Thanks for warming my heart

 Today I received an early birthday gift from my sister, so naturally, I'm going to send a thank you to her for warming my heart!  I may actually save this for a Christmas thank you, but either way, I'm glad I took on this unique combination of colors from My Favorite Things' Color Challenge #153 to stretch my creativity and put together some hues I might not have chosen for this time of year (if ever). I may still go back and add some faint water color ocean  coloring around the ice berg before I send it,  but overall I'm happy with it (and a little fearful of messing it up)!

Supplies: There She Goes stamps, random card stock, Copic markers and Derwent colored pencils, jute, Stampin' Up! border punch, Wink of Stella and Icicles. 

The Sky's the Limit

 This week I took inspiration from My Favorite Things' Sketch Challenge #515 for the layout of another card to put in my Mom's Christmas collection of greetings to send her friends throughout the year to come. I really like the simplicity of this design and will likely use something like it again as I'm gradually getting more comfortable with clean and simple designs (although I can't help myself from layering card stock mats)!

Supplies: Papertrey Ink stamps, random card stock, Tim Holtz distress inks, Copic markers, clear embossing powder, Versafine onyx ink and dimensional adhesive.

Fresh Cut Flowers for my Mom

My mom and I used to be Hallmark Gold Crown members -before my sister and I got into creating cards. Now we send hand-made cards to friends & family which is not only great therapy but more meaningful for the recipients, too. And my Mom is not only a recipient of the occasional card I write inside to send her, but she often requests cards as gifts for Christmas and Mother's Day.  So I"m working on finishing up a set of unique cards to give her this coming holiday season and decided to combine those efforts with My Favorite Things' Sketch Challenge #514.

My mom loves flowers and her favorite color is orange, so I got out my MFT Fresh Cut Flowers and my Copic markers and created this fairly simple card (except for the color blending which is often a challenge).  I may go back and put a different stamp on the sentiment; I had the Pandas set out, so this birthday greeting was handy, but not as pretty a script as I'd prefer for the otherwise elegant flowers. Oh well, there's always room for improvement and I'm not trying to hide that my cards are hand-made, one of a kind creations!

Supplies: MFT Fresh Cut flowers stamp set, sentiment from MFT Pandas, assorted Copic markers and scrap colored cardstock. 

Nuts about you!

It's been a few weeks since I've successfully completed a card challenge within the time frame, but I had fun playing with the MFT squirrel stamp set I've come to love.  I created this card for My Favorite Things Sketch Challenge 513.  

I started to make this a CAS card, but soon realized that that wouldn't showcase the design, so I cut it off (leaving a subtle layer of white), and adhered it to some contrasting colored card stock which pops quite a bit more. I l fussy-cut two acorns and glued only the bottom one of that pair, so that the one on top of the stack is purposely loose, then I layered some leaves to add dimension. I adore the worried look of the squirrel on the ground while the other one seems so confident!

Supplies: MFT BB Squirrel!, Copic markers, Stampin' Up! card stock.