Bah! Humbug! Surprise! Surprise!! Challenge

This week at Bah! Humbug! it's all about surprises; either surprise the Humbuggers with a theme of your choice or design a project to hide a surprise. Well SURPRISE, ladies! I made the card I planned on doing last week. LOL I didn't quite make the "Bells" challenge as I planned (although I appreciate Ann hearing those church bells from my embossed card through her computer. ) but I really did have a card designed and here it is. I welded the shadows of the bells from the Weddings Solutions cartridge to some elongated ovals from George to make this shaped card. I added a gold mirri mat and patterned one from Graphic 45, then layered things up. The holly is from Jubilee. The bow is cut from matte metallic card stock from Recollections and I used my Copics to shade it. I tried to duplicate the colors of the bells on the front DP.

Inside I added another gold mat and the reverse of the double sided DP from Graphic 45 I'd used on the front. The bells are cut from textured metallic card stock by American Crafts. The holly is cut from Bazzill Emerald City which has a lovely shimmer.

Here's the dimensional shot. I cut the bells twice and hand cut one of them apart so I could get a bit more depth. I've added adhesive beads and gems and my favorite part are the tiny jingle bells I added as clappers. I'm quite pleased that this card fits in a regular size business envelope and think it would be pretty as a wedding or anniversary card in other colors (obviously minus the holly, unless it's a December wedding, I guess). Anyway, I'm pleased to have been able to finally make this, this week and doubly pleased that we're finally seeing some sunshine here in CA. Be sure to check out the fabulous projects the ladies at Bah! Humbug! have made for this challenge. They are really a talented bunch and have a great sense of humor. I'm also adding this to the Christmas Cards All Year 'Round June challenge which is Anything Goes.

Macabre Monday (on Wednesday) Pleasure and Pain Challenge

Had one rough week and major lacking of mojo for my DT card for Macabre Monday. The cool challenge is Pleasure and Pain. Use something you love (stamp, embellie, color, etc.) and something you hate. First were the decisions and I finally came up with wet and dry embossing. Honestly, I already stink at rubber stamping, but to add embossing powder and a heat gun...DISASTER! But you know I love me some Cuttlebug! Then find an image and folder that made sense. Lots of failed attempts here but finally Mr. Stripes by Torrente/Penney for Stampotique (another LOVE as long as I don't have to heat emboss) and the Cuttlebug Spider Web embossing folder. As I continued I realized there were all sorts of Love/Hates on this card. Love: Dry embossing, Stampotique stamps, purple and orange, multiple mat layers, border punches, Nestabilities, foam dimensionals, adhesive beads, the Internet

Hate: Heat embossing, rubber stamping, border punches (I cannot tell you how many times I had to redo these three elements), less than creative layouts, spiders, lack of mojo when you really want to do a good job, THE INTERNET (how many hours do YOU waste in a day?) So pop by Haunted Design House and see the fab offerings of Pleasure and Pain by the rest of the Minions (and already a number of fab entries in the challenge.) Play along! There's plenty of room for interpretation on this one!

- Cadence Team Kit Release - 

new new new new new

for more

- Amsterdam -

Must see!

- Undercover -

Exciting

 - Lovenskate - 

Swamp Green t-shirts!! Design by FRENCH

Get yours here

BBTB2 Clouds Challenge

This week our fabulous Shelly chose the clouds from Pooh and Friends for the BBTB2 Challenge . Well, we're no strangers to clouds out here in (sunny? I wish!) CA since that's all we've been seeing lately. Who stole our weather? Shame on YOU! Sit back with a cuppa now, 'cause this is gonna be one long post. Not nearly as long as it took to make the darn thing but... Anyway, I immediately had an idea for this challenge but it proved to be a little more daunting than expected to design because of the fact that the clouds came in pairs (and had no shadows) so there was a lot of resizing and hiding contours to weld the base of this door hanger together. Although it's perfectly okay at BBTB2 to use another cartridge with clouds, I figured that since I own the chosen one, I was gonna go with it. I inked the clouds, ran them through the Xyron right side down, and covered them in MS coarse crystal glitter. Then I ran them through my Cuttlebug with the D'Vine Swirls folder for added texture. If you've covered your cut completely with glitter, it doesn't stick and actually helps adhesion, and any glitter that remains on your folder just rinses off. The three cloud shadows were welded in Design Studio to the shadow of the little lamb jumping over the fence (which I flipped). That cut comes from Wall Decor and More but had a much longer fence that I had to trim off by hand repeatedly for the layers. OOps! I just noticed on this top pic that the little lamby on the left has fallen down a bit. That foam doesn't like to stick to glitter. All fixed now.

Next problem; although the sweet little lambs have individual layers, they have no shadow if you want to use them individually, so if you want one, you have to cut the border feature and then hand trim the fence off to get a shadow. I know I'm kinda anal about shadows, but the lamb didn't show very well against the clouds without one and they are very important to me for layering purposes. I cut each lamb twice, with the swirly cutout and without, in the same color and then flocked the upper layer in white which softened the colors of the card stock and made them all cute and cuddly. "Sweet Dreams" is also from Wall Decor and More and WooHoo! it has a shadow, but no individual layers for the letters, so I cut the phrase out several times in various colors and again hand trimmed and embossed with Swiss Dots to get what you see here. (There is a font on the cart, but many of the individual letters do not match up with the phrases. The "E" actually does, though)

As I assembled the hanging, I realized that I needed to balance the right lower side so I added a star from George and Basic Shapes. I poked a hole through the shadow and one of the layers of the "D" and hung it from a jump ring. The dimensional star was made by scoring from tip to indent, all the way around and mountain folding from tip to center and valley folding from indent to center. I folded first, then ran it through my Xyron and used MS fine crystal glitter so the card stock color would show through. After folding again, I attached it with one of those big globby dimensional glue dots.

As you can see, there are lots and LOTS of layers on this one and although it was a real PITA to make I totally love it and was glad I persevered. After the several days it took to complete, however, I was too exhausted to finish my Macabre Monday project, so you'll just have to check back on Wednesday for that. However, if you're craving something creepy after all this fluff, scroll down to see my offering for Skull Appreciation Day and if you're interested in hopping, it goes through Tuesday so you still have time. Be sure to stop by BBTB2 and see the fabulous designs by my DT sisters and remember you have 2 weeks to complete the challenge and any cloud from any cart will do.