Advent Calendar Extravaganza with Taheerah Atchia

Welcome, folks! I'm so pleased to be joining my friend Taheerah as a stop on her famous Advent Calendar Extravaganza again this year!

Advent Calendar Extravaganza is -the- festive event of the season! This ‘hop with a twist’ was dreamed up by Taheerah Atchia and features surprise destinations each day! Joining in the fun with Taheerah are ONE HUNDRED special guests - each serving up some fantastic Christmas inspiration! Just like an Advent Calendar, you’ll never know where you’re going to be visiting next until you ‘open the door’!

And that’s not all! With 25 *amazing* sponsors taking part as guests as well, your crafty wish list is bound to get a boost with a chance to win a prize EVERY SINGLE DAY!!

Join in the fun every day at taheerah-atchia.com to see what special surprises await behind the door!

And today's surprise is ...

 

A rainbow Christmas tree! Which of course is a little bit merry, and a little bit bright. Let's take a quick look: 

With today's sponsor being My Sweet Petunia I knew I wanted to make a card that would be difficult, if not impossible, to make without the valuable MISTI. Attempting this rainbow effect pre-MISTI would involve inking the stamp all at once with every color, all the while hoping you weren't disturbing the previously inked sections as you added each new color. Then hold your breath and hope you stamp it well enough to get a good impression on the first try. Yes, pretty much impossible, for me at least. With the MISTI you have the luxury of stamping one color at a time. For the rainbow tree I stamped yellow first because it's the lightest color.

Then added the rest of the colors above and below the yellow.

Before stamping the colors I'd smudge the edges a little so there were no hard lines of ink on the tree. As with most of my cards for the last year, I'm using the wonderfully juicy Catherine Pooler Inks.

I could have left it as-is, but since it's a Christmas tree I thought sequins would be right at home here, just like ornaments on the tree. The tree is from Winnie & Walter's Winter Woodland set.

The drawn star and sentiment are embossed in gold. Originally I stamped them in black but then I decided to keep this a colors-only card. 

Love that the MISTI was able to help me easily create a rainbow Christmas tree!

A couple things before I close ... the first is a big thanks to Taheerah for organizing this festive event for us during the holidays. It takes a massive amount of effort and brain power to pull something like this off so successfully. Also, here is some information on prizes:
 

It’s not a party without a prize - and with prizes every day there are several chances to win! Today’s prize is generously supplied by My Sweet Petunia so you’ll definitely want to win! Simply leave a comment on this post - then head back to taheerah-atchia.com and leave a comment there too! You must leave a comment on Taheerah’s blog as well as mine in order to be eligible to win! Don’t forget to grab the other surprise destinations from Taheerah’s blog and head over to them to leave comments there as well to improve your odds even more! You have until 23:59 EST on December 31st 2017 to enter.

Don’t forget Advent Calendar Extravaganza runs one more day so make sure you visit taheerah-atchia.com tomorrow for fabulous inspiration and amazing prizes every single time! 

 

Merry Christmas, and thanks so much for looking!

- Kelly

Make Your Own Plaid

Hello Folks! I've got a plaid Christmas card on the Winnie & Walter blog that I made with a few different stamps from the newest release (Scenery: Ticking Stripe Creative Screening and Scenery: Rugby Stripe Creative Screening).

The sentiment is layered with just three layers of comic backing boards for a super thick greeting. The rest of the sentiment continues vertically (well, it's horizontal in this photo!) instead of how I'd normally just place "christmas" under "merry." If you're interested I've got more information and photos on the Winnie & Walter blog.

For all those who celebrate, I would like to wish you a warm Christmas filled with much love and happiness!
-Kelly

CFS Pink Ombre Christmas Tree, and LAST POST for CASual Fridays

For those who celebrate, I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas season so far! I have two Christmas cards to share with you today, both using a pink ombre snowflake tree from Sugar Plum Fairies, which is currently on sale!

But before I get into the details, I'd like to share that this is my last official post with the CASual Fridays Stamps team. Michele took a chance on me a whole FIVE YEARS ago, invited me to be on her challenge design team, and shortly thereafter to be on her CASual Fridays Stamps team to showcase her *new* line of stamps. CASual Fridays is the first design team I've ever been on, and I can still remember getting that wonderful email from Michele offering me a spot on her team. I even made my husband take me out to dinner that weekend to celebrate! It's been such a wonderful experience, made even better by the fact that Michele is so laid back and easy to work with. I will greatly miss her, the team, and being a part of something from the very beginning. Transitions are never easy, but this one is particularly difficult with a friend as special as Michele. Sigh.

OK, now for the card details ...

What I wouldn't give to have a real tree that looked like this! Could you imagine?!

The sentiment is from Snowy Sayings. I stamped it in gray to go along with the pink and lime.

I really love these colors for Christmas, and even together outside of Christmas.

I ended up with one more card for the pink ombre tree...

 


At the base is the sentiment/snowflake from Joy and a secondary sentiment from Shalom. Love that I can use a stamp from a Jewish set on my Christmas card!

No layers other than the sequins here, which are totally optional. This could easily be a true one-layer card.

   

 These cards are over at the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps blog today if you'd like additional information. Feel free to use my code "KELLY2017" which will save you 15% off any purchases at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps.

Thanks for looking!

-Kelly

CFS Hanukkah

Hi Folks! I've got a Happy Chanukah card for today with a funny story ... this card was actually made for the Chanukah release in October, but when I went to upload my image on our Facebook group I saw that the lovely Jeanne Jachna had already created the exact same background! Even down to using the tiny Star of David from 8 Happy Nights (I almost used the tiny dreidel instead). So I decided to save this card for later (now!) and come up with a different card for release day.

Guess that just means I have good taste : )

  

On top of the stamped background I added the star and dreidel die cuts from Hanukkah Fri-Dies, along with a secondary sentiment from Mazel Tov which also works for Chanukah.   

   

This card is over at the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps blog today if you'd like additional information. Feel free to use my code "KELLY2017" which will save you 15% off any purchases at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps.

Thanks for looking!

-Kelly

Winnie & Walter Rerun - Comfort + Joy

Hi Folks! It's time for another Rerun challenge at Winnie & Walter! This month's featured stamp set is the adorable Comfort & Joy set which has lots of useful elements, like barn stars, wreaths, a moose head, a flock of birds, tiny sentiments, and two different jingle bells.

 I used the jingle bells on this card to illustrate the song ...

"jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way"

"Jingle" is stamped a couple times without reinking to give the feeling of movement.

 



The panel, which is fairly low-key, is mounted on some glitter paper. I added just a few sequins to the jingle bells. This is a  simple and modern card, perfect for a trendy young gentleman.

Head on over to the Winnie & Walter blog to find out details on how to win this set, and on how to participate in the challenge which is open throughout the month.

Thanks for looking!
-Kelly