Have a Holly Jolly Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

Just popping in to share a few more cards I made using the Holly Jolly collection from Close To My Heart.

These four cards were for my sister's four youngest daughters.

The first three feature images I coloured from The Greeting Farm and were for the three youngest.

And this one is for her teenage daughter. The snowman is from the Holly Jolly Sticker sheet and the mat is a PML card!

I hope they like their cards!

As always thanks for stopping by.

A long overdue CTMH Boutique Birthday Card

Hi folks,

As you may have guessed, my paper-crafting mojo seems to be making a wee return. I'm finally able to share a card that I started months ago but only finished this past weekend. It languished in my craft room for days, weeks, then months. All I had left to do was colour the dress and put the pieces together. <sigh>

Anyways, it features:

• the (now retired) Boutique papers from Close To My Heart
• two tags from the Fancy Tags Thin Cuts set
• Thick Whisper twine
• Sugarplum card stock
• the sentiment is from a now retired CTMH Stamp set (A1222)
• and the coloured image is from the 10 year anniversary set from The Greeting Farm

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Clean And Simple with Skater Ian

Hi folks,

Back today to share a birthday card I made recently for dearly beloved's oldest nephew. He's a very active kid - into sports and the like, particularly hockey. But, since I've already made cards for him with all of my hockey player stamps, I pulled this oldie but goodie out of my binder of stamps from "The Greeting Farm" to make this Clean and Simple card for his birthday.

card details:

• finished size: 5x5 inches, white card stock base, red card stock mat
• patterned papers: Carta Bella "Beach Boardwalk"
• stamped image: The Greeting Farm "Skater Ian", coloured with Copic Markers (E000, E00, E01, E93, B91, B93, B95, E21, E23, E25, YR04)
• sentiment: Verve "Small Celebrations"
• buttons from my stash

challenges for this card:

• The Greeting Farm FFF Clean & Simple
• One Crazy Stamper January Anything Goes (2nd Entry)
• Love to Scrap #21: Anything Goes (1st Entry)

As always, thanks for stopping by!

TGF Sketch Challenge 12

This week's sketch challenge for The Greeting farm over at SCS

and here's my card:

card details:

• finished size: 4.25 x 5.5 inches
• patterned papers: My Mind's Eye Lime Twist "Life of the Party"
• stamped image: The Greeting Farm, coloured with Copic Markers
• sentiment: Verve Small Phrases
• EK Success Scalloped Scallops border punch
• Spellbinders: Labels Eighteen, sponged the background with CTMH Pink Carnation

thanks for stopping by today! Hope your day is wonderful!

Hey Dude - TGFSC11

Hi folks,

well after painting the ceiling in the front rooms of our first floor yesterday, my shoulders and arms were too sore to do the second coat today. So I took the day "off" instead - caught up on the laundry and started tackling the mess in my craft room. I did get the laundry finished - but not my craft room. I did put a good dent in it though.

As a reward for my good behaviour of the last two days, I sat down tonight to make a card for the TGF Sketch Challenge #11 over on their SCS forum.

I wound up moving the image panel just a little bit to the right though as I didn't want to cover up the text on the background paper. I  hope that wasn't too much of a liberty!

card details:

• finished size: 4.25 x 5.5 inches, black cardstock base
• patterned papers: Echo Park Sweet Summertime
• stamped image: Dress Up Ian from The Greeting Farm, coloured with Copic Markers. Background is inked with CTMH Heavenly Blue and Citrus Leaf.
• sentiment: My Guy Ian from The Greeting Farm
• buttons: Basic Grey Noon & Pantry
• Stampin' Up Word Window Punch
• Spellbinders Deckled Rectangle
• EK Success Scalloped Scallops Border Punch

additional challenges for this card:

• Raise The Bar #101: Cloudy Skies
• DYSU #68: Stripes
• One Crazy Stamper April Challenge: Masculine

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you are having a lovely day. I'm hoping to get the second coat on the ceiling on Saturday or Sunday. Whichever day it is, I'm hoping to get back into the craft room on the other day to make a few more cards.

Farm Fresh Friday Challenge - Classic Patterns

Hi folks,

I've taken a couple of days off work this week to give myself a four day long weekend and popped into the craft room this morning to make a card for this week's Farm Fresh Friday Challenge over at the Greeting Farm. The challenge is to use a classic pattern on your card - you know: houndstooth, herringbone, chevron, polka-dots, stripes...that sort of thing.

