Challenges and Old and New Stamps! What fun!!

I love participating in the Splitcoaststampers challenges. If you haven't played along in the challenges you are really missing out on fun, learning new techniques and personal creative growth. I have learned everything I know from the Splitcoaststampers community and challenges.  I highly encourage you to start uploading a gallery and playing along as often as you can.

Thursday's Way To Use It challenge was to use a monogram. I never use monograms so this was a real challenge for me. I've never been into creating note cards or gift sets with my initials or anyone else's and don't really have much in the way of stamps to do this kind of project. I do have some large letter chipboard negatives left over from teaching a chipboard class last year. I decided it would be fun to use the "W" for winter. I used the negative as a template and sponged ballet blue inside the negative on to a piece of white cardstock to create the letter and cut it out. I let it dry well and then stamped snowflakes on it with white craft ink and embossed with white embossing powder. I thought Rubbernecker's Evergreen , Mr Stix and Petite Mittens would be perfect to create a fun scene with the W. I stamped the snowman and mittens on watercolor paper and painted with reinkers. I chose the colors I wanted to work with from my Stampin" Up! Color Coach and I find it to be such a valuable tool to help me create projects that pop with color. I used SU Ballet Blue, Real Red, Caramel, and Artichoke. I cut out the images to place on the W. I stamped the Evergreen trees for the background on white cardstock and used liquid applique (see tutorial) to create a snowy ground area. I attachedthe W to the main layer with mounting tape and then attached Mr Stix to siton top the W. I thought snowballs would be another great element for this card since Mr Stix's has such nice arms for throwing. I spread liquid applique on a piece of scrap paper, heated and hand punched out tons of snowballs with my 3/8" punch. I love all the snow balls in the scene. I also attached a dry set of mittens to the W for Mr Stix to use. This is just a fun and whimsical card and I loved creating it.

Sharon Johnson holds a weekly Stamp Simply challenge and I enjoy playing when I can. This week her challenge was hijacked by one of her design team partners and the challenge was to stamp in Sharon's style. Sharon loves nature images and wide ribbon. I used my brand new Flourishes -Forest of Trees and Kitchen Sink Stamps – Autumn Squirrel to create this nature scene. The little grass sprigs image is from my Kittie Kits Outdoor Master. The photo does not quite show how vivid the different colored leaves placed on the trees and ground area. This project also qualified for the Friday Limited Supply Challenge.  

This is a second project that I did for the Limited Supply Challenge and we were to use gems and not use any type of die such as Cuttlebug or Spellbinders. I used another tree from the Flourishes-Forest of Trees and simply stamped it with Distress Peeled Paint on watercolor paper and sponged with Distress Scattered Straw to create a glow around the tree. I added a snowy base with liquid applique and attached my rhinestone brads for ornaments and tiny little satin bows to complete the tree decorations. I cut the scalloped border with decorative scissors. I really love olive and red together. Well that is an understatement.  I love olive with almost anything….but especially with red.