The Damsel of Distressed Cards

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Family Card Exchange - Christmas Themed

I have one of the coolest families EVER!! There. I've said it. Stamping homemade cards is something most of the women of my family love to do. Years ago, we decided to start card parties to exchange cards. We'd all get together and play games, have card making competitions, and we'd each bring 12 of the same type of card. Before the party was done, we'd exchange and have 12 different cards! It was a great way to build up a collection.

As years went by, more and more of my cousins grew up and became more and more geographically dispersed. The card parties started to dwindle and then stopped altogether. But this year we started something new: mailed card exchanges. Everyone sends their cards to my house and I collect them, sort them, and mail them back. It's a process, but I LOVE to be able to have that creativity carried on.

This was the card I made for the exchange:

Isn't this moose ADORABLE?! He's from the Lawn Fawn "Arctic Critters" set. I colored him up, stamped the hat, cut it out, and placed it on his merry head. And then I layered. And layered some more. There are a total of nine layers! There were 13 participants this time around, and by the end of putting together all of my cards I was definitely cursing my lack of ability to create beautiful clean and simple cards.

The sentiment is from an old, old Stampin' Up set.

I love those little wooden tree embellishments, too!

I'm sending this guy over to the Lawn Fawn Lawnscaping "Merry Christmas" challenge, because he is definitely merry and Christmasy. Or Christmoosey anyway. :)

I am also going to support these fantastic challenges:

Simon Says Stamp: Winter Inspiration

Time Out Challenge: Christmas is Love with all the Trimmings

Tuesday Throwdown: Christmas

But I can't leave you all without a look at the rest of the gorgeous cards my family made. As I was going through each card, I was blown away by how much talent my family has. (I know, I know, biased much?) But seriously... I just love how we can all come together to support each other and encourage creativity.

Aunt Paula's Card:

crafted by Aunt Jerrie from Coloring Outside the Linez

Danielle's Card:

This is the very first card she's ever stamped!

Didn't she do awesome??

Brianna's card:

Allison's card:

Chandra's card:

Crafted by Aunt Julie

Aunt Julie's card:

Aunt Jerrie's Card:

Jerrie from Coloring Outside the Linez

Amber's Card:

Crafted by Aunt Julie

Casey's card:

Heather's card:

This last card is one that is very special to me. Just before this last card exchange concluded, my Grandma passed away. She was in the middle of making this card for us all, and my cousin Heather graciously finished them.

My grandma loved cardinals, and always had bird feeders out. Her cards almost always were nature cards that required a lot of hand coloring. I am so grateful to Heather that I will have this final keepsake. I intend to frame it and hang it in my craft studio.

Grandma's card:

Finished by Heather

There is one more card that I will add as soon as I have it in my fingers to photograph. My wonderful, talented Momma's card!

Thanks for stopping by! Leave a comment - my family loves to read through what you think of their designs!

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Stamping with Sweetened Condensed Milk: My Very First Guest Design!!

So there I was. Just staring at my computer screen when up pops a message from the amazing Shery Russ of STAMPlorations. She asked me to Guest Design! After jumping up and down in glee (thanks, Shery, for helping me burn off some of the Christmas cookie calories) I gladly accepted!

If you have followed my blog for any length of time, you know how much I adore the sketchy, gorgeous designs Shery and her team create. The girls over at STAMPlorations are some of the best in the business and have left some amazing encouragement on my designs.

For the STAMPlorations Blog, I produced a tutorial on how to stamp with sweetened condensed milk, an old technique my grandma taught me.

Not many people have heard of this technique and it creates the most amazing, textural cards.

If you guys wouldn't mind popping by the STAMPlorations blog to leave me a bit of love today, I would really appreciate it. I promise you'll learn all about a GREAT new technique!

Thanks for following! And if you're new to my blog, thanks for stopping by! Leave me a comment and follow my blog and I'll be sure to return the favor. :)

Monday, December 15, 2014

Drumroll please.... Blog Candy winner

Well, the results are in! I listed off names and one of my friends stopped me when I said Holly. (Yes, it's all very scientific around these parts).

So congrats Holly AKA KopyKat! You've won my Coffee Lovers Blog Hop blog candy!

I've emailed you so if you could respond with your address, that would be awesome. I'll get your prize right off to you.

THANK YOU to everyone who commented and followed my blog. I'm blown away by your support!

