Celebrating Birthdays...

 My birthday was last week, and I promised to send THREE little stamps sets to the commenter on THIS post. There were 7 lovely comments and the Random Number Generator chose 

#3

Which is Karen M in Northern Ireland. Karen, I've emailed you!

The card above is one I received, made by my brother-in-law. Its a reference to the Matrix, of course but inside was a message giving me a choice between a red and blue Emile Henri bake-ware item (THE BEST pie-plates...). 

One of my sons also made a card. He designed it digitally, then printed it out onto a 5.5 x 8.5 card-base.

I made the birthday cake, an awesome chocolate-raspberry-ice-cream confection, from a recipe by my friend Hayley. It was a big hit...hence the reference in the card. Love when my guys get crafty!

Speaking of birthdays, Paper Smooches (maker of the cutest images and punniest sentiment stamps) is having its third anniversary, and Kim Hughes has goodies and give-aways planned for the entire month of February.

Check it out HERE.

Happy crafting,

Caroline

More thank-yous...

More fun with Kim Kesti's Big Picture class, Create & Share card-making.

a) I am SOOO far ahead in my card-making for all those special occasions this year (feels good!);

b) I am using up LOTS of old patterned paper (feels even better!)

One of my colleagues at work is off next week, taking maternity leave for her second child. I liked the design of the Thank-you cards HERE so much I thought I'd crank out some thank-you-for-the-baby-gift cards for her (above) and below:

Love that little baby carriage! It is another of Close to My Heart's M-size stamps. Cute images and such a bargain at $2.95.  See my post HERE to help me celebrate, and win THREE of these adorable stamp sets.

As I did some dry embossing on the first card, I'm entering these in Simon Says Stamps' Wednesday Challenge: Emboss It.

 

Enjoy a crafty weekend!

Caroline

Supplies:

Card stock and patterned paper: Close to my Heart

Memento Ink: Tuxedo Black

Nestabilities cutting/embossing dies

Martha Stewart embossing board

Washi tape

ribbon: JoAnn's

Enamel dots: Close to My Heart

Orange Gems: Hero Art

Liquid Pearls

Copic Markers

Silver Pen: Signo-Uniko

Wink of Stella pen

Paper doily: Paper Wishes

 

 

 

If its Monday morning, it must be...

Time for a FABULOUS new sketch at 

Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge.

The is a great all-purpose sketch--lots of possibilities. However, right now, I am all about the Christmas card, so here's my take:

Rotated the sketch, used a tag for the central layer and tucked the ribbon under rather than over the tag.I had fun embossing that delicious Ho-ho-ho message, then colouring it with markers to match the papers. 

The Sparkle and Shine paper (grey) has little shiny silver polka dots--subtle but pretty.

The best accidental find was border punching the red shimmer tape. I was left with all these sparkly little circles. Some ended up on and inside this card, and others you will see in future posts. They also ended up on the carpet, in the bedroom, you name it!

Back to the sketch:  You have all week to concoct your own interpretation of this sketch. Link it up to the Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge by Sunday night. We love to see your creations!

☃☃☃☃☃

I have my own challenge for you this week:  post a project and invite a friend to the Atlantic Hearts sketch challenge. For every friend who posts, I will enter your name that number of times into a random drawing for the stamp set I used here. Mention this challenge in your post, then come back here to THIS post and tell me you linked up, and include your friend's name so I can check THEIR post. Whew! Sounds like a lot of back-and-forth but it will be fun!

Happy crafting,

Caroline

Supplies Used:

Cardstock and patterned paper, Close to My Heart: Juniper, White Daisy, Grey Flannel, Sparkle and Shine

Red Shimmer trim, Close to My Heart

Ranger Distress Markers in Festive Berry and Iced Spruce

Silver embossing powder

Red ribbon, Michaels

Blog Candy Winner!

 Yippee!

Thanks to all the folks who left kind comments on my blog make-over post HERE.
I promised a prize, drawn from amongst all those who left a little love for Jen Nelson, designer of my all-new blog header. Several commented on the Autumnal feel of the design but truly, the colours were pulled from a summer photo and the maple leaf symbolizes Canada (my home and some-what native land). Although there are great numbers of brilliant red maple leaves covering the ground in Ottawa right now!

