Belle Papier {pretty paper}

I love copper metallic cardstock. So rich looking, warm and  just a little unique from gold and silver. I found an unopened package of it in my closet earlier in the week and thought it would make a great Ways to Use It Challenge. It was a busy week but I worked hard Wednesday night coming up with a card for Thursday’s challenge. Alas…the best laid plans of mice and men.

I managed to pry the laptop from my teenager’s grasp today…picture big argument here LOL…but I prevailed and I have INTERNET today! I’m hoping my own computer with all my files will be fixed today. This laptop takes twice as long as I’m not familiar with it. But hey…I’m not complaining here! What I do need help with….resizing photos in Photoshop Elements….I just can’t figure it out!
Anyone? Please?!

Copper Christmas

This card has a very traditional Christmas look. Love this Flourished Christmas tree! It is stunning. Packaged in the same set with my favorite reindeer and some beautiful sentiments…this is one of my favorite Christmas sets. One of those ones that always looks good and is easy to use. To keep things a little fresh…I paired up the Copper with a new color combo….Soft Sky, Taken with Teal and Copper cardstock. I like to revisit looks with a slightly updated approach to see if it works. I like it…what do you think?

One of the things I love to do best with this copper cardstock is to emboss it with my Cuttlebug embossing folders. Its heavy paper holds the texture well and the embossing really picks up the light…adding to the shimmer of the cardstock. I ran this piece of copper through my favorite embossing folder…snowflakes. LOL I really do have a lot of favorites here today, don’t I? The copper layer was matted with a thin mat of Taken with Teal and mounted onto a card base of Soft Sky.

For the main image….I stamped my flourished tree onto soft Sky cardstock and then embossed it with Copper embossing powder. This powder is by SU which no longer carries it so I’m going to do a copper ep hunt soon! The sentiment was stamped along the bottom of the design with Taken with Teal ink and the same ink was used to sponge the edges of this layer. After matting with a 1/8″ larger mat of Taken with Teal…I added a 1/4″ mat of white cardstock behind that. Before adhering together, I used my ticket corner punch from Stampin Up to notch the edges for added interest. For my final touch…a knotted scrap of May Arts ribbon was adhered with a glue dot to the tree.

Have a great day!

Don’t forget to join us tomorrow 10am EST at Cornish Heritage Farms for the birthday celebration and release of the new backgrounders…it is sure to be a lot of fun.

Oh how I hate them! LOL Well I like them when they are working but right now…..hmmmmmm……

I seem to have an inordinate amount of trouble with mine! Did you know that in French a computer is called L’ordinateur ……hmmmmmmmm those words sound very much alike.I finally got hold of a laptop so I’m quickly catching up on a few quick things and stopping in to say hi. I was so glad that I finished my Craft Critique article yesterday afternoon so it was all set to go today there. If you’re looking for a fun holiday project…check it out at…

A Merry Little Christmas Frame

 The Ways to Use it challenge went ahead without me today. Thanks to Dawn for quickly stepping in and posting it for me. I still have my card ready to roll….I guess it will have to wait for a little while yet. I’m hoping to get time to upload it tomorrow. I believe the challenge is metallic cardstock…so if you like a fun look for the holidays…make sure you stop by the challenge forum on www.splitcoaststampers.com and check it out.

Have a great night! Hope to get things fixed up and be back soon! hugs!!!

Lots of fun things going on this weekend and you really need to mark it down so you don’t forget! Cornish Heritage Farms is having a new release of sixteen backgrounders that you are not going to want to miss. They are all fabulous! And guess who the designer of these backgrounders is? Lisa Strahl, who is also celebrating her 30th birthday on Saturday December the first. Happy, happy birthday Lisa!

Now we couldn’t let Lisa’s Big 3 - 0 go by without a party….so we’re going to party all day Saturday December the first  in the Cornish Heritage Farms forums and gallery. You’re invited! We want you to join us for the fun. After all…the more the merrier, right. We’ve been super busy planning a fun time full of challenges, prizes, games, chat … you name it. The party starts at 10 am EST and the last challenge will be posted at 10 pm EST so there will be lots going on right up until 11.

Until then…check out Mona Lisa Moments. Lisa has been busy cooking up THIRTY projects using the new backgrounders in honor of her birthday. Some of them are up already and some more will be added over the next couple days. I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek…you won’t want to miss them!

Have a great day!

It’s been a while since I’ve done a pink Christmas card. Love them…they are so fun! When I found t his gorgeous Websters’ Pages in a pile on my desk yesterday, I really wanted to have a little fun with it. It is beautiful, heavy, double-sided paper and it was so easy just to pull my color combo directly from the striped paper. When you create a color combo, decide on the one color you wish to feature. I chose pink for a fun look. Pink card base, pink layers that are just a little wider to make them stand out, some gorgeous pink ribbon and a pink button ties it all together.

A Pile of Presents

I love this stack of presents from the Lizzie Anne Designs High Hellos set. I think it is really meant to be for a birthday but I thought they’d be super cute for Christmas. After the amount of presents I’ve had to buy so far (and I’m nowhere near finished - the joys of large families!) I think I could pile up quick a few of these stacks around here. Actually, I’ve had to cart them all over to my Dad’s house as this old house has very little storage. I paired up the presents with a couple other Lizzie Anne Designs sets to emphasize the Christmas theme…Holiday Cheer for the Merry Christmas Sentiment and Celebration Frames for the holly and frame layer. My images were all colored in with my Copic Markers..so quick and easy. My circle stamped layer was punched out with two EK Success punches… 1 1/2″ and 1 3/4″. I just picked up the larger of the two the other day. I’ve been wanting one of these for a while…perfect for extra layering and they both work really well with this set.

As I mentioned above, I was inspired by the Webster’s Pages patterned paper. I just love this Ting a ling line! The striped paper is called Ribbon Candy (yummmm) and I used another paper from the same line with beautiful olive candy canes. A simple layout gives a clean look that works well with this image and color combo.

I couldn’t use pink and not use my favorite pink velvet May Arts ribbon…love the warmth of velvet on Christmas designs. I ran a strip of it over the seams where my patterned paper met and then tied a scrap of it to highlight the sentiment. An Autumn Leaves button is tied with some aqua stitched ribbon for a simple embellishment. I’m soooo into buttons these days. They are a fabulous embellishment…easy to use and not too expensive.

Wishing you a Pinkalicious day!

I just love this color combo! When I saw the challenge this morning …I just knew I had to play along and knew right away the perfect paper to use. Basic Grey Periphery paper has a gorgeous Basic Grey theme with pale blue and celery hightlights…so elegant… it is one of my faves. I decided to pair it up with some floral stamping…the Fantasy Floral Garden from Flourishes worked really well with the look.

Vintage Floral Hello

This design is actually a very simple layout…this paper is so pretty I didn’t want to cover it up. For my image panel…I stamped three of the floral sprays together to create one image. This is so easy to do with this set…the clear stamps make positioning easy without the need for masking. I’m all for keeping it simple these days as life just keeps getting busier and busier! The images were then colored in with my Copic markers, matted with Certainly Celery and Bashful blue and then stitched around the edges. To carry on the vintage look, I used my Basic Grey ink to sponge the edges of my cardstock, image layer and patterned paper.

Lastly…some fun embellishments…the photo turn and the photo corner are both hardware from the beautiful We R Memory Keepers pewter hardware set. A celery Prima Hydrangea flower (Cherry Blossoms set) ties in with a blue button for the center.

If you’d like to play along with today’s color challenge…the challenge is CC142: Basically Soft