Six Quick & Bold Holiday Cards!

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I have some pretty things for you today - six different holiday cards with five simple ideas for repeatable or mass produced cards. One is a one-off for sure but the rest are so easy to duplicate without being boring. 

The first trick I'll just call Barely Stenciling. I like to do this with bold foreground images so that my "white space" is still super interesting. 

On this first card, I used the stunning stencil from the new kit + Powder Blue Ink & Life changing blender brushes - I used a very light touch, and tapped some of the ink off before blending for a very light blue background. Then I stamped the focal image in Blue Raspberry on top of that. I added the GORGEOUS Hanukkah sentiment from the same set in the kit as the focal image and added these white enamel dots. PS did you know that the USPS has a stamp that you can buy that covers the non-machinable cost for bulky or square/irregular size cards? It's true. It's on their website here.

I love all the blue possibilities with Hanukkah cards - and this stamp set imagery can be used for any holiday or all year cards. 

Now last week, my friend Kyra did the tutorial at Splitcoast and it's one of my faves, so I busted it out for a completely different looking holiday card - a warm, metallic look. I started with a piece of white cardstock that I embossed with this embossing folder. I smooshed Versamark all over it and then applied a few different colors of metallic Pan Pastel with Sofft tools. The snowflake die is also from the new kit, and the sentiment is from this beautiful sentiment set. I stamped it in Warm Cocoa to stay within my color scheme.

Now speaking of beautiful sentiments - this one is from that same set - and there are lots of other big, scripty and gorgeous greetings, but this one was so sweet and different I couldn't resist. Think how many quick cards you can make with this perfectly sized sentiment!! Over an inked or stenciled background, over loose watercolor, or in a clean and simple format with a little rainbow of cardstock down the side! I added these rainbow rhinestones and I just love it. Get this rainbow paper if you don't want to use cardstock strips - I just had this little stripe leftover in my UFO bin.

Okay this next one is the card that's a one off. I call this piece - Walter White's cabin. When I saw this beautiful little scene, my watercolors called. I stamped it in Fadeout ink and then used my Daniel Smith from my split group to paint it. As watercolor goes - it's actually pretty quick because of the simple lines in the mountains. The little cabin took a bit longer, but not much. This image has a little frame around it that gives me another idea I'll save for another day.

This next one is probably the quickest of them all. The background is actually this beautiful watercolor paper pack. Then I just stamped the tree and bird images from the same set as the cabin image and the beautiful sentiment that's included!

Finally - one of my oldest techniques I've learned - I don't know if there's a name for it - I just call it Frosted Stamping. I stamped the tree image from the kit in Powder blue with my MISTI - keeping it 1/8" away from the corner. I LOVE that it has a sentiment opening. Then I shifted it into the corner of the MISTI and stamped it in Gina's white ink on top. I stamped the sentiment into the opening in black.

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What a gorgeous release all around.

You can see the new kit and the rest of the release here. She has two exclusives for the holidays - some beautiful new glitter paper and slimline envelopes! These will be while supplies last. Click the images to see them in her store. Then one more super exciting product below!

Check out this Master Layouts Die 3 Set! This is a huge set of dies that works with the Wreath Builders and can be used to make panels and layers for regular card fronts! So fun. Love the pennants.

Loveyameanitbye.

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Festival of (Six) Lights

I'm always looking for ways to stretch my stamps - either by using them for a purpose other than what they are intended for, or by the things I pair them with.

When I was trying out Merry Patterns on my team FB live a few weekends ago, I thought it might be fun to give a Hanukkah feel to this winter set, so I set out to give it a general festival of lights feel, just with color and the little candles from the set.

(Now before all the snowflake leg counters revolt and get all bejiggity about the fact that there are only six, not nine candles on my card, please know that I give you permission to repeat three of the candles in the design for a more technically correct Hanukkah theme, however, this is a card, and a feeling, and no one will die with just six candles.)

One of the reasons I love Hanukkah crafting is there's sooooo much blue! So much lighter and prettier than all our heavy reds and greens. So I decided to make these two shades of blue.