Well, I went with a little argyle and a dotty print for good measure on my card.

card details:

• finished size: 5.5 x 5.5 inches, kraft card stock base
• patterned papers and button: Basic Grey Marjolaine
• stamped image: Dress Up Anya from The Greeting Farm, coloured with Copic Markers (I'll try to find the list and update this post later).
• sentiment: The Greeting Farm Fancy Fleurs (retired)
• ribbon from my stash
• Spellbinders Lacey Circles, Petite Circles
• Stampin Up Word Window (?) Punch - at least I think that's what it is called.
• layout: Well, I started out with Mojo Monday 236 but I wound up moving the image panel to the centre and adding the sentiment window.

additional challenges for this card:

• Basic Grey Weekly Challenge: Create a project with Scallops
• Crazy 4 Challenges 132: Buttons

Thanks for stopping by! And now I have to get myself in gear and get ready to paint the ceiling in the front rooms of the first floor of our house. For SOME insane reason, I decided yesterday that I wanted to paint and before I changed my mind, we stopped by Home Depot to get the supplies and I got dearly beloved to remove the ceiling fixtures so I could paint uninterrupted. What was I thinking!

TGF April Retro-Fresh

Hi folks,

I popped into the craft room again tonight to play along with the April Retro-Fresh Challenge over at The Greeting Farm (I just couldn't bear to keep watching the hockey game).

This month's challenge is "April Showers and more". Not just April showers, but any weather inspired project will do - as long as the image you use is more than six months old from TGF.

Since my favourite season is Autumn, I decided to go with a card that reminds me of fresh autumn days here in Ottawa - playing hooky from work with my sweetie and going for a motorcycle ride through the country-side, enjoying the clean, crisp air and the fall colours.

I'm planning to keep this card to give to my sweetie sometime this fall, as a suggestion that we take a "chill out" kind of day in the dying days of autumn.

Oh, and I couldn't help myself, I HAD to stamp the "Chill Out" sentiment on a maple leaf (being Canadian and all). I just wish I had an ", eh?" to go with it!

This challenge is open until Tuesday, May 8th so I may just play along again. If you are a TGF fan yourself, you should play along as well!

card details:

• finished size: 5.5 x 5.5 inches, CTMH Cocoa card stock base
• patterned papers: Basic Grey Wander
• stamped image: Ian from "Special Autumn" from The Greeting Farm, coloured with Copic Markers.
• sentiment: from the "My Guy Ian" set from The Greeting Farm
• Spellbinders Wonky Rectangles, Cuttlebug Leaves 2x6 inch die

additional challenges for this card:

• Craft your passiong #106: Punches or die cuts
• One Crazy Stamper April challenge: Boys/Men
• Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge #181: A Man's Card

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you are having a lovely day!

oh, our local team LOST the game by the way. Darn it!

TGFCCN5 - Musical Inspired Act Two!

Hi folks,

well I did find time to get back into the craft room tonight to make my  second musical inspired card for TGF's April Friday Night Chit Chat Customer Challenge.

Can you guess which musical from this card?

If you guessed "Annie Get Your Gun" then you guessed correctly! What do you think? Does Cheeky Shooter look like Ethel Merman?

card details:

• finished size: 4.25 x 5.5 inches, black card stock base
• patterned papers: CTMH Sarsaparilla
• stamped image: Cheeky Shooter from The Greeting Farm, coloured with Copic Markers.
• spellbinders: petite circles
• layout: CPS 261

additional challenges for this card:

• Paper Pretties Wednesday Challenge #201: Two or more different designer papers (I used three different patterns from Sarsaparilla)
• Shopping our Stash #47: Masculine theme or "boy" colours. Yes, I think so! Sarsaparilla is definitely a cowboy themed pack of paper, very masculine. And I know my own dearly beloved would love to get a card with this little cow-gal on it!

Thanks for stopping by!

FFF - Good things come in small sizes

Hi folks,

Over the long Easter holiday weekend, I decided to try to keep up with some OTHER holiday cards - for Christmas!

Over at The Greeting Farm, this week's Farm Fresh Friday challenge is to make a small card - no larger than 4x4. Since I have the "Keep Cozy" set in my collection, I thought those little snowmen would be perfect for a smaller sized card.