Sunday, December 14, 2014

You can Stand Under my Umbrella

Whew... I'm finally winding down from the Coffee Lovers Blog Hop, which was AMAZING. But in fairness to the rest of my stamp sets, which have been looking longingly at me all week, I feel I must move on.

I would like to say THANK YOU to all the amazing crafty people who commented during the hop and to everyone who followed me (14 of you!). I am blown away and have done several happy dances. If I haven't made it to your blogs to follow you back yet, I promise I will soon!

If you haven't heard of Muse - it's a really cool blog where your card making peers vote on the submissions every week. Such a cool concept! As a side note, I entered the Design Team call over at Muse and would love if you would pop over there to vote for me.

At the Muse blog, you're given an inspiration card each week and this week's card comes from the always-inspiring Therese Calvird of Lostinpaper. Her sad little monster is completely adorable.

What's the second card, you ask? The submission gallery never ceases to amaze me and I was gazing at the entries this week, I saw this sunshiney gorgeousness created by Ardyth Percy Robb. I probably am cheating a little bit, because my finished card was inspired by BOTH designs and I feel like I have to give credit where credit is due.

You see, I recently purchased Verve stamp's Rain or Shine set and I have been struggling with how to use it. It's so adorable, but I just haven't taken it out of it's shiny package. I'm a new Verve user and this set is my favorite from their collection (hence why I purchased it!)

After seeing Ardyth's design I got an insta-idea!

I loved the slight sadness in Therese's design and knew I wanted to create that feel, too. So I used this sentiment and tried to incorporate both the sad rainy day and the bright sunshine. I masked off areas and sponged some Spiced Marmalade Distress Inks. Lastly, I used some felted cloud stickers and made them peek through the framed sentiment in areas.

This is my card for the challenge:

In addition to Muse, I'm sending this on over to Sentimental Sunday's "Anything Goes" challenge and to Verve's Diva Dare - Favorite Things.

Thanks for stopping by! Leave me a comment and follow my blog and I'll be sure to return the favor!

Friday, December 12, 2014

Holiday Coffee Lovers Blog Hop - Take 3

Alright, this is my last post for the Coffee Lover's Blog Hop because I need to head off to bed. This old lady has stopped her coffee intake long, long ago and the caffeine high of my afternoon has taken a leave of absence (until tomorrow morning, that is).

When the hop started up, I purchased a Starbucks via Christmas blend, to see if it would inspire a project. By the way, Amy, with all the Starbucks advertisements and gift card purchases I've seen along the way... they really ought to be a sponsor! Your hops must make a HUGE impact on their sales. hehe.

Anyways, the coffee sat balefully looking at me on my crafting station, and because the number of entries is teetering on the edge of 300 (292!), I decided to put that coffee to use.

So I made a punny tag. Puns and I go waaaay back. I love me a good ol' distressed, tattered, burlap-filled design, but if a stamp set is clever, I'll probably break down and have to buy it.

Fiskars "Latte Love" (now retired from what I was told in a comment from one of the original Fiskateers - how cool) is steeped (pun intended) with puns and it was one of those spur-of-the-moment purchases. I'm glad Amy's having this hop because it gave me an excuse to revisit it!

I embossed a sentiment and used Perfect Medium to stamp some snowflakes. Then I painted over it with Perfect Red Perfect Pearls. I added some Vintage Photo Distress ink to the edges, some deep green designer paper, and a bit of burlap twine and

Voila!

I now have the perfect gift to give to my coffee-loving Secret Santa at work. Wahoo!

I do have blog candy for the hoppers who leave a comment. Details are in my last post. Make sure to leave your email so I can easily contact you.

And there are a TON of Sponsors for the Coffee Lovers Blog Hop. There's still time to whip up a project and help to reach 300 entries!


17Turtles	Veronica Zalis	Chris Franco

Add a Little Dazzle	Butterfly Reflections Ink	Color Cast Designs

Create a Smile	Hero Arts	Kraftin' Kimmie

Kreative Kymona	Latina Crafter	Neat & Tangled

Newton's Nook	Pickled Potpourri Designs	Poppystamps

Reverse Confetti	Stamp Academy	Stamp Simply Ribbon Store

STAMPlorations	SugarPea Designs	Sweet 'n Sassy

The Alley Way Stamps	Two Paper Divas	Verve Stamps

Whole Wild World	Your Next Stamp	Paper Smooches