The way these layering stamps line up is pure magic too - so clean and precise.

Such a bright, clean bunch of cards you can make with this set! It would make a great one for mass producing holiday cards with the MISTI for sure.

This card is for one of today's Falliday Fest challenges - but you can barely see the challenge portion on my card because - white card problems - but the challenge is to score lines on your card. There are actually two parallel lines scored on each side of the card panel the images are stamped on. Squint really hard and you can see them!

I hope your week has gone well - it's finally Caturday! Enjoy it to the fullest!

You can enter to win my Arkon giveaway for October one of two ways. Simply place an order in my store using host code M2U9DE6V - and you will be automatically entered once.

Then fill out this form below and you will receive one entry - or a second entry if you placed an order. Entries close October 31st at 11:59 PM.

Loveyameanithappycaturdaybye.

Tell Your Friend Veronica

Isn't it funny what comes to mind at the holidays? Just the mention of a particular holiday might make you crave a piece of pumpkin pie, or want to watch Die Hard - things that are as essential to the "season" as the actual holidays themselves in your own little world.

Well for me - I cannot even hear the first discussions about Hanukkah without singing the Hanukkah song. It's just a ritual. It makes me happy every time I hear it. Especially the part about Paul Newman and Goldie Hawn. :)

Anyway - I'm not Jewish, but we celebrated a lot of Jewish holidays at the Lutheran church I attended when I was growing up. Our pastor - who was a really great guy and also our next-door neighbor - wanted all the Sunday school kids to understand and respect the holidays and their intimate relationship with ours, so I remember him doing little Seders at Passover, where we sampled all the food, and studied where those rituals came from.

He explained Hanukkah to us, and the symbolism of the menorah and the dreidel, and we ate latkes - thank you Paster Otterstadt! Maybe he was very snacky all the time - now that I think about it we ATE a lot in Sunday school.

But even as a wee tot, what I remember about our Hanukkah studies was all the blue. I thought it was a much PRETTIER holiday than Christmas (which I'm sure would have horrified him), and to this day I look forward to this beautiful blue week.

Later, when I was studying Russian in college, I was thrilled to learn that Ded Moroz - Grandfather Frost - their Santa-ish character - wore ultramarine blue for the most part instead of red. 

The fact is it's a graphically fetching time of the year, in addition to being a meaningful time of celebration.

When I got my pre-order with the teeny birthday candle punch in it, my first thought was that this would make a spectacular Hanukkah card. So I made it.

I punched 18 candles - 9 yellow and 9 blue, and then cut the flames off the blue ones and glued them to the yellow ones.

To space them evenly, I cut a 1/4" strip of cardstock and put it between the candles as I was lining them up against the silver glimmer paper strip. Worked like a charm.

I'm still working on my Christmas cards - I'm giving myself a fuzzy deadline of this weekend to get them finished and in the mail since I don't have any classes this weekend. Then it will be time for the final spritzing of the fruitcakes and then the big event!

I have a great recipe for you too - I made these for my customer appreciation party this weekend - I had two cups of dried tart cherries left from the fruitcake production, so I made cherry oatmeal cookies and they were divine - perfect for those freaky raisin haters out there!

Martha's Cherry Oatmeal Cookies

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup dark-brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar (there’s a small chance I accidentally used a cup - and they were great!)

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

2 cups dried sour cherries

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside. (These do NOT work on a non-stick cookie sheet - parchment is a must) In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, cinnamon, salt, baking soda and baking powder; set aside.
2. Beat the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes in your mixer with a paddle attachment. Add the eggs and vanilla, and beat to incorporate. Add flour mixture to butter mixture, beating on low speed to combine. Stir in the oats and dried cherries.
3. Drop the dough onto prepared baking sheets, leaving 6 inches between cookies. Bake until edges are just turning brown, about 20 minutes. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet, then remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Now tomorrow there will be a big sale - so don't miss out! It's the year-end sale and it runs from December 10th - January 4th. Shop here using host code KS94EJ7F and get a Christmas card from me! :)

LoveyameanitHappyHanukkahbye.