So, I pulled out a single sheet of 12x12 CTMH Chocolate card stock, cut out four 4x4 card bases and whipped up these four little cards:

Yay! Four of my ten Christmas cards done for April's Christmas Card Challenge over at SCS. It's never too late to join up! It's a great way to stay on top of getting your Christmas cards made throughout the year.

card details:

• finished size: 4x4 CTMH Chocolate card stock base
• patterned papers: CTMH Wonderland
• stamped images & sentiments: "Keep Cozy" from The Greeting Farm, images coloured with Copic Markers (bundled snowman: BV000, BV00, BV01, BV02, B52, W8, W0, YR12; smiling snowman: W8, W0, YR12, B52, BV0000, BV000)
• layout: Sketch n Stash Challenge #85

additional challenges for this card:

• Sparkle's Christmas Card Challenges #19: this week's challenge is flower soft or flocking. My card doesn't have flower soft on it but any Christmas card will do.

Thanks for stopping by! I probably won't get back to the blogarooni for at least a couple of days...so until then, ta ta for now!

A Strawberry Shortcake kind of birthday

Hi folks,

the eldest daughter of dear friends of ours celebrated her 6th birthday on Good Friday. She requested a Strawberry Shortcake themed birthday cake and I assisted in the hunt for a cute little toy as the cake topper (it's convenient to work in office tower attached to a mall).

So, I thought I should try to do a card with a similar theme for her. I knew I had some paper covered with yummy strawberries in my stash (thanks to my DT work with PaperWorksCo) and promptly pulled it out for this card.

I am quite pleased with how the card turned out. I coloured this new TGF image (from the Sitting Lovely set) with what I hope are close matches to Strawberry Shortcake's clothing colours.

card details:

• finished size: 5.5 x 5.5 inches, CTMH Chocolate card stock
• patterned paper, ric rac and butterfly dew drops from the June 2010 PaperCard Kit from PaperWorksCo featuring papers from Doodlebug designs 
• stamped image: "Sitting Lovely" from The Greeting Farm, coloured with Copic Markers (E0000, E000, E00, E01, E93, E21, E23, E25, E27, E29, RV02, RV04, RV06, YG05, YG06)
• sentiment stamp: CTMH
• Spellbinders: Petite Circles, Scalloped Circles
• Cuttlebug die cut number (I forget which alphabet but I THINK it is "You're not the boss of me")
• layout: TGF Saturday Sketch Challenge #8 on SCS from a couple of weeks ago.

Challenges for this card:

• Flutter By Wednesday #197: my butterflies are in the form of the three butterfly dew drops in the upper right corner of the card.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you are having a wonderful day!

TGF Saturday Sketch Challenge #10

Hi folks,

a late night post for me as I had to get this card made for the birthday party we are attending tomorrow for one of my dearly beloved's nieces. We will be celebrating her 8th birthday.

I used the TGF Saturday Sketch Challenge from last Saturday (deadline midnight tonight for entries) so I am cutting it really close! I flipped the sketch on it's side to accommodate this new (to me) Miss Anya Garland image.

Isn't she sweet? And she looks so much like our niece!

(E.T.A. - I was the lucky random winner for this sketch challenge! Yay! I get to choose a new single rubber stamp from TGF to add to my collection!)

card details:

• finished size: 4.25 x 5.5 inches, CTMH Chocolate Card stock
• patterned paper: Basic Grey Hopscotch
• stamped image: Miss Anya Garland from The Greeting Farm, coloured with Copic Markers (E0000, E000, E00, E93, E21, E23, E25, E27, YR00, YR01, YR02, BG32, BG34, Y06)
• Spellbinders Petite Circles
• Half-back pearls were coloured with my YR02 marker to make them all matchy-matchy with the papers.

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend! So far my entire week has been go-go-go. I am SO looking forward to finally getting to relax on Sunday and Monday. And by relax I mean I am considering tackling the mess that is my craft room! If you are a friend on Facebook, then you saw the picture of my desk that I shared today after finishing the Easter cards. EEP!

I aim to misbehave

So if you are a "Brown Coat" you know from whence comes the inspiration for this card. In fact, I specifically bought this stamp some months ago with the sole purpose of doing a "Firefly" inspired card. How timely that this week's March Madness challenge over at The Greeting Farm was to make a mono-chromatic card?