The True Random Number generator has picked #3:   Rebecca

Rebecca, not sure where in the beautiful world you live, but send me your contact info and I'll mail out your Christmas stamp set to you!

Here's a card using an image from that set.

CASE'd from Nancy HERE

LOVE that Sizzix reindeer die (he makes an appearance every year). This year he is cut from suede paper (Paper Wishes sells it HERE).
The card is part of my card-making bonanza to benefit Caring Hearts Drive 2013. (see my original post on this effort HERE). My energetic elves will be putting together 10 more of these this week, along with 60 other cards I've got cut out and ready to go. Intrigued? Visit the link and consider joining the Caring Hearts Drive this year!

Happy crafting,
Caroline

Thanks for the Make-Over!

 

Dear crafty friends...

TA-DAH!

What do you think of the new look of my blog?

I've been thinking about having a personalized blog-header for quite some time, and contacted a couple of people who advertise that kind of work on their blog, with no reponse.

Then I "found" the multi-talented Jen Nelson, through the "Seize the Sketch" blog.

She is one of those very productive people who make Clean-and-Simple an art-form.

She dabbles in blog design, we emailed back and forth a bit to discuss colours and design elements,

Inspired by the colours of my favorite place to be...

and in a mere couple of weeks,
she had created and refined this new blog-header and accoutrements.

Here is my attempt at a Jen Nelson-style card, to thank her.

Seize the Sketch #6

Please pop by Jen's blog, The Tiny Blue Butterfly, and leave her some love.

 To further celebrate, I thought I'd offer a little blog candy, to help with your Christmas crafting:

Leave a comment on this post, and stop by Jen's blog to comment, within the next week. I'll do a random drawing for  this stamp set on Saturday, October 26th, for those who commented at both places.

Happy Crafting!

Caroline

Card Recipe:

Seize the Sketch #6--I'm linking this one up!

Cardstock in White Daisy, Grey Flannel and Black, CTMH

Chiyogami paper from Japan, courtesy of my husband's trip in June

"Thanks" word-die from Paper Smooches, cut 4 times and layered

Joy!Crafts floral flourishes die #6002/0157

Black sequins and grey bling, CTMH 

Home-made pink spritz 

Happy Birthday, Dear Blog...

Here are the colors for this week's Dynamic Duos color challenge:

Holy hot colours for winter, right?

Well, this is my birthday month, so I decided to make a couple of birthday cards. I used the CTMH colours  SMOOTHIE & LAGOON, 

along with BLACK and COLONIAL WHITE.

His and Her Birthday cards!

 A couple of stamp sets are mixed: the cake layers and candles are CTMH D1352 "It's Your Day." So much fun to make that teetering gateau... !!! The cake-stand and greeting are from The Stamps of Life, cake2build and numbers4cake. My mother-in-law used to have a fancy cake- stand, and she would weave a different coloured ribbon through it to suit the occasion. I doodled a bit on the stand to make it look more lacy.

The Smoothie version

The Lagoon version

I am linking these up to Dynamic Duos Challenge #34.  The deadline is Thursday noon, this week, so why not ink up these sunny colours and join in?

*******

On the subject of milestones...

This month also marks the anniversary of the first time I submitted a card to a challenge: see this POST.
It is also the TENTH anniversary of my favorite weekend of the year (apart from vacation!): the "Scrapaholics Anonymous" annual scrap-booking retreat. I'll be joining twelve of my best crafty friends, for four days of cutting, glueing and getting caught up with each others' lives.
Cause for celebration, I think, with a challenge and giveaway!

Here's the deal:

• You will have two weeks to post and link up your project (once I figure out how to use Mr. Linky). Deadline is Friday, January 25th, 2013.
• The assignment is to create something that reflects how you feel about your birthday this year. Maybe its a big one with a big party. Maybe you prefer to down-play it. Maybe you've met some challenges this year. Make a card, lay-out, altered or 3D object.
• The ladies in my scrappin' group will be the judges; winner will be notified by e-mail on January 27th, 2013.
•  The prize package includes some lovely Close-to-My-Heart products: the "Adventure" set of 10 mini pigment ink pads (Z2501), the January 2013 stamp of the month, "Happy Valentine's" (S1301) and a Spring/Summer 2013 Idea Book, full of inspiring artwork (and must-have products, too!).

I hope you'll join in the first-ever "Caroline's Creations Challenge!"

Happy Crafting,
C