Lincoln Says Shalom

This afternoon, I went to see Lincoln with a neighbor.

I was struck by two things. Well, maybe three.

First of all, I typically see movies about ten years after they are released. I don't like theaters very much, and I get a wee bit antsy about sitting in the dark with strangers. Especially when I can hear them eating.

I attribute this, as I do most things I'm afraid of, to the Grimm brothers and Edward Gorey.

So I didn't even know that the lead was played by Daniel Day Lewis until we were in the car on the way home - that's how good he was.

I was very taken by how charming they made Lincoln. That was never a word I would have described him with. My first impression of him was the monument in DC I saw when I was somewhere between kindergarten and fourth grade. Seeing that is still one of the most memorable moments of my life. It's a heart stopping monument, whether or not you even know who he was. He was imposing, dignified, larger than life, stoic. Not charming. So that was very enjoyable in the movie, whether or not it was accurate.

Next, there was the fact that that politicians were, are and always shall be, lower life forms not worthy of our energy. Sheesh. Some things never change.

God bless our American revolutionaries who understood this in their very DNA. I have that DNA :).

Finally - there was a quote which really paused the movie for me and made it hard for me to concentrate for the remainder.

Lincoln quoted the Euclidian "common notion":

 Things which are equal to the same thing are also equal to one another.

All creatures great and small.

Think about that one for a while.

Meanwhile, happy Hanukkah to my Jewish friends! As usual, I'm a day late. But I couldn't resist CASE'ing a card I saw on Facebook for the start of Hanukkah - the Keep Calm and Shalom cracked me up :).

I used some sneak peek goodies from our spring mini catalog, including the hexagon embossing folder, the DSP, the Pool Party embossing folder and the ribbon. Pretty, eh? The stamp sets are Carry On and Jewish Celebrations. Can't wait to show you the rest!

Hope you are having a good December - I was shocked to see today that there are only 16 more days until Christmas - where does the time go?

Loveyameanitbye.

I Bring You Peace. And an Exploding Battery.

Never a dull moment.

On a conference call yesterday, we all heard a terrible sound towards the end of the call.


If you're a fan of LOST, it was exactly the sound the security system on the island makes right before it makes people implode.


Wisely, we ended the call.


As I went to hit the End button on my Blackberry - oh how poetic is THAT? - I see the dreaded white screen of death. Blackberry users know what I'm talking about. Praying that the end was not near, I popped the battery out for 15 seconds and put it back in. Sort of.


The back cover wouldn't close. It was weird - it was like I didn't have the battery seated right. So I messed with it a bit. My red light briefly went on and then off and I figured that Blackberry had calculated the precise end of my contract with AT&T and self destructed my phone at that particular moment. They do that, you know. I didn't have the patience for a mega phone carrier yesterday so I just left it.

But curiosity got me later and I went back later and took the battery out again. That's when I discovered that it had become roughly the shape of a shredded wheat biscuit. It had exploded, I guess, inside the battery case - thank God the case held, because I was holding to my ear at the time, as you will recall - and it was now all poofed out and destroyed.


Hmph.


Thankfully, I happened to have a battery in the purse I used ten purses ago, so I worked backwards through discarded purses, popped it in and thankfully the explosion had not killed my phone and I'm phone-ful again. But it made for an interesting day.


After all that business, I really needed a little Shalom!

Stamps: Shalom Ink: Versamark Paper: Whisper White, Silver Glimmer  

Accessories: Pool Party Ruffled Ribbon, Lace Ribbon Border Punch, Craft Knife, Silver 

Embossing Powder, Square Lattice Embossing Folder

I'm not gonna lie, I love this card. :) It's so cool and clean and wintery and sparkly.

The challenge that I hosted for VSN was called God Bless Texas. The challenge was to use the Texas flag as either a sketch or an inspiration so this was my sample. I'm hoping God does bless Texas with something cool and wintery sometime.

So what is exploding in YOUR ear this week? Nothing, I hope! :)

Loveyameanitbye.