I'm pretty sure my sweetie will like it (and get the source of inspiration) when I give the card to him.

oooh...I just came up with another idea (that adds to the other idea I will actually put into play once my Sheriff Ian stamp arrives).

Anyways, I used the March 2012 SFYTT layout (seen below) for the card, modified slightly to fit a 6x6 card.

rest of the card details:

• finished size: 6x6 CTMH Cocoa cardstock
• patterned papers: Cosmo Cricket Wanted (again, bought several months ago to go with this stamp)
• stamped  image: Cheeky Shooter from The Greeting Farm, coloured with Copic Markers (E000, E00, E01, E30, E31, E33, E34, E35, E37, E39), stamped in Memento Rich Cocoa
• sentiment: "I aim to misbehave" computer generated. "Wanted" was spelled out with one of my smaller CTMH alphabets
• Spellbinders: petite circles, deckled rectangles
• lariat made out of twine - yes, I looked up how to tie a lariat knot (aka a honda knot) to make this card

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you are having a fabulous day!

TGF Monday Funday #23

Hi folks,

back again with a quick post for this week's Monday Funday Challenge over at The Greeting Farm. This week's theme was "Fairy Tales" - and since EVERY fairy tale has a princess, I used Princess Anya for this card - which I expect will be given to one of our nieces for her birthday this year. Notice there is even a little frog prince on the patterned paper? Just waiting for true love's kiss to break the spell!

The layout is based on last week's TGF Sketch challenge over at SCS (I didn't have time to get a card made for the sketch deadline but I liked it so decided to use it for this card).

card details:

• finished size: 6x6 inches, white cardstock base
• patterned papers: CTMH Daydream
• stamped image: The Greeting Farm "Princess Anya" coloured with Copic Markers (E000, E00, E01, E93, R81, R83, R85, E30, E31, E55), with accents on the tiara and wand using my "clear star" gelly roll marker
• EK Success scalloped scallops border punch
• Spellbinders Petite Ovals
• half-back pearls from my stash

Hope you are all having a fabulous day! Thanks for stopping by!

Sweet Stop Sketch #144

Hi folks,

back with the last of this year's Valentine's Day cards.

card details:

• finished size: 5.5 x 5.5 inches, CTMH Chocolate card stock base
• stamped image: Simply Anya from The Greeting Farm, coloured with Copic markers (E0000, E000, E00, E01, E93, E21, E23, E25, E27, E29, YR02, YG41)
• patterned papers: My Mind's Eye Be Loved
• layout: Sweet Stop Sketch #144

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you have a fabulous day!

CPS 5th Anniversary - Day 14 Sketch

Hi folks,

so here is the card I made for little Ava's 2nd birthday on Saturday:

card details:

• finished size: 5.5 x 5.5 inches, CTMH Chocolate card stock
• digital image: Cupcake Anya from the Greeting Farm, coloured with Copic Markers (E0000, E000, E00, E01, E93, E30, E31, E55, R21, R22, R24, R27, YG06, E35, E37)
• patterned papers: My Mind's Eye Lime Twist "Life of the Party"
• CTMH Key Lime button from my stash
• layout: CPS 5th Anniversary Day 14

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you have a wonderful day!

TGF Friday Spy Day

Hi folks,

So are you sick of all my TGF Valentine's Day cards yet? What can I say? Between us, dearly beloved and I have eleven nieces and nephews and I find that I love using TGF stamps for their cards. Ten of them are getting TGF Valentine's this year - the eldest got a PWCO Valentine.

Here's another one for our youngest nephew.

If you are familiar with this Ian from the Dress Up set (now retired), you will notice that he isn't wearing his skully shirt. I punched out three tiny little hearts with a MS Heart Confetti punch and used them to cover it up. I thought the hearts were a better choice than a skull for a Valentine's Day card.

card details:

• finished size: 5.5 x 5.5 inches, CTMH Chocolate card stock base
• stamped image: Ian from the TGF Dress Up set (now retired), coloured with Copic Markers (E0000, E000, E00, E01, E93, YG21, YG23, YG25, E59 - I can't remember his hair colours but if I find where I wrote them down I will update this post).
• patterned papers: Bo Bunny Persuasion (down to my last few scraps on this paper).
• sentiment: Verve Love Notes
• layout: TGF Farm Fresh Challenge Friday Spyday #19
• Martha Stewart Heart Confetti punch

Thanks for stopping by today! Hope you are having a great day!

