Peaceful Christmas: A Paper Pumpkin Thing

To all those stopping by who are Paper Pumpkin fans allow me to say "hello" and welcome to our monthly  hop.  A Paper Pumpkin Thing Blog Hop is showcasing the October Peaceful Christmas Kit. For today's hop I've created two cards using elements from the kit, a few extra pieces of cardstock, and the Merriest Moments Bundle.

For this top fold card I used the vellum trees leftover piece for a stencil.  With a Blending Brush and Shaded Spruce ink I added a row of stenciled trees.  Before removing the stencil I then dabbed on a bit of Whisper White ink to give depth and the illusion of a few snowy branches.  To complete card's background I splattered with Wink of Stella.  To finish up I included the vellum trees, a strip of pattern paper, a stamped greeting, embellishments, and a red twine bow all from the kit.

My second card is a fun fold.  I started with a 4 1/4" x 11" Basic Gray card base.  To that I added another 4 3/4" x 5 1/2" piece of Basic Gray.  Along the long edge of the piece I scored at 1/2" to make a tab so I could glue it to the larger piece of Basic Gray to make a 4 1/4" x 16 1/2" card base. Then I made a couple diagonal scores to create a twist open fun fold.

On a scrap of Basic White Cardstock I stamped holly leaves, berries, and pine bough images from the Merriest Moments Stamp Set.  I love how they give the Noel sentiment some scale and prettiness.

Here's a look at the inside of the card.  You can see that when you open the card it twists to reveal a simple sentiment.  I left lots of space to add a nice little message.

One week from today I'll be live on Facebook for my Up!STYLE Class.  I'll be making all kinds of alternative cards and tags with this super awesome kit.   Class will be 11/4 at 10:00 a.m. mountain time at my Seeinginkspots FB Page.

Thanks for visiting my blog and our Blog Hop.  Do click on each of the links below to get lots and lots more inspiration for alternative creations for this month's Peaceful Christmas Kit.

Monday Montage Celebrates 200 Hops

Welcome, welcome, welcome to our 200th Monday Montage Blog Hop. For this milestone hop we are "celebrating" with a "celebration" theme. I'm taking this theme out of the box.

I'm celebrating the outstanding colors of autumn, the specialty Blackberry Beauty Papers, the incredibly coordinated Stampin' Up! products, and most important the forever friendships I have made because of SU!  So, to all those who are my stampin' friends I "celebrate" you.  And, I have to agree "some people are just likable..."

I also thought I would "celebrate" myself.  How, you ask?  I CASED one of my own projects.  I traded out the stamps and papers and recreated a card I made recently that has a great layout and fold.  I mentioned in an earlier post that I have no idea what the name of this fold is, but I call it a "hokey pokey" card because the backside is in front, the right side is tucked in the left, and there's detail inside it could be the front of the card.

I used my favorite Blackberry Beauty Suite from the July-December Catalog.  The papers and stamps are right up my alley.  Awesome colors, patterns, dies, typography, and images.  

My card base is Petal Pink and it measures 5 1/2" x 11" and is scored along the long edge at 1", 5 1/4", and 9 3/ 8".  All of the papers come from the Blackberry Beauty 12" x 12" Specialty pack.  The stamp set from the Suite is called Beauty of Tomorrow and the matching dies are called Beautiful Leaves. The largest, and totally awesome, die in the set is what I used to emboss the front right panel of my card.  I did include a couple elements from the Blackberry Beauty Ephemera Pack.  I layered them on the left inside panel.

I am happy you have been hopping with us for our 200th hop.  As always ink up and stamp often. Next along our hop is Julie Warnick or go back to visit with Cheryl Curtis.

to Julie

to Cheryl

Monday Montage Hoppers

Amy O'Neill - Amy's Paper Crafts

Breelin Renwick - Craft-somnia Momma

Cathy Casey - Sugar Shack Designs

Charlet Mallett - Painted Orange

Cheryl Curtis - Pomp and Sustenance

Dani Dziama - Dani's Thoughtful Corner

Elizabeth Price - Seeinginkspots

Julie Warnick - Creating on the Run

Melissa Stout - The Stamp Doc

Wendy Weixler - Wickedly Wonderful Creations

#TGIF339 Alcohol Blending

Our challenge for this week at #TGIF339 is the alcohol blending technique.  This is a trendy technique which is pretty cool but you have to have 91% rubbing alcohol or it doesn't work.  Ask me how I know.

All I could find is 70%, so I tried that and it just doesn't quite get the job done.

If you are familiar with the Expressions in Ink DSP you know that the papers feature wonderful vibrant prints that look like they are alcohol blended.  So, I cheated a bit for this challenge and used a piece of the gorgeous paper.

Cool Colors

Welcome Hand Stamped Sentiments stamp friends.  Our latest challenge includes a trio of cool colors perfect for the change of season where the air is getting crisp and the wind is blowing.

In my stash of papers I found some PERFECT pieces for this color challenge.  The Silver Foil 12" x 12" Specialty Pack and the Peaceful Place 12" x 12" Specialty Paper are awesome for reflecting the Smokey Slate color. 

Bundles for this card include the Peaceful Deer and Merriest Moments which I think both are fabulous.  These two bundles are what I'm stampin' with this holiday season.  I also pulled out the Tasteful Labels Dies, Basic Rhinestones, and the twine from Flowers for Every Season Combo Pack.

Beautiful Fall Layers

Have you discovered the incredible Blackberry Beauty Suite?  In every nook and cranny of the Suite there is extreme beauty.  The colors, the patterns, the textures, the gold foil, the imagery, and the fabulous coordination.  

This beautifully layered fall themed card is based on a top fold Thick Basic White piece of cardstock.  Before I added all the pretty details I did some stampin' and splattering of Stampin' Blends ink and Wink of Stella.

The stunning focal element of the card is the Be Dazzling flower.  I cut the flower with the Merriest Frames Dies and layered it in a spray of Gold Vellum leaves, loops of Linen Thread, and Crumb Cake Sprigs.  For extra added prettiness I included some of the gold colored gems in the Holiday Rhinestones Pack.

This is a blog hop and you know just what to do.  Click next to move on to Julie or back to see what Cheryl's been stamping.

to Julie Warnick

to Cheryl Curtis

#TGIF337 Blackberry Beauty

It's sketch challenge time over at #TGIF337.  I like this one and decided to use elements from the Blackberry Beauty Suite.