Christmas in July - Part 3

And the last five cards from this post.

Christmas in July - Part 2

As promised/threatened, these are individual shots of five of the cards from the previous post.

Christmas in July

Okay so I am REALLY late in finishing these cards. I started them for my APRIL Christmas Card Challenge over on SplitCoastStampers and I am just finishing them now.




This is a group shot of all ten of the cards. I used the sketch from the December 2008 issue of Sheetload of Cards .

The papers are all from the Aspen Paper Pack from Close To My Heart.
The stamped snowflakes are from the following CTMH stamp sets:

• d1244 Snow Friends
• d1171 New Fallen Snow
• d1317 Feathery Flakes

The sentiment is from Verve Stamps Poinsettia Christmas

The inks are Twilight and Outdoor Denim from CTMH.

Hope you enjoy this little taste of Christmas in July.

The next two posts will be individual shots of each of the then cards. Or you navigate to them here and here .

Did somebody say "Luau"?

First of all, if you are my friend, Dorothy - back away from this post! You can come back AFTER your birthday party. I'm serious! I'll know if you are pretending to be surprised when you get this card! I will!


Okay, now that the house-keeping is done (Dorothy if that's you....I really meant it!) on with the details for this card. Ah yes -- the Divine Details if you will. Verve Stamps Project Parade day 1 poses the question: How do you come up with your design?

Well, for me it is always a combination of things

• first: the occasion. For this card, it is all about the birthday party theme.
• second: the papers. I got my July PaperCard Kit from PaperWorksCo on Monday and I thought the Banana Float and Katawba flip papers would be perfect for a Hawaiian themed card.
• third: the stamps. I happen to have picked up the Doodlefactory Tropics stamps from StarvingArtistamps a while back and turns out they were perfect for this card!
• finally: the sketch. Sometimes it is one of my own and sometimes it is a sketch from one of the many blogs I follow. This time it is from The Next Level . And it has a twist - the image is to be 3D (decoupaged).

So, what did Miss Long-Winded come up with this time? Well.....here it is....



Busy, huh? A couple of things of note about the stamped images:

• the little hula guy has his head and skirt popped up on dimensionals. And I curled up the bottom edges of the top layer of his grass skirt.
  
• for the palm trees if you are familiar with the stamp set you know that the two trees don't face in the same direction. The larger of the two trees faces in the opposite direction from the one shown here! How did I do that? Simple enough - ink up the stamp, roll over it with a brayer and then roll the brayer onto card stock. Proceed as usual to colour. Note that the image DOES turn out lighter than if you had stamped it directly so you may need to use a darker ink or tweak the outline before/after colouring.
  

The specifics of the card are below for those who might be interested:

card dimensions: 5 x 5 inches

Paper: PaperworksCo July PaperCard Kit
Banana Frost(edit:yeah I had this wrong, fixed now): 4.75 x 4.75 inches
Katawba Flip: 3 x 3 inches cut with 3rd largest of the small circle nestabilities
Yellow Bazzill cardstock: 3.5 x 3.5 inches cut with the 2nd largest of the large reverse scallop circle nestabilities, 1.5 x 2.25 inches cut with Cuttlebug Oval Slider Die Cut
Green Bling Bazzill cardstock (I used the non-bling side): 3.5 x 3.5 inches cut with the 2nd largest of the large reverse scallop circle nestabilities
White cardstock for image panel

embellishments: ribbon and brads from PaperworksCo July PaperCard Kit

Inks:
CTMH: Black, Chocolate, Citrus Leaf
PrismaColor Pencils: 941, 940, 930, 929, 912, 911, 913

Stamps:
StarvingArtistamps: Doodlefactory Tropics
CTMH: alphabet (not sure which one as the envelope doesn't say - I think it was a promo only)


Thanks for stopping by today - and big applause to you if you made it all the way to the end of this post! I appreciate that you took the time to visit!

The Aqua Amigos have debuted!

Are they cute or what? Meet Ollie, Wallie, Tommy and Carlos - the Aqua Amigos from PaperWorksCo. Check out the blog or the gallery to see the cute projects that the PaperWorksCo Design team created with these guys. Uber cute!

These adorable undersea creatures are the companions to the Safari Friends line that Peggy released a while back.

So guess what is on it's way to my mailbox now? Yup, could not pass up the deal that is being offered until July 23rd on these little guys ... and the Safari friends...and EVERYTHING else that PaperWorksCo carries.

This is the blurb from the site (I'm sure Peggy won't mind me lifting this)

So here’s the DEALS!