February 2012 SFYTT

Hi folks,

back again with ANOTHER Valentine's Day card - I promise there aren't THAT many more left to show you.

For this one I used the February 2012 Sketch For You To Try

and here's my take on it:

card details:

• finished size: 4.25 x 5.5 inches, CTMH Chocolate Cardstock base
• stamped image: Fairy Chloe from The Greeting Farm (mine is the original rubber version but you can get this image as part of a clear set now). Coloured with Copic Markers E000, E00, E01, E93, R0000, R81, R83, R85, E30, E31, E33, E35, E37, E39) and some sparkly wing highlights with my Sakura Clear Star Gelly Roll Pen
• patterned papers: Bo Bunny Crazy Love, edges are distressed with my scissors
• the small and large hearts are Cuttlebug die cuts
• embroidery floss was used to stitch the hearts to the side panel.

additional challenges for this card:

• TGF Farm Fresh Challenge: Monday Funday #19 - Stitching

Hope you are all having a lovely day so far! We will be off to our niece Ava's birthday party today - I can't believe she is TWO years old today. Where has the time gone? I'll be posting her birthday card sometime in the next couple of days....

TGF SCS Sketch Challenge #2

Hi folks,

well, I procrastinated again and am just getting my card for last Saturday's TGF Sketch Challenge over on SCS.

here's the sketch:

and the card I made:

card details:

• finished size: 4.25 x 5.5 inches, CTMH Tulip cardstock base
• stamped image: I believe the name of the set is Dress Up from TGF (it's retired now). Coloured with Copic Markers (E0000, E000, E00, E01, E93, E30, E31, E55, R20, R21, R22, R27)
• patterned papers: Bo Bunny Love Bandit
• Martha Stewart Heart Loops Border Punch

additional challenges for this card:

• Raise the Bar #91: Chocolate and Roses
• Card Crafter's Circle Challenge #9: Valentine

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you are having a great day!

CPS 5th Anniversay - Day 5 Sketch

Hi folks,

back again with ANOTHER of the Valentine's Day cards for one of our nephews. You know what that means - it's another card featuring an image from The Greeting Farm.

Yes -  it's the same image I used for one of our other nephews, coloured exactly the same - though I prefer the way the hair on this one turned. Funny how you can colour muliple images at the same time and they still turn out differently.

card details:

• finished size: 4.25 x 5.5 inches, CTMH  Chocolate Card Stock
• stamped image: Wild Sprout Paul from the Roll Call Set by The Greeting Farm, coloured with Copic Markers (E0000, E000, E00, E01, E93, E30, E31, E55, R20, R24, R27, R29, E47)
• patterned papers: more of my hoarded Bo Bunny Crazy Love from a couple of years ago.
• sentiment: CTMH Seasonal Celebrations
• Cuttlebug 2-Step Heart Die and Martha Stewart Heart Confetti punch
• layout: CPS 5th Anniversary Day 5 sketch

challenges for this card:

• 365 cards: Day 344 Marvelous Markers
• Shopping our Stash #38: Hearts, Valentine's and/or lace
• Papertake Weekly challenge: Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by -  hope you have a wonderful day!

TGF Friday Spyday #18

Hi folks,

with all the Valentine's Day cards I needed to make for our nieces and nephews, my TGF stamps got a bit of a workout this weekend. Here are two more cards I made:

This one is a little more postal system friendly

This one will have to be hand-delivered

card details:

• finished size: 5.5 x 5.5 inches square
• stamped image: Miko from the Roll Call set by The Greeting Farm, coloured with Copic Markers (E0000, E000, E00, E01, E30, E31, E55, YG11, YG41, YG45, R02, R05, R08)
• patterned papers: My Mind's Eye Be Loved (from the PaperWorksCo January 2010 PaperCard Kit)
• layout: TGF Friday Spyday #18

additional challenges for these cards:

• Lollipop Crafts #66: Make a Valentine' Day Card
• Crafting when we can #11: Valentine/Love
• One Crazy Stamper February Challenge: Love is in the Air

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you are having a great day!