snowy Woods sheet. Along the side is a strip of tissue tape from Tim Holtz products. The sentiment is highlighted using a Tim Holtz fragment. I may be getting into the spirit of Christmas finally.