Each individual stamp is now 3.99. (from 4.99). This includes the safari Friends stamps too! We call it economy of scale lol

if you buy the collection set, you save 25%!!! thats like... buy three get one free!!! And who doesn't like free?!?

FREE SHIPPING ON THE STAMPS! (including Safari Friends as well): offer is good from now till the 23rd of july

BUY IT TODAY, and get exclusive access to future stamps.. that means you can get your stamps before it’s sold to the general public

if you buy any of the PWCO stamps from now till the 23rd of july, you get 10% off with the rest of your order... this applies to the ENTIRE store!!!! Make sure to put the discount code: "fiesta" in the discount section to redeem it!

Not to be an enabler but.....Peggy is my main source for Spellbinders . Cuttlebug you say? Yup. Copics ? Oh yeah, baby. And NO....I haven't jumped on the Copic bandwagon yet but....oh dear....this is so very tempting. 10%off. hmmmmm....plus the emergency craft fund that you can use on future orders. plus free shipping if your order is large enough and TRUST me ... it usually is! Oh and did I mention the new PaperCard Kits ?


Okay, enough yammering from me. I stamped a bunch of images last night to use with some cards I am going to make with MY July Papercard kit. Hopefully some of those cards will get finished today and I'll be back to post them.

Fisherman Ian - for a coworker

Ta da - another of my July birthdays can be scratched off the list! I cracked open my PaperworksCo July Papercard kit this morning and made my first card using the papers and embellies. I think it came out pretty decent if I do say so myself.



The designer papers in this month's kit are from the Lime Rickey line from Basic Grey. I thought the blues would be great with little Fisherman Ian from The Greeting Farm. I had stamped up a few of these little guys when we had our stamping get-together at Jenn's a while back. I knew he would come in handy soon! You see, the coworker to whom this is going is an avid fisherman. Ian was coloured with a combination of .... yes, Tattered Rose Distress ink for his face and Prismacolor Pencils blended with Taltine.

The panels are all raised on dimensional foam dots and the buttons are attached with glue dots. No I didn't sew them as I didn't want the stitching to show on the inside of the card. The embroidery thread you see tied through the button holes is just for show!


Details for the card:

sketch: Little Paper Shop
dimensions: 4.25 x 5.5 inches, side fold

papers: all are from the PaperworksCo July Papercard Kit

aqua cardstock: 8.5 x 5.5 inches, scored at 4.25 inches, front embossed with Cuttlebug Spots and Dots folder

white cardstock: 3 x 8.5 inches cut into 3 pieces as follows: 2 that measured 3 x 2 3/8 inches and then the leftover. The largest piece was then die cut with the largest of the small deckled rectangle nestabilities and the edges were sponged with CTMH Ocean ink.

Lime Rickey papers: 3 x 2 3/8 inches from Blue Moon and Boston Cooler and then die cut with the second largest of the small deckled rectangle nestabilities.

ink:
Tim Holtz Distress Ink Tattered Rose
CTMH Ocean
Prismacolor Pencils 940, 1027, 946, 1024, 915

embellishments:
buttons are from the PaperworksCo July Papercard kit, embroidery floss is from my stash


I hope he likes it -- although he is colour blind and may have some difficulty with the colours on the card.

And don't forget, PaperworksCo has a big party planned tonight from 6pm to 8pm Mountain Time! The latest post on the site says there will be giveaways involving a scavenger hunt on the site!

What's New at PaperworksCo?

I honestly don't know yet! There's been lots of chatter over at the revamped PaperWorksCo blog about "something new" on July 15th - today! I can't wait to see what Peggy has up her sleeve. The last couple of weeks have been quite the tease, with lots of guesses about what is coming out!

I mean, after the launch of the monthly paper card kit on July 1st.....



How can you top this? I'm thinking the bar has been set high!

And yes....I was very excited to come home on Monday and find a nice pizza box (no pizza, dearly beloved was disappointed but I was thrilled) sitting on my front step with my July kit (and a few other things I must admit). It solidified my resolve to take some time off this week from work to play.

I expect to be back later today with some cards I'll be making from this kit!!! Honestly the picture (from the PaperworksCo store site) doesn't do it justice. Love the feel of the papers - if you know Basic Grey and Bazzill you know what I mean. And the embelllies....serious candy. Lovely bag of ribbons and buttons...and you know we all love ribbons and buttons!

So the big reveal is tonight between 6 and 8 PM Central time (they are in Alberta after all). For us locals, that's between 8 and 10PM Eastern! So, check out the blog then to find out what's going on! I'm thinking I'll be shopping tonight!